DS review: Pokémon Platinum

Set in the Sinnoh region, Pokémon Platinum is the compilation title for the Generation IV Pokémon titles and effectively follows the same story and series of events, albeit with a few expansions and alterations. The game begins with a very typical introduction to your character and neighbor/rival crossing paths with the Sinnoh region’s esteemed Professor Rowan, a mustached gentleman who grants you free choice of your starter Pokémon. From there, you make your way toward the first major towns via the numbered routes that connect them, but not before encountering a mysterious blue-haired man at a nearby lake who seems to have some interest in the legendary Pokémon rumored to reside there.

Pokémon Platinum deals with the same themes as its predecessors Diamond and Pearl. While Professor Rowan asks you to learn more about the connections between humans and Pokémon as well as the evolutionary process some Pokémon undergo, the local villainous group Team Galactic is concerned primarily with the Sinnoh region’s legendary Pokémon Palkia and Dialga, Pokémon rumored to have been instrumental in the creation of the region and perhaps even the rest of the world. While it is made strikingly obvious early on how dim-witted most of the Team Galactic followers are, the executive officers are much more collected individuals, and their intentions could result in the rewriting of both time and space – a far more serious implication than the thievery of Team Rocket.

The Pokémon new to generation IV are a strange bunch whose typings are not exactly evenly distributed. There are quite a few new evolutions given to Pokémon from the previous four generations, and while Lickilicky, Magmortar, and Rhyperior may be able to utilize broader movesets than their pre-evolutions, their rather bloated and uninspired appearances beg the question as to why Game Freak felt the need to add another stage to these evolutionary lines. Meanwhile, early Sinnoh-local Pokémon like Shinx (an electric type), Starly (normal/flying), and Bidoof (a normal type that acts as this generation’s Rattata or Sentret) can easily be caught to round out your party to a decent degree, but access to further fourth generation Pokémon is severely limited until late in the main game. The majority of your time spent in the wild, exploring caves, and surfing on the three major lakes in the Sinnoh region will result in encounter after encounter with Geodudes, Machops, Psyducks, as well as a few other overly-familiar faces. Even an egg that is gifted to you during the first half of the game hatches into a Togepi, an event all too familiar to anyone who played the generation II titles or their DS remakes that followed a couple of years after the release of Pokémon Platinum.

Graphically, the game looks superb. 3D models mesh well with the 2D character sprites, while the Pokémon display a decent range of actions as they make their debut in a battle. A few of the older Pokémon are displayed in strange poses, but on the whole the battle segments look very good. The gyms follow a formula of ‘something old, something new’, as the first couple are helmed by leaders that favor Ground and Grass types, while later gyms allow Ghost, Steel, and Ice type Pokémon have their moment in the spotlight. While the three starter Pokémon do stick to the tried and true typings of Grass, Water, and Fire for their early evolutions, their final dual-typings are a breath of fresh air to the series, as they adopt Grass/Ground, Water/Steel, and Fire/Fighting respectively. That said, the moves that these starter Pokémon learn over the course of the game are not exactly in perfect balance with one another, and exploring every inch of the Sinnoh region’s various routes and locales would greatly benefit your team’s versatility and strategies.

Routes have been compressed, packing a comparable number of trainers and seemingly greater quality/quantity of items into smaller spaces. Generally speaking, this makes the trek between points of interest far less monotonous or time-consuming, though a few routes suffer from lackluster design and layout as a result. Cities, on the other hand, are all brilliantly realized, with interesting themes guiding their aesthetic approaches. Oreburgh City is home to both the Ground type gym and a mining industry, while Hearthome City is large and entertainment-oriented, with the Ghost type gym taking on a sort of funhouse setup. The gyms incorporate interesting puzzle mechanics, such as sliding punching bags along rails to knock obstructions out of a pathway and raising the water level to connect floating bridge segments.

While the story crescendos in the most grandiose fashion, the postgame is lacking when compared to many other entries in the series. Attempting to catch both Palkia and Dialga is exciting in its own right, The Battle Frontier from Pokémon Emerald makes a return, and there is always the option to import Pokémon from any of the five GBA releases via the Pal Park. But Platinum seems to focus more on incorporating the extra content that is non-essential to the main game as side quests and distractions, which leads to very mixed results. The Underground area can be tackled with friends to dig for fossils and mess around with harmless traps, though it has a tendency to drain the battery charge on your DS faster than normal gameplay. Meanwhile, a park wherein you can walk around with one of your Pokémon outside of its Pokéball serves no discernible purpose outside of gathering a few odd items. A visit to the purportedly haunted Old Chateau and the ability to team up with an NPC trainer on Iron Island make up some of the game’s more memorable and cleverly crafted sidequests.

Commanding your Pokémon to carry out attacks, healing them up with potions or berries, and even swapping party members are all incredibly quick and easy actions, thanks to the incorporation of the touch screen as your command list. However, the rest of the game sees minimal use of the touch screen, relying heavily on the buttons and D-pad for navigating menus, engaging in Wi-Fi trades, and shuffling your teammates. It results in the overall gameplay carrying out at a rate that is a little bit slower than 2010's Heart Gold and Soul Silver remakes, and the DS’ touch control fame feeling very much underutilized and underappreciated. When not engaged in battle, the bottom screen is used to display one of many Pokétch apps. These can include (but are not limited to) a miniaturized version of the health display for your team members, a map of the region with blinking markers for keeping track of roaming legendary Pokémon, a dowsing machine used for uncovering hidden treasures, as well as the notably less exciting calculator and memo pad. Because Pokémon Platinum is built into the original smaller grey DS cartridges, it cannot hold as much information as the larger black cartridges used by every Pokémon game that followed, leading to some lengthy save times.

There are a few strange alterations to long-standing Pokémon traditions, like riding the bike. Instead of it being used as a faster means of traveling between 'Point A' and 'Point B', it is now actually required to ascend certain muddy slopes and continue on to the next town. The bike can run in two gear settings which players can easily alter at the push of the B button, but the faster setting is needed to even scale the aforementioned mud slopes, so it’s a wonder that Game Freak even bothered with the slower and supposedly ‘more easily controlled’ gear setting. Similarly, the process of gathering berries introduced in Gold and Silver returns, as does the process of planting them introduced in Ruby and Sapphire, with the latter portion of the optional scavenging routine being less welcome. Purchasing mulch and combining it with ideal berries to grow more trees and ultimately use the fruits of your labor (no pun intended) for poffins that can help boost your Pokémon’s personality traits comes across as a convoluted, lethargic, and generally boring process that really only benefits the individuals interested in tackling the game’s Pokémon beauty pageant. Trees will eventually grow back on their own after a day or two, and the same berries you’ve known since generation II can still immediately be put to use as healing objects.

The challenge factor for the main game is decent at the start, but seems to taper off before the halfway point. The game seems to discourage the importing of Pokémon from outside games early on, as Pokémon that exceed level 10 before the first two gyms have been completed will frequently disobey you (your Sinnoh starter Pokémon excluded). But the lack of interesting new Pokémon available as well as the lack of particularly interesting old ones makes the first few hours just a tad frustrating for just about anyone, regardless of their team’s make up. Once that second gym badge is acquired and the hurdle overcome, however, Pokémon Platinum becomes a surprisingly easy game to burn through, lasting approximately twenty hours. The only significant required challenge comes from the Elite Four, as each member sees a notable gap in the staggering of the numbered levels of their respective Pokémon.

There is a second egg Pokémon that you are given during the game’s second half that hatches into a Riolu, who can ultimately evolve into Lucario and become a highly valuable asset to your team as well as a solid counter to the Elite Four. The problem is that Riolu is not acquired until late in the game, long after most of your team members would be at level thirty or higher, and it would have been a more rewarding and interesting experience had the game granted you use of Riolu early on in place of Togepi. Over the course of Pokémon Platinum’s main game, you will need to use all but about two HM moves, with no fewer than four being necessary for navigating Victory Road. This will limit the movesets of your core party Pokémon to a considerable degree, or alternatively result in your needing to revisit Victory Road to grind for more experience in the event that you braved the cavern with a Bidoof or some comparable HM pack mule in tow – either option only compounds the issues presented by a limited array of new Pokémon.

Pokémon Platinum looks and sounds fantastic, with exceptionally crafted locales and one of the best soundtracks in the series. The battle system is an impressive modernization of the classic turn-based routine introduced in the original Gameboy titles. The intelligent, fun gym layouts as well as the late game puzzle mechanics of the Distortion World are incredibly fresh and welcome additions to the franchise. But for all these boosts to the quality of Pokémon Platinum’s presentation, the lack of useful or interesting wild Pokémon available prior to the postgame really drags the overall experience down. If Game Freak is going to bother making a new Pokémon game, they should at least provide you the option of running with all-new Pokémon instead of actively shoving the old and all-too familiar in your face.

My rating: 8 (out of 10)

Pokémon Platinum journal - entry six

It took me three full runs through the Elite Four and a little over a half an hour grinding in Victory Road to gather enough experience points to best Cynthia’s team of Pokémon. While I found the combination of different types she brought to the fight kept me on my toes, her Togekiss led me to be the most annoyed, as most of my Pokémon that stood the best chance of taking her Togekiss down had weak defense while most of the others simply had a natural weakness to Flying type moves. The resulting choice for her Togekiss to spam a single attack over and over got old rather fast, despite the fact that I had more than one Pokémon whose speed stat or moveset allowed them to move first.

The Elite Four proved very different than previous incarnations. While the typings commanded by the Elite Four members were curious, the gauntlet run setup as a whole felt lackluster when compared to that of Soul Silver or the generation V titles. Really, the only notable challenge came from Cynthia, and I don’t feel that my having chosen a different Sinnoh starter would have made much of a difference in this scenario.

While I did stick with the core team I set out to use for Platinum up through my first attempt at defeating the Elite Four, I came to realize that Chimecho was acting largely as a support member to my team. While this was fine for the gyms and trainer battles that had led up to that point, Chimecho’s lack of versatility and moves that only allowed for so much in the way of offensive power led me to swap him out in favor of another Psychic type. While I briefly considered Bronzong, I knew my team already had a significant weakness to Fire Pokémon, and opted instead to seek out the three Lake Guardians. As soon as I realized Mesprit was determined to wander Sinnoh in the hopes that I might chase him, I gave up on that venture, focusing instead on Uxie and Azelf. Uxie’s higher defense stats, while impressive, ultimately led me to select Azelf and his higher attack stats. I wanted a Pokémon that could learn a couple of strong Psychic moves, but that could also be useful in countering other types not as well accounted for by the rest of my party. Azelf hit the opponent Pokémon hard and fast, and that was just the edge I needed.

So here it is – my Pokémon Platinum ‘dream team’, consisting of Empoleon, Blaziken, Venusaur, Aerodactyl, Froslass, and Azelf. I’m glad I stuck with these six core typings from start to finish, even if I did swap one team member out at the eleventh hour. As I am posting this, I have already captured Giratina, Dialga, and Palkia (to surprisingly little resistance and small number of catch attempts with the latter two). I have yet to explore the majority of the postgame content, so my review will be a little ways off yet. But do know that this is likely the final journal entry for my Pokémon Platinum playthrough, and that my next journal series will focus on the sixth generation Pokémon games (though I am currently still unsure as to which title I want to purchase between Pokémon X and Pokémon Y).

Pokémon Platinum journal - entry five

The climax of the Team Galactic storyline was spectacular. It’s cool to see the villain team actually come so close to seeing their plans realized, and it’s even more amusing to me that Cyrus recognized how inept his followers were but couldn’t give two hoots. In the end, the work of Team Galactic served Cyrus and Cyrus alone, as he wanted to rewrite space and time to fit his own desires. Unfortunately for him, despite using Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf to call upon Palkia and Dialga, Giratina intervened, sucking him, the protagonist character, and Sinnoh Champion Cynthia into the Distortion World. From there, it was up to the protagonist to confront Giratina and ultimately close the rift that the legendary Pokémon opened in order to prevent reality from being swallowed up by the chaos and inverse reality of the Distortion World. Due to his cold, unmoving nature (even when he’s been bested by a young trainer several times), his vision stays clear – he even believes that the protagonist will ultimately champion the cause he set out to bring about. Because of all that, Cyrus is easily one of my favorite lead villains in the Pokémon series.

The Sunnyshore City gym had a decent layout with some mildly amusing puzzle mechanics at play, though nothing extraordinary. In truth, Volkner’s gym was relatively easy to crank through – I didn’t sweep his team with just one Pokémon, and I certainly found it a bit more challenging than the Dragon type gym in Black/White or Black 2/White 2. As the final gym though, it wasn’t all that difficult. What I have found more so frustrating, however, are the final Elite Four battle with Lucian and the champion battle with Cynthia. This is due less to the teams of Pokémon each individual uses, but more on how much of a gap there is in the levels of each team commanded by the members of the Elite Four. Throughout the rest of my Pokémon Platinum playthrough, I found that I was a few levels ahead of where I probably needed to be, and while I would see one of my team members faint from time to time or run out of PP for an ideal move before I hit the next town’s Pokémon Center, I always felt that I was in a good position to defeat my opponents. Seeing the sudden jump in the levels of opposing Pokémon, I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been for anyone who played through the game blind or used solely Sinnoh-native Pokémon.

The game’s constant demand that I use HMs does not help the situation. I found this element frustrating in Soul Silver, as I had to use multiple HMs to travel from Johto to Kanto. But at least I didn’t need to have the entirety of my core team with me at the time – as soon as I reached the other side, I could then use fly to quickly travel back and forth, changing my team members out at the Pokémon Center. Over the course of Platinum, you are required to use no fewer than six separate HMs just to progress through the story, and while you can catch a Machop or a Bidoof to shoulder this burden on, you still have to use four separate HMs to make your way through Victory Road. It’s an annoying, poorly thought-out requirement, as it means you either have to accommodate for one subpar Pokémon with a wholly boring and ineffective moveset, or divvy these HM moves up among six stronger and more practical Pokémon, robbing each of at least one more practical or effective move. I didn’t spend a lot of time grinding as I played through Platinum because I never felt the need to, but I guess I am going to need to devote a few hours to that process now.

Pokémon Platinum journal - entry four

Good on Pokémon Platinum for keeping some characters outside of the traditional core circle relevant later in the main game. The brief mention by Byron that Roark is in fact his son and Maylene’s meeting back up with you as you both push through the blizzard toward Snowpoint City actually go a long way in making me more invested in the people living in Sinnoh. Even more appreciated is the game’s devotion to the Team Galactic plotline. It takes a while for the mystery surrounding them to reach a boiling point, but when it does is it impressive. I don’t think any of the other Pokémon games gave their local bad guy team so notable a leg-up with more than a few hours to go before the finale. While I had my complaints about the pacing during the game’s earlier stretches, it’s been pretty great ever since.

As for the challenge factor from the gyms, they largely depend on which starter you chose. As I previously mentioned, I imported both Venusaur and Blaziken from Soul Silver, but if you were running solely with Pokémon caught in Platinum, you might find certain gyms significantly more challenging and/or frustrating. For example, Candice’s Ice types would be a pushover for anyone using Infernape, but could be a real pain for anyone using Empoleon or Torterra. Byron’s Steel types are weak to Fighting Pokémon as well as Fire, so Infernape is by default the best choice there as well, though both his Steelix and Bastiodon have dual typings that could be easily countered with the other two starters. All this traces back to Platinum's lack of support for newer generation Pokémon early on. True, the wild Pokémon you encounter after the fourth or fifth gym amp up the variety and are at higher levels, but there's still the factor of grinding for experience points at play. The game does, however, allow you to go ahead and scour Iron Island for extra items and experience points, and this is one of the game's best designed sub-areas.

The generation IV Pokémon are shining through more noticeably now, while some of the generation II and III Pokémon have decided to lay claim to the abundance of wild encounters previously filled by generation I regulars. I did go out of my way to catch a Snowver, and though I have no real intention of using him during this particular playthrough, I don’t have many Ice type Pokémon well-suited for the Black 2 Pokémon World Tournament. Snowver’s Ice and Grass dual-typing may prove useful there in the long run. I also caught two Snorunts – one male and one female. The male will similarly be transported to Black 2 and evolved into Glalie, while the female has filled the final slot on my Platinum team as Froslass. I love Ghost type Pokémon, and the dual typing with Ice is an interesting, exciting combination.

Pokémon Platinum journal - entry three

If I had to associate a Pokémon name with this most recent leg of Pokémon Platinum, It would be Serperior (*ba-dum-tiss*, bad Pokémon pun).

Really though, the game seems to have pulled itself out of the slump of uninteresting wild battles and bland environment designs. Sea routes filled with swimming trainers, ancient remnants of Sinnoh’s past, and misty mountain bridges make for far more interesting and eye catching areas – the latter introduces the fog environment factor which, while admittedly an interesting concept, diminishes both player and opponent Pokémon accuracy so significantly that it’s largely a stare down, with only every third or fourth attack landing on its target. Even option side areas like the Old Chateau and Fuego Ironworks make for brief but well-crafted distractions.

Wild encounters have now broadened to accommodate Floatzels, Bronzors, Shellos and more. While Platinum still seems to push Pokémon from previous generations more than I think is healthy for its success as a product, I am very glad to see newer Pokémon becoming more frequent and overshadowing Geodudes and Machops (with any luck, hopefully those generation I Pokémon will disappear from wild encounters completely as I make my way toward Canalave City). The layouts of both Maylene and Crasher Wake’s gyms were the best yet, while the trainers within used a nice variety of Pokémon (even if some of those Pokémon used movesets that loosely fell into the category they were intended to match).

The Sinnoh region is notably smaller than Johto or Unova, and it tries to mask this (to mixed results) by having players loop around its various regions in odd patterns. While Johto was more or less a straight progression from one gym to another (the only major exception being the backtracking to sort out Team Rocket’s takeover of Goldenrod City’s radio station), Platinum utilizes a Metroid-esque routine of allowing players access to sub-areas of locales previously visited once they have acquired the necessary HMs or badges. While most of these sub-areas (the likes of which include the aforementioned Old Chateau and Fuego Ironworks), the process of visiting, revisiting, and revisiting areas yet again can result in finding yourself lost and confused, depending on how far you’ve traveled from where the game intends for you to head next.

I’ve actually decided to go ahead and catch as many generation IV Pokémon as I can while I’m travelling around Sinnoh, as well as the odd generation I, II, and III Pokémon I have otherwise been barred access to. I never really set out to catch them all when I sought to revisit the franchise via Soul Silver and White, but seeing as how I have more than 460 Pokémon recorded on my national Pokédex in Black 2, It wouldn’t actually require that much extra effort to complete what I can. I do recognize, however, that Arceus is more or less out of the question unless I can gain him through a trade or Nintendo performs some other distribution event in the future.

I really love the personalities of the characters in Platinum. While the rival character is a little too ecstatic and hyper for my liking, at least he isn’t a snobby brat. Meanwhile, Cynthia and the gym leaders share an interesting dynamic with nicely varied attitudes and physical appearances that add quite a spark of inspiration to the otherwise typical trainer character models. From the standpoint of Platinum’s graphics, sound design, and overall artistic presentation, the game is a real winner for me. It’s unfortunate that the game mechanics don’t all stack up equally, but the game is definitely now on a consistent upward climb. Aside from tackling this upcoming Steel gym, my next most important goal is catching my final team member Snorunt and evolving it into Froslass.

Pokémon Platinum journal - entry two

I’ve finally gotten past the hurdle of Pokémon below level thirty not obeying me, as I’ve now beaten three gyms. While Gardenia’s gym battle was rather typical of a second gym as well as a Grass type gym, Fantina’s Ghost type gym was easily my favorite thus far. The puzzle element and notably higher number of trainers within made the pattern less predictable, while the specific Pokémon owned by Fantina had nicely varied movesets.

The routes between towns, however, are becoming notably less impressive, with pathways that zig and zag for no real reason, and only slight variation in an otherwise straightforward (if not cramped) pathway. I don’t care much for Platinum’s insistence on adding extra complexity to previously simple things, either. The bike is no longer just a means for faster transportation, but must be used to speed over certain hills in order to progress, while there is a whole system in place for laying down mulch for replanting trees and, in turn, picking more berries. The bike hills could have easily been replaced with the small bushes that need to be cut by a Pokémon, as you get both that HM and the bicycle around the same time. Meanwhile, the berry tree planting process seems counter-intuitive for a game aimed largely at young gamers.

I’m similarly none too impressed with severely limited number of wild Pokémon I’ve encountered by this point. The Team Galactic storyline is making some headway, the people of the Sinnoh region have noticed their presence, and the gym leaders have all presented distinct styles and personalities. But I’ve seen more Geodudes, Machops, and Bidoofs than I care to count, with Starlys and Shinxes being the next most common. I went ahead and caught a single Clefairy shortly before facing Gardenia, simply because of the fact that I had never caught one during any of my previous Pokémon adventures. It may be true that I plan to stick to my core team of six, predetermined Pokémon, but a little more variety in the wild encounters would be nice. The Togepi that Cynthia gave me only compounded my frustrations with this – I had no interest in using Togepi any of the four times I trekked through Johto in Gold/Soul Silver, and that certainly hasn’t changed now.

I’ve only dabbled in the extra content a little bit, and neither the Amity Square distractions nor the Underground bonus area impressed me much. The Underground might have been more immediately exciting had I picked up Platinum during its heyday, but the act of needing to track down another player who owns Diamond, Pearl, or Platinum in order to catch one of the more elusive and interesting Pokémon, Spiritomb, seems like a ton of unnecessary hassle. Why not make it so that players could just interact thirty-odd times with another player in any of the generation IV games via the Pokémon Center’s Union Room? As for Amity Square, all I got out of it were a few halfway-decent items to add to my backpack. I’m seriously hoping that this is the low point of the game, and that things will go up from here, because while Platinum started off strong enough, it reached a seriously obnoxious pattern of repetition and ill-conceived hindrances not long after the first gym.

Pokémon Platinum journal - entry one

As I mentioned in yesterday’s ‘Top 5 Legendary Pokémon’ post, Pokémon Platinum was the next title I intended to tackle. As luck would have it, the copy I ordered last week arrived a few days ahead of schedule. I spent a decent chunk of this afternoon starting up my game file and importing the majority of my team members from Soul Silver. Much like in my playthrough of Black 2, I plan to use a core team of six Pokémon, only rotating members out for the sake of traversing areas that require use of an HM to proceed. Aside from replaying Soul Silver with Hoenn starters and my brief adventures with Gale of Darkness, my time spent using Pokémon from generations III and IV has been relatively limited. As a result, my intended team members for the majority of Platinum version are as follows: Piplup, Torchic, Bulbasaur, Chingling, Aerodactyl, and Snorunt. Aerodactyl is in place to round out an otherwise notable weakness to Fire types, while Bulbasaur and Turtwig are the only two Grass starters I have never personally used in a core Pokémon game - and to be honest, I flat out dislike the way Turtwig and his evolutions look, despite his Grass/Ground typing being mildly interesting. I don’t really have anything against Chimchar, but I’ve always found Torchic and his evolutionary line far more interesting. As for Snorunt, I anticipate she will be the last member to join my team, as I ultimately intend to evolve her into Froslass.

This Platinum playthrough should, in theory, be equal parts familiar and new experiences. While I’m familiar with the generation IV engine via Soul Silver, the Sinnoh region and many of its native Pokémon are foreign to me. Also, the team members I have chosen to work with are types that have long served me well, while their dual typings and movesets are a bit different from what I have used in the past. I specifically chose Platinum over Diamond or Pearl for the reason that it is, to my understanding, a more complete package than its predecessors. From what I hear, there are more areas to explore, and the battles with gym leaders and Team Galactic executives are not only more challenging, but also present a greater degree of variety.

While I can say the game plays very similar to Soul Silver from the outset, Platinum does not appear to utilize the touch screen as frequently or as intelligently as in Soul Silver. The various towns see typical layouts, though the aesthetics of wind farms and coal mines are pleasing to look at. Extra little additions here and there like specks of snow lingering on pine trees and fields of flowers go a long way in making the Sinnoh region interesting to explore. From a graphical standpoint, Platinum is already proving that it looks as good if not better than Soul Silver. The soundtrack is equally impressive, and if it continues on the hot streak of interesting and memorable tunes it has dealt out thus far, could rank among my favorite soundtracks of the franchise.

Where Platinum sees its biggest falter early on, I think, is in its severe limitation of the usefulness of imported Pokémon. Whereas most Pokémon games will give you a slap on the wrist for boosting Pokémon over level ten prior to the first gym by making it so that there is a chance they may not listen to your commands, Platinum sets this benchmark even higher. You must beat the first two gyms before any imported Pokémon will obey you without question, and even then, if they are over level thirty, there is no guarantee that they will perform the specific attacks that you request. It may seem like a slight hurdle early on, and I admit, it is largely aimed at players like myself who intend to import all but one of their core team members, but it doesn’t make it any less obnoxious, especially when the second gym is filled with Grass types – something my Torchic-turned-Combusken should have no problem sweeping through, were it not for the fact that he only seems to want to listen to me every third attack or so.

My frustrations with that aside, I appreciate the fact that the intro segment is quick. The tradition of an NPC showing you how to catch a wild Pokémon and explaining the big adventure that awaits is all said and done in a matter of fifteen minutes, as opposed to the nearly forty-five it took in Soul Silver. Among the many things I hope they implement in X and Y would be the option to skip the tutorial section. There are enough people who have been playing Pokémon since the days of Red and Blue who do not need their hands held today, much less two generations ago.

Top 5 Legendary Pokémon

As I mentioned in my journal postings for Pokémon Soul Silver, that was the first core title in the franchise that I had played since the original release of Generation II on the Gameboy Color. Since then, my obsession with the Pokémon games has only grown. I’ve made it my goal to play at least one game from every generation, and Platinum is the next one I intend to tackle as a sort of bridge until the release of X and Y (I’m still not certain as to whether I want to pick up X or Y at this point). Among my most memorable moments in the games have been the intense battles with legendary Pokémon, as well as subsequent attempts to catch them. In order to prevent this list from becoming lopsided toward one generation or another, I will be selecting a single legendary Pokémon from each of the current five generations of games, labeling it as my favorite of Generation I, II, III, IV, and V repectively.

Generation I (Red, Blue, and Yellow) – Mewtwo: There were only a few legendaries available in the first Pokémon games, due primarily to the limited roster of 151 slots. While Zapdos, Articuno, and Moltres were all cool in their own right, Mewtwo was my favorite of the bunch. I’ve always had a soft spot for Psychic type Pokémon, but my appreciation for Mewtwo was not immediate upon my first seeing him in any of the games. Rather, it developed over several years as I witnessed his origin in the first Pokémon movie, as well as the side games that the whole concept of Mewtwo being among the smartest and most capable of Pokémon eventually culminated in me genuinely liking it – not just as a potential team member within the games, but as a character within the anime. He may not be my favorite legendary of all time, but there is something unique about Mewtwo’s presentation that practically sets him in his own category, distinct from all other legendary Pokémon.

Generation II (Gold, Silver, and Crystal) – Raikou: My love for Raikou originates from his being the underdog (no pun intended) of Johto’s legendary trio. As a kid, everyone I knew was a fan of either Entei or Suicune – Entei because it was a beastly looking fire-type, and Suicune because it was an elegant looking water-type as well as the version mascot for Crystal. Hardly anyone I knew cared much to bother tracking down Raikou, but he was the one I sought out first and foremost. I really enjoy using Raikou in battle, as his defense is significantly better than most electric types like Magneton or Ampharos. At the same time, Raikou does not feel terribly overpowered – rather, his effectiveness in battle seems to fall somewhere between other legendaries and the rest of the Pokémon of the Johto region.

Generation III (Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald) – Deoxys: My reaction toward the Generation III legendaries was a bit mixed from the outset, admittedly. I found the Regi trio to be decently interesting from a conceptual standpoint, but the routine of three legendary Pokémon who were very aesthetically similar had largely worn off its charm by the time Ruby and Sapphire came around. Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza weren’t bad by any means, but to this day I have never considered any of them particularly outstanding. Deoxys, on the other hand, was a fresh new idea – a single Pokémon that had four different forms. Granted, you couldn’t have Deoxys changing between Normal, Attack, Defense, and Speed on the fly, but that was more or less the point – it granted players some freedom in planning their strategies while also holding them accountable for setting Deoxys to one of the four aforementioned states.

Generation IV (Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum) – Giratina: Ghost Pokémon have become something of my specialty over the past year or so, and I really wish Game Freak would add another Ghost-type to the current pool of legendaries. That said, Giratina is possibly the single most intimidating legendary Pokémon based on looks alone, and has a very curious dual-typing: Ghost and Dragon. Holding dominion over antimatter, Giratina is certainly a force to be reckoned with.

Generation V (Black, White, Black 2, and White 2) – Genesect: This one was a really close call with Zekrom, who I used for the majority of the White version post-game. However, Genesect was one of my core team members during my playthrough of Black 2. A dual Bug and Steel type, Genesect has a little extra defense and a highly adaptable moveset. Each time I play a Pokémon game, I try to have at least one jack-of-all-trades member on my team, and (alongside Lucario) Genesect performed that role masterfully in Black 2.

Top 5 Ugliest Pokémon

Everyone has their favorite Pokémon. For some, it is the starter they've been training since they began their journey on Red or Blue version. Others prefer the Legendaries, with a sense of accomplishment in having caught them. And it's not always the move set or attributes that draws players to a specific Pokémon. Sometimes it's as simple as the way a Pokémon looks. Pikachu, Chikorita, and Totodile are just plain cute. Entei, Mewtwo, and Zekrom come across as intimidating due to their awesome designs. But there are some Pokémon, however few and far between, that are downright ugly.

#5 - Pinsir: I always viewed Pinsir as something of an alternative to Scizor. Whereas Scizor was sleek, shiny green, and had his blades attached to his arms, Pinsir was stout, a solid brown, and had pincers sprouting from the top of his skull. Pinsir looks like an insect version of Mr. Potato Head, and apparently somebody decided to put his body parts in the wrong spots. His mouth is also rather eerie - no living thing should have teeth that grow horizontal like a rib cage.

#4 - Lickilicky: There are a few Pokémon over the years that have been treated to an unnecessary next stage of evolution. Lickitung is one such Pokémon. He was certainly odd when compared to the rest of Gen I, but I always felt he stood fine on his own. It was a bit challenging to ascribe a particular theme to him, and apparently Nintendo felt the same way. So what did they decide to do? Inflate him until he was barely recognizable. Lickilicky might want to give Wilford Brimley a call.

#3 - Loudred: Loudred is part of an evolutionary line whose theme is sound. So the fact that his mouth makes up the majority of his face, and subsequently the majority of his body, is kind of a fun play on that concept. But he's certainly not the prettiest Pokémon in the tall grass. His teeth appear infantile, his ears like speakers, and as a whole he looks like an ugly alien toddler.

#2 - Jynx: I've never really been sure of what to make of Jynx. She kind of creeped me when I was a kid, the only Pokémon I thought I was scary-looking without really needing to be. Yes, Gengar is certainly a creepy looking Gen I Pokémon, but that's deliberate - he's a ghost. I think Jynx was supposed to resemble an opera singer (a bit odd, since Jigglypuff was the one frequently singing in the anime). But the small eyes and the giant lips lead her to resemble some sort of bizarre mock-up of a human - like a caricature. A really creepy caricature. Or a demonic transvestite. Take your pick.

#1 - Garbodor: I know some people rip on the Gen IV and V designs because the physical appearances of many of those Pokémon look very far-removed from the original one-hundred and fifty. To be honest, I like the way most of the newcomers to Black and White look. But dang, Garbodor is hideous. I mean, he is meant to look like a bunch of garbage, and to that end I feel the artists did a wonderful job in maintaining a consistent evolutionary theme. This pile of trash evolves from the weird sort-cute, sorta-awkward-to-look-at Trubbish. But I can't imagine there are many people who look at Garbodor without thinking he's ugly in just about every sense of the word.