Pokemon Heart Gold / Soul Silver

[Anayo]

When I was a kid I honestly didn't expect Pokemon to stay popular in the year 2010. It's kinda cool, actually.

[GamerMON]

When I was a kid I honestly didn't expect Pokemon to stay popular in the year 2010. It's kinda cool, actually.

I know what you mean. I can't believe something I like in 5th grade my niece also likes now.

By the way, anyone got a pin from this game (if they weren't going to use it) that I could use for my club nintendo?

[t0yrobo]

I picked up Heart Gld today. It's the first time I've actually bought a Pokemon game myself. I played through blue quite awhile ago and enjoyed it. But I didn't care for the little bit of Pearl that I played, so I'm hoping this game will be just right.

[MrHealthy]

For example, these are what I deem to be the changes that have most revolutionized the face of competitive battling:

a) Gold/Silver
i. Introduced use of equippable items on your pokemon.
ii. Rebalancing of types - Psychic nerfed, Poison and Bug buffed.
iii. "Heal Bell" introduced as counter to status effects strategy.

b) Ruby/Crystal
i. Innate abilities introduced.
ii. Weather effects introduced.

c) Diamond/Pearl
i. Special/Physical split.
ii. "Stealth rock" strategy introduced.

Competitive battling is the true soul of Pokemon, and it's actually an extremely deep game if you ever get serious about competitive battling. That said, I'm probably sitting this revision out though.

Don't forget that Gold and Silver split the special stat into Special Attack and Special Defence as well as adding Dark and Steel Types, and Ruby and Sapphire revamped the EV and IV mechanics making it actually worthwhile, oh and they introduced natures as well, plus double battling (which is a on a whole different level when it comes to stratagems).

[dedalusdedalus]

Don't forget that Gold and Silver split the special stat into Special Attack and Special Defence as well as adding Dark and Steel Types, and Ruby and Sapphire revamped the EV and IV mechanics making it actually worthwhile, oh and they introduced natures as well, plus double battling (which is a on a whole different level when it comes to stratagems).

Yeah, I definitely dropped the ball when I forgot about the introduction of new types and the first attack/special split.

Also, I forgot to mention that G/S introduced:
i. baton-passing
ii. spikes / toxic spikes
iii. para-hazing with roar, whirlwind, etc.

A lot of modern strategy takes root in G/S. But whether the changes it introduced are more drastic than innate abilities in R/S, that's a hard debate to take sides on.

I'm glad to see there's another person on this site who's a hard-core Pokemon battler. When D/P came out, I'd plan out my team every time I got an idle moment.

[MrHealthy]

I personally think the special/physical attack split in D/P might be the most important thing to happen. Allows for deserve move sets I think, because before the split some pokemon who had strong say, base attack, would be a type that was special, thus really hindering their ability to preform certain functions on the team.

We should battle sometime. Though I don't have a solid team right now, I always end up wanting to make so many different teams that I end up only finishing one or two pokemon from each.

Oh, and I am just a huge pokemon maniac in general. I've easily logged over 1000 hours across all games.

[dedalusdedalus]

I personally think the special/physical attack split in D/P might be the most important thing to happen. Allows for deserve move sets I think, because before the split some pokemon who had strong say, base attack, would be a type that was special, thus really hindering their ability to preform certain functions on the team.

We should battle sometime. Though I don't have a solid team right now, I always end up wanting to make so many different teams that I end up only finishing one or two pokemon from each.

Oh, and I am just a huge pokemon maniac in general. I've easily logged over 1000 hours across all games.

Have you ever heard of a program called Shoddy Battle?

What it does is, it lets you create whatever pokemon team you like (any 6 pokemon, and whichever movesets, items, personalities, and EV distribution you want). Then you can take your team and battle other Shoddy Battle users.

It's essentially an emulator for link-battling pokemon.

I haven't used it in a while, and I don't have it on my computer right now. But if you're interested, you can Google it and install it to your comp. When I was using it, it was free.

Seeing as how I currently don't have a DS and you currently don't have a solid team, it just might be the easiest way to battle pokemon.

[MrHealthy]

Ya I know shoddy battle. I've tried it a couple times but never really liked it. But I am willing to give it a try again.

[AmishSamurai]

IMO the most important contribution to the systems in RSE were the double battles, and Battle Frontier. Most important in GSC were genders, breeding, splitting the Special stat, redoing the backpack, keying an item to activate when Select is pressed, and the first Day/Night system. Most important in DPPt was the physical/special split.

The menu system for HGSS is downright sexy. My copy should be arriving tomorrow.

[dedalusdedalus]

This is what I really want to see in Pokemon someday.

In the video game, the random trainers you face are just repeating trainer archetypes; eg: "bug catcher," "electrician," "hiker." So in the beginning, they should let you choose, among several different trainer archetypes, what kind of trainer you want to be.

And then depending on what archetype you choose, your Pokemon get certain stat boosts or penalties. For example, if you want to be a "karate guy," fighting moves and physical attack get a boost, but special attack gets a penalty. If you're a "pokemon breeder," all your pokemon get an HP and Special Defense boost.

Of course, in case you decide your archetype sucks, you should be able to change it in-game. Have some kind of "career consulting center" in every Poke-town, where you can talk to a guy to change your archetype.

I just find it strange that in Pokemon, so much is customizable, but you can't customize your in-game avatar beyond gender.