ShinyAmiibo (SHINY LIVING DEX: 439/1000)

That's the most delicious-looking pizza I've seen in my 30 years on Earth 🤤

A Google search for "Pokopia transpfem abilities", autocorrected to "Pokopia transfem abilities"

I was trying to look up what all the Transform abilities are in Pokopia but I made a typo

The pizza store guys from the Polly-O string cheese "gimme a cheese with nothing" commercial

"Hey Jimmy! Gimme a DS game with nothin'!"

"Nothin'?"

Entei in a Pokeball

Suicune in a Pokeball

Raikou in a Pokeball

Everything still caught in regular Pokeballs too for challenge/aesthetics. Entei actually got in on the first ball, but Suicune and Raikou required a few resets lol

Not gonna count the Colo catches towards the dex until I'm actually able to get them in Emerald (same with LG), but I'm getting there!

A Pokemon box with Hariyama, Slugma, Noctowl, Ampharos, Jumpluff, Quagsire, Misdreavus, Furret, Yanma, Remoraid, Mantine, Qwilfish, Meditite, Dunsparce, Altaria, Sudowoodo, Hitmontop, Entei, Ledian, Suicune, Gligar, Stantler, Piloswine, Sneasel, Aipom, Murkrow, Forretress, Ariados, and Granbull

A Pokemon box with Vibrava, Raikou, and the gift Plusle

Spent this weekend playing Colosseum also! Wasn't quite sure how to split up progress updates since there's no gyms; the Oak Challenge does it by Cipher admin fights, but those aren't exactly evenly spaced (there's literally one snag between Dakim and Venus). But anyway! I have all 3 beasts now!

This is probably exclusively a me problem but tbh I'm having a hard time feeling motivated to play Pokopia because it feels like there's just SO much that has to get done that it leaves me feeling overwhelmed. A game that's meant to be relaxing is ironically stressing me out. 🥲

I never considered you'd have to go for the 1% here for the Oak Challenge because the place where any normal person would catch Grimer is locked behind Surf. Lol that's great

Pokemon Colosseum

Playing that hot new Pokemon spinoff everyone's talking about

Because this file is ultimately going to be reset and I'm going to do another LeafGreen playthrough with Charmander, I'm going to make as much of a beeline for Cinnabar as I can. So I'm not gonna go out of my way to catch stuff this playthrough, but I'll still catch what I find on the way.

Picking Squirtle as my starter

Next up, I pick Squirtle, but I'm actually gonna have to play this file for a while. Since the only way to get Kabuto and Omanyte is from the choice between the Dome and Helix Fossils, and fossils can't be traded in this gen, I will need to play up to Cinnabar to revive the fossils twice.

Pokemon LeafGreen title screen

Picking Bulbasaur as my starter

Trading Bulbasaur to another file

Now I start up my second game: LeafGreen! Since the only way to get the Kanto starters is at the beginning of FRLG, I'll have to start this game three separate times for the three starters. First I pick Bulbasaur, send it off to another file for safekeeping, and then reset.

A Pokedex of 155, with a total playtime of 68:14

So if I'm not mistaken, I believe I have at least the base form of every Pokemon natively catchable in Emerald! While I still have a lot of evolutions to do, I'm going to hold off on the evolving spree for now, since some other games I need to play anyway will fill in some of those gaps.

155/386

A Pokemon box with Feebas, Milotic, Mareep, Hoothoot, Spinarak, Aipom, Snubbull, Ledyba, Sunkern, Shuckle, Pineco, Teddiursa, Remoraid, Wooper, Gligar, Stantler, Houndour, Miltank, Beldum, Ditto, Anorith, Sudowoodo, Smeargle, and Meowth

With possibly the hardest (non-legendary) Pokemon to get in this challenge done, I checked out the expanded Safari Zone for some Johto Pokemon, Steven's house for Beldum, the Fossil Maniac's house for Ditto and the Anorith fossil, and the Battle Frontier for Sudowoodo, Smeargle, and a Meowth trade!

Evolving Feebas to Milotic

I had to be very careful with evolving it since I have limited berries I can make Pokeblocks with due to not being able to grow more on my dead battery, so I made sure to get a Feebas with a nature that liked dry Pokeblocks, used my best berries to make blocks, and was able to evolve it!

Encountering a wild Feebas

Now for some post-game cleanup! I went ahead and finally hunted for Feebas. I know there's tools nowadays for figuring out which tiles in your game have Feebas, but I opted to do it the old-fashioned way just like I did as a kid and just fish on every tile. Took me a couple hours, but I found it!

❌ They can't shut down Bank because it would sever a vital through line for earlier games in the series

✅ They can't shut down Bank because it's required for the Solrock/Lunatone quest in Gen 7

a screenshot of the video game Pokopia with the following written in its font: "whoops! I stayed up until sunrise playing Pokopia!"

game of the year

This is genuinely so healing to me - as a kid playing Emerald, I wanted a shiny more than anything, but I never found one. To finally find a random one like I always wanted all these years later is incredible!

Wild shiny Golbat in Pokemon Emerald

Shiny Golbat caught in a Premier Ball, with a Lonely nature

Wh- RANDOM SHINY GOLBAT? I was literally just trying to get a Sun Stone off wild Solrock and this popped up! Not only is this my first ever random 8192, it's my first random full odds in *any* non-open world game! 😭

While it's not currently a priority for me, I may someday want to upgrade my living dex to have everything in uniform Pokeballs, so I figure this is a good time to start that. I was dreading the legendaries, but they weren't too bad? The only ones that really gave me grief were Registeel and Latios.

A Pokemon box with Rayquaza, Claydol, Wailord, Regirock, Regice, Registeel, Kyogre, Groudon, and Latios

Latios in a Pokeball

Rayquaza in a Pokeball

Registeel in a Pokeball

Now that I'm the Champion, I went ahead and caught all of the legendaries you can get without events! Something I haven't brought up until now (because I wasn't sure if I was going to commit to it) is that I'm catching everything here in regular Pokeballs (besides Safari Zone obviously).

131/386

Celebi, Victini, and Zarude

A Pokemon box with Bagon, Loudred, Lairon, and Mawile

My Hall of Fame team: Hariyama, Shedinja, Sceptile, Azumarill, Manectric, and Alakazam

Professor Birch saying, "So you've seen 164 Pokemon, and you've caught 122 Pokemon..."

Professor Birch saying, "You should get some more Pokemon by trading with others."

I get a few last catches in before the Elite Four, I defeat the Champion, and Professor Birch tells me I should do some trades to fill my Pokedex. Trust me, professor, I will be doing plenty of that in due time.

122/386

I had this exact same book as a kid! I love you marking out the author's name and putting your own.

Ikr? I legitimately think it was an oversight - Colosseum and XD literally cover every other FRLG version exclusive that wasn't in the Hoenn games.

Managed to snag LeafGreen for $100 and Sapphire for $80, which I'm satisfied with. That seems to be the lower end of secondhand prices for both. LeafGreen doesn't have a label but that's fine with me. Got everything I need for a complete gen 3 national dex now!

I forgot that fossils were key items in gen 3... Thought that I could start up LeafGreen, play to Mt Moon, trade my starter over to another file with a fossil, and then reset for another starter/fossil. But I've actually gotta play all the way up to Cinnabar and THEN reset. That kinda sucks. 😬

Ohhh so it *is* at the end of Victory Road in the original Ruby and Sapphire (I've never played those) but it was moved to earlier in the cave in Emerald.

this one's for all of the new FireRed and LeafGreen shiny hunters

Me losing to Wally's Gardevoir

Bro I remembered the Wally fight being at the end of Victory Road in ORAS and misremembered it being like that in the originals too. I was totally unprepared when he showed up and he beat my ass. 😭