287: Can't Catch 'em All

[doriant]

I've played a game from each of the generations of Pokemon (not remakes or console games), but I don't think I ever caught them all, and honestly I like it that way. I've often found myself totally disappointed by RPG's that are nothing but a series of obtainable goals, where the game dictates when I should stop playing it. Usually the game ends before I'm fully satisfied, leaving me to either wait for a sequel or retread the same ground. At least with Pokemon I can continue to do new things as long as I want and quit only when I decide to, although the lack of innovation in this series is a big enough letdown.

 

[Therumancer]

Interesting tale, my flirtation with Pokemon ended when the cartridge I bought stopped working since it would no longer fit in my DS. I am assuming because I unknowingly bought a bootleg. I was not even close to complete though.

Honestly, I will say that I do like the idea of the multi-platform and multi-game transfers. See, I have fond memories of making parties of adventurers in early RPGs and then trasnferring them between games. In some games like the later Wizardries (Bane Of The Cosmic Forge, Crusaders Of The Dark Savant, Wizardry 8) there were items that you could onlt have if you found them in the previous games and transferred a veteran character over. You'd inevtiably wind up losing stats and a lot of your gear, but kicking around with say "The Avenger" from the first game in the triology in the last one was pretty awesome.

As I understand things, part of the fun of Pokemon for some people is to transfer their favorite monsters from one title to the next, a sort of favorite character or virtual pet.

Otherwise, I do understand the differance between the US and Japan when it comes to social conventions and gaming. Truthfully, I think it would help the gaming subculture in the US quite a bit if we saw more in the way of events, and long-term support of franchises and games that way. In the US is more about promoting a game until it sells and they make the money, and then moving on to promoting the next game, as opposed to having events and such that are arguably part of the entire experience.

Of course then again being an adult, it would also be nice if those events could also be for games played by adults, or at least older kids. I went to gamestop to download a Jirachi (which left with my cart) and was kind of embarassed in doing so. Getting two of the treasure maps from Dragon Quest IX events that actually happpened locally was a little less embarassing but still up there. Probably the characters all looking like bobble head dolls.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

Personally, I never saw any appeal in trying to "catch 'em all". It's not like there is any exclusive in-game content or a real life reward for doing so, so I don't see the point. But then again, I am also a person who considers achievements to be a waste of time and those seem popular for some reason or another...

When it comes to Pokémon, the only thing I care about is getting six different types of Pokémon and then proceeding to smash the Elite Four and my rival in the face.

 

[Cadapalo]

Is it even possible to have one of every pokemon stored in the pc because that seems like a lot more than it can hold.

 

[bulldogftw]

i can't cach them all? nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

 

[Nanaki316]

Brilliant read, made me feel all nostalgic. It's quite a depressing truth too. I was obsessed by it in my time and even brought newer version for the sake of nostalgia but I just can't enjoy them anymore because it's so damn difficult to feel you achieve anything by the end of it.
There are far too many pokemon now

 

[Finnra]

This is a great commentary! I've never completed a full pokedex without cheating; back in the Red/Blue days I did manage to get 150 and then we "duplicated" a Mew that a friend of mine had got at an event by doing some link cable voodoo. (In a sense this link cable voodoo was also a special kind of awesome.)

Kids everywhere were talking about a 3d pokemon adventure on the N64 and I'm sure if a decent one was released it would sell like crazy and probably shake the whole console market quite a bit. Sadly, all we got was Pokemon Stadium, in iself another of the games you could get pokemon from. All you'd get from completing the elite league was the opposite of the fossil you picked in that cave though, unless you disconnected your GBA connector thingie. I think it was possible to get the starter 3 in PS1. It was not a very great game though.

Then Gold/Silver came out and I got gold too. I don't remember how many pokemons were in the game, but I never had all of them. I did manage to voodoo myself a celebi though from another friend who had been to another event someplace. By this time the magic was still there, I still enjoyed playing Pokemon, and I think I made a sincere effort to get all of them, but I fell short by maybe 10-20 creatures...

Then Ruby/Sapphire came out and it just wasn't as fun anymore; I hastily jogged through the storyline, never really considering collecting all of the pokemon. Was it because I had grown up? Was it because the games had changed? Maybe both. After this I stopped playing Pokemon for a good while, but I recently picked up that Gold remake. I played it for some hours but I didn't even complete the storyline.

I kind of have a feeling this is related: http://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_on_the_paradox_of_choice.html

Again, great(!) commentary.

 

[Ulquiorra4sama]

I can quite honestly say that i never cared much for the whole "Gotta Catch 'em All" catchphrase. I was born in northern norway so i was pretty much screwed over from the start since not a single event has EVER occured up here.

I didn't hack any other game than Diamond, but to be honest i only ever felt any joy in catching the pokemon i needed to take down a tough opponent.

I caught pokemon after pokemon in order to build a strong enough party to take down the Set 8 Stargazer Colosseum leader in Battle Revolution for the Wii and that's one of the greatest pleasures i've ever had with the franchise.

Now that they still keep the whole "Gotta Catch 'em All" up with well over 600 pokemons i think i'll just quote Metallica to show how i feel about the series.

"Die, die, die my darling
Don't utter a single word
Die, die, die my darling
Shut your pretty mouth
I'll be seeing you again
I'll be seeing you, in hell
Die-die-die
Die-die-die
Die-die-die

just Die ah..."

 

[Finnra]

I can quite honestly say that i never cared much for the whole "Gotta Catch 'em All" catchphrase. I was born in northern norway so i was pretty much screwed over from the start since not a single event has EVER occured up here.

What happened in Norway was that the Nintendo Magazine advertised that they would put Mew on your cartridge if you sent it to them. They also had a few events, but I don't think they ever had one where you couldn't send your cartridge to them. You might be too young for that though.

I never sent mine and I quite regret it.

 

[pdgeorge]

It wasn't fair to bring Mew in as a case against catching them all in red and blue. Sure it was there, but it was never meant to matter in the slightest.

When the game was all but done, one of the creators put it in as a private joke, known only to pretty much himself.
It first appeared when someone got it using the missingno. glitch, instead of a kanghaskhan or an aerodactyl they got a mew. Word spread about it and people wanted it so eventually they just said "screw it, give them what they want" and made an event out of handing out mew since so many people wanted it and it was the only way to get it without the missingno. glitch. It didn't make a difference to catching them all since you got the certificate for catching them all if you catch 150, mew was just an Easter egg.

Celebi just followed that tradition on the 'just because' philosophy.

 

[SD-Fiend]

well I have not really tried to catch em all in recent years but I now just focus on catch as many as you can before the next game comes out

 

[The Random One]

Fortunately, it was back when the third generation had come out when I realized how ridiculous this was getting and was like, 'fuck this shit'.

The most important part of being a completionist is knowing what's worth completing.

Now someone meet me online so I can finish getting my Saints' Row 2 achievements.

 

[CrystalShadow]

Eh. Yes. It is something of an impossible challenge.

The closest I ever got was, I think, 134? I'm not entirely sure. (It may have been as high as 148 at some point)

It was pokemon Yellow, which helps enormously out of the first-gen games, because you get all 3 starters by default.

I did abuse the fact that I had both a gameboy colour, game boy advance, pokemon crystal, AND pokemon Stadium for the N64.

Basically, I've played through all of pokemon yellow 3 times, while keeping all the pokemon along the way by transferring them to another game and then back again.
(Yay for disposable magicarps.)

It's funny having two pikachus in yellow, and evolving one, even though that shouldn't be possible...

In any event, I think where I left it, I'll never get mew, but I do have 2 mewtwos and 3 evees, and all of the pokemon except I think I'm missing an omanyte for some reason that I can't quite explain.
In any event, Pokemon yellow and crystal overlap perfectly for the first 150 pokemon, which is oddly convenient...

But the omanyte aside, I basically have all the pokemon I would need to get to 150, but haven't evolved them yet.

Still, I gave up ages ago...

 

[RN7]

Funk, thank you for so succinctly summarizing my biggest problem with the series.

According to Wikipedia, B&W will bring the total to a freaking ridiculous 649 'mons. Can someone please explain the point of this to me? I know Nintendo is no stranger to milking their franchises down to the last grain of flavorless sand, but this goes beyond a cash grab; they genuinely don't want people to complete their damn game. And when they force you to either cheat or be Japanese to succeed at this insurmountable goal, what are they teaching their players? "Skill doesn't matter as much as luck of birth or ability to beat the system?" That's one hell of an aesop.

Take into consideration the use of the WiFi system for the Nintendo DS and DSi. I know for a fact that there was a system imposed in Diamond and Pearl which allowed you to trade globablly, through the powers of the internet. Granted, most of the legendary "Japanese" event monsters are likely duplicated (like the 5 Arceuses inside of my brother's Diamond), but still it provides a legitimate way to "Catch 'em All".

 

[masterjiji]

Time to piss off every one in this thread.


WHAT YOU WILL NEED:
-Nintendo DS
-WiFi connection that works with said DS
-Diamond, Platinum, Pearl, heartGold or SoulSilver cartridge
-in-game access to the GTS (Goldenrod in HGSS, don't remember for the others), and make sure you don't have anything up for trade at the GTS or it may disappear

1) Turn on the game normally and get to the point at which you have menu options (New Game, Continue, etc.)
2) Go down to Nintendo WFC settings.
3) Enter the settings for the wifi network you will be using and turn off the "Automatically find DNS) option.
4) Enter one of the following two codes under the "Primary DNS" category:

65.184.251.130
70.238.173.170

5) Exit the WFC options and start your game normally, then enter the GTS. Once you have done this, you will either blue-screen (relax, just turn the DS off and try again once or twice) or more likely receive an incoming Pokemon that you most definitely did not put up for trade. Congratulations, you have just received at random a fully legit Pokemon from a past event. Use the 65. code to access recent American event Pokemon and the 70. code to access Japanese event Pokemon. In particular, there's an American Aerodactyl and a Japanese shiny Entei worth checking out. Additionally, you don't have to power off or reenter the code to snag another one, just exit and reenter the GTS and you'll get another (probably different) one at random.
6) Make a crapload of money by doing what post #13 did. And you'll get moar 'dex data.

I have just successfully broken your gaming childhood. Bring on the flaming.

 

[mew4ever23]

Finally, someone who understands why hacking Pokemon is wrong. Don't get me wrong, I understand why you did it, some of us can't get to Nintendo's US only events. I do not, however, condone it.
The game's objective is to catch them all, but that's not where the enjoyment comes from. It's the journey on the way to catching them all that makes the game fun. That moment of relief after whipping various balls (sometimes for days) at a legendary that just won't give it up is why people play in the first place.

Not intending to be a pain in the ass here, but in Red and Blue it was actually possible to catch all 151 with "cheating" as such, but without attending the event.

That was a glitch though. I wouldn't call abusing a glitch legitimate..

 

[CronoDAS]

Gamesharking for Event Pokemon isn't cheating.

 

[Josdeb]

I'm from Australia.
We hardly ever have Nintendo events.

Do you know how bummed I am that American Gamestops are offereing Shiny Enteis, Suicunes and Raikous? Which will unlock Zorora if transfered to Black/White? And a Celebi? All this month!

I only have a Jirachi and Mew (Which, don't get me wrong, is awesome. I just miss out on ALL the others which is a bummer)