FF: Catching 'Em All... Again!

I used to listen to this old Pokemon song all the time when I was a kid. Shit pumped me up something fierce. I was in the car with my girlfriend a week or two ago and I was telling her I used to blast this in my room and dance. I used to imagine Giovanni or some kinda boss-like dude standing on top of a pedestal, booming the first line at me. Then I'd start running around my room dancing/throwing imaginary Pokeballs, releasing my tough ass Pokemon to defeat all these imaginary Pokemon the boss dude was sending out. It was this test. In my mind. A test to prove I had what it took to be a Pokemon Master.

I fucked him up every time.

Pokemon was huge back in Middle School. You were a nobody if you didn't have a team of motherfuckers ready to duke it out, or a binder swarming with holofoils. We all watched the show on Kids WB religiously, and all our breakfast and lunch talks revolved around the monsters. Walks to school with a buddy of mine consisted of strategy swapping, nickname creating, and outrageous ideas for the franchise. This was back when there were only fifteen element types and 151 Pokemon to remember. Then, as is the course of all good childhood things, Game Freak decided there should be 495 Pokemon, with another hundred or so on the way, and seventeen element types. By high school, most of us had moved on.

Remembering this song, though, and the awesome dance tied to it, I started thinking about how much fun my childhood was. So I dusted off my old cartridge and called on my old team of digital bad asses. As of tonight, I'm as balls deep in the game as I was when I was 12 years old. Originally, I wanted to write this post and cram your head with all the freakin' info I've learned since I hopped back onto Ponyta's saddle. There's so much now that flew over my head when I was a kid. Breeding, EV training, shinys, the Masuda Method, Damage Formulas. The list is endless. I decided against cramming all that into this post and tell you my main point: HeartGold and SoulSilver.

Nintendo is remaking the original Gold and Silver versions and re-releasing them as HeartGold and SoulSilver this month on the 14th. Gold and Silver introduced 100 new Pokemon that, in my eyes, were the last generation of cool Pokemon. Most of them afterwards were pretty stupid and unimaginative. I was pretty hyped when I researched the games. Of course, there's new sprites, crazy 3D graphics, and redesigned menus and inventory management. But one of the cooler things coming with HG/SS is the new Pokewalker accessory. This little Tamagotchi-style device allows you to transfer a single Pokemon from your team into the device so that you can level up the little guy while you go about your day. Steps you take during your normal day-to-day translate to experience points for the Pokemon, allowing it to level up while in the device. As if this were not cool enough, you can also use the built-in PokeRadar to find rare Pokemon which you can then try catching to transfer back into your game.

Extremely excited for this game!