Pokemon: Soul Silver [1] – A Restart

NOTE: If you’re interested in Pokemon, be sure to check out my other postings, linked at the bottom of this page. I promise you wont regret it (much).

Sadly, even though I share the same feelings about piracy on the DS, I don’t own any DS games, I only own a DS Lite so I can’t get anything online and my PSP battery died out eventually, meaning I could either do nothing, or start a game I don’t own.

I succumbed and decided to restart a Pokemon game. You see, Soul Silver was a game I played in the past, but I never reached the end, for some reason. I even still had my original save, showing I have 7 badges already earned, but I decided to start from scratch anyway.

Anyone who played a Pokemon game knows it’s all pretty much routine by now. The Pokemon series is kind of like an EA sports game. You get one almost every year, it usually changes a bit, evolves as it should, but it always follows the same basic premise.

Pokemon Soul Silver Starters

For some reason, I almost always pick fire.

Anyway, I took Cyndaquil as my starter because this is what I usually do. I don’t know why, but fire starters usually appeal the most to me. Mr. Pokemon’s house was more than a town away, so it took me quite a while to get there. I also couldn’t buy any pokeballs yet, so I wasn’t able to catch any other pokemon. I did, however, train Cyndaquil quite a bit and got her to about level 7. I got his package and also met the famous professor Oak while there. He gave me a pokedex and asked me to try and collect or at least observe as many pokemon as I can on my journey.As usual, I started out in my hometown. I got my starter right at the start, which is sort of unusual. Most of the times, you actually have to do something first and then it somehow happens that the local professor gives you a Pokemon. Well, professor Elm doesn’t have time to beat around the bush. You’re friends with her daughter and he needs your help. Back when people didn’t use pokeballs, they had their pokemon walk with them. This meant they couldn’t bring as many pokemon with them, but it also affected the trainer-pokemon relationship, which is what professor Elm is researching. My job is to take one of his pokemon and just walk around with him. Since I’m walking, I also might as well walk to some guy’s house. They call the guy Mr. Pokemon and he has a package for the professor.

I was on my way back to Elm when I was pulled into battle by my future rival, who I decided will be named Gold, since I chose my name to be Silver. This is the usual naming scheme I have for characters in Pokemon games, so I stuck with it this time around to. I easily beat him, since his Totodile wasn’t trained at all and then returned to professor Elm. A police officer was already there. It turns out, my pathetic excuse for a rival actually stole the Totodile.

I gave the package, which contained an egg to professor Elm and then visited my mom before starting my official pokemon journey. Again, as usually, she promised to save up a percentage of the money I win in battles and use it to buy various items I might not be able to get otherwise.

The stores in the next town over finally had some pokeballs available, so I bought some, but not before getting five for free from some random retired trainer who taught me how to catch pokemon. Since this isn’t a  Nuzlocke challenge, I went all out with the pokeballs and pretty soon had a full team of crappy normal and bug types. I wont be using most of them, of course, but it doesn’t hurt to keep the PC boxes stocked up and I definitely was asked to increase my pokedex stats.

It was about time to hit the first gym, though, so I made my way to Violet city. I got there, but they wouldn’t let me challenge the gym leader without climbing to the top of Bellsprout tower first. Before that, though, I traded a Bellsprout for an Onyx, because I haven’t seen one in the wild yet, but saw plenty of Bellsprout on my way to the city. Naturally, Bellsprouts became extremely rare as soon as I made the trade, because I couldn’t find another one to catch later.

The tower was easy to clear and contained mostly trainers with Bellsprouts. I used the opportunity to train my Pidgey and got him to level 11 during the climb. Somewhere along the way, my starter also managed to evolve, so I now had a Quilava. My rival was already at the top, but he used an escape rope before I could get to him. The master at the top of the tower gave me permission to challenge the gym and also gave me a Flash technical machine as a reward for getting to the top.

Pokemon Soul Silver, Falkner

Falkner, the bird trainer. Easy

I went east to get to route 32, which leads south. Just on the bend south, I’ve met a hiker who gave me my first hidden machine – Rock Smash. Azalea town awaits, but there are wild pokemon i need to catch and trainers i need to fight on route 32 first.The gym was full of bird pokemon and relatively easy to clear. I didn’t have anything strong against flying types, but my Quilava was strong enough to easily clear everything even without a type advantage. The first badge was mine and I was given my next goal – Azalea town.

 

How Did You Get Here?

For some reason, this posting is extremely popular among my readers. Maybe it’s something I wrote, maybe it’s a picture I’m linking, but one thing is for sure. It’s probably a bit disappointing this is where my “second attempt at a play through” ended – with the first posting.

Sadly, my NDS broke since I played Pokemon Soul Silver, so I won’t be continuing my play through, at least not any time soon. There’s plenty of content if you’re interested in Pokemon, though.

You can read about one of my two Nuzlocke runs. There’s my Fire Red Nuzlocke challenge, as well as my Emerald Nuzlocke challenge. I’ve greatly enjoyed both of those. There’s also my pride and joy – my challenge to play through a Pokemon game taking place in every region as Ash. I decided to follow each region of the Pokemon world by being Ash as much as I can be. I caught and used only Ash’s Pokemon, I tried to use his “tactics” and I tried to behave like he would. I even made guides on how to transfer Pokemon between the various games and generations. You can read all about it at: