Gotta Catch 'em All! Lets Play: Pokémon Shiny Gold

Requested Nicknames(10 Character Length)
Any fire type - Chester
Beedrill - DIRTYDANCN
Geodude - Dolemite
Jigglypuff - AndreaBoce(m), NorahJones(f), Sinatra
Mr. Mime - Mr. Bungle
Nidoran(m) - SpikeAkmbo
Pidgey - CAWCAW
Pikachu - KRAKAUER
Spinda - Dreamcast
Teddiursa - #1 Threat
*Other* - Forum member names and/or real animals
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For my second Lets Play I thought I'd tackle something intimately familiar but quite unique to most of the people around here- a hacked version of Pokemon Fire Red made to be a graphical overhaul of the classic Pokemon Gold(for anyone interested, the patch is here). There are a few differences to the original version, but the main quest is mostly identical to the GBC release. The patch is currently in Beta 5, but it'll get me through to at least the Elite Four, which is the important party anyways. I'll be tackling this run through Gold with team suggestions mostly presented by you, the viewers, from my stable of captured Pokemon. Without further ado, lets get on with the show...

7/28/2008 - The Mystery Egg



Remember kids, pirating is bad.



The intro video is the same as in Fire Red. Hey, you can't expect a 100% overhaul in a beta release.



They did get a pretty snazzy title screen going, though.



Blah blah blah, study Pokemon, blah. Same old same old speech from every game in the series.



What, you're not going to just crotch-grab me like that time I ran into the President?



My character, Scott, returns from the Dragon Warrior Lets Play. I named the rival character R2 in honor of resident Pokemon Master R^2.



Our character is popped out in his bedroom and our adventure begins!

Backup Because Photobucket Sucks
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First things first, I take my single potion out of my PC. The PC magically stores an excess items from your fixed-size bag. I honestly can't say I've ever run out of space on any of the games past Ruby and Sapphire when they redesigned the inventory system, though.



I guess I should probably go pay him a visit. I wonder what a famous Pokemon professor would want with a 10 year old kid, though.



Before leaving my mom gives me a PHONE CARD and a POKEBEEPER. These function like the cell phone in the original, letting you call important NPCs and get challenged to rematches from certain random trainers. Even if you tell her you know what they do she still takes the time to explain their function- she must not think her son is very smart.

I find the Professor's lab next door. He tells me that he has a friend named MR.POKEMON and that he's discovered something amazing. The professor is too busy to be bothered to go get it himself, so he recruited the nearest kid to go pick it up for him. That's us!



Thankfully, though, he's at least offered us a Pokemon to help in our travels. Never let a pre-teen travel the world without one!



Now Talking Time, the choice is up to you! Do I take Cyndaquil (fire), Totodile (water) or Chikorita (grass) for my trip?

Cyndaquil is the only possible choice here. By far the best of the GSC starters.

Does this have the day/night cycle? I seem to recall that FireRed didn't. If it does, I demand Espeon.

I doesn't have day/night, but the hacker added sun/moon stones (or something like that) specifically to evolve things that would normally take the clock to evolve.

I've played through with Cyndaquil and Totodile. I say Chikorita!

Totodile, because I have never picked the Water-type starter in a Pokemon game.

This is making me want to finish up Diamond, but I am really not looking forward to grinding levels for several hours in that stupid cave.

This LP... excites me.

This is the only Pokemon generation where the grass starter isn't my favorite of the bunch. So I'm going to say Totodile, since I used Cyndaquil when I played through the game a billion years ago.

I'll throw in a vote for Totodile since it amuses me, and the last time I played a pokemon game I picked Squirtle, so water types for life.

Get equipped with Totodile! He's got moxie.

CHIKORITA please?

Ha ha, Pokemon. Good stuff. The last one I played was Silver, actually; and I logged way too many hours on it during the graveyard shift at work (in 2001... man, time flies).

I picked Cyndaquil, who probably is the best one... so I'll go with Chikorita. :] It's the weakest-looking, so the rival's viciousness makes a bit more sense (unlike with, say, Totodile-- "What a pathetic-looking crocoh Pokegods my arm"). Seriously, Gary/Blue was a right jerk; but Silver is just mean.

Sigh... I had just gotten my penultimate badge in Silver when someone smashed my car window and grabbed the GBC from the back seat. Thanks, TheSL! Now the memories can be put to rest. And in memory of Ash, my faithful Cyndaquil, I cast a vote to walk down the flaming road.

I went ahead and started with Totodile since he had the most votes when I went back to playing. I love Chikorita and Cyndaquil too, but I was also itching to continue playing!

Anyone have a preference whether I list all the Pokedex entries of what I capture or not? Or would you guys rather just see what I have and miss out on the flavor text?

Taking the Totodile, I am now ready to set out on my quest. I went with the name of "Snapper" for the little guy because I somehow thought it was fitting; I don't plan on giving custom names to all the random catches unless someone has a specific request.



Next stop, CHERRYGROVE city! The Professor did give me his phone number in case he needs to talk to me for some reason.



This random guy seems to be spying on the professor's lab. He pushes us away for being nosy, but you can't help being suspicious...



On the way out of town an random trainer, CARLOS, attacks us with his Squirttle. Snapper is the same typing as Squirttle and 2 levels than his opponent, so he goes down like a chump. I don't remember someone like CARLOS attacking me in the original Gold, does anyone know if he was something added in the Crystal version or if this is just an extra of this hack?

We want to name all your pokemans.

I'm a little disappointed that you didn't take Charmander.



...wait, no Charmander? *immediate loss of interest in game goes here*

Wow, ugh. Least endearing starters ever.

Ok, so since there are potentially something like 380+ guys to catch in this version how about giving a nickname for specific Pokemon? First come first served, name your favorite species!

is eevee in this one?

Spinda - Dreamcast

I'll have more later :S

On the way to CHERRYGROVE I ran into some random monsters, but I don't have access to any poke balls right now so we have to just scratch the hell out of them and move on. An interesting thing to note is that since this is a hack of Fire Red, there are a few of the later generation monsters like Zigzagoon running about in Johto as well.



At level 7 our little Snapper learns RAGE. This move gathers energy for a few turns while he takes damage then releases it in one big blow.



MR.POKEMON's house is supposed to be somewhere near here, but he's not actually in the city. This is the first town where we run into a Pokemon center- this is the equivalent of an Inn in any other RPG, but they're totally free. Since the cell phone was changed to a phone card and beeper, a town phone has also been added to this(and every other) city.

Just north of town there are two paths...



...the first is blocked by a Pokemon battle. The kids get pretty annoyed that I interrupted their match.



...the second path leads directly to MR.POKEMON's house. It seems rather redundant to post two signposts declaring this less than a couple hundred feet apart from each other.

Yes. Bill gives you one completely free in GOLDENROD city.



MR.POKEMON gets right to business and gives us a MYSTERY EGG to deliver back to Professor Elm. I wonder what it could be? [Its a Togepi.]



Professor Oak just happens to be hanging out here as well. He gives us a Pokedex for the hell of it too, because everyone can trust expensive prototype Pokemon database equipment to random 10 year olds.



Professor Oak bows out to go host his popular (?) radio show in GOLDENROD city, leaving us to get back to delivering this MYSTERY EGG.



After leaving MR.POKEMON's house, we get a page from Elm telling us to hurry back to his lab! Whatever could have happened?!

On the way back to town that shady looking redhead attacks us!



He's got a rare Chikorita! How suspicious!



Without any of its grass moves, though, my higher level Snapper takes him out easily.



Its R^2!



The cops are already on the scene writing a police report(much faster than real life!) and find out that we already fought the perp. It turns out that R^2, in fact, stole his Chikorita from the lab here. With him taking the role of the villain I almost feel like I should have named him CALORIEMATE instead so we'd have someone to blame.

The professor is amazed that the MYSTERY EGG appears to be a pokemon egg. You'd think it would be required to study the mating habits of Pokemon in order to graduate with a PhD in Pokemon Studies, though.



When I told the professor that Oak also gave me a Pokedex while I was there, he urges me to make my way towards VIOLET CITY and my first pokemon gym.



Before leaving town, Elm's assistant gives us 5 POKE BALLS and our mom gives up an AMULET COIN and RUNNING SHOES. The amulet coin takes the place of mom's banking in the original version of Gold and Silver; it gives double money from trainer battles if you have it equipped to a participating pokemon.



I make my way back over to CHERRYGROVE to the item store and stock up on more POKE BALLS. Time to get catching!

THE HAUL





These are the Pokemon I was able to pick up in the initial areas of the game. None of these guys have nicknames now, but whenever I reach the name changer I can swap them to any requested names.



My team lies in your hands Talking Time. I'm treating Snapper as my "main character", but you have 5 open slots to fill with any of these 8 guys.

Next up: VIOLET CITY

"Snapper"
Pidgey
Weedle
Caterpie
Jigglypuff
Sentret

If you would. I never quite liked Hoothoot and Rattata.

"Snapper"
Hoothoot
Sentret
Weedle
Caterpie
Jigglypuff

Gotta use Sentret. It evolves into a ferret. If you don't want a ferret, I'm afraid you have no soul.

Such base accusations. I breed all my own Pokemon, thankyouverymuch, and have no reason to steal from anyone.

This man knows where it's at. I mean, could you say no to a face like this?



Also: You should name every Pokémon you catch after their real-world counterpart.