Mood:
brightNow Playing: Dragonforce
Topic: Video games, understood.
Sorry for missing so much time. Seeing as this is the Internet and there could be many people from many (non)religions reading this, let me wish you all a Happy Chrismahannakwanzaakah (heard it over a grocery store intercom a few years back ;))
NOTE:: Read the title. If you aren't into pokémon, you will be lost rather quickly. I have been playing Pokémon a lot lately, and have become somewhat obsessed with creating the "perfect party" - that is to say, a party with all sorts of different types, which I consider to be the coolest of the generation.
So I took out a pencil and paper, along with lists of all the pokemon (sometimes simply using a game's pokedex) and compiled parties for the RBY, GSC, RSE and DPePl generations (Red Blue Yellow, Gold Silver Crystal, Ruby Sapphire Emerald, and Diamond Pearl Platinum, respectively), along with "combo parties" using previous generations.
And yes, you attentive rascal you, FireRed and LeafGreen AREN'T on the list since they're remakes of Red and Green (the latter being unreleased outside of Japan, we got Yellow instead).
So, here we go:
RBY
Venusaur, Raichu, Arcanine, Dragonite, Rhydon, Dewgong.
This party was actually all chosen minus one before I could decide on a starter. I wanted Dragonite and Arcanine from the start, and added Dewgong for a water-type. I knew I needed one, and seeing as Blastoise was my least favourite starter, I went with the Dewgong. Used Rhydon for a rock/ground type, Raichu for another "cool" pokémon and Venusaur because it was the only starter that didn't conflict with the others (Charizard being flying like Dragonite and Blastoise being water like Dewgong).
GSC
Feraligatr, Togetic, Scizor, Ampharos, Houndoom, Tyranitar.
This is my favourite generation out of the four, so none of the pokémon are chosen due to desperation. I actually like Typhlosion better than Feraligatr for a starter, but I like Houndoom better than Typhlosion. They were all chosen because I thought they were cool, and one of the great things about this generation was that if I had a type conflict, I could switch out one for another.
RBYGSC
And now for our first combo party, using the first two generations. For ease, I just used the two previously chosen parties, because what pokémon are better than the ones from the "perfect" party?
Arcanine, Dragonite, Rhydon, Feraligatr, Scizor, Ampharos.
There were some hard picks here (foregoing Tyranitar due to Dragonite was especially hard) but again, ones that I like without type conflicts, which can be murder as all those who have read on this far will likely know.
RSE
Blaziken, Aggron, Salamence, Manectric, Grumpig, Sharpedo.
I half-lied when I said I have been obsessing about the "perfect" party thing recently; it started with this generation. I started with a starter this time, and chose others based on that; I had Salamence because it was kind of like a tiny nod-off to Dragonite, one of my all-time faves.
A little side note here; Grumpig was one of my lesser favourite pokémon in this list, but ends up making it quite far.
RBYGSCRSE
For this one, I just took the RBYGSC party and combo'd it with this one, choosing two RBY, two GSC and two RSE pokémon to keep fair representation.
Arcanine, Dragonite, Feraligatr, Ampharos, Aggron, Grumpig.
Remember my note about Grumpig? It made it because due to type conflicts with Dragonite (make that HUGE conflicts) I needed another RSE pokémon. This is the reason we have so many normal-types.
DPePl
Ahh, the newest games (Platinum not being released for two more months). I made a "perfect" party before sitting down for my first serious playthrough (I always play through once just to beat it, and then my "serious" one is intended to flesh out the story, and I get into it, as the gameboy colour commercial goes).
Infernape, Staraptor, Luxray, Lucario, Garchomp, Lumineon.
This was another "pick based on starter" one, where I chose Chimchar based on those commercials. Staraptor was the most appealing flyer, Lumineon the most appealing water-type, Garchomp the only real dragon-type.
RBYGSCRSEDPePl (Wow that's a lot of letters!)
For this one, I'm going to put them in order of generation, for a look at what could be considered my "battle tower" party.
RBY: Arcanine, Dragonite
GSC: Feraligatr
RSE: Aggron, Grumpig
DPePl: Luxray
One of the things I found most interesting about this is although GSC is my favourite gen and DPePl the newest, they each have only one while the original gen and my least favourite one (gotta give DPePl credit due to innovation) each have two. Although GSC is explained by the extent to which it relied on RBY (kinda like Canada and the U.S.; and being Canadian I can say that)
As I said before, for RBY the only two based on favourite-ness (which, in the end, is the basis for all decisions) made it to the end, while in GSC one of the "lesser favourites" made it. Same with RSE - I chose Grumpig and Aggron out of necessity.
Luxray, on the other hand, is my favourite of DPePl. One advantage of having so few new pokemon (107, only 80 available during the main game; 81 if you count Manaphy).
A pattern I noticed as I tallied up these parties to post here was that for each one, I had to have one each of flying, water and dragon, if possible. GSC relied on Dragonite for a dragon type, and I couldn't choose that; I only used new pokémon, you'll notice. So one flying, one water, one dragon, one starter if the starter wasn't water; and any others I found cool.
As one last note, it's obvious that one of the biggest problems of Pokémon is coming up with all those new pokémon. I mean, Skuntank? Classy. Most of those evolutions only available in the National Dex of DPePl? So f****d up AND raping all of my childhood memories, all at once! Huzzah!
New Pokémon in RBY: 151
New Pokémon in GSC: 100
New Pokémon in RSE: 135
New Pokémon in DPePl: 81 before National Dex, 107 after
See a pattern? We'll either see something like 120 new pokémon in the fifth generation or 60 in it.
Not to be pessimistic, but I'm banking on something on the south side of 90 at least.
