Hey folks, and welcome to the first part of a mini-series of blogs I plan to write over the next few weeks. It's part of my drive to get back to writing regularly after taking some time out over the summer, so I can resume steady progress on The Hawker and Midnight Son before the year is out. It's also part of another drive, though. A drive that's been happening, on and off, for the last three-and-a-half years. A drive that's seen me play through almost every game in a much-loved franchise in an effort to accomplish a childhood dream, a dream on the bucket-list of the inner child in almost every nineties kid on the planet.

I am, of course, referring to my protracted journey through all six generations of the Pokémon series in an attempt to finally possess that most coveted of gaming achievements - a completed Pokédex. It's a story that began back in April 2013 with an impulsive return to Pokémon LeafGreen, and grew into an epic quest through the regions of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Unova and Kalos. Along the way I caught and traded, I trained and evolved, until I eventually reached a position where I could, through breeding and further training, acquire every single readily available Pokémon in the franchise.

Originally this was the plan, to fill every gap in the 'dex excluding the elusive event legendaries (now officially known as Mythical Pokémon). Satisfied that the end goal would come in time, I hung up my trainer's cap and Poké Balls and took a break. Then, at the start of 2016, as part of Pokémon's twentieth anniversary celebrations, it was announced that all of the Mythicals would be distributed throughout the year at a rate of one a month. Suddenly my dream didn't involve having to settle for a gimped, second-best definition of 'complete'. I made sure I picked up every single one of those Mythicals, either by going to local GAME stores and sheepishly asking for codes, or from the comfortable anonymity of online distributions. It may not be as exciting as the events originally associated with these Pokémon in the old games, but even just owning them still feels like an achievement.

Now, with one more Mythical Pokémon to go (Meloetta begins distribution on December 1st), the possibility of a legitimate, 100% complete Pokédex containing all 721 Pokémon is finally within my grasp. But there's aproblem.See, on November 23rd, just under three weeks from now, Nintendo will be releasing Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon. These two upcoming games herald the arrival of a brand new generation of Pokémon, complete with a new region to explore, new characters to meet, and several new Pokémon to encounter, capture and train. The inauguration of this new bevy of battling beasts means that my dream of a pristine Pokédex will once again be shattered. Unless, of course, I can do something about it before that happens.

That's where this little series of blogs comes in. Not-so-imaginatively titled 'Gotta Catch 'Em All!', it's a written account of my forthcoming efforts to complete my National Pokédex before Sun and Moon release in just nineteen days' time. It's probably not going to be easy, but I feel up to this particular challenge. I'm planning to write one of these each week between now and the release of Sun and Moon on November 23rd - four blogs in total. Along the way I'll be detailing what there is left to do, and exactly how I plan to do it. Since this first instalment is more about preparation than anything else, I suspect everything under the heading below will be more statistical than procedural, but you can expect that to change once I start actually doing stuff. So, Laprases and Jigglypuffs, without any further ado, I welcome you to the first part of:

Part One - Checking the 'Dex

The first step in any challenge like this one is to assess what needs to be done, and how to do it. That's what this blog is, as I consult my existing Pokédex and collection of Pokémon to see exactly which kinds I still need to bag before I wave goodbye to the Kalos region and set off for Alola.

Before we get properly underway, it's probably worth noting that I'll be using my original copy of Pokémon Y as my core game for all of this. This isn't just because of sentimentality, since it's where I've invested most of my time with the franchise in the last couple of years. It's primarily because it's the game where everything is more readily available to me, which therefore means it's the game where it's going to be easiest to catch, breed and train the handful of remaining Pokémon I need to acquire.

With that settled, I boot up the game, where my starting screen tells me that I have 689 Pokémon in my Pokédex. Awesome, you may think. As I said earlier in this blog, there are currently 721 kinds of Pokémon available. This means I only need to acquire thirty-two more to complete the 'dex, right? Well, unfortunately not. See, that figure that greets you on booting up the game only represents the number of Pokémon you've seen, not the number you've actually caught. For that number, we need to open up the in-game Pokédex for a slightly more thorough breakdown. On doing so, I see that of the 689 I've seen, I've caught 656. This more than doubles the number of required captures, from thirty-two to sixty-five.

But even that doesn't tell the full story. As Pokémon players will know, the Pokédex is a record of every Pokémon you've ever seen or caught, not what's currently in your possession. To illustrate with an example, let's say I pick a Squirtle at the start of my game and, over the course of my adventure, evolve it into a Wartortle and then subsequently a Blastoise. My Pokédex will register that I've caught all three, but I don't still own all three - I just have a Blastoise. "Why is this at all important?", I hear some of you cry. You and I both know that technically I could just capture and evolve those last missing sixty-five Pokémon and rejoice in my completed 'dex. But I don't just want to complete my Pokédex, I want to future-proof it. If I just complete the 'dex now, then when I inevitably bring everything forward to Sun and Moon, there will be gaps. The only way to guarantee this doesn't happen is to own one of every single Pokémon, ensuring not only that there are no existing gaps, but there will be no gaps moving forward either.

To this end, a while back I re-organised my in-game PC boxes into National 'dex order, leaving spaces where I didn't currently own an instance of a Pokémon. This layout makes it much easier to see at a glance what work still needs to be done, and it's from here that I need to extrapolate my total figure of absent Pokémon. After scouring the boxes, I'm left with a new sum total of eighty-two missing Pokémon that I need to acquire instances of. That's a much bigger number than the thirty-two it initially seemed we would need. With just nineteen days left to obtain all these creatures, that's an average of about four new acquisitions a day. With this in mind, I compiled some more data about the missing 'mons, which I'll outline below:

• Broken down by generation, my catalogue of required Pokémon includes just one critter from third-gen, twenty-four from fourth-gen, forty-four from fifth-gen, and thirteen from sixth-gen. There are none from first- or second-gen since I'd already completed these collections earlier this year. To be honest, I thought I'd completed third-gen as well, but it looks like Chimecho slipped through. I won't be moving through the remaining list by generation any more, since it's a pretty inefficient way of doing things.
• Of the eighty-two Pokémon I need to capture, two can be quickly and easily captured in the Kalos region - Riolu hang around on Route 22, and Zweilous are abundant on Victory Road. In addition to this, I already have a 'base' for twenty-two of the remaining eighty. This means I have a 'spare' Pokémon boxed up in the PC that's ready and waiting to be evolved into something that can fill up a space. I'll be working on these captures and 'bases' first and foremost, I think, since they don't require any breeding and should therefore be less of a time investment. The vast majority, however, I'll need to get breedin' for.
• Seven of my missing Pokémon are the first of their evolutionary line, meaning I only need to catch or breed them before I can allocate them to their appropriate space with no further work involved. Of those needing to evolve, forty-nine require straightforward levelling up without any additional requirements. These will just require some good old-fashioned grinding once I've got the breeding out of the way - time consuming, but not particularly difficult. Slightly more troublesome are those Pokémon with more specific evolution requirements, such as those that need to be levelled or traded while holding specific items (some of which I'll likely need to re-source) or at specific times of day. I'll need to look at focusing on these Pokémon in groups to save time.
• Perhaps most heartbreakingly, one of these eighty-two missing monsters is the Mythical Pokémon Meloetta. Meloetta can't be obtained through regular gameplay and it isn't being distributed until December, over a week after the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon. But instead of looking at this as a failure, I'm going to frame it as an opportunity. I won't be moving everything from sixth generation into seventh generation the instant it's released. I'll be wanting a clean, 'vanilla' first playthrough of Sun or Moon, using the new native Pokémon rather than imported critters from the previous generation. This fact gives me a grace period between finishing up with Y and officially migrating everything into the new games, during which I can acquire Meloetta through the distribution and complete my sixth-gen 'dex before everything gets moved over.

So with that in mind, I have nineteen days to obtain eighty-one new kinds of Pokémon. I think my plan will be to focus on the quick captures and 'bases' first, to chalk off some quick points near the start of the challenge and get my motivation going. Once the most straightforward of those are cleared, it'll be time to start an extensive breeding program to produce all the 'bases' I don't currently have. When they're all in place I'll 'group' the more difficult ones and come up with a more thorough plan to see me through to the end.

Talking of seeing things through to the end, thanks a ton to anyone who's stuck around for the whole of this blog. I realise it won't be to everyone's tastes, but I've had fun writing it, and I hope to have even more fun returning to the world of Pokémon to finally complete my first ever National Pokédex. Those of you who haven't been put off, I invite you to join me next week for the second instalment of 'Gotta Catch 'Em All!', when I'll reveal how much success we've had with the challenge up to that point. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga (X360)

Lovely read! I just got back into Pokémon myself. I'm not a collector or anything; I just enjoy playing through the story. I just finished my first Nuzlocke, actually. Traded my favorite Pokémon to my partner's game (near perfect tyranitar, celebi, shiny ampharos, etc.) because I don't want to pay for the Pokémon bank, then reset my save. Made me use Pokémon I never would have used before, namely Granbull which carried me through most of the game.

I'm really excited for Sun and Moon!

I've been on a similar quest myself, so I understand.

I first started trying to fill my Pokedex back with Diamond. It took a lot of work with the way transfers from older generations worked back then, as I'm sure you know, but I didn't reallly put the work in to do any "future proof-ing" as you called it, yet. Not because I didn't realize that it could be beneficial, it was just...a lot of work. But once Pokemon X came out I decided that I would take it to the limit(!) and obtain as many Pokemon as I could possibly get, including one of every evolution.

The sheer scale of what I had done didn't hit me until pretty recently, when I fired up my copy of X to show a friend and realized that I did indeed own 1 of nearly every Pokemon, organized in order and even including one of every type of Unown even. Like, damn. Almost all of them are currently sitting in the Pokemon Bank awaiting Tranfer into Pokemon Sun sometime next year.

There were about 10 mythicals I missed from the official number back then (which didn't include those 3 or so mythical Pokemon they revealed later). With this year's distribution events I'm currently sitting on the number 713. I remember it being pretty anticlimactic back in 2013 once I added the final regular Pokemon and only had a bunch of mythical, unfillable holes in my Dex', so it's been nice to fill it out some more this year.

That said I've lacked your dedication so I haven't obtained any of the ones you need to go to a store and ask for a code for. I just couldn't do it >_< .

These are the pokemon that still elude me: Mew, Deoxys, Darkrai, Arceus, Meloetta, Diancie, Hoopa, Volcanion.

Good luck with your quest! I'll be on mine for a while longer.

As someone with a completed living dex, I wish you the best of luck. You already did the hard part, getting those Mythicals out of the way. I finished my dex late last year but had to wait months until Shaymin and Manaphy popped into the giveaway slots for me to be truly finished. The only one I still don't have is Volcanion, but it only recently became available here so I'm not sweating it. I expect there will be an online distribution somewhere down the line like all the rest.

I just recently finished by living pokedex this monday when I picked up Volcanion this monday. I have done this task many times over the years. Barring the mystical pokemon I completed the Dex in Gen 1, 4, and 5. If it wasn't for missing the manaphy event from the ranger games because I was sure they would eventually do a wifi event (took until this year for that to happen -_-) it would have been fully complete every gen since 4.

Good thing you've got you gen 1 squared away because getting the female nidoran line together is the easiest thing to get tripped up on. Nidoqueen inexplicably can't be breed when all of her previous forms can and Nidoking can. I have felt real dumb waiting on an egg that's never going to come.

Also advice if you do have ORAS I would recommend you do your evolving over there. You need a lot of experience to evolve everything and the Blissey Secret bases are the best leveling options in Pokemon but you do only get so much daily. Your best leveling option in X and Y is the Battle Chateau which requires a lot of grinding to make it good plus it is also locked out by time and no where near as good. You can either only ensure rapid re-population or a massive boost in the enemies level. That or stick to the incredibly slow elite four. Also the elite four in ORAS is higher level and each member has an extra pokemon over their Kalos counterparts. Basically save yourself a lot of time and use ORAS if you've got it. Also easier to hatch eggs there.

Best of luck on this endeavor Dan! My brother completed his Pokedex a few years ago, and I called him crazy for the number of hours he spent on it ;) You're already a decent chunk of the way there though. It's one of those weird and rare and impressive gaming feats- godspeed!

Once I get Meloetta next month, I'll have everything outside of the new Sun and Moon Pokemon. I wish I'd kept track of how long it took.

@strangestories: Thanks man. Nuzlockes are pretty great, I took some time out from my "gotta catch 'em all" quest through 2014 and 2015 to embark on a couple of them myself. It's a great way of forcing yourself out of your comfort zone and getting better acquainted with the 'mons you'd usually overlook. The emergent narratives they produce can be really rewarding too. I'm stoked for Sun and Moon too, I have (by sheer coincidence) got a day off work on the 23rd, so I'm planning to devote as much of the day as possible to it.

@jacksukeru: Best of luck with your continued quest to fill the Pokédex, duder. If it would be any help to you, I have a spare Arceus from the event earlier this year which I'd be more than happy to send your way. I might have a couple of the others sitting in Omega Ruby that I could trade to you as well, but I'd need to check first.

@theblue: Thanks duder. Yeah, the 20th anniversary Mythical distributions have been a bit of a Godsend in terms of filling in the blanks. Although it does feel a little like they've cheapened the value of the Pokémon in question, since they're no longer associated with in-game 'events'.

@ryuku_ryosake: Thanks for the tip duder, but I'm better off sticking with Y on this one, I think. I know a fully completed copy of ORAS offers better chances to level up, but I haven't played enough of the post-game in Omega Ruby to unlock those opportunities. My go-to strategy for Y is just to spend a ton of time in Victory Road. I have a level 100 Greninja which can OHKO everything in there, and that combined with the Exp Share and a multitude of Lucky Eggs should be enough to provide a steady stream of levelling and evolutions.

@majormitch: Thanks Mitch. Funnily enough, your brother was one of my inspirations for embarking on this crazy endeavour. He's @wess on the site, right? I remember reading his blogs on the subject way back when.

@ljbrewer:Congrats on (almost) completing your 'dex, duder. My clock on Pokémon Y currently reads just under 860 hours. Admittedly a fair chunk of that was devoted to breeding some competitive 'mons for a local league set-up with a few of my friends, but that's still a sizeable chunk of my life. And that's not even taking into account the cumulative hundreds of hours I've spent with LeafGreen, SoulSilver, Emerald, Platinum, White, White 2 and Omega Ruby. These next couple of weeks are just going to be the tip of a very large iceberg.

@danielkempster: Yep, that's him! It will warm his heart to know he's played any part in inspiring some Pokemon madness ;)

@danielkempster: I would love to have a Arceus!

My Friend Code is: 1435-6755-5200

I bought Alpha Sapphire only recently on a gamble after hearing somewhere that you could eventually get the store distributed Pokemon through a code. When I tried it with my Pokemon X game it stated "this game card can not receive this gift", so after some googling it seemed apparent that these extended distributions were only for the ORAS games.

Well, I got the game and tried that and it said "you cannot yet receive the gift associated with this code" so... I was kinda out of ideas. I ended up playing through the game anyway, recently finishing the Pokemon League but haven't dove into the post game yet. And then they released that Pokemon short which showed that apparently you can get a Deoxys in the game if you do the post game stuff? pretty psyched about that! (it was all worth it after all!)

All this is to say that I only recently got a second copy of a sixth generation game, so I haven't been able to double up on the Internet distributions until just last month. I would love to have an Arceus, but would like to offer you one of my spare Keldeo, since it is the rarest, yet currently most expendable, Mythical pokemon I have.

If not, then I wouldn't mind offering one of the regular pokemon you are still missing for your Dex to ease your load somewhat.

@jacksukeru: No worries man. My friend code is 3325-5698-7338. I've had a look through my copy of Omega Ruby and checked my Pokémon Bank, and sadly Arceus seems to be the only thing I have that you need (I think I lost a lot of duplicate Mythicals in a corrupt save file when I attempted an Egglocke in Alpha Sapphire earlier this year). As for what you trade for it, that's completely up to you. Without wanting to spoil the next instalment in this series too much, I'm reluctant to list what I still have to acquire. If you want to just offload some PC fodder then feel free. I'll be online for the next couple of hours if you're around. If not then maybe we can catch each other over the weekend? Leave another comment or drop me a PM and we'll try and sort something out. Peace out duder.

@danielkempster: A Keldeo it is! Could be useful for trading sometime in the future, if nothing else (Less so perhaps because many people will have it, but oh well).

I appreciate you wanting to help further but really, Arceus is more than I could have hoped for, thanks, man!

Been going back to my own Pokedex project and trying to fill in the spaces I currently have filled up with old Party Pokemon, so that I could put them in a separate folder, without having to split them up so I'm putting time in as well atm : )

I'm online now and waiting, if you see this, will be for a bunch of hours going forward.

As someone with a living pokedex I have to say good luck.

I've recently started to go through mine and replace some of the gimpy Pokemon that I ended up with thanks to speed levelling with blissey bases. It is the real shame with a livingdex, I have every Pokemon to play with, but I can't because the majority are useless.