Hey folks, and welcome to the third instalment of "Gotta Catch 'Em All!", the serial blog chronicling my efforts to amass a complete living National Pokédex before the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon. If you've missed the previous entries in this series, then you can find the first part here and the second and third parts here. I'm sure those of you reading this in the US will be thinking, "But didn't those new Pokémon games come out yesterday?" To that I say - yep, you folks got the seventh generation this week. However, those of us across the pond have to wait until Wednesday to pay a visit to the Alola region (presumably Nintendo and Game Freak still haven't forgiven UK retailers for breaking the street date on Pokémon X and Y three years ago). While this is slightly upsetting, the silver lining of this particularly nasty cloud is that I get a few extra days to try and complete this challenge. How's progress been since I last filled you in? Let's find out, shall we?

Part Four - Some Next-Level Grinding

As a quick reminder, this is where our progress stood at the end of the last blog, with fifty-two Pokémon still to obtain:

I said in my last blog that I'd originally planned to focus on the Pokémon that evolved through straight levelling up first of all, which accounted for thirty-six of the remaining fifty-two. However, what I'd failed to take into account was that (with one exception) the Pokémon who require specific moves to evolve, get those moves by levelling up. Additionally, I'd forgotten that Lopunny is obtained by evolving Buneary with high Friendship. So, by lumping these in with my total, I was able to bring it up to forty-one, leaving just eleven Pokémon to obtain through slightly more complex means.

As with Part Two of this quest, my broad strategy involved taking groups of Pokémon into Victory Road, supported by my trusty Greninja, with the Exp. Share turned on. At any one time, the remaining five slots on my team would be taken up by the four Pokémon with the lowest level requirements for evolution, and a single Pokémon with the highest level requirement for evolution, all holding Lucky Eggs to boost their experience yield as much as possible. The sole exception to this was Buneary, who went in holding a Soothe Bell to accelerate its Friendship growth instead. When one Pokémon evolved, I would swap it for another from the PC and continue with the process, until finally all of my 'bases' had evolved to the correct stage.

I'm not going to lie, it was a lengthy, boring process. I put in about an hour and a half each night, listening to music or streaming something on Netflix to distract me from the mind-numbing repetition. But boy, was it worth it. After five nights of this, I'd added Wormadam, Gastrodon, Ambipom, Drifblim, Lopunny, Purugly, Garchomp, Hippowdon, Tangrowth, Yanmega, Servine, Dewott, Herdier, Stoutland, Tranquill, Unfezant, Boldore, Palpitoad, Seismitoad, Swadloon, Whirlipede, Krokorok, Darmanitan, Cofagrigus, Carracosta, Archeops, Garbodor, Reuniclus, Vanilluxe, Jellicent, Klinklang, Eelektrik, Beheeyem, Lampent, Haxorus, Mienshao, Golurk, Delphox, Gogoat and Doublade to my ranks. Mamoswine was a little trickier, as I had to pay a visit to the Move Reminder to teach it Ancient Power to trigger the evolution, since Piloswine wouldn't learn it naturally through level-up. While this process was unfolding, I was also able to raise a few more 'bases' in preparation for their final evolutions - a spare Eelektrik for Eelektross, a spare Doublade for Aegislash, and a spare Togetic for Togekiss. Finally, I raised my 'base' Elekid and Magby to level 30, turning them into Electabuzz and Magmar, ready to evolve into Electivire and Magmortar. Suddenly that great big grid isn't looking so daunting any more:

Part Five - Popping Several Balloons For One Stone

Of our eleven remaining required Pokémon, six evolve through exposure to evolutionary stones. Three of these are no problem at all - I have a spare Thunder Stone in my inventory which evolves my spare Eelektrik into Eelektross, and the Leaf and Water Stones needed for Simisage and Simipour respectively can be bought from the Stone Emporium in Lumiose City for just a couple of thousand Poké Dollars each. Where things get a little more complicated are in the cases of Togetic, Snorunt and Doublade, who all require much rarer types of stones (Shiny, Dawn and Dusk respectively) to get their evolution on. I've already exhausted the stones found lying on the ground around the gameworld, so where in Kalos am I supposed to source more of them?

The answer is Super Training. This feature, new for the sixth generation, enables trainers to tailor the EVs (or Effort Values) of their Pokémon in a much more accessible way than in previous games. In layman's terms, it's a way of boosting specific stats for Pokémon, allowing you to make them more suited to offensive or defensive roles. The way this is achieved is by playing mini-games where you have to pop Pokémon-shaped balloons by targeting them in specific areas, all the while avoiding inbound 'attacks'. While the most rudimentary levels of this mini-game only yield stat increases, there are a handful of hidden Super Training 'regimens' which reward the player with items upon completion. There's a slim chance that those items may be evolutionary stones. Do you see where this is going?

Super Training is tedious. Arguably even more so than grinding for levels and experience, because the target never changes, and therefore nor does the strategy involved. There's a good reason why I moved away from it and instead became invested in the Horde method for EV training (but that's another subject for a different blog). But that's in EV training terms, not in item farming terms. And anyway, I only need three stones, so there's no way this is going to take long, right?

Wrong.

It took me upwards of three hours of Super Training to earn the three stones I needed, an average of more than an hour per stone. I realise that's just a by-product of bad luck and the RNGs screwing me over. It could have just as easily taken me fifteen minutes. But it didn't. It took three fucking hours. The whole reason I'm writing and posting this blog today and not yesterday is because amassing these stones took so damn long. But I made it eventually. Togekiss, Froslass and Aegislash are mine, and the total number of required Pokémon has dwindled to just five:

So, from the eighty-plus required just over two weeks ago, only five Pokémon (six including Meloetta) now stand between me and a completed living National Pokédex. But that's not the end of this journey, not by a long shot. See, those final five represent some of the toughest evolutions of the sixth-generation. Trades, rare held items and a stint at the Battle Maison await in what'll be the final instalment of "Gotta Catch 'Em All!", coming at some point between now and Wednesday, I guess. As always, thanks very much for reading. Take care and I'll see you around.

Daniel

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Currently playing - Pokémon Y (3DS)

I'm really enjoying reading through your blogs!