Hey folks, and welcome to the third part of my Pokémon Sun Nuzlocke Challenge, a series of blogs documenting my efforts to play through the latest Pokémon game with a set of self-imposed rules to make the experience harder and more unique. Apologies for the delay in getting this one up, but real-life stuff got in the way last weekend, preventing me from writing this until now. If you're not familiar with the concept of the Nuzlocke, or you've missed the series up to this point, you can catch up on the first chapter here, and the second chapter here. For the rest of us, our journey across Alola continues. In this entry we wrap up our time on Melemele Island (for now, at least) by taking on the island's Kahuna in our first Grand Trial. How will we fare against Hala's powerful pummelling Pokemon? Read on and find out...

Chapter Three - Happy Hala-days!

Alola, Diary! Last time I wrote in here, it was just after I completed my first Island Trial, and just after I lost Zeppelin the Drifloon. It still cuts me up now to have had to let one of my new friends go, but the team and I are doing our best to keep going. We've recruited a few new members, overcome some difficult obstacles, and we'll soon be moving on to pastures new. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Yesterday, the day after beating Ilima's Island Trial in Verdant Cavern, I woke up to a message from Professor Kukui. It said that his assistant Lillie had gone missing on Route 3, just past my current location, and asked if I could spare some time to look for her. Since I was planning to travel across Route 3 anyway, I figured I'd help Kukui out and keep my eyes peeled for Lillie. I packed my bag and left the Route 2 Pokémon Center, heading north to the rocky cliffs of Route 3. It's full of Flying-type Pokémon who make their nests on the cliff faces, dive-bombing anyone who passes by. I was lucky enough to catch one of those birds, a Spearow who I've named Jeanette. She's a scrapper alright, but I've decided to store her in the Pokémon Center's PC for the time being. There just isn't space for her in my team at the moment, since she's so similar to Feathers.

There was no sign of Lillie anywhere on Route 3, so I made a diversion into a nearby cave. It led to a meadow full of beautiful yellow flowers, with Oricorio flying overhead and Cutiefly buzzing around. I managed to catch one of those Cutiefly, and named her Tinkerbell. She's now a permanent fixture on the team and has proven to be a valuable asset in battle, with her determined nature and ability to hear and dodge incoming attacks. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that Lillie would be in a place like this, but when I eventually found her, it turned out she wasn't there to admire the flowers. Nebby had run off yet again and she'd followed the Pokémon here. Once again I offered to help, cutting through the yellow flowers (and upsetting a few Oricorio along the way) to retrieve Nebby from the other side of the meadow. Lillie thanked me and made her way back out to Route 3.

I was about to follow Lillie back through the cave when I spotted a small gap in the rock nearby. I just about managed to squeeze through it, and found myself in a damp, murky cave absolutely filled with Zubat. I braved their shrill cries and pressed on through the cave, even managing to catch one of them (I've named her Clownbat, and she's keeping Jeanette company in the PC). There were a few discarded items along the cave path, but nothing especially noteworthy. The cave led down through the cliffside, emerging at Kala'e Bay. Unfortunately there's not a lot I can do there without a Water-type Pokémon to surf the waves on, so I had to turn around and make my way back through the Seaward Cave, up to Melemele Meadow and Route 3 beyond.

Back out on the main road, Lillie had met up with Professor Kukui and was apologising for Nebby's latest disappearing act. Hau was waiting there too - it turns out he had woken up in time to challenge Ilima's Island Trial after all! We agreed to a battle to see how our Pokémon had developed since our last encounter. His Pichu had evolved since then, but the Pikachu proved to be no match for L'Oréal. My Diglett cut it down with one of her powerful Magnitude attacks. His Rowlet was a little harder to deal with, but Scorch put paid to it with a strong Fire Fang. It just goes to show how in sync we are as partners, since after the battle, Scorch evolved into Torracat. Hau and Kukui both congratulated me on my victory, and Kukui told both of us that the only remaining challenge here on Melemele Island was to battle Kahuna Hala in what's called a 'Grand Trial'. Apparently the same is true of all four islands here in Alola, with the Grand Trial becoming available once all the lesser Island Trials have been completed.

Before we all set off separately along Route 3, Kukui gave me a tip-off that Hala favours Fighting-type Pokémon in battle. I guess this makes sense and I probably should have worked it out myself, since he's so heavily into his sumo wrestling. With this knowledge, I set about training the Pokémon that I knew would stand the best chance against Hala's team - Feathers, Oracle and Tinkerbell. Feathers and Tinkerbell responded well to training, learning new, stronger Flying- and Fairy-type moves respectively. Oracle seemed more interested in chowing down on Poké Beans, though. I did manage to get him to evolve into a Kadabra, but he still hasn't learned any offensive moves, so I ruled him out of the fight. Even so, with a Trumbeak and a Cutiefly on my side, I felt like we were well equipped to take on whatever Hala could throw at us.

Route 3 wraps around the north of Melemele Island and comes out on the eastern side of Iki Town. It was early evening by the time I arrived back in the place where Scorch and I met, and my journey began. It's weird, since it feels like it all happened only yesterday, but it also seems like this adventure is all I've ever known. I met with Kahuna Hala in town, and we both walked to the ceremonial arena outside his house for our Grand Trial battle. Hala opened the fight with a Mankey, and I sent in Tinkerbell. I used Stun Spore to try and paralyse Hala's Pokémon, but it dodged the spores and came back with a Karate Chop. Thankfully Tinkerbell resisted the damage, coming back with a couple of strong Draining Kisses to beat down Hala's Pokémon, restoring her own health in the process. Sensing this might be a strong tactic to stick with, I employed it for Hala's next Pokémon, a Makuhita, which went down in a single critical hit. Finally he sent out his ace in the hole, a strong Crabrawler with a Z Crystal wedged firmly in its pincer. Hala drew on his Pokémon's power to hit me with his most powerful Z Move, but even his All-Out Pummelling couldn't break Tinkerbell down. She dodged the hits, sucked up her strength and obliterated the Crabrawler with her Draining Kiss. We'd done it - we beat our first Grand Trial!

Hala congratulated me by giving me another Z Crystal to add to my collection - the Fightinium Z his Crabrawler had been holding. He also bestowed upon me a device called a Ride Pager, which allows me to call on Hala's Tauros whenever I need it to give me a ride around the islands of Alola. It's an incredible gift, and one that will allow me to access a lot more of Melemele Island than I could before. Kukui also had a winner's present for me - a TM containing False Swipe, which should make it a lot easier for me to wear down and capture the wild Pokémon throughout Alola. Hala explained that with his Grand Trial beaten, there was nothing left for me to do on Melemele Island, and I should consider making my way to Akala Island as soon as possible to continue my Island Challenge. Finally, Lillie congratulated me on my win, and said that she'll be coming with me to Akala Island to try and find a way to get Nebby home. That seems like a smart move - it's plain to see the little Pokémon is completely restless here, and wants to be somewhere else. Hopefully we can find a place for it on our travels.

I spent the night at the Pokémon Center on Route 1, then set off the next morning for one final loop of Melemele Island before I move on. It's a beautiful place and I'm sad to be moving on, but I know that I'll be back again someday. I decided to make this last lap with Tauros in tow, both to save time and to get access to some parts of the island I hadn't been able to see up until now. Tauros' horns allow it to charge through boulders, which meant I was able to visit some new places including Ten Carat Hill, a cavern just west of Professor Kukui's lab. While there I managed to fill a few more entries for my Pokédex, and even caught a Roggenrola which I've named Emma. She's currently in the PC with Jeanette and Clownbat, mainly because I'm struggling to deal with her stubborn, sassy attitude. Hopefully she'll calm down with time and I'll be able to gain her trust enough to train her. Right now I'm happy with the team we have - Scorch, Feathers, The Ooze, Oracle, L'Oréal and Tinkerbell. There's a lot of variety and strength there, and I think we're going to do really well moving forward.

When I'd finished exploring every nook and cranny of Melemele Island that I could reach, I returned home for what's likely to be the last time in a while. I told Mom about my plans to go to Akala Island and she was really supportive and seemed really proud of me, even though I could tell she was a little upset. She cooked a big homemade dinner for both of us, and we stayed up late watching TV together (there are so many adverts for malasadas on TV here in Alola!). As I write this, Mom is asleep and I'm about to spend what may be the last night in my own bed for quite a while. Tomorrow morning I'm setting off back to Hau'oli City, where I'll meet up with Lillie so we can catch the ferry from the marina and continue our journey on Akala Island. I'm really excited and can't wait to find out what new Pokémon and new challenges await me. Until next time Diary, Alola!

I'm pretty happy about where we're at right now. Granted, it's still early days, but we have an early-game team with a lot of strength, type coverage and strategic depth. I think The Ooze is definitely going to be one to watch, since her extra bulk is going to be extremely useful in the Nuzlocke format. I'm also really excited to get to grips with Tinkerbell - she's an unknown quantity since she's one of the new Alolan Pokémon, and I really like her type combination of Bug/Fairy. Here's hoping whatever she evolves into has some decent stat distributions. Now that this post is done I can move on with playing the game. Hopefully I'll be able to get another one of these up before next weekend, but I'm not going to promise anything since I'm also putting my free time into playing Demon's Souls. Until next time, thanks very much for reading. Take care duders, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

---

Currently playing - Pokémon Sun (3DS)

Hey there folks, and welcome to the second chapter of my Pokémon Sun Nuzlocke Challenge, a weekly serial blog chronicling my attempt to play blind through the latest generation of Pokémon with a self-imposed Nuzlocke ruleset. If you haven't seen one of these blogs before, or you're not familiar with the concept of a Nuzlocke challenge, I implore to read last week's inaugural entry before you get stuck into this one. It explains the core rules of the Nuzlocke format, not to mention it begins the narrative we're about to continue. While you get caught up, we're going to continue our adventure through the Alola region. This week we'll be stopping off in Hau'oli City, meeting the unsavoury Team Skull, and taking on our first Island Trial. Let's get going, shall we?

Chapter Two - Hau'oli Smokes!

Alola, Diary! A lot has happened since I last wrote anything in here. Some of it has been wonderful, but some of it has also been terrifying and brutal. I've overcome my first Island Trial and made some awesome new friends along the way, but I've also been unlucky enough to lose a friend in the process. I'll do my best to cover everything before it's time to move on from here.

You may remember that I was on my way to Hau'oli City, the main city on Melemele Island. I was supposed to be meeting with Lillie so we could explore the place together. Initially I couldn't get into the city because a rogue Tauros was blocking the path, but Kahuna Hala managed to subdue it and lead it away from the main road. Hala has an incredible affinity for Pokémon, and I hope that one day I'll be able to communicate with them the way that he does. Of course, I have a great relationship with Scorch and Feathers, but I sense I still have a long way to go before I can tame a wild Tauros! When I finally arrived in Hau'oli City, I met up with not Lillie, but Hau. He took me over to the Alola Tourist Bureau, where one of the guides upgraded my Rotom Dex with something called a Poké Finder. It works a lot like a camera and lets me take pictures of Pokémon in the wild. I tested it out a bit and managed to get some nice snaps of a Pikachu just outside the city limits.

After messing around with the Poké Finder for a while, Hau went off to grab some malasadas from the local eatery, and I finally caught up with Lillie. We explored the city's shopping district together, and she convinced me to spend some money on a new haircut and a change of clothes. I'll bet Mom would love my new Alolan summer-wear, but I'm not too sure how she's going to feel when she sees my hair for the first time - it's a lot shorter than I usually have it cut! I sense it's going to be a little while before I go back home, so maybe it'll have time to grow out a bit between now and then. After a long afternoon of shopping, Lillie and I parted ways. I explored the city a little more, training up my team of Pokémon in the long grass outside the City Hall. I even managed to catch a Grimer, which I've named 'The Ooze'. She's a lot different to the Grimer from back in Kanto, with a deep green colour and an additional Dark typing. She seems strong and reserved, and I can't wait to get to know her better (even if she does stink a little!).

My wandering took me away from the city centre and down towards the Marina, where the ferries arrive from and depart for the other islands of Alola. I recognised one of the faces in the crowd here as Ilima, a guy who I'd previously met at the Trainers' School out on Route 1. While we were talking about our Pokémon and the Island Trials, a couple of goofball gangsters in black outfits and balaclavas pushed their way over to us and started demanding to battle. They said they represented an organisation called 'Team Skull', who I'd never heard of, but I'm beginning to think must be a bit of a nuisance around these parts. Ilima battled one and I battled the other, The Ooze doing well in her first battle against a trainer by resisting his Zubat's persistent attacks and closing it down with a powerful Bite attack. When the fight was over, the grunts took off. Ilima healed my Pokémon by way of thanks, then challenged me to a slightly better-spirited battle. His Smeargle was tough to counter, packing a Water-type move that caused problems for Scorch. Luckily The Ooze was able to carefully quell the attack, then subdue it with her Poison Gas and Bite attacks.

Ilima seemed pretty impressed by the way I handled myself in battle. He mentioned that he'd been keen to battle me since he saw me beat the teacher at the Trainers' School the day before. He revealed that he was captain of one of the Island Trials, at the Verdant Cavern just off Route 2 to the north. He reckoned that with the way my bonds with my Pokémon have been developing so quickly, we'd probably stand a good chance of beating his Trial and taking away the reward. Eager to make my first real stop on my Island Challenge, I thanked him for the battle and returned to the Pokémon Center to grab a drink at the café and rest up for the night with Scorch, Feathers and The Ooze.

The next day I set out in the direction of Route 2. I met with Lillie on the way out of town, who congratulated me on my progress and wished me the best of luck for the upcoming trial. As we reached the edge of town, I found the path once again blocked by an ornery Tauros, with Kahuna Hala trying his best to placate it. He invited me to join him at his side, and together we managed to calm the Pokémon and clear the road once again. Much like Ilima and Lillie, I think Hala believes that I have what it takes to take on these Island Trials, although he never said so outright. With the path clear, I was able to step out onto Route 2 and start making my way north to Verdant Cavern. On the way I added a fourth Pokémon to my team, an Abra who I've named 'Oracle'. He can't do much more than Teleport around in battle at the moment, but he's a gentle creature, and boy does he love eating Poké Beans! I've tried hiding them, but I think he must be using his Psychic-type powers to locate them and help himself. At this rate I'm going to run out of the supply given to me by the barista at the café.

Route 2 posed some difficult battles for us, but my team and I gave as good as we got. Oracle and The Ooze both got a little more battle experience, but Feathers was the one seeing most of the action - so much so that after one battle, he evolved! He's now a Trumbeak, and still as reckless and headstrong as ever. In the afternoon we took a detour to explore Hau'oli Cemetery, a Pokémon graveyard that looks out over the city. I spoke with some of the trainers there and learned that there's a darker side to Pokémon battling - if a trainer pushes their Pokémon too hard without time to rest or recover, then their companions can die, and this is where those poor fallen creatures are laid to rest before they ascend to Pokéaven. It's a peaceful, serene place to be, nothing like the spooky tower at Lavender Town back in Kanto. Even so, I hope I don't have to spend too much time here over the course of my journey. While I was wandering through the cemetery reading the headstones, I encountered a Drifloon which I managed to capture. I named him Zeppelin, and put him on my team straight away. His jolly demeanour lifted the spirits of my other Pokémon as we moved on through Route 2 towards the Berry Fields.

As we reached the entrance to the Berry Fields, we were intercepted by a Delibird which steered us off the route and into the fields themselves. It quickly became apparent why it had brought us there - those grunts from Team Skull that we'd fought in Hau'oli City were accosting the owner of the fields and trying to steal his berries. For the second time in two days, I battled those pesky delinquents and came away victorious. The grunts ran off to the north, and I had a funny feeling that wasn't the last I'd be seeing of them... But more on that later. The owner of the Berry Fields thanked me for helping him and let me pick some berries to feed to my Pokémon. I still have a few in my bag now, although it's a wonder there were any left by the time Oracle was finished!

We continued along Route 2, battling wild Pokémon and trainers along the way. Zeppelin was proving to be an incredible addition to the team, opponents' Normal-type attacks passed right through him as he whipped up Gust attacks around them. We reached the Pokémon Center at Route 2's far end just as night was falling, and I was surprised to see Hau standing just outside - he must have overtaken us while we were dealing with Team Skull at the Berry Fields. He was also preparing to take on Ilima's trial at Verdant Cavern, so we agreed to stop off at the Center and get drinks at the café while our Pokémon rested with the nurse. After restocking our items at the Poké Mart, we settled in for the night, excited at what the next day might bring at our first Island Trial.

I woke up early the next morning, eager to get started on the Trial at Verdant Cavern. Hau seemed decidedly less enthusiastic - no matter how much I banged on the door of his room, I couldn't wake him up. In the end I resolved to head out to the Cavern on my own. I was met at the entrance by Ilima, who explained the rules of his Trial to me - I would need to find and battle three Pokémon within the cavern before I would be permitted to approach the totem and claim my reward. It didn't take me long to find my first two Pokémon, a pair of Yungoos, but the third one proved a bit more elusive. As I was scrabbling around in the holes in the cave walls, I heard some familiar voices over my shoulder. Those irritating goons from Team Skull had followed me into the Cavern, and now they were trying to sabotage my Trial! A quick battle made it three for three against them, and to top it all off, their trespassing in the cave actually made it easier for me to find and defeat my third and final Pokémon, a Gumshoos. With three native Pokémon defeated, I was given leave to enter the deepest part of the Verdant Cavern.

In front of me was a stone totem, with a bright crystal glimmering on a plinth set into it. As I approached it, a gigantic Gumshoos jumped down from above and blocked my path. Feeling confident, I sent out Zeppelin to wear this powerful Totem Pokemon down. What I wasn't expecting was for it to call forth a Yungoos to fight alongside it. I tried to call Zeppelin back, but his laziness got the better of him, and before he could return to his Poké Ball the Yungoos hit him with a powerful Pursuit attack. Zeppelin collapsed, and no matter what I did, I couldn't rouse him. With tears in my eyes, I sent out The Ooze to finish what my Drifloon had started. A few Bites were enough to take out both the Yungoos and the Totem Gumshoos, clearing the path for me to pick up the crystal from the plinth.

I made my way out of the Verdant Cavern, carrying Zeppelin in my arms. He didn't die in vain, and I know there wasn't anything I could have done against that Yungoos's Pursuit, but I still feel responsible. I knew that Yungoos had the potential to hit hard, and I should have sent one of my sturdier Pokémon in to take the hits. As I walked through the Cavern, a Diglett popped up out of the ground in front of me. I managed to catch her, and named her L'Oréal (those little tufts of metal sticking out of her head made me think of this shampoo advert from back in Kanto). I think she's going to make a good addition to the team, she seems pretty relaxed, although given the right situation she can get pretty hot-headed in battle.

On leaving the Verdant Cavern, I was met by Ilima and Professor Kukui. Both offered their condolences at the loss of Zeppelin, and advised me to inter him at the cemetery near Hau'oli City. Ilima congratulated me for passing the trial, and explained that the crystal I'd picked up was a Z Crystal. Kukui gave me a crash course in the use of Z Crystals - apparently, by combining them with the Z Ring I received from Kahuna Hala back in Iki Town, I will be able to unlock the hidden 'Z Power' of my Pokémon. This particular crystal is known as a Normalium-Z, which gives any Pokémon with Normal-type moves access to powerful Z Moves. I've given the Normalium-Z to Scorch to hold for now, although I haven't had a chance to test out its power yet. I'm guessing that future Island Trials will give me access to more of these Z Crystals to unlock more of my team's hidden 'Z Power'.

That's where I'll leave off with this entry. As I write this I've just arrived back at the Verdant Cavern Pokémon Center, after a trek back along Route 2 to commit Zeppelin to the Hau'oli Cemetery. It's late, I'm tired and so are my Pokémon, so we're going to rest up before continuing on our adventure. Next up is the rocky mountain road of Route 3, and I want to make sure my team is in the best possible condition before we press on. I don't want what happened to Zeppelin today to happen to anyone else. Hopefully, with the addition of powerful Z Moves to my battle arsenal, we'll be able to overpower any enemies who threaten us. Until next time Diary, Alola!

Two episodes in, one Trial complete, and one unfortunate death. Pursuit has been my undoing a few times in Nuzlockes, most notably my Egglocke of Pokémon X where I lost a Bagon very early on in a very similar situation. It's something I sense I'll need to be vigilant of moving forward, especially since there seem to be so many Dark-types on Melemele Island. As always, thanks very much to you guys for reading. I hope this series is delivering an experience that's as much fun to read as it's been for me to write so far. Until next time, take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

---

Currently playing - Pokémon Sun (3DS)

Hey there folks, and welcome to a very special Epilogue edition of 'Gotta Catch 'Em All!', the serial blog documenting my efforts to obtain a complete living National Pokédex. If you haven't seen any of these posts before, you can find the first part here, the second and third parts here, the fourth and fifth parts here, and the sixth and seventh parts here. I had planned for the previous instalment to be the last, but in light of recent events, I thought I'd break out the format for one final entry - an epilogue to bring the tale to its true conclusion.

Epilogue - The Very Best, Like No One Ever Was

Those of you who've been with this little mini-series all the way will be aware that a couple of weeks ago, I all but completed my living National Pokédex, just forty-eight hours before the UK release of Pokémon Sun and Moon came along and put a dampener on the whole thing by tossing some eighty-odd new collectable critters into the mix. At that point, the only Pokémon I was missing was Meloetta, a Mythical Pokémon (that is to say, a Pokémon not available through regular gameplay) from the fifth generation. Knowing I wouldn't be able to source one of these elusive creatures at the time, I brought my quest to a premature conclusion. However, I knew that as part of the franchise's twentieth anniversary celebrations, there was a distribution scheduled for Meloetta in December. Rather than admitting defeat, I decided to bide my time.

Earlier this week, on December 1st, millions of kids all over the world opened the first doors on their advent calendars, revealing the reward of delicious chocolate. Meanwhile, I was opening a very different kind of door, and unearthing a very different kind of reward. In the early hours before my morning commute into work, I fired up my 3DS and connected to the internet to receive a very special Mystery Gift from Game Freak - my very own Meloetta. I picked it up from the gift lady at the Pokémon Center, and popped it into the 648th slot of my living Pokédex in the PC - the final empty slot needing to be filled.

The method may have been underwhelming, but the end result definitely isn't. Pictured below is my entire living Pokédex, an instance of every single Pokémon from the first six generations. From Bulbasaur to Volcanion, from Abomasnow to Zygarde, from the tiniest Skitty to the biggest Wailord, absolutely every Pocket Monster is represented. When the time is right I'll migrate the whole collection into Pokémon Bank, ready to import them all into Pokémon Sun. Until then, they'll remain in my copy of Pokémon Y, a testament to what may just be my greatest gaming achievement ever. I've finally done it guys. I'm the very best, like no one ever was.

Gallery

So that's that. At long last, I have a 100% complete living National Pokedex up to and including the sixth generation. Since there's currently no way to migrate this into the seventh generation, I think it's alright to call time on this feature once and for all. I'm still playing plenty of Pokémon Sun, and there'll be an update on the Nuzlocke Challenge hopefully coming later today. Thanks for reading guys. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

---

Currently playing - Pokémon Sun (3DS)

Hey folks, and welcome to the first chapter of my Pokémon Sun Nuzlocke Challenge. This is the first instalment of what will become a weekly serial blog here on Giant Bomb, documenting my efforts to play through the brand new generation of Pokémon, completely blind and with the added restrictions and increased difficulty of the self-imposed 'Nuzlocke' ruleset. I've never played a blind Nuzlocke before, so this is sure to be a really interesting experience. On top of playing the game, I'll be writing these weekly updates in the form of diary entries, told from the perspective of my in-game player character. Think of it as being a bit like my old series A Month in Skyrim, combined with my FireRed Nuzlocke Challenge from a couple of years back, and you should have a pretty good idea of what this series is likely to become.

If you're not familiar with the concept of the Nuzlocke challenge, then I'll do my best to explain it. In a nutshell, it's a set of game-limiting rules imposed upon a playthrough of a Pokémon game by the player, with the intention of providing a more challenging and emergent experience. The simplest, purest version of the Nuzlocke challenge incorporates just two main rules:

1. The player may only capture the first Pokémon encountered in each new route or area. Failing to do so (making the Pokémon faint, or having it run away, for instance) means the player forefeits their capture for that particular area.
2. If any of the player's Pokémon faint, they are considered 'dead' and must either be released or permanently placed in the PC, never to be used again. If all the Pokémon in the player's active party faint, the game is over and the Nuzlocke is lost.

In addition to these two core tenets, I'll be invoking a couple of extra clauses to keep things interesting. These are as follows:

• I'll be giving every Pokémon I capture a nickname. This is to encourage the development of a stronger emotional bond between myself and my Pokémon. This way the playthrough is more likely to lend itself to emergent sub-plots, and every victory (and every loss) will matter more.
• If my first encounter in any area is a duplicate of a Pokémon I already own (or in the same evolutionary line as one), I'll be allowed to disregard it and look for something else. This is known as 'species clause' or 'dupes clause', and a lot of Nuzlockers choose to invoke it to make sure their team stays diverse throughout their playthrough.
• Finally, I'll be treating any 'event Pokémon' (that is to say, Pokémon that are gifted to the player by an NPC, such as the starter Pokémon) as viable for the Nuzlocke, without their acquisition impacting on my captures by area. For instance, if I'm gifted a Pokémon by an NPC in one of the game's cities, I'm still permitted to obtain a regular capture for that city as well. The exception to this is Mystery Gift Pokémon - I won't be using the online-distributed Munchlax for this Nuzlocke.

With those basic rules laid down, let's get on with what you've all actually come for, shall we? My latest Pokémon adventure is about to begin...

Chapter One - Alola To A New Region

Alola, Diary! After months of planning, Mom and I have finally moved to the sunny shores of Melemele Island, here in the Alola region. It's definitely a very different place to the Kanto region, and not just because of the weather. The Pokémon here are something else - even the perennial Kanto mainstays like Rattata and Meowth aren't quite the way I knew them back home. But I'll get back to that later. My first few days in this new region have been a bit of a whirlwind, to say the least. I'm hoping that by committing the events to paper, I might be able to start making sense of what I've got caught up in.

It all started two days ago, on our first full day in Alola. Mom and I were visited at home by the local Pokémon Professor, Kukui. He's very different too, nothing like the bookish Professor Oak back in Kanto - Kukui seems keen to take a more hands-on approach with his research into Pokémon and their moves. Even though we'd barely started unpacking, Professor Kukui was keen to usher me away to the next town over, Iki Town, to meet the Kahuna of Melemele Island. Supposedly the Kahunas are the most powerful trainers in Alola, and they're the ones who present young would-be trainers with their first Pokémon here. I've been itching to get my first Pokémon ever since I turned eleven earlier this year, but Mom said it would be best to wait until after the move so I wouldn't upset my new friend in the upheaval. Mom gave me permission to go with Kukui (to be honest she seemed more excited about the prospect of me receiving a Pokémon than I was!), so I grabbed my hat and bag and set off along Route 1 to Iki Town.

When we arrived in Iki Town, there was no sign of the Kahuna, so Kukui and I split up to search for them. Not knowing the area that well, I wandered off in the direction of the Mahalo Trail, and ended up seeing a girl dressed in white with a bag slung over her shoulder. She seemed to be talking to the bag (or whatever was in it) as she made her way up onto the Trail. Not having a clue who the Kahuna was, and thinking she might be who I was looking for, I went after her. I caught up with her at the wooden bridge at the top of the Trail, arriving just in time to find out what was in the bag - a tiny Pokémon! It had escaped and was now stranded in the middle of the bridge, being attacked by a horde of Spearow. The girl was begging me to help, but I didn't need to be asked - I was already stepping out onto the rickety bridge to meet the helpless Pokémon. As I reached it, a strange aura glowed around us, breaking the bridge and sending both me and the Pokémon plummeting to the waters below. Luckily, we were saved before the reached the bottom of the ravine. Tapu Koko, the guardian deity Pokémon of Melemele Island, swooped down and plucked us out of the air, setting us down on the Trail near the girl in white. Before it left, Tapu Koko dropped a sparkling stone, while the girl picked up and handed to me.

We made our way back down the Mahalo Trail to Iki Town, the girl thanking me for saving her Pokémon, which I learned was a Cosmog nicknamed 'Nebby'. Back in town, Kukui introduced the girl not as the island's Kahuna, but as his assistant, Lillie. It wasn't long before the real Kahuna, Hala, arrived back in Iki Town from a bout of training in the nearby wilderness. Kukui introduced me and Lillie explained what had happened up on the Trail with Nebby and Tapu Koko. The story seemed to please Hala, because he said that he saw great promise in me and wanted to give me a Pokémon! He offered me a choice from three different types - the Grass-type Rowlet, the Fire-type Litten, and the Water-type Popplio. It was a tough choice, but I ended up going with Litten. He took an almost instant liking to me, thankfully! I've decided to name him Scorch, and I'm sure he's going to be a great companion on my journey around Alola's islands. To celebrate my receiving Scorch, Kukui gave me two other gifts - a Trainer Passport, and a Pokédex for the Alola region. It's going to take me a long time to get anywhere near filling this thing up!

Kukui suggested I head home and introduce Scorch to Mom, but as I tried to leave Iki Town, I was confronted by another new face - a local kid, about my age. He'd barely said hello and hadn't even given me his name before he challenged me to a Pokémon battle! I accepted, a little nervous, but Scorch managed to subdue his Rowlet without any problems. It turns out his name is Hau, and he's the grandson of Kahuna Hala. After congratulating me on my first ever victory, Hala noticed the sparkling stone in my bag and asked to see it. I handed it over, and he speculated that Tapu Koko giving me the stone means that the guardian might have big plans for me in the future! I left the stone in Hala's care, then headed back along Route 1 in the direction of home. Mom took to Scorch instantly, she loves his cheeky disposition, although he could do with learning to be a bit more obedient - he wouldn't stay in his Poké Ball overnight, and insisted on sleeping at the foot of my bed instead.

The next day, Mom and I had just started to unpack all of our moving boxes when there was a knock at the door. It was Professor Kukui again, asking me to follow him back up to Iki Town to take part in the festival to honour Tapu Koko. On the way, we stopped in the tall grass on Route 1, and Kukui taught me the basics of catching Pokémon. He tossed me a few Poké Balls and I tried my hand at it, following all his pointers, and managed to catch a Pikipek, a Flying-type Pokémon native to the Alola region. I named him Feathers, and wasted no time in introducing him to Scorch. I think they're going to get on really well and become a pretty inseparable double-act - I've already noticed that Scorch is managing to trick Feathers into doing silly things. Thankfully Feathers seems pretty well built, so he can handle himself in those situations. It's great seeing my first two Pokémon getting on so well.

We continued along Route 1, meeting a few trainers along the way who all seemed eager to battle with their own Pokémon. I fought a few of them and managed to come away victorious in every battle. One trainer in particular caught my attention - a Lass named Audrey, who said that her Caterpie had been caught by her father when she was born, and the two of them had been together ever since. It's a nice story, but I can't help thinking that she must be a pretty terrible trainer. I knew some Bug Catchers back in Kanto, from when I used to hang out in Viridian Forest after school. Most of those were half her age, and even they'd been able to get their Caterpie to evolve into Metapod, and even Butterfree in a couple of cases. Here's hoping she manages to raise that Caterpie with a little more love and care from now on.

It was late evening by the time Kukui and I finally made it to Iki Town. We were met by Kahuna Hala, who told me that I would be participating in the festival battle with his grandson Hau. It's strange how I barely know Hau and have already been pitted against him in battle twice - it's like he's becoming my own personal rival, just like the stories I used to hear about Red and Blue back in Kanto! Hau and I met up at the top end of town and had our ceremonial battle. He'd brought along a Pichu to accompany his Rowlet this time. You don't see many Pichu in Kanto, but I know enough about the species to know that Feathers wouldn't have been able to stand up to its Electric-type attacks. I kept Scorch on the offensive, taking down first Pichu and then Rowlet with a string of powerful Ember attacks. Scorch has a pretty good handle on using special attacks, although I feel like he's more of a physical battler overall. Hopefully he'll start learning some new moves to take advantage of that soon.

After our battle we heard Tapu Koko's cry of approval, and Kahuna Hala returned my sparkling stone to me in the shape of a Z Ring! Apparently it's something that only the Kahunas can craft, and moreover, to take full advantage of the power of the Z Ring, I should be considering taking part in the island challenge. Kukui seemed to think I'd do a pretty good job on the island challenge, and Mom agreed when I told her all about it after arriving home last night. I stayed up pretty late with Scorch and Feathers, trying to gauge what they thought about the whole thing. I'm pretty sure they're both keen to attempt the island challenge, and if my Pokémon believe that they're up to it, then I believe in them too.

This morning we were woken by yet another knock at our door, but it wasn't Professor Kukui this time - it was his assistant, Lillie, and her Pokémon Nebby. She explained that she'd been sent by Kukui to bring me to his lab, and that he couldn't come himself because he was in the middle of some important research. It's not far from our new house to Kukui's lab, so I made the short trip south, practising battling with Scorch and Feathers along the way. Scorch seemed pretty worried about the Water-type attacks of the Wingull and Slowpoke that congregate around Kukui's lab, but Feathers charged in head-on and always came out on top. He's a resilient little fighter, even if he is a bit reckless at times.

When we arrived at the lab, it became clear that Kukui's "research" was a bit more physical than I'd been expecting - he'd been tussling with his Rockruff to learn more about its moves, and the whole lab was in a state of total disarray. He laughed it off though, and finished his sparring to present me with two more gifts. The first was an upgrade to my Pokédex, making it compatible with the Pokémon Rotom - a "Rotom Dex", I think he called it. It's a bit strange having a living Pokédex in my bag, but hopefully I'll get used to it. It certainly comes with some really useful features, including a built-in map of the Alola region that should make getting around the islands much easier than it was to begin with. Second, after I confirmed that I wanted to take part in the island challenge, Kukui gave me a talisman to show my challenger status. Hau has one too, so I guess we'll be setting off on this challenge together.

Before that, though, there was one more place Kukui wanted me to visit - the local Trainers' School on Route 1. I spent most of the day there speaking with teachers and students alike, learning more of the basics and a couple more advanced techniques for battling with my Pokémon. At the end of the day, I was challenged to a battle by the school's head teacher to demonstrate everything that I'd learned. It was a tough battle, particularly against her Meowth, which didn't look or behave in the way that Mom's Meowth from Kanto does. Luckily I was able to stay on top and win the battle. As a reward for passing everything that was asked of me, I was presented with my first Technical Machine for TM01 - Work Up, and five Great Balls for catching stronger wild Pokémon. Having officially graduated from the Trainers' School, I headed back down Route 1 and rested Scorch and Feathers up at the nearby Pokémon Center while I grabbed a drink at the café. In fact, that's where I'm writing this entry right now!

So that's how I've spent my first few days in this incredible new region. I've already met loads of new people and Pokémon, and I'm ready to set out on my own journey to try and complete the island challenge. I'm due to meet Lillie at Hau'oli City soon, so I'd better stop writing, retrieve my Pokémon from the nurse, and get ready to go. Until next time Diary, Alola!

Here ends the first chapter of my Pokémon Sun Nuzlocke Challenge. At this point I'm just under three hours into the game, although I have been taking my time, exploring every nook and cranny of Melemele Island, and checking out all the new features in the game including the Festival Plaza (which I won't be writing about here). From a player's perspective, I really like the set-up for this new generation of Pokémon. It's moving pretty slowly at this early stage, with the lengthy tutorial process, but hopefully once we hit Hau'oli City things will open up a bit and we'll start to get some more captures coming our way. I just hope the random encounters favour the new Pokémon and Alolan variants, since I'd rather use those than end up stuck with the same old critters from previous games. But that's the beauty of the Nuzlocke format - having to take what you can get and make it work for you. Thanks very much for reading guys, I hope you've enjoyed this first instalment of this brand new series as much as I've enjoyed writing it. Take care, and until next week's blog, I'll see you around.

Daniel

---

Currently playing - Pokémon Sun (3DS)

Hey folks, and welcome to the final instalment of "Gotta Catch 'Em All!", a mini-series of blogs documenting my efforts to amass a complete living National Pokédex before the UK release of Pokémon Sun and Moon this Wednesday. If you've missed any of the previous entries in this little series, you can find the first part here, the second and third parts here, and the fourth and fifth parts here. Feel free to get caught up before diving deep on this concluding part of my journey...

Part Six - Raking In The BP

When I last touched base with you all, I had just five Pocket Monsters left to snare in order to complete my National Pokédex. These were:

All of these require held items in order to evolve. All of them except Gliscor need to be traded while holding these items. And with the exception of a Sachet for Aromatisse, I don't own the items I need to trigger these evolutions. On the plus side, there is one place in Kalos where an unlimited supply of these evolutionary items can be bought - the Battle Maison in Kiloude City, far to the south of the region. Unfortunately, there's also a down side. See, these items can't be purchased with regular ol' Poké Dollars. They have to be bought with a special currency called 'Battle Points', or BP for short. How does one earn BP? By taking part in consecutive battles in the Battle Maison.

I flew to Kiloude City and dumped all of my current crop of critters into the PC. Then I set about choosing an elite fighting force to take on the best that the Battle Maison has to offer. After some deliberation, I ended up opting for a team I trained a couple of years back specifically for online play. The team has a Mega Charizard Y at its core, and is designed to support and set up the perfect conditions for the incredible flying fire-breather to wreck house. It comprises a Galvantula, an Excadrill, a Tyrantrum, a Politoed, a Scrafty, and of course Charizard itself. It's a team I put a lot of preparation into, several hours of breeding, training, and refining of strategies. I took it online a few times and I was really impressed with how it performed, but sadly the arrival of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire meant the competitive scene moved on without me, leaving these fellows gathering dust in the PC ever since. Now it's time to bring them out of retirement.

I opted to participate in the Super Single Battle challenge at the Battle Maison, since Single Battles have historically been my forte and it therefore seems like the safest bet for quickly accruing BP. My optimism dissipated somewhat, however, when I realised that I'm only permitted to take three of my six Pokémon into the arena with me. Struggling to decide which three might have the best synergy, I ended up plumping for Galvantula, Politoed and Tyrantrum. I'll explain my general strategy below, so if anyone reading this isn't hugely into competitive Pokémon battling, know that you're safe to skip the next paragraph.

Galvantula is almost always my lead, so I equip him with a Focus Sash to try and counteract his frailty. He's very fast and packs a mean punch with his special attacks, but he doesn't stand up so great against super-effective hits, so this item gives him an almost-guaranteed two turns in battle. His moveset is Sticky Web (to slow opponents down on switching in), Bug Buzz (for reliable Bug-type STAB damage), Thunder (accuracy boosted from 70% to 91% thanks to its Compound Eyes Ability) and Volt Switch (to safely get out of harm's way while doing damage in the process). Politoed is a decent special wall, but I give her some Leftovers to improve her survivability. Her Drizzle Ability triggers rain whenever she switches into battle, which also turns Galvantula's Thunder into a fearsome never-miss attack. Her moveset is Protect (for scouting the enemy out), Substitute (useful for absorbing damage and extending HP recovery), Scald (STAB damage with a chance of inflicting a Burn) and Ice Beam (because Dragon-types are a thing). Finally, my Tyrantrum is a physical wall who holds a Rocky Helmet to ensure anything hitting him physically takes some damage back. His moveset consists of Stealth Rock (an entry hazard to ensure some damage to opponents on switching in), Crunch (a Dark-type move with good coverage and boosted by his Strong Jaw Ability), Dragon Claw and Stone Edge (both strong STAB moves to round out his moveset).

It's been a while since I battled in Pokémon with any semblance of strategy beyond "pick the move that's super-effective and spam it" (a habit reinforced by my hours upon hours of grinding in Victory Road for my last blog). Consequently, my first couple of battles were a bit rusty. I made silly mistakes and sacrified Pokémon where, in hindsight, there wasn't any need to. But, much like riding a bike, the competitive scene is something that never truly leaves you, or at least comes back to you pretty darn quickly. It wasn't long before I'd ironed out those silly errors and starting spotting the clear openings in the AI's (admittedly pretty solid) strategies. Then the wins (and the BP) started coming in thick and fast.

I needed a total of 144 BP to buy all four of the evolutionary items required - an Electirizer for Electivire, a Magmarizer for Magmortar, a Razor Fang for Gliscor, and a Whipped Dream for Slurpuff. The way BP are accrued in the Super Single Battle challenge means that the prize goes up for every ten consecutive wins - initially you get 2 BP per battle, but after ten wins this increases to 3 BP, then 4 BP after twenty wins, and so on. A loss breaks the chain, forcing you to start at the beginning again. By spending a few hours at the Battle Maison, I was able to chalk up three streaks of twenty-plus wins, comfortably earning me all the BP I needed to buy the evolutionary items from the kiosk, with a handful to spare as well. With all the items secured in my bag, I set about making the preparations for the final leg of this journey.

Part Seven - Everything Is Better With Friends

With my new items weighing me down, I headed back to the Pokémon Center and opened up the PC. I gave the Electirizer to my Electabuzz, the Magmarizer to my Magmar, the Razor Fang to my Gligar, the Sachet to my Spritzee and the Whipped Dream to my Swirlix. I whipped out Gligar and put him in my party, ready to level up at night. But before I do that, I hopped onto Facebook and buzzed a message around my friends to see who would be able to do some essential eleventh-hour trading with me.

One of the best things about Pokémon, in my opinion, is its ethics of friendship and social interaction. Not just in the games themselves, which frequently extol the virtues of cooperation between people and Pokémon throughout their stories, but in the simple act of playing as well. The fact the games encourage interaction with other players through their trading and battling mechanics is one of the most amazing and (I think) genuinely underrated aspects of the franchise. Pokémon becomes so much more when it's shared with friends, something that I first experienced over fifteen years ago on the school playground, and had almost forgotten about until X and Y came out in 2013 and pulled me and a big group of my current friends back in. It's one of the things I think I'm going to miss most about playing Sun and Moon, since most of that group of friends won't be picking the games up at launch with me.

But for now, at least, there are still a few trainers out there who I can rely on to come to my aid. My friend Duncan agreed to help out, and we met up over the weekend to carry out those crucial trade-evolutions. It was important to me that we did it in person. Partly because I was able to glance over at his screen and see my bases evolving into Electivire, Magmortar, Aromatisse and Slurpuff. But also because it was about more than the game we were playing. As our Pokémon passed back and forth through the ether of infrared communications, we shot the shit and caught up on other things. I asked how his new job was going, and wished him luck for his upcoming date. It wasn't just trading Pokémon, it was a social event. It was awesome.

After all the trading was complete, there was one final job to be done. With the Razor Fang Gligar in my party, supported by my trusty Greninja, and with Duncan still hovering over my shoulder, I headed north to the highest point in Kiloude City, and engaged my in-game rival Serena in battle. My Greninja made light work of her whole team, with only her Clefable's Moonblast causing me any real problems. When the battle was over, Gligar evolved into Gliscor. Duncan and I both cheered. After weeks of work, I'd finally achieved my aim of a complete living National Pokedex.

...or at least, as much as I can at this point. There's still a gaping hole in the #648 slot, but with the Meloetta distribution beginning in just over a week, there's nothing that can stop me from completing the 'dex now. It's been one hell of a ride, and I'm thrilled to bits to be in this position after so long. It's a childhood dream, achieved at last. And boy, does it feel good!

Where do I go from here? To be honest I'm still trying to work that one out. Sun and Moon are now less than forty-eight hours away, and I'm keen to jump straight in and experience the Alola region for myself. I'm also pretty keen to document that experience in some way, and the thing that I'm leaning towards right now is a weekly blog series chronicling my time with the game. More specifically, I'm thinking about attempting a blind Nuzlocke of Pokémon Sun, and writing about my adventures in an episodic manner similar to my FireRed Nuzlocke Challenge from a couple of years ago. It would be really interesting going into a Nuzlocke completely blind and not knowing what the game is going to throw at me next. If you guys have any thoughts on the matter, be sure to let me know.

And on that note, I'm going to check out. Thanks so much for reading guys, and an extra special thank-you if you've stuck around for this whole series. I appreciate this hasn't been my finest hour of bloggery, but it's been good to flex the ol' writing muscles on a semi-regular basis and actually get something done. Hopefully this is just a taste of what's to come with the impending, inevitable Sun and Moon-based series. Until next time, take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

---

Currently playing - Pokémon Y (3DS)

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

---

Currently playing - Pokémon Y (3DS)

Hey folks, and welcome to another instalment of "Gotta Catch 'Em All!", a series of blogs chronicling my efforts to complete a living National Pokédex before the release of Pokémon Sun and Moon later this month. If you missed my first entry from last week, you can find it here. For those of you who are all caught up, let's get this underway, shall we?

Part Two - Well Begun Is Half Done

Something I realised that I didn't do in my previous blog was provide a comprehensive list of every Pokémon that I was missing. "I couldn't possibly do that", I thought, "it would take up a ridiculous amount of screen space and make the blog post incredibly long and unwieldy."

...then I remembered that the Giant Bomb text editor supports tables. Have I ever mentioned how much I love the Giant Bomb text editor? It's awesome. Anyway, here's a full list of all the Pokémon currently missing from my "living Pokédex" (not counting Meloetta for the reasons outlined in my last entry):

Following on from the calculations I made in my last blog, I set about reducing this list of Pokémon as rapidly as I could. The first (and easiest) step was to very quickly catch three missing Pokémon that are very readily available in Pokémon Y - namely Burmy, Riolu and Zweilous. I managed to pick up a Burmy on Route 3, a Riolu on Route 22, and a Zweilous in Victory Road, all without any great difficulty, cutting my required total down from eighty-one to seventy-eight. While in Victory Road, I also conveniently snagged a Lickitung to use as a 'base' for my Lickilicky.

My next step was to start evolving all the 'bases' I already had waiting in my PC. As I explained in my previous blog, 'base' is a term I'll be using throughout this blog series to refer to a spare Pokémon sitting in my PC that has the potential to evolve into something I need. For example, at this stage in the proceedings, I had two Minccino boxed in my PC - one which takes the Minccino spot in my living 'dex, and one eventually intended for evolution. This second Minccino was therefore a 'base' for a Cinccino. At this point I had twenty-three 'bases' ready to raise to the point of evolution. I began with the ones that required straightforward levelling, employing my trusty level 100 Greninja, my starter from my original playthrough of Y, on an expedition into Victory Road. My Greninja, which boasts a comprehensive special-sweeping moveset of Surf, Dark Pulse, Ice Beam and Extrasensory, can one-hit KO every single enemy inside Victory Road (except those pesky Geodude and Graveler with their Sturdy ability, of course). With the Exp Share turned on and a bevy of Lucky Eggs for my 'mons to hold, it wasn't long before I'd added Gabite, Toxicroak, Abomasnow, Pignite, Swanna, Vanillish, Sawsbuck, Fraxure, Braviary, Quilladin, Pyroar, Pangoro, Meowstic, Malamar and Barbaracle to my living Pokédex. That's another fifteen down, with sixty-three to go.

Of my eight remaining 'bases', I was able to quickly deal with six. A Soothe Bell helped to turn my spare Chingling into a Chimecho, and a brief visit to the Move Reminder to learn Rollout allowed me to turn my new Lickitung into a Lickilicky. Another four were sorted with evolution stones - a Dusk Stone, a Moon Stone and two Shiny Stones yielded Mismagius, Musharna, Cinccino and Florges respectively. That left just two of my original batch of 'bases', both of which I'm still yet to attempt anything with because they require a little more input than just levelling or chucking a stone on them. These are Gligar and Swirlix - I need to acquire a Razor Fang for the former, which is going to cost a bomb at the Battle Maison, and although I own the Whipped Dream required to evolve the latter, it requires a trade, which I'm putting off for the time being. Even so, that's an impressive total of twenty-four Pokémon obtained with minimal work, leaving just fifty-seven left to get:

Part Three - A Breeding Egg-stravaganza

Having achieved as much as I could with my existing set of 'bases', the next step on my journey was to set about acquiring all the 'bases' I didn't already have. While some of these were readily available to capture in Kalos and Hoenn, I instead elected to take the breeding route. I slapped a Ditto in the Day-Care on Route 7, and spent a few hours pairing it up with an assortment of unlikely partners. In the past I've likened Ditto to a pimp due to its utility as a breeding Pokémon, but this was more a case of straight-up sex slavery. No sooner had one egg appeared at the Day-Care than I'd swapped out its parent for another kind of Pokémon. I also elected to hatch as I bred, keeping a Magcargo with the Magma Armor ability at the front of the party to 'incubate' the eggs and speed up hatching times. I settled into a nice little rhythm, picking up new eggs as existing ones hatched, and it wasn't long before the seemingly arduous task was complete.

My lengthy breeding sessions provided me with all fifty-five of the remaining 'bases' I didn't already have. Where possible I switched these newly hatched critters around in my PC, swapping them for slightly more mature counterparts who are closer to meeting their evolution requirements. This should minimise the amount of time I'll need to spend battling in order to evolve everything. Of course, some of the Pokémon I required at this stage were first-forms of evolutionary lines - I was able to tick off Finneon, Oshawott, Solosis, Shelmet and Deino simply by hatching them from their eggs. This puts us at twenty-nine Pokémon acquired with fifty-two remaining, a little over a third of the way through the challenge with twelve days to go:

I think that about covers my progress up to this point. "What's next?" I hear you cry. Well, the plan from here is to return to the power-levelling strategy used in Part Two. I'm once again in a position where I have a ton of 'bases' ready to evolve, and I'll once again be taking a similar approach to prioritising them. First up will be the 'mons that evolve through straightforward levelling, which I'll once again be doing through my tried-and-tested Greninja/Victory Road method. After that I'll focus on the straight-up stone evolutions, although this is likely to mean getting caught up in some Super Training to acquire all the stones I'll need. Third up will be the more complex level-based evolutions involving learning specific moves, and the final batch will be the most difficult of all - trade-based evolutions and those involving items that I need to buy with BP at the Battle Maison. I've still got a long way to go, but I'm feeling quietly confident that I can pull it off before Sun and Moon roll around on the 23rd.

As always, thanks very much to you guys for reading this blog post. Your readership is hugely appreciated, as is your interaction - it was awesome to get so many comments on the first entry in this mini-series. You can expect the next one of these to land at some point next week. when I'll be updating you all on how my progress is going will the final fifty-two. Until then, thanks again for reading, take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

---

Currently playing - Pokémon Y (3DS)

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 a problem.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

---

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

Hey there folks. It's been a while, hasn't it? I hope you're all keeping well, and have been playing tons of those awesome video game things. In case you hadn't worked it out yet, it's me, The Artist Formerly Known As 'dankempster', back from the dead and ready to blog once more. The name change is a minor one and it doesn't signify a change of style or approach, it's more an attempt to breathe some fresh life into this account, as well as unifying my online presence with some of my other accounts. Time will tell whether it works, but for now at least, it's a joy to be returning to the Giant Bomb blogosphere. It's been a long time since my last post (over seven months, to be precise), a lot has happened, and I have a lot to talk about. I also have a ridiculous amount of content to catch up on, from staff and users alike (apparently @zombiepie played Final Fantasy VII? I've got to get in on that).

So what's new with me? Thanks for asking, reader! There have been a few personal developments away from the controller for me this year, some good and some not so good. Definitely the hardest has been coming to terms with the loss of both my grandfathers - my mum's father passed away back in February, and my grandad on my dad's side left us in August. I've always been close with my grandparents, so it's been tough adjusting to life without them, particularly on my mum's side as we try to support my surviving grandmother in his absence.

The other big development in my life is a much happier one. Back in February I met a woman named Alice through a mutual friend. We hit it off straight away thanks to our shared interests in music and creative passions. In April, we agreed to give things a shot and now, six months later, we're still together and couldn't be happier. In fact, Monday marked our six-month-iversary. It's an incredibly big deal for me to be in this situation, as after the tumultuous breakdown of my last relationship almost five years ago, I'd all but given up hope on finding love again. She's an amazing woman and I can't believe how lucky I am to know her and be with her.

Beyond those developments, my life is much the same as it was before. I'm still working in the health service at a local doctors' practice, doing pretty crippling hours due to staff shortages and extra responsibilities. When I'm not there I'm splitting my time between my family, Alice, and my big passions of writing and music. On the writing front, I'm close to finishing work on the first draft of my first novel, The Hawker. It's been slow going these last few months, finding the time and the motivation to write, but I'm hoping that I'll have a finished first draft completed by the end of the year. Music-wise I'm wrapping up work on the music and lyrics for my second album, Midnight Son, and I'm hoping to get the first bits of recording done when I have a week off work next month. In addition to this, I've also taken over the captaincy of my local darts team, which brings even more responsibilities to worry about.

Things have been so hectic in my personal life that I've had very little time to devote to the passion that keeps us all coming back to Giant Bomb - video games. It's just been difficult to find the time to sit down with anything in between all my other commitments and pursuits. So far this year I've only managed to beat a paltry eight games, at an embarrassing rate of less than one title a month. It's definitely been my least active year for gaming since joining Giant Bomb way back in 2008, but that's not to say it's been completely devoid of action... or adventure... or role playing. Join me as I dig a little deeper into what I've been playing over the last six months.

The Pile of Shame

Regular readers of my blog posts will be familiar with my Pile of Shame, the name given to the metaphorical mountain of unfinished games that inhabit my collection. For several years, that Pile has been documented in list form here on Giant Bomb. However, a couple of months ago I made the very difficult decision to migrate my list over to the Backloggery. Giant Bomb's list feature just isn't flexible enough to suit my needs these days, unfortunately. It was a pretty laborious process rebuilding the Pile essentially from scratch, and the result is a list that's almost twice as long as my old one. It's going to require a lot of whittling down, but I feel like the end result will ultimately be worth it, as it'll give me a list that's eminently more searchable and customisable in the long run. Will it help me finish more games? I guess time will tell. Sadly I'm not embarking on a 'Backlogtober' effort this year due to everything else being so on top of me, but I think there's definitely plenty of scope to get that Unbeaten number down below 300 before the year is out.

Jak II HD

While waiting for this year's Ratchet & Clank remake to launch (more on that in a bit), I decided to prepare myself for a bit of old-school PS2-era character action by revisiting Jak II: Renegade, this time via the slightly shinier and slicker HD version released as part of the Jak & Daxter HD trilogy on PS3. I loved Jak II way back when it originally came out in 2003... Wait, did this really come out half my life ago? Dang, I'm gettin' old. Anywho, the point I'm trying to get at is, I don't think time has been as kind to Jak II as it's been to its purer platforming predecessor, or its mechanically refined sequel. Viewed with more cynical eyes, Jak II clearly borrows more from the trend-setting PS2-era Grand Theft Auto games than it ever really needed to, and with the exception of some tedious treasure hunting and street races, it does very little to justify its shoehorned-in open-world trappings. It's also incredibly difficult, reducing this usually calm player to bouts of controller-endangering frustration on more than one occasion. Having said that, it's still mechanically sound and the core platforming and combat are fun to engage with. It's also gorgeous, especially in high definition, and when it isn't trying painfully hard to be dark and edgy, it's still pretty damn funny and charming. In retrospect it's a tough one to recommend to others who don't have history with the franchise, but I'm glad I returned to Jak II.

Ratchet & Clank

I managed to beat Jak II just in time for Ratchet & Clank's release and immediately swapped one of Sony's early-noughties mascots for the other. As someone who has a special degree of affection for the original Ratchet & Clank, I was very impressed to see just how faithful Insomniac managed to remain to that game while still succeeding in turning this re-imagining into its own thing. It hits a lot of the source material's most memorable beats in its first half, then backs those up with a whole lot of awesome new content through its back end. The arsenal of weaponry draws on the best parts of the entire franchise, which is an inspired move, although long-time fans of the series will no doubt have their own individual disappointments by omission (mine being the Suck Cannon). Furthermore, the game is abso-Blargin'-lutely gorgeous in a way that I don't think any other game has ever pulled off. Seriously, I expect to see this thing mentioned in some graphical categories come Game of the Year time. If I had to list one disappointment, it would be the game's length, which runs to about half the time of its PS2 inspiration. I didn't have a whole heap of time to devote to Ratchet & Clank, but I was still able to beat the game, dive back in for Challenge Mode, and walk away with all but a handful of its Trophies in just over two weeks. Even with this major shortcoming though, if this is what the future holds for the Lombax and robot, then sign me up for their next adventure now.

...oh, and on a side note, I also saw the film. It's solid, but nothing special. Fans of the games will find a lot to like in there, but there are a ton of other much better kids' films to see over this one.

Dragon Quest

After Ratchet & Clank was done with, I hit a bit of a gaming drought. A combination of lack of time and lack of motivation left me unable to devote any great length of time to sitting at a screen for a good couple of months. I dipped in and out of Pokémon Omega Ruby to train up some more critters and further expand my Pokédex, and I started a very on-and-off relationship with Wild ARMs (more on that later), Ultimately though, it was Dragon Quest that brought the rains and ended my dry spell. Back in July I got a new phone with an Android operating system, and was pleasantly surprised to find almost the entire Dragon Quest franchise up for sale on the Google Play store. I picked up DQs I through VI at the start of August, and within a few days was taking my first tentative steps through the very first game in the series. It took a few weeks, but I eventually made it to the Dragonlord's lair, took him down, and restored peace to the kingdom.

The original Dragon Quest is an oddity to play thirty years on from its original release. Even by the series' conservative standards, it's incredibly basic - fights are never more than one-on-one, there are only a handful of skills and spells, and the gameworld is small and sparsely populated. But, in spite of all this, I got a real buzz from playing it. Right from the start there's a distinct lack of direction, something that usually puts me off in games like this, but in Dragon Quest it just felt right. It brought a real sense of exploration and discovery to my time with the game, as I gradually grew stronger and was able to safely wander further and further from the starting town. It made every new discovery that much more meaningful, and every new conquest that much more satisfying. I'm not saying Dragon Quest is a great game, because to be honest I'm not even sure it's a good one. It's very grind-heavy, very simplistic, and often very obtuse. But for all these flaws, it was the right game for me, the game I needed at this point in time to remind me why I fell in love with this medium in the first place. I know Dragon Quest II and its other sequels won't be like this, and to be honest that makes me feel reluctant to dive into another DQ game right now. I just know that I'll be savouring this experience for a while to come.

Gone Home

From a game that took me a few weeks of short-burst play sessions to complete, to a game I finished in a single sitting one afternoon. Gone Home was one of the free games with PlayStation Plus recently, and I decided to fire it up one rainy weekend and check out what it had to offer. My experience with interactive narratives like this is pretty limited, with Dear Esther being the only other one I'd played before this, but I found a lot to like in Gone Home's approach to storytelling. Much like Dragon Quest, it fulfilled a need for exploration and discovery, encouraging the player to pick up and manipulate objects to reveal new clues, and rewarding them with morsels of story in the form of BioShock-style audio logs. The old mansion is a perfect environment for exploration, with its secret panels and hidden passages. It took me a while to see where the story was going, but I found the conclusion satisfying without being too neat and clean-cut. Gone Home ended up being the perfect game for a rainy afternoon. If interactive narratives are your thing then you've probably already played this, but if for some reason you haven't then I recommend it without reservation.

Wild ARMs

Wild ARMs took me almost four months of on-and-off gameplay to beat. That's not an indictment of its quality as a game, more just a by-product of the circumstances I found myself in as I played it. Much like Dragon Quest, it's a traditional Japanese RPG that encourages exploration and revels in turn-based combat mechanics. It also has a pretty damn cool pseudo-Western aesthetic that sets it apart from the rest of the crowd in a way that, unfortunately, its mechanics never really do. I wasn't even sure if I liked Wild ARMs until I was about halfway through my thirty-hour adventure on the planet of Filgaia, purely because so much of its structure is so unremarkable. Thankfully the game really opens up in its second half, forcing the player to explore the gameworld and speak with its inhabitants in order to deduce where the story is heading next. It's not particularly challenging (I came up against two Game Over screens in all of the time I spent with it), and there's not a great deal of depth to the combat, but the solid mechanics and charming aesthetic were enough to persuade me to see it through to the end. I'm not sure if I'd be willing to make a return trip to Filgaia for a sequel (although Wild ARMs 3 is now available on the PlayStation Store as a PS2 Classic for PS4), but I'm glad to finally tick this one off my embarrassingly long list of popular JRPGs I really should have played by now. Next up? Geez, I don't know... Suikoden, maybe?

---

I think that covers just about everything, game-related and otherwise. Right now I'm not really playing anything seriously. I'm kind of biding my time waiting for Pokémon Sun and Moon to launch next month, and keeping myself occupied with low-intensity games like Animal Crossing: New Leaf in the meantime. That being said, I'm always open to recommendations, so if you see anything listed on my Backloggery that you think I should proritise, just hit me up with a comment below or a direct message. It's been really cathartic getting back into the blogging mindset, and I promise it won't be seven months before I get around to writing another one of these. Thanks very much for reading guys, Take care, and I'll see you around.

Daniel

---

Currently playing - Animal Crossing: New Leaf (3DS)

I'm not in the habit of writing speculatory blogs. It's something I've only done once before that I can recall, having put together some brief expectations for Grand Theft Auto V around the time of that game's announcement back in late 2011. As I outlined in that blog, these wishlist-type things invariably seem to have the quality of screaming blindly into a void, with inevitable disappointment the only likely outcome. I still hold that viewpoint, although in retrospect it is fun to look back on just how many of my hopes for GTAV came true - we got a more vibrant city, some interesting open-world distractions, fantastic complex mission structures in the form of heists, and a ton of stuff to spend our ill-gotten gains on. It's a shame my pipe dream of Chinatown Wars-style car chases never came to fruition, but on the whole, I think I did a pretty good job.

So what's got me back on the speculators' bandwagon? Simple - my baptism and rebirth as a true-blue Pokémaniac. Back when GTAV was announced in 2011, I'd convinced myself that I'd outgrown Pokémon off the back of a particularly underwhelming playthrough of Pokémon White (still my least-favourite generation to this day. I even went as far as writing a blog post proclaiming the series as 'not for you any more', by far my most inflammatory blog ever, and one I no longer completely agree with (although I think it still stands as an important argument in the face of people looking for drastic structural and mechanical changes from the franchise). Everything changed in 2013, when I embarked on an epic quest to finally catch 'em all. On that journey I became aware of the incredible mechanical depth of the franchise, and from there I never looked back. Almost three years later I've played offerings from every single generation in the franchise's history, I've trained incredible competitive teams and led them to impressive victories, I've embarked on multiple Nuzlocke runs and documented them in both blog and video form. All this and I still haven't completed my National Pokédex (although with the Mythical Pokémon distributions scheduled throughout this year, it hopefully won't be too long before I do).

I'm no longer just a fan of the Pokémon games, I'm part of a wider community. And if there's one thing I've learned about the Pokémon community during my time as part of it, it's that they sure do love to speculate. With the announcement of Pokémon Sun and Moon in yesterday's Pokémon Direct, I began musing on what the next generation of Nintendo's ongoing collect-a-thon might bring to the table. Obviously we have nothing to go on at this point except for the logos for the two versions and some brief flashes of concept art in yesterday's Pokémon Direct, so all of what I'm about to write below is pure speculation. Nonetheless, I thought it might be fun to put some of my thoughts down in words and see how on- or off-point I was when the games finally roll around this holiday season. I've tried to keep things relatively low-key and realistic, because as I touched on in my aforementioned 'Pokémon Isn't For You Any More' blog, there are certain cornerstones of the series that won't ever change due to its perennial status as 'My First JRPG'. Join me, and perhaps let me know some of your own hopes for the seventh generation of Pokémon in the comments below.

Two Distinct Stories

I want to start this point by clarifying what I mean by 'distinct' in this case. I am not expecting two completely different stories, because there's no precedent for that whatsoever. Paired Pokémon games have always followed the exact same story path, with minor differences in their specifics. I'm not expecting Sun and Moon to break that pattern - they will inevitably tell variations of the same story, because that's the way it's been since Gold and Silver. What I mean by 'distinct' here is that I would like Pokémon Sun and Moon to have a clear divergence between their stories, where one goes one way and one goes another, until some form of resolution ties their story threads back together. For a clearer picture of what I'm getting at here, take Ruby and Sapphire as examples. Those games had distinct differences in their stories catering to their specific legendary Pokémon - Kyogre's awakening caused torrential rain, while Groudon's caused a ceaseless heatwave. I'd like to see Sun and Moon take a similar approach, maybe using day and night as the dichotomy - have one legendary Pokémon bring about a never-ending day with a sun that never sets, and the other cause an endless night where the sun never rises. It makes the games feel more distinct from one another, something sorely missing from X and Y which played identically from start to finish.

Two Evil Teams

Following on from my last point, I expect to see not one but two evil teams in Sun and Moon. For simplicity's sake, let's hypothetically refer to them as Team Solar and Team Lunar (you can have those ones for nothing, Game Freak). Much like Teams Magma and Aqua in Ruby and Sapphire, I envision Teams Solar and Lunar being diametrically opposed to one another, but fulfilling similar roles to each other in their respective versions. I think it's a much better approach than that taken since Diamond and Pearl, which has seen both games in each pair feature a single evil team (Galactic, Plasma and Flare), with a single nebulous goal that can be applied to either legendary mascot. I want to see two evil teams clashing with each other, pointing out each other's ridiculous plans while remaining ironically oblivious to how similarly ridiculous their own plans are. It makes for a really neat three-way dynamic where the player takes the middle road, rather than a straight-forward, boring, good-versus-evil story.

Two Regions

This is probably my most outlandish hope for Sun and Moon, and yet the more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense to me. What I'd like to see is for Sun and Moon to take place in a region neighbouring Kalos, perhaps one based on Spain or Italy,or even the UK. Then, when the player beats the Elite Four, they're able to travel to Kalos and continue their adventure. There's certainly precedent for it, with Gold and Silver's memorable post-game return to Kanto. There's also a whole host of auxiliary evidence to support the theory, too. The next Pokémon movie will likely be a crossover featuring both sixth- and seventh-generation Pokémon (notably Volcanion and the recently-revealed Magearna). Zygarde, the third member of sixth-gen's 'XYZ' trio, has a host of form changes which have been leaked but are yet to be officially revealed in-game. There are NPCs in X and Y that claim to be from a region near to Kalos that isn't currently known to us. These little tidbits are just a few of the many compelling arguments for a return to Kalos being on the agenda for seventh-gen. It would also be the perfect response to the general perception among players that X and Y lacked post-game content.

Full Reinstatement of the Day/Night Cycle

Some of you may wonder what I'm going on about here. Along with breeding, the day/night cycle has been a mainstay of the Pokémon franchise since the second generation, with FireRed and LeafGreen being the only exceptions. But over time the impact of that day/night cycle on the game has dwindled somewhat. It used to have a bearing on the kinds of Pokémon that would appear in any given area - some Grass-types might appear in the morning with the rising sun, then become unavailable to catch at night, replaced by nocturnal Pokémon once the sun sets - but that hasn't been the case since fourth-gen at this point. It's a shame, because these shifts in the kinds of Pokémon available gave the games a more immersive quality, lending some authenticity to their ecosystems, not to mention encouraging the player to revisit the same areas at different times of day to search for new kinds of Pokémon to add to their collection. With the upcoming games actually referring to day and night in their names, I think seventh-gen would be the perfect time to reinstate the full depth of the day/night cycle to the series. Especially if, as I said in my first point, day and night are connected with the game's story in any way. While they're at it, why not reintroduce the seasons from Black and White as well?

New (Mega) Evolutions

This is without a doubt the most likely thing to happen on this list. I was initially sceptical when Mega Evolution was announced, thinking it a gimmicky addition to the franchise. In practice it's actually been an awesome inclusion, giving a much-needed competitive boost to some underwhelming Pokémon and accompanying them with usually great aesthetic overhauls as well. There will inevitably be more Mega Evolutions for existing Pokémon in Sun and Moon, but I hope that any new Mega Evolutions stick to that creed of giving a fresh lease of life to older, less viable 'mons. High on my list for Mega Evolution hopefuls in seventh-gen are Sandslash, Granbull, Luxray and Froslass. That being said, I also wouldn't mind seeing some older Pokémon getting proper evolutions, or even baby forms, provided Game Freak can be creative about it. And heck, while we're on the subject, another Eeveelution or two wouldn't go amiss either.

Also, if Solrock and Lunatone don't get version-exclusive Mega Evolutions in Sun and Moon, then Game Freak will have missed one hell of a trick.

---

I think that's going to do it for this blog. As I said above, this is purely speculation and meant to be taken with several grains of salt, but I'd like to think there's some merit to at least one or two of these ideas. If you're as hyped by the announcement of Sun and Moon as I am, please feel free to join in the speculation and throw your own crazy thoughts into the fray via the comments section below, because I'm definitely up for discussion on this topic. Until next time, thanks very much for reading. Take care, and I'll see you around.

Dan

---

Currently playing - The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (PC)