No, there most certainly is not. I beat the 6th gym a few days ago – wait, google tells me it’s actually the 7th gym that I beat, and I completely skipped the sixth one. Anyway, I have six gym badges. My most recent is from the old pyromaniac with all the quizzes on Cinnabar Island, but I guess I skipped Sabrina in Saffron City. I think she’s psychic type?
There’s also this guy, I don’t remember what his name is but clearly he’s a ninja master. He’s the poison type 4th (?) gym leader.
To be honest, it took as many hours for me to get from the 5th gym to the 6th (or 7th, as the case may be) as the entire first half of the game, so anything that happened before gym #5 is a bit of a blur. This game is truly bizarre, I can’t say it enough. I could list off reasons for an entire post, but I’ll mention a couple of my favorite ones here.
First of all, there is an unfathomable preponderance of poison types throughout the entire game, but particularly the mid-game. I sincerely believe that in the course of my past 10 hours played, I’ve used an average of 5-10 antidotes (item that heals your Pokemon from poison) an HOUR. Part of this stems from the fact that, I guess because dark-type Pokemon didn’t yet exist in this generation, Team Rocket (the bad guys) exclusively use poison types (other than Rattata), of which there are many in the game.
Compounded by the fact that the mid-game involves going nearly straight from one Team Rocket base to their absolutely colossal headquarters — where by a conservative estimate you need to fight 30-40 Team Rocket grunts — the tidal wave of poison is relentless. And then you have the poison-type GYM in the middle of this, not to mention all of the random trainers you encounter on the map who often have poison-types. Many of my amusement and bemusement with this game comes from personal taste, but I truly believe that the poison issue is a case of poor game design.
Secondly, I discussed in the previous post the absurdity of Lt. Surge being the ‘Lightning American’ and saying he used electric-type Pokemon to paralyze his enemies in ‘the war.’ But what I’d forgotten is that the game’s references to real-world places do not stop there. Thus far, I’ve encountered two other real-world mentions.
The first is a Silph Co. scientist who chose to work for Team Rocket at their Saffron City HQ, rather than be sent off to “Tiksi branch.” I’ll let him tell you where Tiski branch is.
Then, there’s the fact that the legendary Pokemon Mew was discovered on an expedition in the jungles of Guyana, which may be one of the funniest things I’ve ever encountered in a Pokemon game.
There is a certain grittiness and at times sardonic humor to this game that I do not believe is replicated anywhere else in the series. I’m not saying the other Pokemon games don’t also get heavy or dark or wry, but this one does so in a different way. The dialogue and the setup of some of the dungeons feels more like a traditional and far less ‘kid-friendly’ ’90s RPG. It even evokes a certain feeling not dissimilar to Goldeneye ’64, or TimeSplitters, or some other game about spies and death and Cold War international intrigue.
But lest we forget, this is not really a game about any of those things. No, this is a game about MANIACS!
We’ve got PC MANIACS.
We’ve got POKEMANIACS.
I’m also not sure what any of that means, but what I do know is that it takes two points to make a line, therefore this game is clearly about maniacs.
At no point is the guy above identified by the game as a maniac, but this is textbook maniac behavior.
Oh yeah, and I also spent a grand total of two hours trying to catch the legendary bird Pokemon Articuno and Zapdos, with nothing to show for it but the picture below because I was not able to catch either of them despite getting each one asleep at negligible remaining HP and using ultra balls. So, that was enriching.
Yes, this is quite the game, and Celio is quite the man. And at this rate, it may be another 20 hours until I finish the game. Right now, I’m out in the archipelago east (?) of Cinnabar island, and I cannot stress enough that I truly have no idea where the 8th gym is. I really don’t even remember this whole part of the game.
Below, please see my progress in the game, and my current team. See you next time.
midnightstatic 