One of the fun things that Pokémon Silver introduced was the day/night cycle. This concept also introduced Pokémon that were only obtainable during certain times of day. One of the examples is Hoothoot the owl who only shows up at night but also a Pokémon like Ledyba who would only show up during the morning hours.
I’m kind of sad they have mostly let go of this concept in later generations. Ofcourse Sun & Moon have a day/night cycle of their own and it influences the Pokémon that spawn. But night exclusive Pokémon or morning exclusive Pokémon have become a thing of the past.

Another thing I had forgotten about this game is how grindy it actually is compared to the last few generations. Pokémon take way longer to level up, everything hits you harder and there is no party-wide experience share to be had early on. I’m now a little over 2.5 hours into the game and I’ve just cleared my way through the Bellsprout tower in Violet City aswell as beating the first Gym leader: Falkner.

Bellsprout tower is kinda fun. It’s basically a tower which has a swaying pillar in the middle and is filled with monk trainers who all use.. Bellsprouts. It’s really the place you want to go before you challenge the Pokémon Gym to train all your Pokémon to around level 10. It’s also one of the few places in the game where you can catch Ghastly, which I did. After defeating all the Bellsprout using monks you end up at the head monk who has just battled your rival. You see a bit of dialogue, your rival disappears and you can challenge the guy so you can earn your first HM of the game: Flash.
Bossmonk (that’s how I called him atleast) uses three Pokémon: two level 7 Bellsprouts, who were easily dealt with by my Pidgey and a level 10 Hoothoot that I killed with my Cyndaquil (Quill). He hands you a HM for Flash and you can use an Escape Rope in the corner to get out of the tower faster than when you’d have to walk back through all the rooms.

After I was done there I headed to the Pokémon Gym to earn my first badge.
Falkner uses Bird Pokémon and, especially if you’ve chosen Chikorita at the start, is quite a tough cookie to beat. You don’t have any reliable Bird Pokémon counters at this point and really have to brute force your way through this Gym. Make no mistakes, this isn’t the stomp that you expect it to be even if the Pokémon used aren’t over level 9. The first trainer in the Gym uses a level 9 Spearow who easily 3-shot my Sentret if I had allowed it. Peck does ridiculous amounts of damage at this stage in the game and I almost lost a Pokémon to it, even though it was on the same level. The second trainer has two level 7 Pidgeys and is a bit easier to take on. Falkner himself has a level 7 Pidgey and a level 9 Pidgeotto (yes I know, he cheats!). He doesn’t use any potions on his Pokémon and I used Quill to beat the Pidgeotto at the end.
Once you’re done and defeated Falkner you get to use your newly obtained HM and he gifts you a TM to teach one of your Pokémon Mud-Slap. I’ve chosen to hold on to this TM for now seeing as it’s a one time use still in these games and I wouldn’t want to teach it to the wrong Pokémon.
Stepping outside of the Gym I got a call from professor Elm. He discovered something new about the Pokémon Egg you delivered to him at the start of the game and he’s sent his assistant to hand the Egg over to you. They want you to hatch it and then report back.
I wonder what Pokémon will hatch from it…

My team after beating the first Pokémon gym!

I stopped playing after that but I did want to share my current team with you guys. As you can see 5 active Pokémon. Sentret the Sentret, Quill the Cyndaquil, Flycatcher the Bellsprout, Duiffie the Pidgey and Ghastly the Ghastly. I actually forgot to give my Ghastly a new name. There is a chance I will later on in the game and change it to “Spookster” just because I can. Personally I feel like I’m starting to have a well rounded team. There’s a Fire and Grass Pokémon, a Ghost Pokémon and a Normal and Flying. I want to get atleast a Water Pokémon in as replacement for Sentret later on and after the Egg has hatched I need to think about what I want for 6th Pokémon. I’m doubting between an Ice, Electric or Rock for now. I guess I’ll see how the game evolves.

See you next installment!

Last friday one of my favourite childhood games came out as virtual console game for the 3DS: Pokémon Silver.
I’ve talked about my love of the Pokémon games before, I have played every generation (and now I can honestly say that because I have White 2) and sunk a lot of hours into every game that came into my hands. I’m currently at 42 hours played in my Pokémon Moon and I’m only halfway through the Pokédex and I’m still playing regularly and I hope to “finish” the game before Ultrasun comes out. I have atleast 50 hours clocked in almost every Pokémon game and currently the savefile that is longest is Pokémon Black, with over 70 hours played. I’m pretty sure my original Blue playthrough and my original Silver file were atleast 50+ hours aswell, however I’ve saved over Blue and my original Silver cartridge doesn’t work anymore, so I can’t really check.
Out of the entire series Silver has always been my favourite. I really liked the story and being able to catch Lugia. The game was massive at the time and I remember playing it a lot. So when they announced they’d be bringing Gold and Silver to the 3DS I was super happy. It gave me the chance to relive the game again, like Blue, and hopefully capture some of the magic I had as a 11-year old playing this game.

Now comes the really interesting part. Silver is one of the games where the amount of Pokémon is still somewhat manageable. I think the Pokédex consists of 252 Pokémon total, instead of the crazy 800+ we have now. I also want to write more on my blog and I figured, why don’t I combine playing Pokémon Silver again with blogging about it? And thus my new series is born: Pokémon Playthrough. And today will be the first entry. So without further ado…

I’ve only played about 15 minutes so far to get started with the game. You start in your room and talk to your mom. However instead of going out of town you actually go talk to the Professor (in this case Professor Elm) to get your first Pokémon. In my very first playthrough of Silver as kid I chose Chikorita. This time I decided to pick something else and so I went with Cyndaquil. Because I want to get a bit more involved/attached to this game I decided to name atleast my starter Pokémon. I used to do this a lot but the last generation on the 3DS I just couldn’t bring myself to name stuff.
After you talk to your mom and get your Pokégear (which has a phone!) Professor Elm sends you to find mr. Pokémon who has a package. Once you get past the first town and to mr. Pokémon’s house you find a very familiar face… Professor Oak! He chats with you a bit and hands you a Pokédex, followed by mr. Pokémon handing you a mysterious Pokémon egg.
Just as you leave the house Professor Elm calls you in panic. Something terrible has happened at the lab and you’re to return immediatly! On your way back you are stopped by a mysterious redhaired boy who wants to fight and uses a Totodile. After you beat him you get back to the lab and find out that boy has stolen Totodile from the lab. Welcome to your rival (which you then get to name). The police talks to you and goes away, you deliver the Egg to Professor Elm and then your adventure can really start. One of the professor’s Aides gives you Pokéballs, you talk to your mom who offers to save money for you and then you can start catching!
This is the point where I kinda decided to pauze for a bit and think. I know there’s a glitch that allows you to get all three starter Pokémon and I had to decide whether or not I wanted to take advantage of this. In the end I decided not to. I want this playthrough to be glitch free so it stays the way it’s intended to play. I caught a Sentret and Rattata and went to the first town and saved my game there.
I’m aiming to get to the first gym this week and to catch every new Pokémon I come across in the process. I might name some of them, especially when I expect to use them in my endgame team, but we’ll see. For now I’m just really happy to be playing this game again and it’s probably the only non-MMO game I’ll be playing for the moment.