Catching all 151, er, 368, er ... a lot: The Pokemon Infodump Party!

This is a thread where you can get very excited about Pokemon! Your favourite version, your favourite game, competitive playing, TCG, whatever: tell me about it!

I guess I'll start? I started playing when I was 10, when I borrowed my friend's copy of Sapphire; it was the first video game I ever owned, and 11 years later it still holds a special place in my heart. Emerald is my favourite game, however; I've played it through about 5 times, I think.

My current favourite Pokemon pastime is breeding! If you're looking to get a Pokemon with good stats, special moves, or even a shiny, breeding is pretty much the best way to do it these days. This guide at Nugget Bridge is a good starting point. Also of note is the Masuda Method, which increases your chances of getting a shiny Pokemon. Most people have had good luck with this. I have not.

Also I feel it is important to point out that if you have a regular 3DS or 3DS XL (i.e. not the New Nintendo 3DS/XL), you can now use the QR Method to 'inject' a Pokemon into your game. Not strictly legal, but since there are some Pokemon (Genesect and Mew, I'm looking at you, assholes) that are now almost impossible to get legally, if you've got the completionist bug like me it's a godsend.

Okay, yes! Tell me your favourite game and Pokemon and everything. (Mine is Kyogre.)

 

xD pokemon Gold, Ampharos.

 

I have a hard time picking a favorite pokemon game (unless we are counting side games/spinoffs and then hoo boy lemme tell you about how hard I cried at the end of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Darkness), but as you can probably guess from my avatar I am basically one big soft spot for quagsire and wooper.

Wooper are my tiny armless children, y'all.

 

Carnivine is the best pokemon. i haven't been able to catch one yet though :(. i'm interested to know, what's everyone's opinion on nicknames? i never give my pokemon nicknames in the games; it didn't seem right for some reason. apparently that's sort of unusual?

also has anyone seen the pokemon: origins miniseries? i liked it a lot because of all the references to in game terminology and characters that we didn't get from the anime.

 

I always give my pokemon nicknames, but I will not claim that they are dignified nicknames, like, ever.

See also, my OR starter, Iherduliek the mudkip (now a swampert, of course)

 

My favorite Pokemon is Shaymin, and I have a fairly intense Shaymin collection. (https://pkmncollectors.livejournal.com/13658348.html?nojs=1 if you are interested in pictures!) I've played the video games and I know just enough about the competitive scene to help run events, but mostly I'm involved in the TCG, which I played seriously for a few years and now spend a decent chunk of my fair time organizing events for, whether it be running league sessions and teaching kids to play, or organizing tournaments, or judging some of the larger tournaments all over my quadrant of the country :) I Really Like Pokemon.

The TCG, for folks who are curious, mostly takes place in the world of the games with the characters of the games, and has lots of great original art featuring those things. (Fun fact: The recent game with an art gallery displayed a bunch of card art.) A lot of people collect the cards without playing, or play casually, and that's awesome! I'm personally most into the game as a game --- I love games --- but I also keep some of the cards I think are really pretty. The game is sort of like other CCGs, but as compared to say Magic (is anyone here into Magic I am into Magic) it has fewer interactive decisions and fewer decisions per card, but more cards played per game and more focus on the Pokemon themselves as entities. It also had its own region, Holon, a while back where Pokemon had alternate types (lightning-type Feraligatr!!!) called "delta species."

I'm actually in a hotel not-working when I should be in between judging Pokemon tournaments today and tomorrow... right now! :D

 

Oh, man, I've still got a bunch of cards around, I collected them when I was a kid and desperate to get some kind of pokemon involvement when my parents wouldn't get cable or buy me a gameboy. (There are advantages to having parents with hippie-ish tendencies. Easy access to trendy pop culture is not one of them.) I haven't even pulled them out in years, though. Maybe I should see what I actually have one of these days.

 

I love everything Pokemon but I am especially a fan of the gen 1 glitches. MissingNo. and 'M and glitch city and cool ditto and the mew glitch (and all the extra freaky glitch pokemon you can get from doing the mew glitch with a different trainer).

 

Oh man, I think second gen has always had the biggest grip on my art, and even now, my top faves are 1st and second gen pokemon (Meganium, Scizor, Butterfree) and i even drew dumb comics of them when I was bored in high school... just getting into whacky shenanigans. I loved those characters so much, that I have EV/IV trained pokemon with the same names in my black 2 version, and transferred them to my X/Y. :D

I collected the cards back when I was seven (when they first came out), and I used to play the pokemon TCG back before the 3rd gen cards came out (I was transitioning to Yugioh at the time), so I only had a small taste of the double battle system that came out with it! I just lvoe collecting pokemon cards, but alas, cards cost money... a thing I don't have.

 

I'm really not a competitive player, but I've played every main series Pokemon game (and I played them as they came out, from when I was a kid to the present day) and they hold a special place in my heart.

My favorite Pokemon is Absol. I don't even really know why. I also really like the cutesy legendaries like Celebi and Shaymin.

And the Pokemon Ranger games are underappreciated. Guardian Signs is a great game. I want more Pokemon Ranger games so much.

 

I love Quagsire and Wooper. I love Water/Ground dual types in general. I started OR with Mudkip and she is a permanent fixture in my party. She is the first non-Fire starter I've ever had.

I did not give a single fuck about Pokemon until HeartGold/SoulSilver came out, and then I heard about the Pokewalker and at the time I was running a lot and HOLY SHIT I CAN TAKE POKEMON OUT ON A RUN????!!?!??? Now I love it. Who has two thumbs and completed his Hoenn Pokedex this morning? THIS GUY. I'm replaying X to grab a spare Xerneas and Zygarde to trade. I'm saving up for a New 3DS XL with the intention of not trading my old one in until I've used it to send all my HeartGold Pokemon to Black and from there to OR.

My ideal party usually has: one Fire, one Water, one Grass, and one Dark type, one flyer, at least one Pokemon each with Fighting, Dark, and Psychic attacks, ALWAYS one Pokemon with False Swipe or Hold Back because it NEVER FUCKING FAILS that you run into something you really want to catch when all the False Swipers are chilling in your PC, and some weak Pokemon I'm trying to evolve/level up that gets sent into battle and yanked right back out again so it can absorb XP for doing nothing.

 

Oooh, Raquayza is probably my favorite! I used to have a level 100 Raqyuaza that had passed back and forth and traded up through pretty much every Pokemon game I'd ever gotten. Unfortunately, it was on my Pearl game a couple years ago - it almost had a complete national 'dex! - and my younger brother stole the game and wiped all my data to start a new one. I lost a lot of good Pokemon that day, actually, and some of them had been around for a long time.

File that one under "things my younger brother did during his klepto phase that still piss me off" because that was a thrice-damned travesty.

 

I've got a major soft spot for Gen 4, because that's when I frist started playing competetively and was a part of the really awesome pokemon community on Neopets. Though gen 2 is a close second.

My info dump:
Favorite pokemon: Umbreon. Particularly shiny Umbreon. I've always loved her design, and my love for her finally paid off in Gen 6 because Umbreon@Rocky Helmet with Moonlight/Wish, Foul Play, Protect, Toxic is really fun.

Espeon is a close second, and I love having the two of them in the same party. It just feels right. Particularly Magic Bounce Espeon@Light Clay with dual screens, Psychic, and Baton Pass. Once Umbreon has screen support she's so tanky.

Togekiss is also up there, as I love parahax. Togekiss@leftovers(sometimes I use quickclaw but that's not really a reliable item), with thunderwave, air slash, aura sphere and wish/roost.

I'mma stop myself before I just list all of the pokemon I've put on competetive teams. Basically my favorite strategy is to annoy my opponent as much as possible.

Favorite Starter is Cyndaquil, though I adore Chikorita, Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Piplup, and Oshawott.

I nickname all my pokemon. They vary in quality. I've got a couple standard ones. I like calling Umbreon either Shuko or Ranna, Espeon Belgaer or Bells, Pikachu is Adrin or Dezzie, Ninetales is Astarael or Ghost, Arcanine is Saraneth (I like the Old Kingdom books okay >.>)

 

Aw man, I love nicknaming my 'mon. Most are pretty unremarkable but I have an Exeggcute named Ova Easy, and I caught Regice in OR yesterday and named it ChunkyMonkey.

Krabbys always get named Karkat. Always.

But hands down, my proudest nicknaming moment: naming a Klinklang "Cogblocker."

 

@Lerxst Cogblocker is a thing of beauty :33

How is OR? I've been debating whether to spend xmas money on it. Because Pokemon. And I love pokemon. But it's a lot cheaper to buy used ps3 games, so that's what I typically do. Also ORAS doesn't have the Emerald battle frontier, with is a tragedy, because that was my favorite. Especially the Battle Pike.

 

OR IS SO GOOD. I never played Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald so I don't know how it compares to the original. Word of advice, though: DO NOT release or trade the Latios/Latias you get unless you stone cold don't care about being able to FREE FLY THAT SUCKER AROUND HOENN IN GLORIOUS 3D.

 

I got a copy of Red for my tenth birthday, and I've been a Pokemaniac ever since. Hoenn is forever my favorite generation; Alpha Sapphire ain't leaving my 3DS until the end times come (okay, or until another Fire Emblem comes out). My absolute favorite Pokemon is Pidgey, with Luvdisc and Wurmple close after. I am particularly into Bug-types! I am enough of a nerd that my only current RP is a Pokemon game, where my favorite character is a Bug Maniac with a massive insectoid swarm.

I can't seem to get into the Mystery Dungeon games, but I really loved what I've played of Pokemon Conquest. It's great.

 

I got Blue and Gold for christmas when I was 7, though I'd spent hours watching over people's shoulders at school.

Ugh. Now I want AS. But. Money. :((((

As for PMD, I absolutely adore them. Though Gates to Infinity is also on my want-to-buy-sometime list. Explorers is such a good game (at least story-wise) it had me in such tears. All the tears. Like I am a pathetic mess during that game. But it's basically running off Power of Friendship and god damn, that trope will be the end of me.

 

I've seen my friends talking about them and they seem to have a lot of elements that would appeal to me story-wise, and I've gone so far as buying one of them... but I can't get past the gameplay. :( Dungeon-crawlers are just Not For Me.

 

Acey I am disappoint you did not mention my crazy insane luck regarding obtaining shiny Pokemon through GTS.

Granted they're likely hacks/clones but still just the number of shiny pokedex entries is unreal.

Also I have almost all of them. Mainly it's just a handful of legendaries and trade evolution + item pokemon.