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How do you play Pokemon in-game?

Planning out a team in advance is one of my favorite things to do.

I recently restarted my copy of Diamond, so I wanted a team that would be fun and take me through the game without holdups.

So I traded over a Tauros and a Skarmory (to keep at level 1 as HM slaves. To have all 8 available i gave Waterfall to Bibarel and Flash to Skarmory since it technically isnt an HM) then i used:

Simple Bibarel (to play with his fun ability, I had him use Curse, Amnesia, Charge Beam, Waterfall. His set is about momentum. He is a mixed attacker, with Charge Beam giving +2 SpA 70% of the time, Curse giving +2 Att +2 Def to boost his STAB Waterfall, and Amnesia giving +4 SpD. This makes him pretty tankish too! In the future I might just give him better attacks and abuse the Battle Items, since I think they still give the double boost.)

Anger Point Primeape (again, to play with fun abilities. Every time Anger Point kicks in it is ever so fun! Instant +6 Att when he gets his with a critical, mmm. He kills stuff with Fire Punch, Rock Slide, Earthquake, Outrage. I think Outrage is especially useful to plow through teams.)

Intimidate Staraptor (another fun ability to play with. I gave him Wing Attack, Close Combat, Roost, Feather Dance. I liked being able to switch in to a threat and get a quick Feather Dance combined with Intimidate for a fast -3 Att to the enemy. Then Roost allowed him to stay in as much as he liked.)

And finally, the star of the show, Poison Heal Breloom. (At first I had False Swipe on here to give me a nice Spore Swiper, but then I realized I wouldn't be doing much catching with him so I got rid of it. He has Spore, Seed Bomb, Focus Punch, and Leech Seed. What makes him so amazing for in-game playthroughs is that you can trade over a Toxic Orb to poison him in battle, and he'll stay poisoned afterwards. Then you can attach Leftovers. Suddenly, he's getting 3/16 of his health back every turn, the equivalent of 3 Leftovers. Leech Seed on top makes him unkillable, especially since the enemy will be asleep thanks to 100% accurate Spore. And while they're snoozing and Breloom is soaking up health, he will be firing off a 225 BP that has 20 PP from his 130 base attack. yowza! He is such a champ. I think I might replace Leech Seed with Facade since the seed is practically unnecessary and since he's always poisoned, Facade is a solid 140 BP.)

For HG/SS, I want to play around with:

Serene Grace Dunsparce, (looking at Body Slam for Paralyze, Rock Slide and Bite for Flinch, and Water Pulse for Confusion. Probably attach a King's Rock.)

Super Luck Absol (with high-critical moves: Slash, Night Slash, Psycho Cut, Stone Edge. He will have a Razor Claw Attached.)

Skill Link Cloyster (with Spike Cannon, Icicle Spear, Rock Blast, and either Dive or Explosion. I think I'll give him either a Scope Lens or a Choice Band.)

And for the last slot, im toying with either Guts Swellow with Facade and Flame Orb, or Rock Head Sudowoodo with Wood Hammer.
 
Ive played most of the generations nearly the same, with the same primary goal of filling the pokedex. Ever since i discovered natures/EVs and stuff (the bane of my pokemon-obsessed existence), i always SR for a decent starter. From there I predictably follow these guidelines.
-Catch every available wild pokemon
-Fill team with 6 useable, strong pokes that can support each other well
-Proceed through gameplay, taking ostensibly long intervals in obtaining badges due to pokemon catching/evolving
-I use 2 HM slaves, but only one is usually in my active party. And i switch it out right before a gym battle.

Eventhough I always tell myself to do speedruns after primary run-through, i can never do it with just 2-3 pokes. I always fill a team up. My definition of speedrun just means not going crazy trying to catch all the pokemon. I guess that's because i have yet to complete a pokedex though, lol. I predict after I have a cartridge with 450+ pokes that I'll do speedthroughs most of the time, especially with the advent of HGSS.
 
I never really do special challenges like mono-type or no pokecenters, although they would be fun. Most of the time I'll just try to get a team that I haven't used before, though old favorites find their way in. (Like, in GSC I ALWAYS raised a Mareep because Ampharos is the shit.)

Then I have this method of training where I raise a Pokemon 2 levels and then do the same for the next, although in D/P where leveling up seemed to happen faster, it became 5 levels on this guy then 5 levels on the next.

So yeah I'm pretty boring. I really want to start a new game and do some kind of "gimmick run" but I need to transfer all my Pokes first. :/
 
Do other people nickname their Pokemon? Recently I've taken to doing so for those that I expect to have a reasonably long stay in my team. The nicknames normally have some logic to them, though it's often a little convoluted. My current LG playthrough has a Venusaur named 'Chainsaur' (obvious pun, not intended to reference the Garchomp set mind), Golbat is 'Snape' (from the batlike Harry Potter professor), Dragonair named 'Rockie' (obtained at the Rocket Game Corner), and Kabuto named 'Limulus' (Latin genus of the Horseshoe Crab, which Kabuto is based on). (The other two party members are in-game trades).
 
I don't usually play through a single Pokemon game multiple times unless if I'm REALLY bored with it (as in, after 350+ gameplay hours). When I do though, I just catch random things to complement my starter's weakness. For example, in Emerald, because I started off with a Torchic, I caught a Magneton to help me defend against water types (although it gets raped even more by my rival). I caught and evolves a Nincada early on so that I can have a Shedinja as the ultimate wall when the situation calls for it, so that I can heal up. So yeah, I generally go through the game raising around 2 Pokemon (the other 4 are just HM slaves).
 
cantab said:
Do other people nickname their Pokemon?
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In my Fire Red version, I named a Pidgey I caught My1stSlave. The name made sense because it's the first Pokemon I've actually caught and I don't consider my starter a slave. That's about it for nicknaming.
 
Occassionally I'll nickname my pokemon. If I don't, I'm either rushing or forgetting. Things like:

Wobbafett: Troll
Exeggcute: Egg Ass
Weedle: Stinger Ass
Hippowdon: Gaara
Tentacruel: Squidward

Normally, though, I just re-name my pokemon to take the caps lock off.
 
I usually try to catch Pokemon I like for in-game. When I played Diamond through I wanted to use newer Pokemon. I picked Turtwig(I almost always go with the Grass-starter for my first playthrough, and used Shinx and Buizel for newer Pokemon, and Murkrow since it evolves into a newer one and I liked it. I also bred a Lucario later in game since it's new, I liked it, and Maylene's Lucario seemed pretty strong. I used Ponyta mainly because I wanted a fire type and it was the only one you can really get in game before the Elite Four besides Chimchar.

When I get SS I'm probably going to pick Cyndaquil as my starter since Fire type is the most useful early game and I used Chikorita in my only Silver playthrough 10 years ago. I'll probably use Mareep again since that's one of my favorites as well.
 
cantab said:
Do other people nickname their Pokemon?
Click to expand...

I'm known for using apparently very "Asian"-sounding names for my pokémon, though honestly... I try to find names I believe would give the 'mon itself more personality.

Even then, most people who do rate my pokémon's nicknames... Give me low scores since they're unoriginal. I guess my imagination's a tad stereotypical or somethin'.
 
I get a starter than can easily take on the fist Gym, then afterwards I release it in Floroma Town and use some other pokemon as my starter - Shellos in Pearl and Onix in Platinum. With SS, I'm hoping to acquire a Trapinch for my starter, since Flygons my favourite pokemon ever.
 
Just play ingame, making additions to my team when something takes my fancy. I try and stall it out as long as possible, adding new members later if possible so the early birds aren't all my team. I think my Platinum team was something like this;

Infernape, Crobat (caught early so it evolved around Solaceon), Floatzel, Drapion (There was a Shiny Ralts, but I forgot it had a crap catch rate so I killed it and caught a Skorupi instead), and even right at the very end, I added Sneasel (though I evolved it to Weaville after the Elite 4, because its more fun when I can't OHKO the Garchomp). I also liked to carry an extra pokemon I tag out with, so I'm usually raising 7-9 pokemon at a time. For that game, my subs were Leafeon (Helped a bit) and Staraptor (basically a Fly Slave with Endeavor)

Sometimes, since the Internal Battery on my old Pokemon Gold is over, I speed run it (most I can do). I usually use Typhlosion or Feraligatr, though I want to try using shit pokemon like Butterfree or Entei and see how it goes.
 
Man, after reading through this thread I'm feeling all nostalgic... Gunna find ruby version and do a playthrough :D

As for me, I raise a team of 6, keeping them at equal levels throughout the game. Could care less about natures and such, or whether a Pokemon actually has good stats or not.
 
ChouToshio said:
Sorry for the stupid question, and I'm not even sure if I'm stepping out of the bounds of the forum rules but--

there are roms with difficulty settings?
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(Someone may have already replied, but I will respond anyway)

Yes, the clean ROMs are patched by tool editors, essentially allowing you to re-create the entire game. There are many different remakes of all pokemon versions, and they're all really enjoyable. Some hackers are so experienced and have the "know how" to work on the engine that drives the game itself, which opens up a whole new range of possibilities.

All of them are scattered around the Internet. Just look for "X" or something after the name of the version.
 
I've pretty much rushed through every game until I reached the Elite Four, and then started grinding like hell. Sometimes I took joke attempts against them and won, like in Diamond. This one time in Gold I beat Lance with nothing left but a paralyzed level 47 Feraligatr using Slash. I barely finished in time for saving as the battery was *this* close to running out. The tension could have killed 10-year-old me.

I always made sure I hate a balanced team of six, though. Not necessarily the good ones: I loved my Xatu more than anything.
 
Critical_Hax said:
Sometimes, since the Internal Battery on my old Pokemon Gold is over, I speed run it (most I can do). I usually use Typhlosion or Feraligatr, though I want to try using shit pokemon like Butterfree or Entei and see how it goes.
Click to expand...
You know you could have a go at replacing the battery. Might need a soldering iron though.
That's something I wish I'd known BEFORE I binned my Silver :-( Still, there's always emulators.
 
WeGotTheJazz said:
I've pretty much rushed through every game until I reached the Elite Four, and then started grinding like hell. Sometimes I took joke attempts against them and won, like in Diamond. This one time in Gold I beat Lance with nothing left but a paralyzed level 47 Feraligatr using Slash. I barely finished in time for saving as the battery was *this* close to running out. The tension could have killed 10-year-old me.

I always made sure I hate a balanced team of six, though. Not necessarily the good ones: I loved my Xatu more than anything.
Click to expand...

Usually I just spend all my money on Hyper Potions/Revives and then train against them. Even if I lose, I still get money and experience. (This is also how I realized that my entire team in Saphire sucked against them aside from Kyogre and it was the only thing worth training.)
 
I don't speed through the game. I raise 4-6 good pokemon, and non of them know any HMs, except the good HMs(Surf, Waterfall, Strenth, and maybe Fly). I always use pokemon that I like for my journey. I leave all my legends in the box, and I do not use them. I make sure I have 2 HM slaves in the PC. Whenever I face high leveled wild pokemon, I fight them over, and over. I use good movesets on my pokemon, and sometimes I reset for natures. I only trade if I am getting a very low leveled pokemon.
 
I guess I'm like a lot of you all out there who dislike speedruns and play Pokemon for the "fun" it brings. Some things I usually NEVER do:
- have a legendary on my team (they're too strong and take away the fun)
- EV train
- catch a Pokemon until I like its IVs and Nature (it's boring and wastes time until I actually care about it)
- use an HM slave (I'd rather just teach HMs to the pokemon I have, even if it wastes a moveslot. HM slaves are unethical unless it is also trained well)

I like to make the game as hard as possible without making it impossible. I usually fill up my party early on (my Diamond team was Piplup, Zubat, Shinx, Misdreavus, Ponyta, and Geodude or something like that). That way, I never have overleveled pokemon (which make the game too easy and ruin the fun). In fact, usually my pokemon are all around the same level, which is ~5 levels lower than the next gym leader's top pokemon. That makes the gym leaders actually challenging to beat. I ended up facing the Elite four in diamond with pokemon all < level 50.
And because of this, I have all-fainted parties often, but that makes the game more fun! I never save before difficult battles so I usually end up battling gym leaders more than once (and losing a lot of money in the process). But I never have much money to lose so it's okay.
 
No, I play like you, not using Legends, taking my time, etc. I just catch what I find and make use of it, although for multiple runs in the same Gen I transfer my favorite pokemon that evolve and learn a lot of attacks in eggs and it's a lot more fun that way. When I played Diamond, I started off with Piplup, caught Starly and Shinx, got a Turtwig off the GTS and caught a Drifloon at the Valley Windworks.

Next gen I plan on getting a headache one day and then blasting through Serebii as fast I possibly can to get a quick glimpse of all the Gen 5 pokemon, taking notes on only early pokemon of interest that I should catch. The only pokemon I'll take a good, long look at are the starter chains. Hopefully Gen 5 will have a much wider selection to choose from. All Sinnoh had was Starly, Shinx and Buizel, pretty much.
 
well i tend to follow a list of types that i will need to win (made by my sister)

the list was
fire
water
electric
fighting
ice
ground
dark
psycic

so a standerd team for me at gold was
dewgong
houndoom/typlosion
alakazam
hitmonlee
anphros
donphan
thank god i know better
in my recent plat playthrough i used
ape
garchomp
roserade(garbage next time im gonna use only ape and chomp)
hm slaves bibarel starly and bidoof
typical time (old way) 40 hours
my new time 13:54:??
now then... speedrun platinum in under 7 hours guys I know its possible just run ape only all the way through the game... (though a aid for roark may be required) that way platinum could be uploaded into the speed demo archive
 
Well, the first time I get a new game I try to play through it without any external bias, so I catch the mons that I think are good and I don't really bother about IVs and EVs. I might then check smogon when I've beaten the elite four and check which tiers my party turned out to be in.

Subsequent playthroughs, I will probably plan out a team, and dabble about with RNG abuse and then give up on it because it is too hard. But I enjoy planning out the movesets, and I look for sets that I think will be fun to play or have real character (flinch hax, for example)

On the topic of nicknames, I barely ever nickname pokemon. However if I'm about to trade one to a mate, I'll give it the most stupid name possible
 
On the nicknames, back in the day I never nicknamed pokes because I thought it was stupid. But now I'm heavily getting into it because watching these Wifi battles and seeing the nicknames people use are funny as hell. Some I came up with and have used or plan to use:

Arcanine: Odie, WhiteFlame, Hunter Z(that last one I came up with really fast)
Blastoise: Bowser
Bronzong: Guru, RingMyBell, YoQuiero
Honchkrow: Kung Lao, Raevyn, Boss Lady, Boss(for the male)
Hitmonlee: Liu Kang, Bruce, Sagat, Fei(Long)
Gastrodon: Slug, Epic Fail
Poliwrath/toed: Battletoad, Frog
Charizard: Wyvern
Infernape: Ryu, Diddy Kong, (Son)Goku
Lucario: Skywalker, Gouki

I didn't know a lot of you guys do multiple runs on the same cartridge after you trade your stuff over. That's a good idea! I'll probably do that for FireRed.....I know....I am so behind :(
 
After reading through this thread, I've decided to pick up my Firered again. Because I've basically been playing on a simulator for several months without even playing an actual pokemon game for so long, this game has become really depressing to play at times. Maybe it's because all I do is play OU which doesn't change a whole lot, but I just feel it's time I play the actual game for a while to get myself back into it. I chose Firered because it's a remake of 1st gen, which is one of my favourites, and because team rocket is clearly the best criminal group of the series. (I do plan to get HGSS when it comes out here).

The way I like to play in-game is having all of my real party pokemon as equal levels. While having the starter steamroll through the game is nice for some people, I really don't like that, because although I don't plan my party, I only pick things I like as I find them, and I want the pokemon I like to y'know, not suck. I also like to have my pokemon female. Heh, I don't know why, but I always pick the girl and I always like having female pokemon (I even SR just so I can get a female starter, regardless of nature).

For this playthrough of Firered, I'm gonna pump up the difficulty. I always have it on SET, but I'm not going to use any items against gym leaders/elite 4, and I'm not going to train to fight the elite 4 (unless I'm like level 30 when I get there), because they're supposed to be the last bosses, so I want them to be somewhat of a challenge.
 
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