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kjorteoLast time: I finally learned how to catch Pokemon (thanks, I never knew) and acquired a Hoothoot named Scout for "you'll see why next time" reasons.
There are a lot of features this game prominently promotes in-game. Ethan and his Marill run around and play hide-and-seek and tag and whatever else--and come across as suspiciously shippable--just so that the game has an excuse to talk to you about how your lead Pokemon follows you around like that. NPCs have lines like "I wanted to take a rest, so I'm saving my game." However, there is one feature this game has that it doesn't promote at all, one that it just quietly unlocks without drawing attention to it. You need to have at least one Pokemon in PC storage, and then it will usable from the title menu (not even in-game once you load your save!)
HeartGold and SoulSilver shipped with a little device called the Pokewalker, a Pokeball-shaped step counter that connected to HG/SS proper. With it, you could beam one of your Pokemon from PC storage into the Pokewalker, gather points (or "Watts") by going on a real-life walk with your chosen Pokemon, and spend those Watts hunting down items and even more Pokemon that live in whatever specific Pokewalker course you chose when initiating the transfer. All in all, it's a neat gimmick, a sort of precursor prototype to the "Please go outside" mindset that would eventually become Pokemon Go. Of course, almost ten years later, no one still has their pack-in feelies for this game anymore, and it's probably just as well that no one in-game mentions this feature because no one would actually use it anyway.
Just kidding.
Hi, my fursona is quite literally a packrat. I'm that person who will acquire a board game and save everying even down to the empty trash cardboard sheets from which you punch out all the tiles. And Silver meant so much to me growing up that of course I preordered the special collector's edition of SoulSilver when it was first announced, and it's been sitting here box-and-all on my shelf ever since.
Of course I still have my Pokewalker. And of course it's still pristine and perfectly functional. It needed a new battery, obviously, but they take standard CR2032s and the battery compartment is specifically designed for easy access and replacement. There are even pack-in instructions on how to change the battery if you somehow can't figure out "unscrew the back plate, take old battery out, put new battery in, screw the back plate back on" and of course I still have those too.
I was briefly concerned over whether the connection would still work, since I'm playing this on a New 3DS XL instead of a DS and because DS-era Nintendo WFC has been shut down for years. Fortunately, the Pokewalker connects to HG/SS via a direct infrared beam aimed at the physical DS cart itself (!!!) so after all these years, the only thing even slightly wonky about all this is that the animation it plays while it's beaming your Pokemon to and from the Pokewalker is now wrong. (The slot to insert DS carts is in a different location on the New 3DS XL versus the DS. It's assuming you're still holding the Pokewalker behind the DS/above the top screen to point it at the cart, and so it plays a cute little animation of the Pokemon beaming from the bottom screen up to a picture of the Pokewalker on the top. However, at this point, I'm actually holding the Pokewalker in front of the DS/below the bottom screen. Wait Scout come back you're beaming the wrong waaaayyyyyy)
Now all that's left is the actual walking, which... actually, that's not really a problem for me, either. I lead a very walking-centric lifestyle. I don't have a car and I take the bus to and from work, despite the nearest bus stop being about a 20-30 minute walk from home. I like to go on walks in the morning on weekends as well, because I am generally concerned about being sedentary. (Did you know that clotting is a possible side effect of HRT? I have my Fitbit pester me to get up and get at least 250 steps per hour because deep vein thrombosis is not how I want to go.) In short, I am very easily good for at least 10,000 steps a day. I've already been gameifying that by getting into Pokemon Go, not because Pokemon Go by itself is the greatest game ever made, but because if I'm doing all that walking anyway then I may as well at least get points toward fish evolution for it.
So, to answer all the "You'll see why next time" mysteries from the last entry:
1) The stopping point I wanted to reach last night was the ability to catch Pokemon.
2) I wanted to have a Pokemon in PC storage to unlock the Pokewalker functionality.
3) I wanted to have all that done last night so that I could beam Scout to the Pokewalker this morning, so that I could take him with me on my morning walk.
4) His name is a dumb pun because he'll be recruiting all the cool Pokemon I find inside the Pokewalker, and he's a bird. He's a natural talon scout, you see.
At this point, I can now break this game's already non-existent difficulty curve wide open just by having the Pokewalker attached as I go about my normal day. In fact, it's such a potent tool that it was actually part of my undoing last time, and something I have to be careful about this time. I have far more time to clip a step counter to my belt and go to work and stuff than I do to sit down and play a DS game. You're seeing an early blast of entries right now because it's the weekend and because it's a new project I'm excited to start, but I promise you entries are going to slow down dramatically once I go back to work. However, whether or not I'll have time to play during the week, I will still be amassing steps, which leads to a dilemma regarding what to do with them.
It is very easy for the Pokewalker to outpace the game, such that I'm playing Pokewalker more than I'm playing SoulSilver, and playing Pokewalker by itself is... a bit lacking gameplay-wise, shall we say. Plus, it makes it even easier to fall into numbers hell, since I have oodles of Watts and literally nothing better to do with them so I MAY AS WELL catch like ten copies of this one Pokemon on this one course, and then I MAY AS WELL sift through them looking for the best one with the right Nature and IVs and....
No. I need to be ready to hit myself with a rolled up newspaper and a spray bottle when that starts happening. I need to accept the fact that 95% of the steps I'm getting on this thing will go to waste, and that's fine, because it was supposed to be nothing more than a free for-fun "if you're going outside anyway may as well take your Pokewalker with you" deal in the first place. That's fine. I'll be fine.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head out to the nearby Pokestop to get the daily streak bonus, and Scout is going to frolic through Refreshing Field. Am I a big enough dork to be incentivized to go get physical activity just so I can satisfy two different Pokemon games at the same time? Yes.
There are a lot of features this game prominently promotes in-game. Ethan and his Marill run around and play hide-and-seek and tag and whatever else--and come across as suspiciously shippable--just so that the game has an excuse to talk to you about how your lead Pokemon follows you around like that. NPCs have lines like "I wanted to take a rest, so I'm saving my game." However, there is one feature this game has that it doesn't promote at all, one that it just quietly unlocks without drawing attention to it. You need to have at least one Pokemon in PC storage, and then it will usable from the title menu (not even in-game once you load your save!)
HeartGold and SoulSilver shipped with a little device called the Pokewalker, a Pokeball-shaped step counter that connected to HG/SS proper. With it, you could beam one of your Pokemon from PC storage into the Pokewalker, gather points (or "Watts") by going on a real-life walk with your chosen Pokemon, and spend those Watts hunting down items and even more Pokemon that live in whatever specific Pokewalker course you chose when initiating the transfer. All in all, it's a neat gimmick, a sort of precursor prototype to the "Please go outside" mindset that would eventually become Pokemon Go. Of course, almost ten years later, no one still has their pack-in feelies for this game anymore, and it's probably just as well that no one in-game mentions this feature because no one would actually use it anyway.
Just kidding.
Hi, my fursona is quite literally a packrat. I'm that person who will acquire a board game and save everying even down to the empty trash cardboard sheets from which you punch out all the tiles. And Silver meant so much to me growing up that of course I preordered the special collector's edition of SoulSilver when it was first announced, and it's been sitting here box-and-all on my shelf ever since.
Of course I still have my Pokewalker. And of course it's still pristine and perfectly functional. It needed a new battery, obviously, but they take standard CR2032s and the battery compartment is specifically designed for easy access and replacement. There are even pack-in instructions on how to change the battery if you somehow can't figure out "unscrew the back plate, take old battery out, put new battery in, screw the back plate back on" and of course I still have those too.
I was briefly concerned over whether the connection would still work, since I'm playing this on a New 3DS XL instead of a DS and because DS-era Nintendo WFC has been shut down for years. Fortunately, the Pokewalker connects to HG/SS via a direct infrared beam aimed at the physical DS cart itself (!!!) so after all these years, the only thing even slightly wonky about all this is that the animation it plays while it's beaming your Pokemon to and from the Pokewalker is now wrong. (The slot to insert DS carts is in a different location on the New 3DS XL versus the DS. It's assuming you're still holding the Pokewalker behind the DS/above the top screen to point it at the cart, and so it plays a cute little animation of the Pokemon beaming from the bottom screen up to a picture of the Pokewalker on the top. However, at this point, I'm actually holding the Pokewalker in front of the DS/below the bottom screen. Wait Scout come back you're beaming the wrong waaaayyyyyy)
Now all that's left is the actual walking, which... actually, that's not really a problem for me, either. I lead a very walking-centric lifestyle. I don't have a car and I take the bus to and from work, despite the nearest bus stop being about a 20-30 minute walk from home. I like to go on walks in the morning on weekends as well, because I am generally concerned about being sedentary. (Did you know that clotting is a possible side effect of HRT? I have my Fitbit pester me to get up and get at least 250 steps per hour because deep vein thrombosis is not how I want to go.) In short, I am very easily good for at least 10,000 steps a day. I've already been gameifying that by getting into Pokemon Go, not because Pokemon Go by itself is the greatest game ever made, but because if I'm doing all that walking anyway then I may as well at least get points toward fish evolution for it.
So, to answer all the "You'll see why next time" mysteries from the last entry:
1) The stopping point I wanted to reach last night was the ability to catch Pokemon.
2) I wanted to have a Pokemon in PC storage to unlock the Pokewalker functionality.
3) I wanted to have all that done last night so that I could beam Scout to the Pokewalker this morning, so that I could take him with me on my morning walk.
4) His name is a dumb pun because he'll be recruiting all the cool Pokemon I find inside the Pokewalker, and he's a bird. He's a natural talon scout, you see.
At this point, I can now break this game's already non-existent difficulty curve wide open just by having the Pokewalker attached as I go about my normal day. In fact, it's such a potent tool that it was actually part of my undoing last time, and something I have to be careful about this time. I have far more time to clip a step counter to my belt and go to work and stuff than I do to sit down and play a DS game. You're seeing an early blast of entries right now because it's the weekend and because it's a new project I'm excited to start, but I promise you entries are going to slow down dramatically once I go back to work. However, whether or not I'll have time to play during the week, I will still be amassing steps, which leads to a dilemma regarding what to do with them.
It is very easy for the Pokewalker to outpace the game, such that I'm playing Pokewalker more than I'm playing SoulSilver, and playing Pokewalker by itself is... a bit lacking gameplay-wise, shall we say. Plus, it makes it even easier to fall into numbers hell, since I have oodles of Watts and literally nothing better to do with them so I MAY AS WELL catch like ten copies of this one Pokemon on this one course, and then I MAY AS WELL sift through them looking for the best one with the right Nature and IVs and....
No. I need to be ready to hit myself with a rolled up newspaper and a spray bottle when that starts happening. I need to accept the fact that 95% of the steps I'm getting on this thing will go to waste, and that's fine, because it was supposed to be nothing more than a free for-fun "if you're going outside anyway may as well take your Pokewalker with you" deal in the first place. That's fine. I'll be fine.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to head out to the nearby Pokestop to get the daily streak bonus, and Scout is going to frolic through Refreshing Field. Am I a big enough dork to be incentivized to go get physical activity just so I can satisfy two different Pokemon games at the same time? Yes.