This is an part of series of about my current/recent playthough of Pokémon Pearl. Some while Fan terminology and some more advanced techniques will be mentioned, a Current or Previous Post will provide a Summary of said topic.
Hardware
Starting off, I’m going to cover the hardware used: The Nintendo 2DS. The 2DS is has near full DS compatibility, with only the GBA port not being present being the only known issue. For the most part, the lack of GBA port will not matter until “post-game” or beaten the Elite 4 (“Final bosses”). As for my choice of being the 2DS console, I’d like to keep the game in a same console for as long as possible: this is to prevent some issues later, which I’ll cover in another post, when I return to Jubilife City. The 2DS was the best choice for long term play out of remaining consoles I owned, as some 3DS or DS consoles already in use with games I’m planning to trade with, and damage to others.
The Game Diary – Day 1
In this playthrough, I’m going to be playing as the Boy Character. I name him as Mike. His name shown as Lucas when playing as the girl character, Dawn. The Choice of male was mostly due to the fact my last Diamond playthrough was with the Girl Character, Dawn.
I also name the Rival character as Barry, as this matches his Show and Pokémon Master EX name. (Pearl doesn’t actually have Barry as a default name, while Diamond and Platinum it does.)
With Intro out of the way: After Bumping in to Professor Rowen, we go to the lake and I’m forced to “borrow” a Turtwig that the Prof had accidentally left, while defending myself from wild Pokémon. Soon after we beat back our attackers, we rush back home in Twinleaf town. Since we “borrowed” the Pokémon we need to go to the Professor in to the next town, Sandgem Town, to apologise.
Once we get to the Professor’s Lab, he’s let’s us keep it and allows us to rename our Pokémon. So I name my Turtwig “Turters”. He even gives us a job to document all the Pokémon in the Region.
Before I head to do his job, I need to go home and check with my Mom. Soon after I return home, Barry’s mom comes in and asked If we’d seen Barry, as he just ran off again. She asks me to take a parcel to him.
With Package in hand, I head back to the Professor’s house. I meet Dawn outside, who give me a lesson in catching Pokémon and points me towards Jubilife City. I find a female Shinx in a Premier ball, and called her “Pandoria”. I soon catch a few Pokémon and battle a few trainers before reaching Jubilife City. In the Jublife School, we find Barry reading notes on the a chalk board, and he opens his parcel and find two copies of the Sinnoh map.. so Barry gives us one of them before running off again..
Mike’s Thoughts
Most of the above stuff was just to cover the basic info, and to provide context, while this part covers the thoughts of the above events. I’m not entirely sure you can easily buy a copy of Diamond or Pearl to get the context otherwise.
I treat Jubilife City as the first stop. This is partly due to fact I’d like to think I’ve really accomplished something. It’s also the point of the game when local trading is available. The Story has us returning here a few times to get to another location. It also just before another topic is introduced that I could fill another Mike’s Thoughts topic about it.
The Intro Feels somewhat slow, at least compared to the later games, some of this feeling is the back and forth you end up doing. I ended up visiting home, just to get something done so I could leave again, twice. Another thing is that you don’t get the “Running Shoes” which made your character move faster until a little later. In more recent games, they’ve been given earlier than they do here, to the point it’s effects are just added as normal movement. Also, the Auto run feature is missing, which means I need two hands to move quickly. Later games use the circle pad or control stick to alter how fast a player character moves.
Another feature that was added in the later games was, Catch EXP, which gives your Pokémon experience when catching Pokémon. This meant I was very under levelled when coming across some trainers, I ended up blacking out. This was remedied by actually battling some Pokémon over catching them. At least, this was not a Nuzlocke run, which would have meant that I’d had fail that attempt. (The “Nuzlocke Challenge” has a rule that any Pokémon who fainted is considered dead and if you run out of Pokémon, the run is over. There are other rules as well.)
As for the Premier ball, this was a “hidden” ball that can be given after buying 10 Pokéballs. It’s funtionally identical to the standard Pokéball. The Premier Ball is also used in Pokémon Go for catching Shadow Pokémon. The Gift mechanic is not really mentioned in game, but it’s very nice thing to have when the early stages of a game.
Finally, the School is somewhat of commonly found area in the first few towns/Cities in Pokémon games.
Both Turters and Pandoria are references to Xenoblade Chronicles 2’s Zeke. I even shown all three in a one of my Top 10 games of the Year 2018.
Next time, I’ll be covering some of the Unique places of Jubilife City, the second screen and Smart Watches.