I’m Resetting My Pokémon X Game

FullSizeRenderAnd it’s significant because I completed every single objective in the game. Pardon the poor cellphone pic, but the 3DS won’t allow me to take a screen shot of the screen that shows how much time I put into the game: 383 hours and 18 minutes. I even got the Shiny Charm:

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You can only get the Shiny Charm once you register every single Pokémon. I even had a Living Pokédex but realized pretty late in the game that my living ‘dex was a sham.

The game has a trading system called Global Trading System or GTS for short, where people can look for specific Pokémon or put up their own Pokémon in hopes of getting something they want in return and make a trade with anyone else around the world. I spent a lot of time in the GTS to fill the holes in my National Pokedex. It was thrilling at first because of not only how easy it was but I was getting a lot of the harder-to-get legendary Pokémon for almost nothing. Zekrom for Dratini? A trade too good to be true. I became convinced that I was getting hacked Pokémon, and even if they were legitimate I wasn’t exactly catching it myself. It felt like I was cheating and at some point I lost sight of why I got into Pokémon in the first place.

It was because of this article on Nintendo Life that got me interested. Play just 4 games and you can catch them all? How intriguing <<cue maniacal chin rub and scheme-y squinty eyes>>. It sparked my curiosity enough for me to go buy a copy of X.

I had some friends that were into it as well, so I had a small support group if I needed help or nerd out and talk about the game. And it’s because of my friends that made the idea of erasing a tad over 383 hours worth of work an easy decision. When I realized that I had to erase my game and start from scratch, I had a really hard time actually going through with it. All that game time I spent would have amounted to nothing. All those Pokémon would just become vaporware and no longer exist in my bank. I talked to my friend Ken and told him about my dilemma and it dawned on me that I could offload some of them to him since he was a little less OCD than I was and his son definitely wouldn’t have cared where the Pokémon came from, hacked or not, legit or not. Starting from scratch and erasing all my Pokémon wasn’t such an emotional hurdle anymore. Most of my good ones were going to good home.

I already played through Pokémon Y using a speed run guide I found in the description of this YouTube video. I’m nowhere near getting the same time as the owner of the video, but the notes help a lot.  I’ve already played through the entire story so I just needed to get through the game as quickly as possible since I have to play through it three times to get one of each of the legendary birds:

Bird is the word.
Bird is the word. Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres.

You only get one bird per playthrough and it’s based on which starting Pokémon you pick. Since Y is done, I’m about to reset X and run through that one twice to get the other two birds. And after that, I’ll move onto Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire. I am keeping two Pokemon from my first foray into the game, only because they were available as part of event and the download window is now closed. I’m staying off of the GTS this time, though, and only going there to get my foreign Ditto for breeding using the Masuda method because if I wasn’t crazy enough to try and build a National Pokédex a second time catching all the Pokémon myself, I now want to do it a third time and fill it with shinies.

God help me.

My Mind Is Blown

I guess there’s another Ace Kim out there, if this comment is to be believed. Until I see verifiable birth records, though, I’m calling shenanigans. And I’m having a mini freak out right now.

Sure, I’ve always accounted for the possibility that there could be another Ace out there, but another Ace with the same last name? Granted, Kim is a pretty ubiquitous last name in Korean culture, but what are the chances that someone’s else’s dad was flipping through a deck of cards in the waiting room while their child was being born? Slim I tell ya.

I only noticed that comment just now, dated October 14 of last year, ’cause I was prepping another post. I’ve neglected this blog so I’m trying to get back into the swing of things and when I logged on to write, lo and behold there was this comment.

I go to New York once a year for Toy Fair so I may have to make first contact and meet up with this until-I’m-proven-wrong imposter. Because it’ll either be like two kindred spirits meeting or meeting your own doppelganger. And I’m hoping it’s not the latter.

Yep, still freaking out a little.