Before I can begin playing, I have to download two updates and say I agree with whatever terms they write, which still include telling me that Nintendo will deliberately destroy my 3DS if I do anything to it they don’t like, which is to say anything, because apparently it’s still legal for game companies to destroy the stuff you paid for. Then I have to download another update for the game itself. This takes forever. Do you want me to just get on with playing the game already? Well so did I.

Opening cinematic is pretty but shows Latios and Brendan only, though, which seems really weird. Does Alpha Sapphire show Latias and May or what?

Then the game does a meta opening of you holding another device of oldschool Birch telling you about pokemon, which explains why the opening narration was way more popular in OT fic than usual. Curse you, game designers, and how you don’t make your decisions based on what will be super annoying if fanfic authors adopt it.

As usual, I’m asked if I’m a boy or a girl.

And as usual, the choice is a depressing one. One looks like they’re about to head out and actually do something, the other looks like she just asked you a question in a dating game. And this is just the headshots, the full characters are even worse.

He’s standing straight, she’s in  a bizarre pose with one leg behind, hips thrust forward and then torso leaning back, like she’s about to fall over. He looks like he can actually walk, she’s chronically pigeon-toed. This marks a new low in the already pretty ooor handling of female player characters.

Once again, it’s really tempting to just say that he’s a girl, since he basically just looks like a kid, unlike May who needs to have breasts above a narrow waist. But these days the game actually changes the narration.

I’ve decided to be Lucki this time. (Someone trade me an eevee egg.)

I have to set the clock to leave, even though it does it automatically. Not sure what’s up with that.

Hey, if you read the town sign you zoom out and can see the whole town, that’s great.

Both moms have notes on the table about their meal planning, because they are homemakers. That’s less great.

Up to chat with Brendan.

Huh… I didn’t know that you’d be a girl. Dad–I mean, Professor Birch–told me you were the kid of a Gym Leader, and I sort of hoped you’d be a guy.

Well, it’s an improvement over Dad, Prof. Birch, said that our new next-door neighbor is a Gym Leader’s kid, so I assumed you’d be a guy. 

There’s still the implicit connection between “gym leader’s kid” and “guy”, but you can also read it as Brendan just hoping for another boy just to have more in common with you, and saying that all he was told was you were a gym leader’s kid and not your gender.

He goes on to be surprised I don’t have any pokemon and offer to catch me some, as before. Fanfic authors have spitefully refused to copy that part into everything and continue to act like it’s incredibly difficult to get a starter.

So, why don’t I have a pokemon yet? Given that she ends up with a pokemon by chance, it seems she didn’t have a preexisting interest in pokemon and becomes a trainer after the battle shows her how much fun it is. This is harder to make work in the pokeworld where everything seems to revolve around pokemon than it is in most setups – it’s easy to understand why someone wouldn’t get involved in, say, children’s card games as soon as possible, but you need a pokemon for basically everything.

Alternatively, I was deliberately rejecting the whole “gym leader’s kid” expectations, but that’s pretty depressing given that the opening of the game is about becoming a trainer.

Off I go, though! I pick a treecko because I haven’t raised one, and reset until I get a girl.

While you’re at it, why not give a nickname to that Treecko?

No, game.

Oh, so that’s how you like to do things? Not even going to give it a nickname, are you?

Game I have never done this since the start of the series, stop trying to make it happen.

You know, if you work with your Pokemon and gain experience, I think you’ll make a pretty excellent trainer.

He tells me to go meet Brendan and we get another of those yes/no options where they only let you pick yes, but it does read pretty exactly like an adult talking to a kid so I don’t mind. It gives me the option of characterizing her as grouchy and that’s what really matters.

There’s also a bit of text in his lab! The game like all recent ones is very low in flavor text, but this snippet is nice:

“Could it be that several thousand years ago the Pokemon population of the Hoenn region was even more diverse?”

Hoenn is presented as people living in harmony with pokemon – certainly we don’t see pollution like we do in Kanto – but this suggests it’s very much a human-decided sort of harmony, which is actually how things work in our world. Humans came in, pushed things out, and then hit a good point for them.

I head off and there’s a nicely brief tutorial from Helpful Pokemart Worker. Good job, game! You got across important information without taking forever.

I find Brendan hanging out in front of a pool with leafy plants that looks like the one from the opening. It also looks like I should get to interact with it, but apparently no.

It’s battling time! I’ve been faithfully running from battles so we can have a Proper Rival Battle, dammit. Although I don’t think things are precisely fair, given mine knows three moves and I’m not sure his torchic even knows two. All it does it scratch.

I think I know why my dad had his eye on you now.

Huh. His dad only just met me and seemed surprised by my abilities, but Brendan suggests there’s more going on!

Look, you just got your Pokemon, right? And you already have that strong of a bond? I get the feeling you could befriend any Pokemon, Lucki. No doubt.

And this is as unearned for game-Lucki as it is her namesake. I just finished a battle with 2HP to spare, all because I didn’t want to bother using a potion.

Interestingly, this is a more extreme version of the original, which was Look, your Pokémon already likes you, even though you just got it. <player>, I get the feeling that you could befriend any Pokémon with ease. I’m more able to believe my pokemon might be starting to like me right now than that I have a strong bond already.

I feel like there’s something you could do with this besides the usual fanfic thing of just having people tell your character they’re great.

One option is that they’re horribly misreading the situation. Maybe I’ve earned my pokemon’s respect in the same way anyone with a baseball bat can earn a dog’s, and what he sees as friendship is a fearful desperation to please me. Or maybe I’m a terrifyingly powerful psychic who’s actually controlling my pokemon! “You’re so in tune with each other,” people coo approvingly. “It’s like you’re thinking the same thoughts!” Yes, it is.

That might be a direction to go in with one of those pokemon pretends to be human to be a trainer things, although I don’t like that it’d imply actual pokemon pokemon trainers are horrible compared to the human ones. Maybe if they’re actually just using dead pokemon as puppets? I think you could really do something with the fact “incredibly strong friendship” is, in practice, indistinguishable from the pokemon being mindless extensions of your will.

That’s why fanfic generally fails to portray an actual bond, they just show if a pokemon obeys a human without question or not.

There’s also the possibility that it’s not that you’re the monster, it’s that everyone else is. Some people must’ve figured out that treating your pokemon decently is simply practical, but perhaps that’s what distinguishes the better class of trainer. I’d really like to see more on the possibility of self-serving niceness.

When I come back Birch claims that Brendan of the L5 torchic has a pretty long history as a Trainer already. I wonder if this suggests that there’s a bonding component to pokemon gaining levels? That would help explain your meteoric rise. Maybe seeing you makes Brendan change his training style.

Everyone to talks a lot about guys. Brendan’s mom apologizes for her husband being gone, Birch talks a lot about about my father and how having a pokemon makes me my father’s child and blah blah, and when my mom sees she says the same.

You are your father’s child, all right… You look good together with a Pokemon!

And she goes on to say that my dad will be happy about this. Not her, him. Her opinion is to reassure me that I can quit and come home if something happens.

This is not a particularly auspicious beginning, is it.

Well, I have pokeballs now, so let’s get catching!

…or Brendan could explain the new catching thing, with special pokemon that know special moves you have to sneak up on. The animation’s good.

I get a girl poochyena! I will keep her.

At first sight, Poochyena takes a bite at anything that moves. This Pokemon chases after prey until the victim becomes exhausted. However, it may turn tail if the prey strikes back.

Which suggests that Birch doesn’t know all that much about the pokemon, given it seems you should kick it rather than run.

Or…

So Brendan says Birch had his eye on me. But the sequence of events is that I meet Brendan, he heads off to a different area, I meet Birch and he’s impressed by me, then I go visit Brendan who somehow knows I impressed him but makes no reference to the actual situation that occurred.

And it’s very odd an experienced researcher would have so much trouble, and the pokemon in question seems like one that he should be used to handling as well as having an obvious way of dealing with it that he didn’t take.

And he knows my dad, who seems to have wanted me to be a trainer.

This is all a setup. My dad called him, and that’s the point he started thinking about the problem and saying stuff about how I’d make a good trainer that Brendan is thinking of when he mentions it to me.

…

But, regardless of my character’s feelings and wishes, I’M here to get pokemon and crush all that stand before me, so I just go and catch a zigzagoon.

Zigzagoon restlessly wanders everywhere at all times. This Pokemon does so because it is very curious. It becomes interested in anything it happens to see.

Seedot attaches itself to a tree branch using the top of its head. It sucks moisture from the tree while hanging off the branch. The more water it drinks, the glossier this Pokemon’s body becomes.

Then a surskit with fell stinger tears apart my team. Huh. I wonder how many people going the nuzlocke route found themselves getting a game over their first time out?

Also, the whole weird-moves pokemon thing is really making me question my plan of playing with a set team. (Plus, it gets stronger when it kills something! Go for it, murderbug!) I’ll keep it for now, anyway.

From the tips of its feet, Surskit secretes an oil that enables it to walk on water as if it were skating. This pokemon feeds on microscopic organisms in ponds and lakes.

I don’t think that’s how surface tension works.

Hey, you bend down when talking to a little kid! That’s a nice detail.

Using the spikes on its rear end, Wurmple peels the bark off trees and feeds on the sap that oozes out. This Pokemon’s feet are tipped with suction pads that allow it to cling to glass without slipping.

That suggests these things are a nightmare to anyone with an orchard. They’re like a cross between slugs and deer.

Then I find some berries. I really don’t like the berry system. I can either leave bare patches everywhere or switch from playing pokemon to playing obsessive waterer. I wish you could just plant and leave them.

As I leave the route, Brendan comes up and we watch a cutscene of beautifly going by. I like how they’re doing that.

Time to meet Dad.

You know, I sure was surprised that you managed to get here by yourself. Ah… I see. You’re making a good start on your team! Mm-hmm! Then I guess you’re going to become a Trainer like me, Lucki? Now that’s something to look forward to!

Yeah, I’m really suspicious.

But I’ve never caught a Pokemon by myself… I’m not sure if I can.

Huh, going by the fact he’s also sickly, that suggests further evidence that the usual mechanism isn’t the official starter thing. They just hand you some rocks, point you in the direction of some grass, and wish you good luck. And this is so standard that even a kid defined as being sickly has to specifically point out that maybe he could use some help.

Only after requesting this does the gym leader even bother to loan a pokemon! And he can’t even be bothered to go himself. And then eventually he thinks to give Wally a pokeball too so he doesn’t have to lug around a disgruntled wild animal.

You know, on second thought, maybe this isn’t normal at all, maybe Wally’s family was trying to get him killed. Plus he’s all cringing and sad-faced, like he expects you to kick him for being such an imposition.

You will… You will come with me, right?

And he expects that even after being told by the gym leader who is my father to do something super easy so he doesn’t die, I probably won’t. Wow, Wally. You are better at the sad backstory than any character I saw last month.

Then he says he only even knows about catching pokemon because he read a book. This is a litany of misery.

Also, of course, he has to beat down the ralts to catch it despite the idea that ralts is showing up because it actually wants to be his pokemon. This reminds me of the wingull fanfic where the trainer first beat it to a sliver of life and then asked if it wanted to be caught, and then the possibly-ongoing N fic where he says that pokemon training is messing up humans too. Why does Wally order the zigzagoon to tackle the ralts? Because that’s how you catch pokemon. And if you’re a pokemon who wants to be caught, that’s something you have to endure.

Wally then gives me access to the pokemon cuddling app. Also trading.

Hmm. That boy will be worth keeping an eye on.

Deliberate callback to Birch thinking that about me? Or Norman plotting to keep his status by making sure to destroy any real competition, like Douchy McFlamehair?

I think his advice to me is sincerely meant, but that’s probably due to being his offspring. Hm, that’d be an interesting sort of character, a gym leader trying to cut down your friends to make sure you’re the only one to get his position when he retires.

Anyway. I cuddle my pokemon then try out wonder trade, and get a swablu. I try trading that and get a voltorb. I really shouldn’t play with that, I’m trying to catch pokemon as I go and all.

Speaking of, let’s go get a ralts or two. First one’s a boy.

Ralts senses the emotions of people using the horns on its head. This Pokemon rarely appears before people. But when it does, it draws closer if it senses that the person has a positive disposition.

And right, I can actually search for more. They don’t seem to have any move other than growl, though. I get a regular girl.

Okay, time to move on. I check out Wally’s room. Flavor text informs me his journal was written and erased over and over, and his pokemon books are covered in sticky notes.

On the next route, there’s the option of giving a kid with an injured pokemon a potion. You don’t seem to get anything for this, it’s just a nice thing to do.

Taillow courageously stands its ground against foes, however strong they may be. This gutsy Pokemon will remain defiant even after a loss. On the other hand, it cries loudly if it becomes hungry.

Wingull has the habit of carrying prey and valuables in its beak and hiding them in all sorts of locations. This Pokemon rides the winds and flies as if it were skating across the sky.

Also, there’s a whole bunch of wingull on the beach but I can’t seem to sneak up on them.

Then I fight a rich boy and get to see the quality AI really shine as my almost-dead surskit wails on his zigzagoon because it keeps using growl and tail whip. He uses full restore and I still almost needle it to death before it finally tackles me. It tries the same strategy on my poochyena to similar effect.

Well, I think I’ll stop here for the day. Current team:

 L8 surskit
 L8 poochyena

L11 treecko
 L5 and L3 ralts