[Gen 5] a colourful return to Unova!

hi, hello!! welcome everyone!! my name's angelica and i'm an avid pokemon gamer. o/

i'll admit that this is kind of an odd journal to make. this is because i've been very critical of gen 5. this mainly started with bw, and things have gotten better with b2w2. unfortunately i don't own black at the current moment, but i do own black 2, and i wanted to refresh my mind on unova since it's been years and years since my last playthrough of it. i also have very positive memories of black 2 because of the pokemon world tournament, but for this playthrough i'm just going to treat it pretty casually and only go as far as beating the elite four.

without further ado, let's get started! unfortunately since i havent learned how to homebrew my 3DS for screenshots, you guys are gonna have to settle on cute little sprites and images for now. i hope that's okay. ^^

dear diary,

my journey to the unova region has begun! i'm excited to experience all the new sights, and pokemon and cities and the food... this is going to be so exciting!! professor juniper is showing me around, and hopefully she's going to give me my first pokemon to start with! i'm probably getting a bit ahead of myself, though. i guess i should start by reminding her the name of my rival. i've heard tons of other new, starting trainers do this, too. is this just a thing that happens with pokemon professors or what?




ah yes, i remember now. hugh, was it? i dunno, i'm too boring and i can't flex my mind enough to think of anything else, so boring default name it is! i don't really care what his name is, though. as long as he isn't obnoxious and is a decent rival, that's all i care about. oh yeah, i kinda spaced out in a middle of juniper's explanation a bit, but then she mentioned this




damn, already?? sweet. oh wait, i'm not allowed to leave yet? i think she's talking about how i'm going to meet all sorts of different people, pokemon and trainers or something. it doesn't matter because i already want to start this journey already haha. oh hey, we're finally here in town at least. now we can start!

now it's finally time to meet my new partner. this was a no-brainer for me, given i love grass-type pokemon. the other starters presented to me, while cute, didn't really appeal to me much. so the choice was obvious.

snivy it is.

dear diary,

Snivy seems to be a bit on a hasty side, but i don't mind. it is what it is. i still think she'd be a great pokemon regardless. oh yeah, i kinda rushed through my last entry. i met this girl named Bianca. i'll show you what she looks like:




she seems to be the Professor's assistant or something. either way, i'm SUPER pumped about my new pokemon! i'm going to travel all around with her and start training her immediately. time to g---




ok, i might've taken a little liberty with what he said, but man, a challenge already? no prep time or anything? i don't even have potions! ...okay, i'm going to assume he doesn't either, but i don't know that. alllrighty, let's see how this is going to go.




as soon as the match started, i already knew my plan. .... i mean, i only had two moves, so plan a was to spam tackle, or b was to lose. maybe there'd be a little luck on my side as long as i didn't get crit on. because that would suck. or tackle would miss. that would suck even more. anyway, time to start this match. my self-deliberation has caused Hugh to look at me like i grew an extra head.

"Snivy, use Tackle!" i commanded. and so, the tackle wars have begun. our pokemon have exchanged blow after blow with each other. and then...




aha! the opening i needed! although this seems to suck on the surface since Snivy's defense is lowered, i took this to my advantage. he didn't attack, so that gives me a free turn. i took a slight deep breath before i issued the same command. i knew that if i were to try the same tactic as Hugh, i'd be super screwed. "You're doing a great job Snivy!" i said to encourage my new partner. this seems to revitalize her spirit even more. "Use Tackle again!" Snivy wasted no time in doing exactly that -- giving Hugh's Tepig a mighty tackle. it still had some fight in it, of course, but only slightly. seems that Hugh has caught onto his mistake.




what a blow! it seems that earlier tail whip might've worked. Tepig delivered a powerful blow to Snivy, almost enough to KO her, but she hung on regardless. she knew that we're in this to win. this match is now down to the wire. if my tackle were to miss, Hugh would win. i had to encourage my newfound partner in any way that i can. "We're almost there, Snivy! We can do this!! Finish them off, give them another Tackle!!" i exclaimed. and so she did. that final blow was enough to defeat Tepig and win my match with Hugh.

... that was a heck of a first match. if it was this intense, i can't wait to experience how the Gym Leader matches are going to go! time to take a break for now, though. see you later, journal. perhaps tomorrow will be the day i explore the big wide world of Pokemon.

dear diary,

that was... a hell of a day or two i took off! hey, listen. it was a super eventful day, and maybe i took an extra day off to catch up on some extra sleep or something! but yeah, anyway, Bianca said something to the effect of...

"i'm so excited to show you how to catch Pokemon now!"
​

i get that i'm a newbie trainer and all but... this is self-explanatory stuff, right? i guess she wasn't paying super close attention to me (and thank goodness she wasn't), but i kinda snoozed during her explanation. i mean.... it's kinda obvious stuff, right? weaken the Pokemon, throw the Pokeball. sometimes it'll work, sometimes it won't. Bianca managed to catch her Pokemon in one go. something tells me that it won't be that easy when it's my turn to do some catching.




i nodded with a big smile on my face, pretending that i heard everything she said before. it.... might come off as a bit mean but, again, this was obvious stuff and i want to get to the good part: training my Snivy. as soon as i gave Bianca my acknowledgement, she left me to the world, with my next destination in mind: Floccessy Town. BUT. Before that. again, training time!

Snivy and i ravaged through wild Patrat after wild Patrat and even a few Purrloin along the way. it was amazing how strong she was getting! "Snivy, you're incredible!" i said with utmost accomplishment in my voice. "Sni-vy!" she replied, seemingly more confident after each and every battle. honestly, i don't blame her. she's going to need that sort of confidence for the battles to come, and i know things are going to get only more challenging from here on out.

as i moved forward, i was stopped by an unknown voice.




??? i looked behind me, but there was no one there.






i see what appears to be a fiery-haired trainer on a cliff. i'm going to guess this must be someone really important.





"Angel from Aspertia City, nice to meet you."




i mean no shit, i just got my first pokemon and was about to head off into the next city until you interrupted me, i thought.




i followed this interesting man to Floccesy Town, where he was apparently waiting for me. after gesturing for me to follow him even further, he questioned why i was carrying two town maps with me. to be honest, i kinda forgot i did, but then i remembered that one of them was supposed to be for my rival. guess i better look for him. after making my way through Route 20 and having Snivy smack every Lass and Youngster that was waiting there, I arrived at Flocessy Ranch. my rival wasn't anywhere in my immediate sight, so i continued to look deeper into the ranch---




before i even had time to process a single THOUGHT, i was already locked into a battle with my rival. jeez... he could've dialed it down like... several notches. sigh. ok. so how was i going to go about doing this. i'll be honest, i was kinda unprepared. i'm only a level above my rival when i was intending to be around...2 or 3 levels higher, but whatever. i reflected back to the Tail Whip strategy Hugh used before and decided to use that against him. i might as well give it a shot.

"We're changing things up a bit, Snivy. We're going to weaken our opponent. Use Tail Whip, now!". as much as i disliked tail whip and growl-esque moves, i realize that they're super crucial early on for someone as new as myself, and of course, this proved useful. Snivy wagged her tail, catching the opposing Tepig off guard a bit and lowering its defense. my rival was none the wiser.




Hugh's Tepig, of course, did exactly that. Tepig charged and crashed straight into Snivy. i'd say it did some respectable damage, but Snivy took the hit much better than she did in our first battle. but that move didn't matter. it provided the opening that we needed.

"Snivy, it's time to end this battle. Use Tackle, now!". with that, Snivy retaliated with her own Tackle, which did a LOT of damage to Tepig, thanks to the defense drop from Tail Whip. Hugh tried to turn my strategy against me by using his own Tail Whip, but it was too late. I commanded Snivy to do one more Tackle, and the battle was done.

after the battle, my rival commended me on how strong i've gotten, when we were approached by the owner of the ranch, amused by our Pokemon battle. the owner came to us with a favour though: he didn't know exactly where the other Herdier of his went, and as soon as he mentioned that, my rival immediately flew off, saying something about how it might be lost forever. again, he needs to dial it down a notch or two. seems like i'm not the only one in that boat.

after rescuing this Herdier, i'm going to call it a day, journal. there's so much for me to do and it'd be a lot to record it here, so i'll probably be back later with an update with how everything went. and i'll tell my rival to chill a bit while i'm at it.

Nice playthrough. Hoing that you will upload more. Best Of Luck on your journey.