4th Gen Platinum Journey

I preferred the shared Travel Journal threads. Making an entire thread just for my journey feels kind of self-important, I guess (no offense intended to anyone who likes creating their own threads), especially since there are so few (this is the first Sinnoh travel journey thread, and the third Gen IV one overall). But I digress.

I chose to start with Piplup. I have a bit of a weird history with the Sinnoh starters - I've used Chimchar the most, probably six or seven times, and Turtwig two or three times, and I've never used Piplup. However, the weird part is that Chimchar is my least favorite of the three, and Piplup is my favorite (Turtwig is a close second, though).

After narrowly defeating my rival, Barry, I got a Pokedex from Professor Rowan in Sandgem Town. Afterward, I caught my first Pokemon on Route 202 - a Shinx (with Intimidate). I trained it up to level 5, and my Piplup up to level 7 before I took on any of the trainers. By the end of the route, Piplup had grown to level 9 and Shinx to level 7.

It's been a long time since I've played Platinum, so I sort of forgot what to do. I talked to Looker, and then wandered around for about 5 minutes confused about why the Poketch guy wasn't appearing. Finally, I remembered that I was supposed to meet up with Barry in the Trainer's School first, so I did that and all was good. I was ready to move on to the next route. Despite not knowing an Electric-type move, my Shinx was able to take down Barry's Starly without much difficulty. I happened to remember that his Turtwig doesn't learn any grass moves until the next battle, so I sent out my Piplup, and despite it spamming Withdraw all day, I took it out.

Once I had taken down Barry, I decided to return to Jubilife and head North to Route 204, where I caught a Budew. I took down the trainers in the trainers on Route 204 and Route 203, leveling up Budew in the process. After making through Oreburgh Gate, Budew had caught up to Piplup and Shinx. I decided to temporarily neglect Shinx, because I knew it was going to be next to useless in the upcoming gym. I fought all the trainers in the Oreburgh Gate, alternating between Piplup and Budew. By the end of that, Piplup was level 13, and Budew was level 12 (but just a couple experience points away from 13); Shinx was still 10.

It was then that I made the snap decision to evolve Budew before Roark. In retrospect, this was a terrible idea - I didn't even have the Soothe Bell, and, coupled with the fact that I didn't want to overtrain meant I had no option other than to run around. This took basically forever. A week and 32000 steps later - the Poketch has a step counter - I had a level 13 Roselia. And, yes, the tedium of doing nothing but running around is why it took me a week to do. Roselia was both my first evolution and my first Pokemon to learn more than four moves (I got Mega Drain in exchange for Absorb).

After fighting the Gym Trainers, both Roselia and Piplup had reached level 14. If I remember correctly, that's Roark's highest level, so I'm not too worried about the fight. Plus, Roselia was designed as a mid-game Pokemon, so it's really strong this early in the game.

I'll continue this once I've made some more progress. I'll be nicknaming these guys when I get to Eterna City; I like to give a Pokemon a bit of time in my party before giving it a nickname. Speaking of Eterna, I am sort of worried about Gardenia. Piplup's going to be weak, and both Roselia and Shinx are going to be resisted. Unfortunately, Roselia isn't going to get a Poison move to use.

My Team

Okay, so I was right about Roark not giving me too much trouble. I was trying to avoid using Roselia if at all possible, because I wanted Piplup to get as much experience as possible, so that he could evolve. His Geodude went down in one Bubble, but unfortunately his Onix survived (barely) and managed to get an attack off - Screech. Then, the next turn Roark healed his Onix, but not enough to prevent me from taking it down. I remember how hard Cranidos's Headbutt hits, so I was really worried about that Screech.

So I switched out to Shinx. This cut his Attack (via Intimidate) on top of getting rid of the effects of Screech. However, Shinx couldn't do much of anything aside from Tackle, that did almost nothing. I decided to leave it until it fainted so I could get a free switch back to Piplup, and after a few turns, Shinx went down. Piplup came back out and managed to take down Cranidos after a turn or two of Bubble-ing.

Despite my best efforts, Piplup didn't make it to level 16 from the fight with Roark. But he was almost there, so I took a quick detour to Oreburgh Mines to take out one or two wild Geodude, and he leveled up and evolved! However, he was two levels ahead of Roselia, and a full 6 levels ahead of Shinx, so, rather than using him, he was shuffled to the back of my party for a while.

I returned to Jubilife City, and after taking out a couple of Galactic Grunts, I picked up a Bidoof on Route 202 (for Rock Smash purposes), and proceeded to the Northern part of Route 204, where there were a few trainers. I was mainly trying to give Shinx some levels, so I was very disappointed when he fainted to a Bug Catcher's Kricketot (Bide, naturally).

Entering Floaroma Town, I remembered the Pluck TM, and so I went and grabbed it, and taught it to my Prinplup. Prinplup is weak to grass-type moves, so it'd be a risky tactic, but Pluck will probably do pretty well in Gardenia's gym.

After that, I fought the two Galactic Grunts hassling the honey guy. The first guy had a Zubat, and I sent out Shinx. Unfortunately, because of Supersonic, Shinx fainted yet again, getting no experience. I switched to Prinplup (because what was Roselia going to do against something that had a 4x resistance to Grass?), who took it out. The other grunt was taken down by Roselia no problem.

After healing Shinx (again...) I decided to return to Route 204 to train Shinx a little bit. After a couple battles, he leveled up to 13 and finally learned Spark. Once he'd learned that, I went over the Valley Windworks, and worked over all the grunts just using Shinx. On the very last grunt, he leveled up to 15.

I'd completely forgotten that Shinx evolved at level 15. For some reason, I thought he evolved at 18 or 20, so it took me by surprise. But it worked out extremely well for the Mars fight. Her Zubat went down in one hit, getting me a free switch to Bidoof going into her Purugly. Then, on my turn, I switched back to Luxio, getting an Intimidate and minimal damage from Fake Out, switched back to Bidoof, which was immediately taken down by a Scratch, and got a free switch back to Luxio for a second Intimidate. With two Intimidates, her Purugly was pretty effectively neutralized. So after a Leer and a couple Sparks, it was down.

I took the time to slather two trees in honey (I forgot about the one in the Valley Windworks). This was because I was wanting an Aipom. Or, well, not exactly - I wanted a Pokemon for Pickup, and Aipom is the only one in Sinnoh, and is only available from Honey Trees. Once I had done that, I stopped playing for the night.

The next morning, I checked the Honey Trees - a Cherubi, and a Combee. Not the Aipom I wanted. I re-slathered them with honey, including the one by the Valley Windworks, and continued on my way North through Route 205, towards Eterna Forest, taking on the trainers.

The first trainer on the route was awful. For some reason, I had Roselia at the front of my party, and he had a Ponyta, so I immediately switched to Prinplup. As I was switching he used Ember, which didn't do much, but burned my Prinplup. I tried out Bubble, but it didn't do much (maybe a quarter of its HP) because Bubble is really weak. Next, I used Pluck - even with a Burn, and without STAB or being super-effective, it did more damage (marginally more, but more nonetheless). Unfortunately, between the Burn and Ponyta's tackle, it was doing more damage to me than I was to it, and Prinplup ended up fainting.

That was disappointing to say the least, but it was in the red, so Luxio finished it off easily, and, after returning to the Pokemon Center to heal, I decided to continue to use Prinplup for the rest of the route. I wasn't sure when exactly it got Bubble Beam, but I thought it would be soon, and after that embarrassment, I wanted it as soon as possible. The rest of the trainers on the route gave him no problems, save for a Pachirisu, which I switched out to let Roselia handle.

Of particular note was the last trainer on the route, who had a Piplup, which was an amusing mirror match. My Prinplup using Pluck against it, doing about half its HP in damage, and then the Piplup using Peck on me and doing practically no damage. I saved and quit after healing at the house before Eterna Forest.

I haven't played any more than that (but I will later today), but I did happen to notice something on Bulbapedia. You may have caught it, too - earlier, I said that Aipom is the only Pokemon in Sinnoh with Pickup. That's actually not true. Pachirisu gets it too. And, luckily, this is the area you catch Pachirisu, so I'm going to catch one as soon as I start playing again.

So I picked up the game again, and I immediately went straight to Eterna Forest. About halfway through, I remembered my plan to get a Pachirisu, and after debating for a moment, I decided I would catch a Pachirisu on the Eterna City half of Route 205. So I get to the end, and try to do just that.

After about 10 minutes of searching, I finally decide to double check Bulbapedia to see how rare they are and confirm that, unfortunately, they only appear in this section of Route 205 in Diamond and Pearl. In Platinum, they're only in the southern half of Route 205. Annoyed, I backtrack through Eterna Forest and start looking for Pachirisu. I find a bunch of them with Runaway, but none with pickup. After about 30 minutes of searching, I decide to check the honey trees, just in case I ended up with an Aipom.

The Pokemon that appears at a honey tree is fixed when you slather the honey, but stats and abilities are rolled when the encounter happens, so if I had an Aipom tree, I could save in front of the tree and try over and over until I got a Pickup Aipom. This would be nice because Pachirisu is relatively rare (10%). Unfortunately, no Aipom showed up. I did end up catching a female Combee, though.

After that diversion, I returned to the Valley Windworks to continue to search for a Pickup Pachirisu. After another 15 or 20 minutes, I finally had one. Once I did, I ran all the way to the Eterna City Pokemon Center.

After healing up, I went to the gym. The gym trainers were fairly simple, but Gardenia definitely wasn't. My Pluck strategy didn't really work - her Turtwig knew Reflect. I tried several variations on healing and x items to wait it out, but every time either it or her Cherrim would get a lucky critical hit and take Prinplup down. And nobody else could really do anything against Roserade, so I would lose.

After three or four losses, I decided to change up my strategy entirely. Rather than leading with Prinplup, I lead with Luxio. I waited out Reflect by using my x-items to buff up Luxio, and healed up on the last turn of Reflect. Then, I started spamming Bite. Without the grass weakness (and no critical hits, thankfully), Luxio managed to take down both Turtwig and Cherrim. When she was about to send in her Roserade, I stopped to make a decision.

Even though Luxio had boosted attack and defenses, I seriously doubted its survivability against Roserade, especially since it was already low on HP. So, instead, I chose to switch out to Bidoof to sacrifice it, and get a free intimidate. Then I repeated the tactic with Pachirisu. After my second free intimidate, I sent out Combee. This time, however, rather than using my free switch to bring Luxio back in, I sent out Roselia.

We traded Stun Spores, paralyzing each other, and I got to work boosting with Growth, while it mostly spent the time spamming Poison Sting. After I'd gotten a couple Growths up, I started using Mega Drain. Of course, Roserade is 4x resistant to grass, so it barely did anything, but it wasn't doing much to me either - it would hit me with Poison Sting for like 7HP of damage, and Mega Drain would heal me for 1HP or 2HP every turn. After repeating that ad infinitum, pausing to heal once or twice, Roserade had healed using its berry and was just above health again, when it got a critical hit and almost took out my Roselia.

I decided that I needed to end the fight, so I switched over to Luxio. Luckily, Roserade was fully paralyzed three turns in a row, so I got to switch in and get off two leers before it took him down. But that's fine - I switched out to Prinplup, and used Pluck. Thanks to the paralysis, I outsped her Roserade, and thanks to the defense drop from Leer, I finally took it out.

After that ordeal, I healed up my Pokemon, and went to visit the name rater. Prinplup became Reign, Luxio is Lyncis. I considered naming Roselia Bouvardia, after my gaming desktop (All my computers are named after genera of flowers); I also thought about Sutera, the genus of Sutera Cordata, the Pikmin flower. But, in the end, I went with Petal.

If anyone is curious, Lyncis's name comes from a star in the Lynx constellation.

After that, I got Cut from Cynthia, taught it to Bidoof, and entered the Galactic Eterna Building, where I cleared out all the trainers. Jupiter wasn't too difficult - I started with Reign, and two Bubble Beams later, her Zubat went down. Then, I did the same Intimidate-sacrifice loop again to nerf her Skuntank; after the second Intimidate, I kept Lyncis out, used Leer once, and then started using Spark, and it went down fairly easily.

I haven't done anything else yet. I don't think I've actually even moved from the spot where I fought Jupiter. Next on the agenda is to grab the Bicycle and Explorer Kit, grab a Fire Stone from the Underground, and then start towards Hearthome.

So, I left the Galactic Eterna Building, and I went towards the Bike Shop, where I was interrupted by Cynthia with a Togepi egg. I grabbed the Bike, and, before I did anything else, I took a few minutes to hatch it. Then, I went to the Underground Man to get an Explorer Kit. From there, I spent about 20 minutes in the Underground trying to track down a Fire Stone. I got a Heart Scale (maybe two?) before I managed to get one, so while I would've liked to have gotten one sooner, it wasn't too bad.

I resurfaced and headed South. I got the Experience Share from Dawn's father, and immediately put it on Pachirisu - I may not want it for my team, but it'll be a long time until it's high enough level to get a Shiny Stone, which is the primary reason I picked it up. Also, I was sort of afraid of becoming overleveled with the number of trainers I'd be fighting.

I ran through the trainers on Cycling Road and on Routes 207 and 208 without any real issues, before I landed in Hearthome. Before anything else, I headed to Bebe, and she gave me an Eevee, which I immediately evolved into Flareon. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that my new Flareon was going to be useless in the upcoming gym - I had no TMs for it, and its only attack was Tackle. It had, unfortunately, missed learning Ember, and it wouldn't get Bite until 29.

Well, whatever. I went to the contest hall, met up with my mom, and, afterward, Fantina. Following her, I went over to the gym, and began taking out gym trainers, until eventually I made my way to Fantina.

Fantina wasn't too difficult. Two Bites from Lyncis took out her Duskull, and then, when she went to send out her Mismagius, I used my free switch to send in Petal, who used Stun Spore, and then Leech Seed before being taken down. I then switched over to Reign, who used Pluck to steal Mismagius's berry, and, thanks to Petal's help, Reign managed to take down Roserade, though he ended up at around 1/3 health in the process. For Haunter, I switched back to Lyncis for two more Bites, and the fight was over.

The rival battle in the guardhouse leading out of Hearthome went by relatively easily. Lyncis and Reign took down his Staravia and Ponyta, respectively, in one hit. Petal took Buizel out in two. His Grotle wasn't difficult either, but took a while - I had a fire-type now, but all that really got me was the grass-type resistance, as Flareon still didn't know Fire-type moves. I spammed Flareon's Quick Attack (which she learned via switch training in the gym) until it finally went down.

I made a beeline for Veilstone. I went through the route connecting Hearthome and Solaceon as quick as possible, skipping every optional fight. Then, likewise, I immediately headed North and did the same in the routes heading to Veilstone. I bought a Fire Blast TM at the Department Store, and then made a short detour South to grab the Dig TM (it's in that cave that expands as you catch Unown). After double checking Flareon's move compatibility, I realized I'd forgotten about Secret Power, which I'd intended to teach her. Secret Power is in Amity Park.

So I backtracked towards Hearthome, still avoiding trainers. Then I grabbed the Secret Power TM and the Amulet Coin, because it was also in the Amity Park. I then taught all three TMs to Flareon. Rather than running back towards Veilstone, I decided to take this opportunity to backtrack even further - to Eterna City. Once I'd arrived, Flareon got rechristened Calid (apparently an archaic word for hot). And, then I remembered to give her the Shell Bell, and have Reign hold the Amulet Coin.

Fast forward to the route connecting Hearthome and Solaceon. Now that Calid actually had useful moves, I could use her in battle and I didn't mind fighting the trainers, so I started doing so. I also took a few minutes to find and catch a Staravia, because soon I'll be needing Fly and Defog. After defeating all the trainers on that route, I stopped by the Solaceon ruins to collect the Defog HM. Also, in the process, I found a Fire Stone, Thunderstone, and Water Stone. I actually was aware of the fact that a Fire Stone could be found here, but I wanted to evolve Eevee as soon as possible, so I didn't wait for it.

After beating all the trainers on the following route, Route 210, I stoppped at the Cafe Cabin to buy 3 dozen bottles of Moomoo Milk, because they're fantastic and cheap healing items. I also cleared out the optional trainers on Route 215, leading back to Veilstone.

I went to the gym. Maylene wasn't too tough - she started with a Meditite that went down to a couple Plucks, and then she tried to send out Lucario. I used Pluck to get rid of its berry, and then switched out to Calid for Fire Blast, which hit and took it out. Then, I switched back to Reign to Pluck her Machoke. Much easier fight than Gardenia or Fantina.

After that, I helped Dawn recover her Pokedex from Team Galactic, getting the HM for Fly in return. While training on the following route, Route 214 (linking Veilstone and Valor Lakefront), Pachirisu got all the way up to level 41. It's had that Experience Share on all this time, and I finally took it off - level 41 was the earliest level you could pick up Shiny Stones. He was also my strongest Pokemon by several levels, which I found somewhat amusing. Lyncis tried to evolve, but I didn't let him - he got Crunch earlier as a Luxio, and I wanted it. Route 213 (linking Valor Lakefront and Pastoria City) only had a couple trainers and nothing of note happened there.

In Pastoria, I fought my rival. He didn't cause me any real problems, because I have a Grass/Fire/Water trio I can use to trump his Grass/Fire/Water trio, and Lyncis beats his Staravia. If anything, this fight was easier because Calid knew a Fire-type move now, rather than having to spam Quick Attack.

I took a small detour back to Lake Valor to catch a Girafarig for my team, and she got the Experience Share. Then, I went to take on Pastoria Gym. Reign evolved after the first or second gym trainer. I also decided not to bother waiting for Crunch (since it'd only be a difference of 3 levels or so), and Lyncis evolved too.

I wanted Roserade for the Crasher Wake fight, but I was out of gym trainers, and Pachirisu still hadn't picked up a Shiny Stone. I decided to leave the gym and grind until I got one; Girafarig got up a couple levels without a single Pickup drop. Eventually, I decided that, in order to make this go as quickly as possible, I would just Fly back to Route 201 and fight the Pokemon there (because I could take them out in one hit and they wouldn't hurt me).

I apparently have the worst luck with Pickup. Between grinding on Route 213 and Route 201, I had maybe 60 encounters before I finally saw a Pickup drop. I didn't see another one for another 30 or so encounters. After that, it settled into a pace where I could reasonably expect one every 20 encounters (I was using Pachirisu's Spark, which has 20 PP, so it was like one item between visits to the Pokemon Center to heal PP). I mostly kept getting Repels, but I also got a Full Heal, a couple Ultra Balls, and a couple Escape Ropes. To add insult to injury, I also got a Dusk Stone. After maybe two hours of fighting Bidoof, Starly, and Kricketot, I finally managed to get a Shiny Stone, and I evolved Petal.

My entire team is now fully evolved.

Well, after that excursion, I flew back to Pastoria and took on Wake. I led with Petal, and he led with Gyarados. I switched to Lyncis, who finished it off in one hit with a Spark. I switched to Petal, who did the same to Quagsire with Magical Leaf. Quad-weaknesses are nice when you can exploit them. I vaguely remembered his Floatzel having Ice Fang, so I switched back to Lyncis. Even though it definitely got off two attacks (it took two Sparks to take it down, and it outsped me), it didn't really do much of anything. Even easier than the fight with Maylene.

After departing from Wake's gym, I ran into my rival, which led into Team Galactic apparently detonating a bomb in the Great Marsh. While Wake went to assess the damage to the Great Marsh, I went after the Grunt responsible. Despite beating him, he got away. Afterward, I met up with Cynthia, who gave me some medicine for the Psyduck by the Cafe Cabin and an Old Charm for her grandmother.

I flew back to Solaceon, and worked my way North, past the Psyduck, towards Celestic Town. I used this time to get Girafarig up several levels by fighting the trainers along the way. When I got to Celestic, Team Galactic was threatening to blow it up with a bomb as well; the grunt ran off after being defeated. I went into the Ruins to look at a mural, where Cyrus showed up, and, revealing himself as the leader of Team Galactic, battled me. Aside from his Murkrow being surprisingly powerful, I didn't run into any issues during the Cyrus fight. Afterward, Cynthia's grandmother gave me the HM for Surf, which was immediately taught to Reign.

I fought the trainers in the route west of Celestic Town, and then I flew to Eterna to nickname my Girafarig. Ultimately, I went with Instinct. After that, I surfed west of Jubilife to Canalave, and then immediately flew away, because I realized I'd forgotten something. Now that I had Surf, I could get Flamethrower and Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is just behind the Valley Windworks, and Flamethrower is in the Fuego Ironworks, which is on the route between Floaroma and Eterna Forest, so it's in the same area. Once those had been acquired, Calid replaced Fire Blast with Flamethrower, and Lyncis got Thunderbolt instead of Spark.

That done, I flew back to Canalave, and fought my rival. All of his Pokemon went down in one hit, with the exception of his Heracross. His Heracross actually knew Night Slash, which hurt Instinct quite a lot, but she was faster, so she managed a 2HKO.

I went to Iron Island, and helped out Riley. Once we took down the Galactic Grunts that were riling up the Pokemon, he gave me a Riolu egg. My sixth party member. I hatched it, and trained it via the Experience Share on the remaining trainers in Iron Island (unfortunately, I'd already cleared out most of them by the time I realized it would've been great experience for Riolu), and then I returned to Canalave City, and did the same to the gym trainers in Canalave Gym.

By the time I was ready to fight Byron, Riolu was in the mid 20s. Byron wasn't particularly difficult - his Magnemite went down in one hit to Calid's Flamethrower, his Steelix went down in one hit to Reign's Surf. For his Bastiodon, I actually tried to send in Riolu, but unfortunately being nearly 20 levels lower was too much for a 4x weakness to Fighting to overcome. Force Palm did maybe a quarter of its health, so I switched him out for Calid. In the process, Calid was nearly knocked out by Bastiodon's Stone Edge. She used Dig, which almost took him out, but the turn she emerged from the Dig, he used another Stone Edge to take her down. I sent out Reign to Surf, and I won.

After leaving, Barry informed me that I need to meet up at the Canalave Library.