LA's Pokemon Soul Silver Superb Playthrough

In the past few months I've journeyed through the Sinnoh region on a quest to complete a living Sinnohdex on Pokemon Pearl while picking up all items and completing all quests along the way. This recent foray into Gen IV has left me feeling pumped to continue with the next game as well as use this adventure to support the final activities in the previous project (see Stage 7 for details).

This time around my mission is to uncover every secret item/area/trainer in the game and complete a living Johotdex (no way am I going for the complete National) in full using support from my copy of Pokemon Heart Gold and a second DS system. There will be no other challenge-like constraints, no Nuzlocke rules, no gameover rules; there will only be a mission to complete the game in a journey I'm calling…

LA's Pokemon Soul Silver Superb Playthrough​

Stage 1: New Bark Town to Violet City​

When I started up this game I decided to play the female character for a change since I had just completed Pokemon Pearl with the male protagonist. I quickly got to the starter selection and saved the game. Now, I have previously soft reset here for shiny starters and succeeded twice - one Totodile and one Cyndaquil. Yes, I wanted to start this playthrough with a Chikorita, but would I be prepared to soft reset for a shiny?... No! However, I did soft reset for a female just because I think it suits the species better.

I moved through the motions of the early game, catching Pokemon and even trading in an egg for Cyndaquil and Totodile so that I could use them for the completion of my living Johtodex. Annoyingly, I missed playing before 10am so Ledyba will have to wait for another day. I do feel a bit compensated for this as I fired up a Pokewalker and managed to capture a Nidoran (F) and Kangaskhan on the first stroll.

Like my previous adventure, I took a break at the PC to rearrange all of my captures and set them out in order according to the Sinnohdex. Usually I wouldn't evolve anything that I can catch later but since Weedle is so easy to evolve I decided to complete that line right away. Grinding for Dunsparce didn't take long at all and powering through the Sprout Tower and Gym was fairly straightforward.

I'll need to go back and collect a Ledyba tomorrow but here's the state of my Pokedex at the end of this first stage:

Woke up this morning and totally forgot about my intention to hunt for a Ledyba. Luckily though I spotted the clock with 17 minutes remaining and loaded up the game for a quick hunt. Moving on from Violet was pretty straightforward and catching new entries for the Pokedex was simple enough.

Rather randomly I encountered a Tentacool with the Old Rod on my first encounter which spurred me into investigating what else I could catch with it. For some reason I totally had not considered that the Old Rod could fish up anything other than Magikarp so this was a nice surprise!

Normally I have the most trouble with Gen 3 when it comes to status ailments but this time around Zubat's Supersonic seems to be hitting on every single try and I only break through confusion in 1 out of every 10 attempts to attack. This made the area around the Union Cave and Slowpoke Well very very frustrating but that was soon forgotten as I randomly encountered...



Caught this beauty in a Fast Ball and named him Teefs!

The Bug Gym and Silver were both easy enough to get through and before long I was adding even more entries to my living Johtodex.

Stage 3: Ilex Forest to Mt. Mortar​

Passing through Goldenrod and Ecruteak was somewhat nostalgic but didn't pose too much of a challenge. I had decided to make things easier for myself and trained a Nidorino with Double Kick and an Aipom with Astonish to take out the two gyms along the way and things all worked out fine! I think that the success at Morty's gym was thanks to the gross over-levelling that was achieved during the hunts for Yanma and Marill where I ploughed through every dang Zubat, Geodude and Machop along the way. (I was surprised that I didn't find another shiny with the number of encounters I went through!)

Picking up the Surf HM I decided to retrace my steps to the Ruins of Alph and Union Cave to collect a Lapras last Friday. Then through Ilex Forest again to hunt a Noctowl before sieving through all of the other water-types that were no available thanks to my surfboard called Croconaw.

My entry into the Bug Catching Contest was an ultra-success on the first try; I caught a Butterfree at max health which landed me the win and a coveted Sun Stone. Next stop Pinsir and Scyther.

Rather annoyingly I haven't been able to use the Pokewalker much since I tore my Achilles tendon and now cannot walk too far without getting quite tired on my crutches. Instead, I've been trying to cheat by strapping it to my dog's collar but that doesn't seem to be working very well either.

Stage 4: Burned Tower, Lake of Rage and to Olivine City​

In this section I had a number of Pokemon to catch and the spree started hard and fast. Finding most Pokemon for me has been pretty quick but I always settle down for a longer search when a swarming Pokemon is in the list since their encounter rate is at 1%. Marril proved to be a long-term hunt a week ago and Yanma wasn't exactly quick so when I saw that Snubbull and Qwilfish were both in the next section, I assumed it would be a long time before I came back with an update. Turns out, my luck is in! Snubbull took maybe an hour to find and Qwilfish was my very first encounter on Route 32 with the Good Rod!

After I was finished with the Lake of Rage I set my sights on Olivine City and back to pick my was back across the map but I'd gone only a few feet before finding…


And then passing through Ecruteak onto Route 38 I stumbled across…


And after returning to New Bark town to pick up Shellder and Chinchou I returned to the Lake of Rage to get the red Gyarados but ran into this Pokemon while surfing across Route 42…


The game is not disappointing me at all - the hunting for rare Pokemon is enjoyable and levelling up random Pokemon is fun during the hunts. I haven't found very many unexpected features or hidden items but I hope to uncover more as I reach areas of the game that I'm relatively unfamiliar with; like the Safari Zone and some areas of Kanto. My team is shaping up well and the spread of Exp is going to improve now that I've got the Exp. Share from Mr. Pokemon. In the next section I hope to get a whole bunch of Gym badges in rapid succession as well as some new Pokemon around Cianwood City.

As I had expected this section of the game handed over a lot of gym badges and my main team of Pokemon levelled up pretty quickly. I'm slightly concerned that I am overlevelled right now due to the training I receive whenever I go on a catching spree but something tells me the last gym won't be all that easy for me…

I haven't touched the safari zone yet since I don't know if there's anything worth catching in there. However, I did travel up that way and encountered a very challenging double battle against a Flamethrower and Thunderbolt duo of Magmar and Electabuzz. The catches that were the most challenging this time around were, believe it or not, Machoke and Graveller in the Cliff Cave. For some reason these thing just didn't want to show themselves and took literally hours of hunting to get them. Ironically, this took much longer than my Remoraid (3 fishing attempts) which should be harder to find than either of the cave-dwellers!

One thing that did grace me while hunting in the Cliff Cave was this beauty!



I haven't named him yet but thinking I'll go with a golden rock like Pyrite when I visit the name rater. Catching this little thing was nerve wracking - at level 19 he knows Selfdestruct and I was torn for how to approach the capture. In the end I lucked out with a first-turn Ultra Ball and snagged him pretty easily.
This is my second shiny Geodude - my first was encountered in the very first playthrough of Pearl that I ever completed back in 2007.

Now that I am nearing the end of Johto, I wonder how many captures I have left before entering the Kanto region… Only time will tell!

Stage 6: Ice Path, Blackthorn City and the journey to the Indigo Plateau​

Finally pushing through the final areas of Johto I came to realise that my previous worries of being over-levelled were not reasonable at all. Clair's team was easily on par with the average level of my own and at this point I was only training 3 core members! Even so, the wall that is Meganium managed to handle her Kingdra while Feraligatr's Ice Fang took care of the Dragonairs.

Inside the Dragon's Den I was expecting to be handed a Dratini but that didn't happen. I read into this online and found that this feature was only available in Crystal which is weird since I had only really played through Crystal once or twice before and this gift stuck out in my mind as a key feature of the area. Even so, I did manage to find a Dratini while surfing so added it to my 'dex.

Before starting the long trek to the league I investigated the ins and outs of Dark Cave and ensured that my captures and breeding activity was up to date. I then took a dive into the dark depths of the Whirl Islands and fought the mighty Lugia. Capturing this thing used a LOT of Pokeballs – I think the total was 4 Heavy, 6 Friend, 27 Ultra – before it decided to stick around with me. With 1 HP and Paralysis, I had to say I was impressed with its determination to stay free of me!

The trainers en route to the Elite Four didn't pose much of a threat, including my rival, and before I knew it I had passed the point of no return. My team entering the league consisted of 5 members: Meganium Lvl 43, Typhlosion Lvl 43, Feraligatr Lvl 44, Mamoswine Lvl 41 and Lugia Lvl 45.

Will was a pushover, as was Koga. Bruno's Machamp managed to lay out a little damage but otherwise he went down quickly and even Karen's team struggled to lay out much damage to my squad.
Then came Lance. Damn, there's a reason why he's the champion. We played an interesting game of cat-and-mouse throughout the battle whenever his Gyarados came up against my Meganium. My dino-wall's Poisonpowder and barriers tactic whittled him down numerous times, forcing him to switch away from her in the battle twice! My Typhlosion was fodder for the most part, leaving the rest of the opponents to be tackled by Feraligatr, Mamoswine and Lugia. A lot of healing items used later, I cleared the credits and gave myself a little pat on the back for the effort. Next stop, Kanto!

Stage 7: Living Johtodex Complete!​

It has been a really long time since I posted an update and I'm not entirely sure when it happened but at some point in the past year I managed to complete the Living Johtodex! This means I must have gone on a super catching spree as the remaining 71 Pokemon that I didn't have in the previous section account for more than a third of what I had to date.

With all 254 (I'm not including Mew and Celebi as I don't have access to a WEP network to use the Mystery Gift glitch) I'd say I'm pretty much done here! I'll pocket the opportunity to go back with the Poke-Radio captures etc and may update again if I get around to it.

Pokemon Seen: 254 Caught: 254