[Gen 4] I'm doing it. I'm playing Platinum, and this time I want to complete it!

There's something about this game that just doesn't grab me. I don't know if it's the pokemon selection, the characters, the story, wether it's because i picked it up later in life compared to the other games, or because I started playing it right as I was turning sour towards the franchise. I don't know.

~The pokemon selection
Let's start with this one: The starters are not my favorite; I don't dislike them, but I also don't love them. The one I always pick is Turtwig, it's the one that I like the most out of the three, but it's not very fun to play with for some reason. I think it has to do with the fact that the first Grass type move it learns is Absorb at Level 9, and doesn't learn anything before that either. When you compare it to other starters like Snivy and Treecko, those learn their first Grass type at levels 7 and 6 respectively. That makes the Turtwig line slow not only in they speed stat, but also in their learnset. This way, battles are slow and boring. Get Leer'd, use Withdraw, Tackle, chip away slowly at the foe's HP. As long as you're higher level than then you're gonna win.
Ok, enought shitting on Turtwig. I love the little guy, but boy does he test my patience.
The pokemon that appear in the first routes of the game are very important, not only for constructing an early team, getting an HM slave or getting through the first few Gyms, but they're also the first impression of the game. That being said, let me be blunt: Sinnoh is not my favorite design-wise. I think with the exception of Shinx, who I adore and named after one of my cats, they're all pretty... meh... I don't hate them, I'm just indifferent towards them.
Indifference, maybe that's what I feel for these game.

~The characters and the story
Like I said, I never got that far into the story, so I can't comment on that, sorry. From what I've seen of the characters, they're very... kinda... sorta... a little..? Ok I'll say it again: Meh. Again, I haven't gotten far enough into the story to comment on this, that's just what I feel after plating for an hour last night. I just wanna say something about one specific character, but you gotta promise you won't hate me. Ok?
Barry
I don't like him LMAO
He's just so pushy, bossy, inconsiderate. I don't like his attittude, what else can I say? This goes back to the centrury (or quarter century) old discussion: Should our Pokemon rivals be jerks? My answer is simply No. They can be, but I don't prefer that. I prefer rivals like Cheren; he wants to succed and learn and grow, he doesn't trample over anyone, he respects you, etc.
Anyway let's move on.

~Is it ever too late to start playing new games?
Ok, time to get real for a moment, I'm gonna try to keep it short tho. Back when Sun and Moon came out, I had a major falling out with the franchise and pretty much stopped platying for years. This was also when my depression started to get noticeable to the people around me, and that affected my enjoyment of media and hobbies in general too. This is still one of my biggest struggles in life, and it still affects me, to the point of not being able to read entire books/ manga, watch TV serieses, and of course, not being able to play games to completion.
I started playing Platinum towards the start of that era, then again in the middle of it. And now here we are, I want to play all the games in the series and I can't complete this one. My memory is trash because of my condition, so if I were to take a break from something, I'd have to start over from the beginning. But I can try! That's also a reason why I joined this community, maybe if I post here about my progress I can stay motivated. Btw if you read this far: hi, you get a cookie; but also hey you're welcome to comment on my adventures if you want to!

~In conclusion
I don't know. I'm gonna attempt to play this game in its entirety and I'm gonna write here with the progress i make to see if that motivates me to keep going.

>>>>the game
This is how I'm gonna play the game:
Aside from the basic "i went here and did this", I'm also gonna write down stuff i'm enjoying about the game! It would be something like "hey i went here and did this and i loved the music and how peaceful this part felt". Sounds good? Good.
Additionally, I'd like to attempt doing one Gym per day like i did with Soul Silver back in the day. It will take a bit of time each day (a lot, i'm very slow with these games) but I don't have much else to do anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ HOWEVER! I don't expect to be able to do this tomorrow cause it's my birthday and it's probably gonna be a long day; I'm still gonna try but it's not guaranteed.

I started playing last night (I think), but I'll write about that in the next post as to not have a gigantic wall of text here.

I was meaning to write this a bit earlier before I headed to challenge the first Gym, but here we are.

DAY 1
Gym completed:
Rock

Pokemon in party:
Garruk- Turtwig
Oregon - Shinx
Marzipan - Bidoof

Today's fun and the things I liked:
To start with, I liked that i lost to the first Gym leader. It seems to be true that older games tend to be harder, I especially heard that about this generation. It wasn't frustrating tho, I was just unprepared. I went in overconfident, I thought now that my starter had learned two grass moves I could take on Roark no issues. Well I was wrong! And that's ok. I leveled Garruk up to level 15, went in again and won without much resistance. In fact, Roark's pokemon didn't even scratched mine, and I only used one of mine. I think I got extremely lucky that my moves went in first. Whatever it was, it's welcome.
Another thing I liked was that Barry was not outside the Gym waiting for me. I'm so used to the newer gens and being harassed by every single character every time I come in and out of buildings that I was expecting him to be annoying like that too. Honestly if the dude grows as a person and doesn't jump at me from the tall grass like a hungry Bidoof, then maybe I can finish the game.
I appreciate Shinx. It's just so cute! I named mine after one of my cats, Oregon. Why? Cause the mon's cry is very similar to one miau that my baby Oregon makes!
What else, what else... I don't know, I think I need to give it more time. If I remember correctly the next town is the one with the flowers? If so, I'm sure the flowers will be pretty... Something I noticed though is that the colors are a bit muddy. I don't know if it's an artistic choice, or if it's cause of system limitations... I appreciate that Sinnoh is a bit more muted than the other regions, I'm not expecting it to be as bright as a Gen 5 or 6 game, and I'm an artist myself so I know why one would choose darker/muted colors, but ... Idk it just feels a bit off. I'm not saying that things *need* to be one way or another, this is mostly something I noticed about the menus. I like the overworld, it looks awesome and moody and stuff, but the menus feel a bit bland. I don't know how else to explain it, I'm so sorry.

So to recap:
-Garruk got his two Grass type moves
-Got my first Gym Badge
-Completed today's Gym challenge for One Gym A Day.

It's like half an hour before midnigjt over here, but according to the forums I'm already a year older! Tomorrow I'm gonna have a long day, so I don't think I'll get to complete the Gym challenge, but I will try. We're gonna claim my birthday coffee and buy a new fountain pen :)
That concludes today's post!

Just as I expected, this week is turning out pretty busy and tiresome, but I'm having fun.
I got to go get coffee and a muffin for my birthday, as well as aunt Claudia's gift (which i have to pretend I don't know about until saturday hehehe). Also just walking and window shopping can be fun in itself. I don't have much going on in my life anyway lmao. Oh and dad let me pick some snacks! A fun relaxed birthday, though I didn't get to play Platinum that day.
Yesterday I was still tired, but I managed to play a bit, so let's talk about that.

DAY 2​

-Completed the windworks quest, but I lost to Mars once. I went back and leveled up all my pokemon, all of which evolved right there!
-Garruk evolved into a Grotle
-Oregon evolved into a Luxio
-Marzipan evolved into a Bibarel
-While we were leveling up, I found an adorable shiny Shinx and caught it!

Then I took on Mars again and won.

-Made my way through Eterna forest. I love the music and the vibe of that place. So peaceful, borderline melancholic, just lovely all around. I love the selection of pokemon there, it's pretty eclectic, for lack of a better word. I also like Cheryl, it's fun to do double battles once in a while... even though she knocked out the Hoothoot i was trying to catch... but anyway, lovely place.
While in Eterna Forest, I caught a Silcoon cause I thought it would be nice to have a Beautifly in my party. "Awesome", I thought, "I can have a Bug-Flying type to take on Gardenia and then teach it fly", only Beautifly doesn't learn fly. When I realized that I just went and caught a Hoothoot; that's two new team members (though i suspect I'm gonna ditch my Beautifly sometime soon).
New team members:
-Gye the Beautifly
-Mundy the Hoothoot
After getting trough the forest, I got very tired and went to sleep.

Recap:
-Evolved Garruk, Marzipan, and Oregon.
-Caught Gye and Mundy
-Did not complete the Gym for the day


Today I played quite a bit already, but I'll be playing some more later so I'll do today's post later on or tomorrow.
Thanks for reading! Hope you have a great day~

DAY SOMETHING - FALLING OFF

So, between my birthday celebrations and the fact that my cat freaking ATE MY 3DS CHARGER, I kinda fell off my own challenge. I haven't been able to complete one Gym a day and i have no idea what i did the last time i played (that's what you get when you stay up late and forget to bring your notebook with you i guess), I just know that I'm at Hearthome City and I have a few things to appreciate.
First, the city is awesome, I love it, it has so many details that point at Sinnoh's culture and history. It makes me feel that I'm finally getting to the interesting part of the game. Yes there were some nice cities and cool roads before this, but now it's getting actually enjoyable. Maybe that's what I was missing the first five times i attempted to play this game, maybe I just needed to push a bit further. Now I want to keep playing!
Also I LOVE that the story of this game is not as heavy handed as later games. The last Pokemon game I had played before this one was Ultra Moon, and even though I loved the characters, it was riddled with cutscenes at every ten steps you took. So I appreciate that I don't get interrupted every time I enter or exit a building.

That's my entry for today I guess. I'll try playing a bit more in a bit but to be honest I have no idea what I'm doing with my team, so I'll have to sort that out too.

Thanks for reading!