FFA's Gen 4 Dex Completion Journal

[FactoriesFarAway]

Introduction

I've decided that after a lot of thought I want to attempt to complete the Gen 4 Pokedex. It's something I tried to do in my pre-teen but never did because I didn't really know how to. I didn't have consistent internet access or knowledge of where to find all the Pokemon.

I'll be starting from entirely blank save files and documenting my journey here. My main inspiration for deciding to do this was watching Johnstone's dex completion videos. It's to be noted that I have completed the dex fully in Pokemon Red and Blue, completely glitchless, only using glitches to obtain Mew, but have never done any other game.

I was planning to complete the dex for Gen 3, before realising I don't really have a way to do it. I have no trading cable or Game Boy Advances. I can however, transfer from Gen 3, albeit I do not plan to do that right now as I'm unsure where my DS Phat is and my carts are not at my current house.

Unobtainable Pokemon
There are a few Pokemon I will be unable to get in this challenge because I want to keep it within the realm of Pokemon available to be caught within gen 4 itself for now. If there's no way to obtain a Pokemon either in Diamond, Pearl or Platinum, or HeartGold or SoulSilver, I will discount them from my total until I am able to access them. These Pokemon are as follows:
-Pokemon Channel Jirachi
-The Regi Quartet
-Any Pokemon that requires Dual-Slot Mode to obtain. I don't think there is any where this is the only method of obtaining them throughout Gen 4, but just in case, I'm stating that.

All mythical or event legendaries that are obviously no longer obtainable due to lack of WiFi. Before I restart it for good, however, I will check to make sure there are none of these or anything else of value on my Diamond cart. I don't have a way to get Manaphy or Phione either, but could potentially get a ROM of Pokemon Ranger on my flashcart assuming that still works.

Daily/Random Pokemon
This includes Swarms and Pokemon only obtainable through daily randomised methods such as the Trophy Garden. I'll make a good attempt at obtaining these in gen 4 itself, but if I check every day until I have access to my DS Phat and carts, and have still not obtained them all, I'll consider transferring them from gen 3. The reason I say that is because these Pokemon are essentially random and could potentially take a long time. I don't want to spend any more than half a year on this, even though it is something I really want to do.

Gen 1 Legendary Birds, and Gen 1 and 3 starters
The legendary birds are only available through roaming encounters. I would like to get these Pokemon the intended way in this generation, but once again, if I do genuinely struggle, or something goes wrong, I'll consider transferring from FRLG, but would prefer not to. There are a lot of roaming encounters in Platinum, however. A similar thing applies to the starters, of whom are only available to be picked after beating Red. I'd need to restart one of HeartGold or SoulSilver after beating both of them, and beat it a third time. I need to beat both anyway to get access to Kyogre, Groudon, and Rayquaza, but the third time is the iffy part to me. Seems a fuss to go through one of the games a third time just for a couple of starters I could obtain easily upon starting up the gen 3 games.

The dex itself is going to completed on my Platinum cartridge, and I'll either start my journey tonight or tomorrow. I'll be posting an update including all Pokemon caught every day I plan on playing.

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Day 1 – Planning and Beginning

Before I begin, I'd like to say that I plan to update this journal at around midnight GMT every night. Or at least, every night I play, which should be most weeknights. When I say today and it's already after midnight, it should be noted that I'll always be talking about the previous day, as it's very likely I wrote the passage on the day and just posted it late.

My in-game clock is set to real time minus one hour. This is because I didn't change it for Daylight Savings. I will likely not change it again throughout this dex completion run, as I don't want to mess with the in game clock as a lot of events needed to complete the dex are time sensitive, and I'm not sure I'll even finish this before Daylight Savings ends anyway.

After a bit of thought how I'd start this, I figured I'd start with the game I plan to have the completed dex on, Platinum, and play it through to completion, or near completion. Due to this not being a challenge run of sorts, I can freely trade back and forth, meaning I could use the other games' playthroughs as a way to level up the Pokemon that could only be obtained via evolution. It makes the most sense to do it this way, as I'd be killing two birds with one stone. I could also trade stronger Pokemon from Platinum to race through the early games with.

I'd be catching all Pokemon I saw along the way, but only evolving Pokemon whose evolutions I cannot catch; for example, the starter, Riolu, Gible, etc. for use on my team. I'll address those Pokemon when I get to them.

After a little bit of research, I decided my starter would be Piplup, as there are no water Pokemon in the regional dex that need to be levelled up to evolved except for Piplup itself. All evolutions can be caught, either during the game, in another gen 4 game or post-game. This is not the case for all other grass and fire types available in the regional dex, however.

So I started this save file with a male protagonist called Dexter, keeping Barry with his default name. I just thought the name Dexter was cute and fitting. I associated it with the Pokedex from the anime (as well as a ginger child scientist and a serial killer from a primetime drama, but I digress).

As previously stated, my chosen starter was Piplup, and I changed my options at the very start of the game to have text speed be fast, battle animations off due to not wanting to deal with the sluggish animations, and for the time being, battle style to be set. This was because I planned to catch a lot of Pokemon, but not use them. I'd be using Piplup until something I needed to evolve showed up, which wasn't going to be for quite a while.

After passing all of the early game dialogue, it was time to start catching my first Pokemon, whilst I headed back to see my character's mother for the last time. After picking up 5 Pokeballs from the mart, I scored a Bidoof and Starly on Route 201 whilst making my way to and from my character's house. The only other Pokemon available on Route 201 was Kricketot, but it was also available on Route 202 and I needed to find a Shinx there anyway, so I trekked onwards.

Now I had to sit through Dawn's catch tutorial even though I already had caught Pokemon. In my opinion, if you've already caught Pokemon, it should flag that you have and skip the tutorial. Nonetheless, I obtained another 5 Pokeballs from Dawn, making my total current balls 8. Here on Route 202 I picked up Shinx and Kricketot before continuing on.

Once I reached Jubilife, I immediately went north to Route 204 to pick up the couple more Pokemon available here, which were Zubat and Budew. I was considering picking up Zubat later, as it becomes much more common, but I encountered one on my way back anyway. Lucky coincidence, I guess. Wurmple is available here too, but not at night, so it's something I'll pick up tomorrow.

After I'd removed all the necessary roadblocks to progress, by entering the Trainer School and speaking to the clowns, I could enter Route 203 where Barry challenged me to a battle and I very barely survived. Literally, my Piplup survived with one HP left.

On Route 203, there were no Pokemon of interest available to be caught. Abra was new here, but catching it with Pokeballs was unreliable, and there was a much easier way to get it coming up very shortly, so I moved through Oreburgh Gate. In Oreburgh Gate I didn't get any encounters, and all of the Pokemon here are available soon enough anyway.

Upon entering Oreburgh City, I went to the route north which is currently a dead end, Route 207. Here I picked up Geodude and Machop, with the Machop being of particular interest at this point. Geodude is very common throughout most of the game so it wasn't massively important, but I used the Machop to trade with a girl in Oreburgh City for an Abra. This trade was much more reliable than throwing Pokeballs at Abra and praying for the one-in-four chance one landed, especially early game when I wouldn't have much money. I also picked up a Dusk Ball from an NPC in Oreburgh.

On Route 207, Ponyta is also available, but once again, is something I plan to pick up tomorrow, as it's much more common during the day. Instead, I progress to Oreburgh Mine, where I contemplated catching Onix given I received that Dusk Ball, but ultimately didn't bother for now. I have opportunities to catch it later. Onix has a fairly low catch rate for a Pokemon this early on, and didn't seem all that worth it currently.

Instead, for now, I was going to fight Roark and call it a night. Given I picked Piplup, whom at this point was already Prinplup, it was going to be a fairly easy fight, and that it was.

Current In-Game Time: 1:24
Current Dex Count (Owned): 11

Pokemon obtained so far:

Spoiler:

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Day 2 – First few gyms and starting HeartGold

Upon launching up the game today, I headed to pick up the Ponyta I mentioned yesterday, before making my way to Floaroma Town. On the way there, I found Psyduck in Oreburgh Gate. Once I reached Floaroma Town, I picked up more balls, and then headed to Valley Windworks, where I caught Buizel, Shellos and Pachirisu, before dealing with Team Galactic.

After I'd taken care of them, I picked up 10 jars of honey, slathering two of them on trees. There's a bunch of Pokemon only catchable on honey trees, one of which is Munchlax, which due to its rareness, I'll be skipping for now unless I pick it up by pure chance. There's a much more consistent way to get it later on. I'll make sure to save before every honey encounter, as whilst the Pokemon you obtain is static, their gender can change, and gender is important for a several of the honey tree Pokemon.

Moving on, I entered Eterna Forest, and having Cheryl with me actually made scouting for Pokemon I didn't have much easier, because, well, two Pokemon at once spawn, and her Chansey doesn't exactly do a lot of damage with its frankly awful moveset. With Cheryl in my party, I caught Buneary, Wurmple, Cascoon, Dustox, Beautifly and Gastly. Hoothoot is also available here and in a few other places at night but as of this point it was around 11am. I ran out of balls before being able to Silcoon, so I headed out to Eterna City. Once I was there, I put Buneary in my party and attached to her the Soothe Bell I'd obtained from Cheryl. I planned to use Buneary on my team, at least for the time being, as the only way to get Lopunny in gen 4 is through evolving Buneary. Given Buneary starts with a 0 base friendship, this isn't the easiest task in the world. I'm unsure why Game Freak decided this, given the only other Pokemon with 0 in happiness are box legendaries, some event legendaries and Mewtwo, but I digress

After grinding on the remaining trainers, I grinded in Eterna Forest and finally got my Silcoon, then headed out to Route 211 where I caught Medicham, Bronzor and Chingling. It was now time to attempt beating Gardenia, which took me 3 tries. Yeahhhhh…

Galactic hideout on the other hand was really easy, and it was now time to progress and get more party members. I received the egg from Cynthia, which in this game would hatch into Togepi. Togepi is another Pokemon whose evolutions you can't catch in the wild, and therefore another Pokemon I planned to level up. Togepi also evolves through Happiness, so I was going to concentrate on Buneary first.

Now that I was done here, I picked up the Explorer Kit which I didn't plan to mess around with until post-game despite there being some Pokemon I could get now because, well, I figured it'd make more sense to get everything I needed all at once. I headed down to Route 206 where I caught Gligar. Kricketune is also available here, but not during the day, so I left it temporarily. I headed into Wayward Cave's secret entrance, where I caught Gible and Onix. There was nothing I still needed to catch in the main entrance.

On Route 208, I caught Ralts, Roselia and Bibarel before heading to Hearthome City. Fun story; as a kid I never realised the city name was literally "Heart Home" and pronounced it Hear-thome.

Fantina really wasn't much of a challenge, given how overleveled the two Pokemon I was actively using were, but Barry was a little tougher, but nothing too difficult. On Route 209, I picked up Staravia before heading back to Hearthome to put it in my party. Staraptor was not something that could have been caught in the wild, and whilst I could've raised it from Starly, I wanted to concentrate on levelling Piplup and Buneary.

At this point my 3DS was low on battery, so I figured it would make sense to set up my DSi to have the correct time and date whilst it was charging, and maybe make a start on one of the other games I'd need to transfer from, which is what I did.

I started HeartGold, naming my protagonist Xed because I'm lazy. I named the rival Soul, as it was the default name. Bear in mind, not all Pokemon I've caught in HeartGold have been transferred yet to Platinum, and I will not be counting them towards the total until they are to avoid confusion. I will state which ones I have transferred at the end of speaking about HeartGold in this entry. I will still bold their names so you can see what I caught, but they will be not tallied right now.

I picked Cyndaquil to begin with for no other reason in this playthrough other than it being the easiest to get through the game with, especially early, and surpassed all the necessary beginning road blocks so I could start my catching spree.

Early on, I caught Pidgey and Sentret on Route 29. At this point, it was still early evening, so I skipped out on Rattata and Hoothoot, especially since they're incredibly abundant later on anyway, and Hoothoot is available in Sinnoh's story mode anyway.

I picked up Spearow on Route 46, but once again, skipped out on Rattata for now due to the time. I also skipped out on Geodude due to already having it in Platinum.

I picked up Caterpie and Metapod on Route 30 but skipped out on everything else as everything I didn't have was either unavailable during the day or way more common at night. At this point, I was still raising exclusively Cyndaquil.

I skipped out on Dark Cave for now. The only new thing there was Dunsparce which was exceedingly rare. I planned to come back for it later, when I had much more apt capture equipment and time to waste. I skipped Bellsprout, the only new encounter on Route 31, as I could get it later.

Once I'd hit Violet City, I immediately went south to Route 32, and here I picked up Rattata, due to it finally being common during the day in a route, Bellsprout, Mareep and Hoppip. I skipped out on Wooper, due to it not being night quite yet once again, and due to how widely available it is in Sinnoh anyway. I headed to Sprout Tower next, avoiding the Ruins of Alph entirely due to Unown coming up very soon in Platinum.

Nothing I didn't already have was available in Sprout Tower, as I already had Gastly in Platinum and Rattata on this game to be transferred. With Cyndaquil being my starter, the tower itself was a breeze, and it was time to face Falkner, who is still disgustingly easy even in the remakes. I need to point out that I had to cancel my Cyndaquil's evolution 3 times, because I wanted to register it in Platinum's Pokedex via trade before I evolved it, which I did.

I traded it, along with a bunch of assorted Pokemon I'd caught which I can't really remember off the top of my head, to Platinum. I leveled it up once here, evolved it, and traded it back, also giving Staravia to HeartGold. I'm unsure if this exchange was even worth it, as I don't know if you can even register Pokemon pre-national dex, but I guess we'll find out later. If not, it's not hard to breed.

Skipping onwards to Union Cave, I caught a Sandshrew, and once again, there was nothing else new or that I needed here. Johto was surprisingly sparse with Pokemon I needed to catch so far.

I skipped out on Slowpoke also, due to needing to return to Slowpoke Well anyway, and then faced Bugsy who due to my team set up of Staravia and Quilava, was exceedingly easy.

I didn't catch anything new in Ilex Forest, as everything I wanted appeared more commonly at night. On Route 34, however, I picked up Drowzee, temporarily skipping Ditto, and headbutted trees to obtain Spinarak, Exeggcute, and Pineco, the latter of which I put on my team due to there being no way of getting Forretress in any gen 4 game besides evolution.

For Ditto, I grinded on 35 instead, due to there being more catching opportunities up there. I caught both genders of Nidoran, as well as the previously mentioned Ditto here. Ditto will be incredibly useful later on, but not so much right now. I was only planning to catch Yanma on the off chance I ran into it, and I didn't, so I skipped it. It's absurdly more common in Sinnoh, to an extent that I don't really understand, so there was little point in grinding for a 1% chance.

It had now become night, meaning that all I'd be able to find in National Park would be Hoothoot, so I picked one up now. I picked up Growlithe on Route 36, and although Stantler was also a new encounter here, I skipped out on it due to it being much more common on the next route.

I now faced Whitney who I was really overleveled for, due to grinding on the Pokemon I found whilst grinding for encounters. Like, honestly, my lowest leveled of the three team members I was using was 3 levels above her Miltank, and that in itself was 3 levels lower than my other two. So needless to say, Whitney didn't pose much of a threat.

I continued onwards to Route 37, now armed with a… water bottle? This allowed me to pick up Sudowoodo as a static encounter, and Stantler on the route itself. Upon reaching Ecruteak, I ignored everything and headed west to Route 38, where I picked up Magnemite, which I didn't particularly need but figured that I may as well pick up, Raticate, and Snubbull, a Pokemon I'm unsure how I found with such ease given its rarity. This made it onto my team, due to Granbull not being catchable in Gen 4. I skipped every other encounter on the route for now, as I need Farfetch'd which only appears during the day. At this point, my DSi battery became low so I put it on charge, and here we are. Oh, I also hatched the Slugma egg from Primo, which I'd completely forgotten about.

I'll be placing my stats for HeartGold at the end, but take them with a pinch of salt. Some of the Pokemon I have registered there are duplicates of Platinum, so adding together the numbers is not an accurate representation of my current dex number.

Current In-Game Time (HeartGold): 4:41
Current Dex Count (Owned) (HeartGold): 29

Current In-Game Time (Platinum): 6:39
Current Dex Count (Owned) (Platinum): 34

Pokemon obtained so far (Platinum Dex):

Spoiler:

(P.S. Gathering together every Pokemon in national dex order when you still have the regional dex is really difficult. If I've missed anything or made mistakes, I'll fix it once I've beat the game.)

 

[ShyRayq]

Will you be moving all of your pokemon to one cartridge so you have a full 493~ (or so) in one of your games? If so, there are more pokemon you can get. The dual-slot pokemon you claim are unobtainable are obtainable, all through HG/SS. Some are just in HG/SS normally, but some require the Johto Safari Zone. For the pokemon you require, I believe at best you only need to wait 20-30 days.

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Will you be moving all of your pokemon to one cartridge so you have a full 493~ (or so) in one of your games? If so, there are more pokemon you can get. The dual-slot pokemon you claim are unobtainable are obtainable, all through HG/SS. Some are just in HG/SS normally, but some require the Johto Safari Zone. For the pokemon you require, I believe at best you only need to wait 20-30 days.

I did address this. Yes, I do plan to transfer onto one cart, but I specifically said "Any Pokemon that requires Dual-Slot Mode to obtain. I don't think there is any where this is the only method of obtaining them throughout Gen 4, but just in case, I'm stating that." I wasn't sure if every single dual-slot Pokemon had an alternative method, so I put that in just in case.

 

[Living Arrow]

Hey - I'm doing a very similar thing on my games right now :)

Did you know that you can still get the Gen 4 events? The only thing that you need is a WPA network which is a pretty old type of internet connection. Once you have this you are able to download them all - there are plenty of guide for this on google/youtube.

Looking forward to seeing your progress :)

 

[ShyRayq]

I did address this. Yes, I do plan to transfer onto one cart, but I specifically said "Any Pokemon that requires Dual-Slot Mode to obtain. I don't think there is any where this is the only method of obtaining them throughout Gen 4, but just in case, I'm stating that." I wasn't sure if every single dual-slot Pokemon had an alternative method, so I put that in just in case.

Ah okay then. Wasn't sure if you knew.

Gen IV is pretty tough since there are so many methods available, but I think they're all pretty fun. Good luck with the rest of the playthrough.

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Day 3 - Many more mons

First thing I did playing once the night rolled over was pick up Chansey (who was by far the hardest Pokemon to catch thus far) and Duskull, as well as the Good Rod, on Route 209. I skipped out on the Lost Tower and Solaceon Ruins for now, with intent to return later. Instead, I headed upwards to Route 210 where I caught Scyther and Noctowl. Some time around here, my Prinplup evolved into Empoleon. At this point, I headed to bed with intent to play in the morning.

Once I woke up, I went to Route 215 where I caught Marill and nothing else for now. I need to get Lickitung and Kadabra here, but I didn't have Bulbapedia up at the time so was unaware you could get them.

In Veilstone I picked up Porygon, and massaged by Buneary before heading south for Route 214, where I caught Houndour, Rhydon and Graveler. Continuing down to Valor Lakefront, I caught a Kricketune, unaware it still counted as being morning. On Route 213, I caught Chatot and Wingull before heading to Pastoria City.

I wanted to fight Wake, but it wouldn't let me yet, so I continued on to Route 212 where I caught Quagsire and Croagunk in the lower part, and two Kirlia, one male, one female, in the upper part. I put the female Kirlia on my team with intent to evolve it to Gardevoir, as it cannot be caught in gen 4.

After this, I headed back down to the Great Marsh where I caught Wooper, Tangela, Yanma and Tropius, before heading back to fight Maylene. I put Tangela and Yanma in my party as neither of their evolutions can be caught in the wild in gen 4.

I fought Maylene and Crasher Wake after this, neither of which gave me much trouble given how overleveled my Buneary and Empoleon were.

I'm so tired right now that I'll finish this entry tomorrow morning. I won't make a habit out of doing this, but I don't feel as if I can finish right now.

Okay, so continuing on... I finally did Solaceon Ruins and Lost Tower. Nothing new was in Lost Tower, and only Unown was available in Solaceon ruins, so I picked it up.

I now headed my way up to Celestic Town. I caught Swablu, which I put in my party, in the foggy part of Route 210. Apparently, you can also catch Machoke here but I was completely unaware. On this route, my Buneary finally evolved into Lopunny, Kirlia into Gardevoir and my Tangela evolved into Tangrowth. After I was done in Celestic Town, I moved towards Canalave City, finally getting the Old Rod, and then I caught a Tentacool whilst surfing. There's other Pokemon available now I had Surf, but I didn't bother for the time being. Once I was in Canalave, I fought rival and then saved as my battery was getting low, and I didn't play for the rest of the evening as I had real life things to attend to.


Current In-Game Time (HeartGold): 4:41
Current Dex Count (Owned) (HeartGold): 29

Current In-Game Time (Platinum): 12:58
Current Dex Count (Owned) (Platinum): 61

Pokemon obtained so far (Platinum Dex):

Spoiler:

(P.S. Gathering together every Pokemon in national dex order when you still have the regional dex is really difficult. If I've missed anything or made mistakes, I'll fix it once I've beat the game.)

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Day 4 - Money Grinding

Note: I will not be updating my Pokedex at the end with the little animated menu sprites at the end today because... they've randomly stopped embedding. I'll figure a work around for this when I get home.

So today was mostly about tying up loose ends either through catching Pokemon I'd previously ignored or evolving Pokemon that needed to be evolved. A LOT of Pokemon will be mentioned in this part, so I'll try to keep it concise.

Now I was in Canalave, I decided to backtrack a bit to pick up Pokemon I missed, since I had most of the HMs at this point.

I obtained Floatzel to the east of Canalave in Route 218, as well as a female Combee in the honey tree there. I went around the region to various fishing spots to pick up Magikarp, Barboach, Finneon , Remoraid and Goldeen, and surfed on route 220 to obtain Tentacruel. I tried to find Golduck by surfing in the various spots it's available, but got bored fairly quickly. Instead, I headed up to Fuego Ironworks, where I caught Gastrodon, Magnemite and Magmar.

I picked up the Eevee from Bebe in Hearthome City, before heading to Route 215 again to catch Lickitung and Kadabra. At this point I headed to Iron Island, where I evolved Swablu into Altaria. Here I caught a Steelix, and was given the Riolu egg by Riley.

I then fought Byron, and using the trainers in the gym, evolved Yanma to Yanmega, and with Byron himself, evolved Togepie to Togetic. I knew I'd picked up a Shiny Stone somewhere, but I'd forgotten where, and used that to evolve Togetic into Togekiss.

Now I planned to evolve Eevee into either Umbreon or Espeon. It wasn't the biggest deal to me which right now.

Now, for story progression, I had to go to all 3 lakes. Nothing really of interest happened in the first two except for finding a Girafarig. Continuing up northwards to Snowpoint, however, I caught Snover and Sneasel. I then fought Candice who really didnt give me much trouble given I had an almost level 50 Empoleon with Metal Claw and an Adamant nature.

After meeting with Barry at Lake Acuity, I did the Galactic HQ dungeon, which is... annoying, honestly. After this, I traded with the opposite version for the few trade evolutions I could do. Which were Graveler into Golem, Kadabra into Alakazam, Scyther into Scizor, Magmar into Magmortar and Porygon into Porygon 2 and then Porygon Z.

I then scaled up Mt Coronet, where I caught Golbat, Clefairy, Machoke, Medicham, Nosepass and Bronzong, I believe theres a few other Pokemon I can get at the peak that I missed, but I needed to come back up here a few more times anyway, so it wasn't the biggest deal.

Once I reached the very peak, however, and had fought the admins, I went back down to grind for money. I wanted to have more than enough balls to be ready for Giratina, and it granted me an opportunity to evolve some Pokemon I hadn't evolved yet.

I picked up the Amulet Coin from Amity Square and attached it to Lopunny, and then proceeded to fight the elderly rich people beneath the mansion on Route 212. I wanted to be able to afford 99 of every type of ball, as it would make my life so much easier. After maybe only half an hour of doing this, I had half a million Pokedollars. In the meantime, I evolved my Eevee into an Umbreon, my Sneasel into a Weavile and my Combee into Vespiquen.

I evolved Clefairy to Clefable using a Moon Stone.

Current In-Game Time (HeartGold): 4:41
Current Dex Count (Owned) (HeartGold): 29

Current In-Game Time (Platinum): 19:54
Current Dex Count (Owned) (Platinum): 102

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Day 12 - Oops

So, I said I was going to update every day, but the day after my last update I had an accident. I burnt my left hand and arm with the kettle. I'm fine, don't worry, I have a bit of discoloration still but it's definitely on the mend. I was going to wait a couple of days until I recovered to update. Only, when I went back, I realised how easy it was to lose track of all the Pokemon I'd caught, so I just decided to not bother with the journal on a daily basis. But now I feel I'm at a point where I can actually talk about my journey. And I will infrequently update from now on.

Pictured here are the Pokemon I have left to get. All event legendaries I got through the mystery gift server mentioned in this thread. Instead of talking about all the Pokemon I've gotten, I'm going to talk about the Pokemon I haven't caught yet and why.

I started HeartGold with Cyndaquil and SoulSilver with Totodile. This means Chikorita will likely be one of my final mons. as I need to beat the entirety of both HeartGold and SoulSilver before I can restart either of them. At the moment I've only beaten HeartGold. I decided to transfer the gen 1 and 3 starters as it was way easier than beating the game 3 times. There's a few reasons why I need to beat SoulSilver however , but the main one is to get Groudon.

I don't have a copy of Ruby to transfer from for now (I got the other Ruby Pokemon through swarms or Safari, except Solrock, which I'll get on to) and you can get Groudon after defeating Red in SoulSilver, and then you use both Kyogre and Groudon to summon Rayquaza. This is going to take a lot of time however and is going to be one of the last thing I do.

Another reason I need to beat SoulSilver is to get Latias. For Latios, I used the Enigma Stone gotten from the private Mystery Gift server as it was easier than the roaming method. I plan to do the same in SoulSilver for Latias.

Turtwig is because... I havent started Pearl yet, and used the other two starters in Diamond and Platinum respectively. This is likely obvious by my lack of Glameow. The only other version exclusives to Platinum are available in HeartGold and/or SoulSilver. Shieldon was my fossil in Platinum, so that's why I do have it despite it usually being exclusive to Pearl.

Spiritomb is just one I've left because it's acquisition method is time consuming. That's it really. After playing through Pearl to the point where you can get Glameow, I'll probably get Spiritomb just so I can check it off my list.

Now last of all is the dex completion gatekeeper - Solrock. I either need a copy of Ruby or to wait until day 30 for my Safari blocks to double in value, as it requires 42 Peak blocks in the Safari Zone. At this rate, it will be the last Pokemon I get no questions asked unless I can find someone with a Ruby cartridge I can borrow.

 

[ShyRayq]

Wow, that's incredibly quick progress, nice work! I'm amazed you've managed to catch+evolve everything in only 12 days.

Glameow really is annoying, it's pretty much the only reason to play Pearl for dex completion. I'm also surprised Solrock is the only Johto Safari Zone pokemon you have to wait for.

Well, you've only got a few left. Good luck.

 

[Living Arrow]

So, I said I was going to update every day, but the day after my last update I had an accident. I burnt my left hand and arm with the kettle.

Hope your hand/arm heals up fully soon!!!

Looks like you completed a huge amount between the most recent two posts and you're nearly there!

Pleased you managed to get the Mystery Gift server working. I can't do it with my router for Gen 4 :(

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Day 18 - Almost done

So this is it. We're almost done. I actually already have Groudon and Rayquaza but need to trade them over to my main save file.

I managed to thankfully get a copy of Ruby so I could get my sweet Solrock, and started Pearl so I obtained both Turtwig and Grotle. I wasn't aware of how late in the game you actually get Glameow... They could've been a little kinder, surely? I have to get 5 badges I believe before I can get it?

Latias has been unforgiving. I must've spent an hour in total trying to get the Enigma Stone Mystery Gift with no luck, so it looks like I'm going to have to resort to getting it the good old fashioned way - finding it whilst roaming. Once I have the 3 Hoenn legendaries I can happily restart SoulSilver to get Chikorita.

Spiritomb again, wouldn't be that hard, it's just really tedious, and I need an opportunity where both of my DSs are decently enough charged to spend the time to do this.

Mostly done though. I named my save files as follows;
HeartGold - Xed
SoulSilver - Dexia
Diamond - My IRL name, doesn't fit the theme but I wanted at least some of the Pokemon I transferred over to have my actual name attached to them
Pearl - Adexa
Platinum - Dexter