I was going to put the diploma you get for finishing the Pokedex as the header image to this post, but I did it, I looked at it, and thought no. Nope. What I really want to highlight is how whiny the Pokemon have become during the latest event.
How entitled!
In the current event, Jirachi! The Wish Pokemon! Who grants wishes! has come to the post-apocalypse post-human Pokemon fantasy land to grant wishes. Which go a little like this:
- You make some paper upon which a Pokemon could write a wish
- You give this paper to a Pokemon, who writes upon it a wish, usually for something stupid. “I would love to have an antique sofa next to my home, which is, might I remind you, a 2×2 square of wildflowers.” or “I would like an industrial rooftop fan placed next to my habitat, which is literally a shower and a bathtub.”. Stuff like that.
- You then fulfill the wish.
- And then you redeem the paper with the wish that you granted to Jirachi, who trades it for an item.
This is going to be familiar to any parent.
- Child wants a toy
- Child continually talks about getting this toy, broadly hinting Christmas won’t be fun without it
- Child writes letter to Santa
- You (parent) buy the toy, wrap it, put it under the Christmas tree with love
- Child loves present
- Thanks Santa.
I never told my kids Santa was real, and so I don’t know when they stopped believing in him, or even if they ever did. I always felt — and still feel — that the giving of gifts is an expression of love. The intent behind the gift, the knowing of someone well enough to give them the best gift, that’s the special thing.
So I am not a fan of the Jirachi event. That little jerk can grant their own wishes.
I, of course, did sufficient wish granting to get all the stuff. But since then, I just give the Pokemon a mean look as they whine on about their existential crises in not being able to have a cute chair in their hovel.
I kid. Most of my Pokemon have homes that they like. I have an electric house for electric types, I have a fire house for fire types, I have several dark homes for all the dark types. It turns out, though, that a lot of Pokemon prefer the outdoor life and don’t want to be shut into homes.
This was emphasized to me, by the game, when I was trying to get the Withered Wastelands and Bleak Beach up to environment level 10, which you’ll probably have to do if you want to finish the Pokedex. Withered Wastelands gets you the blueprints for the Berry furniture, and Bleak Beach gets you the Resort and Cute sets. All three were required for some of the Pokemon I did not yet have.
The Pokedex came down to just one Pokemon — Plusle. (And the third form of Tatsugiri, which is not required to complete the Pokedex, nor have I yet been able to capture Tatsugiri’s third form).
Plusle, and their partner Minun, share the habitat of a wooden Plusle and Minun sign with the faces cut out so that Pokemon can look through them and pretend to be Plusle and Minun. This needs to be placed somewhere high up and lit up with spotlights, which must be powered.
For my first try, I put it on a hill in Palette Town. I got Minun right off, but Plusle eluded me. I’d used Jolteon to light up the spotlights and it worked fine. This would soon get me into bad trouble. I have a high neighborhood populated largely by bird types and some fire types, but Jolteon also lived there and so I asked and they were fine with it, lit it right up.
After several days waiting for Plusle to join their mate, I tried the same setup in my Cloud Island, and Plusle popped immediately. Then it became a double waiting game — for Minun on Cloud Island and Plusle in Palette Town. At this point, there were no “unknown” or “sensed” spots in my Pokedex, but I eventually figured out that I would need to have Plusle in my main world in order to complete the Pokedex.
After a couple of days, I partied up with Vikavolt from Palette Town and carried the whole habitat to Rocky Ridge, as the high country where I’d spawned Minun so fast in the Cloud Island matched the Rocky Ridge biome. I set it all up — Vikavolt powered up the spotlights. I set up a security camera and went on my way.
I check several times a day. I’m not sure when I noticed that the spotlights had gone out. Vikavolt’s generate ability wasn’t permanent, apparently. I grabbed a portable generator and a utility pole and fired it right up again. I suppose I could have done this from the start, but I expected Vikavolt’s charge to hold out, and I like bringing other Pokemon with me to broaden their horizons. Vika’s usual job is guarding my main garden from bugs. Yeah, a little like the fox guarding the henhouse, but they do a decent job of it. In my Cloud Island garden, I’ve decided to nest additional habitats inside it and there’s about half a dozen bugs living there. All love it, except Vespiqueen.
Oh yeah, meant to explain why I don’t make homes with four walls and a door for all my Pokemon.
Some of them simply like being outdoors. Vespiquen is a good example. She spawned in Withered Wasteland in a field of flowers, and I just kept her there. I wasn’t really making any new homes at that point; I didn’t get into house building until Bleak Beach. When I returned to the Wasteland to get it to environment level 10, I thought I could make her happier by moving her into a house I’d made near some gardens on the way toward Palette Town, near where Onix was trapped. Nope; her happiness plummeted. I moved her back to her field of flowers and she felt much better. I think she loved her conversations with Professor Tangrowth — they talked all the time — and didn’t like the dark-themed Pokemon she was living with.
Taking a closer look at the comfort levels of Pokemon everywhere, a good portion of them felt their homes were “great” or “awesome” even though they lived exactly where they spawned. So for them, I would just try to give them more food, toys or decorations to make them just a little happier. They didn’t want a cold stone house. They just wanted someone to pay them some attention.
This morning, Plusle spawned. I should have gotten an alert from the security camera, but did not. But when I looked at the feed, there was Plusle, dozing off next to the stand-up. I flew up, friended them, took down the habitat and had it follow me to the other side of the area, where stood one of my many Beach Sets to see if Tatsugiri (third form) had spawned yet, but nope. Checked the Beach Sets in Bleak Beach and Palette Town, too. Still hasn’t spawned.
Friending Plusle and completing the Pokedex (pre-DLC) set off a WHOLE BUNCH of stuff. I’m not going to spoil what happens, but it’s pretty fun. (I just remembered that I spoiled what happens in the very first sentence of this post, so I’m gonna change that). If you’re playing Pokopia, and you think you might want to finish the Pokedex and find out what happens, best of luck to you. Keep Mosslax happy with spicy foods. Crouton Salad was the food I used.
