Klino it's not my fault that we're heading ass-first into memeland.
Actually it's completely my fault. Look just google "Joey's Rattata" and it'll all make sense and not only that but you'll come out of the experience a wiser, more dank person.
I'm using a third party program called The Universal Pokemon Randomizer to fiddle with the ROM files.
It has a ton of settings, and to explain them all would first require extensive explanation of the game systems, but the short version is that any "slot" that can contain a Pokemon (such as the %chances to see a given wild Pokemon in a given area of grass) gets that Pokemon replaced with a different one. So if an area normally has, let's say, Rattatas, Zubats, and Weedles. The Randomizer will switch that to any three other Pokemon, maybe Onyxes, Tentacruels, and Dittos.
Now you can further refine this. I have a setting called "force similar strength" on. So we only get wild Pokemon that are of comparable stat distributions to what was there before. It's not perfect, but it prevents you from running into, say, wild Level 2 Dragonites (still very dangerous even at that low a level!) outside the first town, and it will try to force the game to pull a non-evolved Pokemon as well, so you're less likely to get things that are already evolved.
Lastly I have another setting on that randomizes what trainers have too. Instead of keeping to their class theme, they get a set of Pokemon equal to the amount they originally had, all sharing a type (again, chosen at random). So for example, this Hiker I'm fighting right now has all fire Pokemon (a Growlithe, a Quilava, and a Ponyta) instead of the usual Rock and Ground types the class has. The next Hiker I fight might have Bugs, or Dragons, and so on.
It does this to gym leaders too.
It also did something similar with my starters (the settings I have on forced it to pull any Pokemon that was 1. unevolved and 2. part of a 3-step evolutionary line), so instead of getting the usual Totodile, Cyndaquil, and Chikorita, I ended up being offered Porygon, Zubat, and, um, I forget the third one.
I took Porygon, meaning my rival got stuck with Zubat.
oh, the reason it's called the Universal Pokemon Randomizer is that it can (somehow, I'm not a coder) affect any ROM from the original Red and Blue all the way up to Black 2 / White 2 from 2012.
of course the best part of Soul Silver specifically is getting to interact with Pokemon that are out of their Pokeballs (whoever is 'leading' your party walks behind you instead), but that was in the original game.
Don't think too hard about how my death piranha is poking at my belly, while on land.
so reading this thread has me want to get into Pokemon more seriously, but I've never done that before and my copy of the game's going to be out of date in November. is that a problem, and if not where should I start?
"Serious" as in playing competitively or just trying to do a bunch of stuff in-game?
If the latter there's no reason you can't play whichever game you like or happen to have. (Also, now to November is plenty of time to do everything one game can offer you.)
If the former you're probably better off getting into Pokémon Showdown than trying to play on cartridge but I guess I don't really know what the current "scene" in terms of wi-fi play is like.
We actually answered @Tre on that, in the general games thread, if memory serves. I'd link you but I'm on mobile, sorry. It's not really a problem since they're basically all decent to great, even if another set is coming out.
so reading this thread has me want to get into Pokemon more seriously, but I've never done that before and my copy of the game's going to be out of date in November. is that a problem, and if not where should I start?
If you plan to be part of an online battling scene, then you need one of the more recent games.
If you plan on finding trading partners to complete your pokédex, then it may be hard to find people to trade with if you're playing the early games simply due to the fact that it requires old hardware and can't be done on wifi or such.
But I found an "emu edition" romhack that gives me access to all the mons in Pokémon Crystal without trading, so I'm playing that right now. That's gen 2 -- GBC era basically.
And if you don't care as much about completionism, that also works too.
so reading this thread has me want to get into Pokemon more seriously, but I've never done that before and my copy of the game's going to be out of date in November. is that a problem, and if not where should I start?
if you haven't already finished XY and/or ORAS, it would pay to do so. You still have 5 months. Then, if there are mons you like and want to keep, use the Pokemon Bank to transfer them up to Gen VII.
so reading this thread has me want to get into Pokemon more seriously, but I've never done that before and my copy of the game's going to be out of date in November. is that a problem, and if not where should I start?
if you haven't already finished XY and/or ORAS, it would pay to do so. You still have 5 months. Then, if there are mons you like and want to keep, use the Pokemon Bank to transfer them up to Gen VII.
i have X and I've had it finished for quite a while now, that's why I put down for so long
Comments
it's the point when you used a Pokemon ROM randomizer
you fucked up joey!!
corruptions are like this. i dunno what it is.
If the latter there's no reason you can't play whichever game you like or happen to have. (Also, now to November is plenty of time to do everything one game can offer you.)
If the former you're probably better off getting into Pokémon Showdown than trying to play on cartridge but I guess I don't really know what the current "scene" in terms of wi-fi play is like.
If you plan on finding trading partners to complete your pokédex, then it may be hard to find people to trade with if you're playing the early games simply due to the fact that it requires old hardware and can't be done on wifi or such.
But I found an "emu edition" romhack that gives me access to all the mons in Pokémon Crystal without trading, so I'm playing that right now. That's gen 2 -- GBC era basically.
And if you don't care as much about completionism, that also works too.