The Besties - The Besties 75: A very merry Pokémon special

Episode Date: October 18, 2013

Last week we promised an all Pokémon episode. This week we deliver. The Besties discuss pocket monsters on a level of granularity that ultimately drives Justin to the brink of insanity. Can you handle that? Maybe you're not the sort of person who wants to know about min-maxing Ghastly mating. And maybe weighing the benefits of Grass and Dragon types isn't your cup of tea. Well, to you I say, good riddance and good day! Now that it's just us super fans, let's gather close and tell stories of Squirtle battles long past. 3:31 - Best way to force breed Pokémon (day care) 8:14 - Best item (Exp. Share) 17:15 - Halftime! 20:33 - Best way to make a Pokémon feel real (feed it cupcakes) 24:59 - Best mobile multiplayer of the year so far (Player Search System) 37:43 - The Winner Is! Theme song by Ian Dorsch Get the show: Download MP3" Subscribe to the podcast (RSS) Subscribe on iTunes Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

all the friends back together again i'm on a fast day i ate an egg that's the only egg that's the only egg you ate today was just that one egg the only thing i've eaten is one hard-boiled egg today you know i can't decide but it might be more momentous to say that 30 years ago an egg was created and turned into a human being named russust. Are you bragging about your own birthday? You're 30 goddamn years old? Is today your 30th birthday? Today is my 30th birthday. Can I ask you a question?

A Boolean? Yes. Is it a dirty 30 or is it a flirty 30? So far, I know it's only been going on for... Yeah, I don't want to marry myself to either dirty or flirty I mean can I like it's a nerdy 30 we're gonna talk about

Pokemon that wasn't hey that wasn't one of the options that was not one of the options I did not see that in Sex and the City no way is that an option answer the fucking question Russ don't dodge it I'll go with flirty uh flirty yeah that's right with a little bit of dirty in there the moment I said oh it's gotta be to be effective I'll go with flirty. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's right.

I knew you. With a little bit of dirty in there. The moment I saw it. Oh, it's got to be. To be effective. A little bit. Man, I scoped you out. I knew the shape of you when I first saw you. Yep.

I had some fried chicken last night. And, you know, it was only up from there. So, good times. Oh, God, flirty's the worst. You know, it was only up from there. So good times. I know. God, 30 is the worst. My name is Justin McElroy, and I know the best Pokemon of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy. My Pokemon can beat everybody else's Pokemon in the whole world because I'm the master of Pokemon.

My name is Chris Plant, and my Pokemon's name is Catfish. My name is Russ Frostick. I snore lax. This is the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest in pop culture, news, movies, newbies, nudies. Nuvia. Nuvia. Nuva rings. Monsters.

Candles. Halloween. Jack-o'-lanterns. Monster Squad remakes. Everything. But today we're going to talk about Pokemon. Yep. X and Y.

Although I have Pokemon X. Yeah, I got X as well. X for me. Plant? Odd Man Out? I got Y. Guys, I didn't realize this. Did they release a Pocket Monsters game in the month of Halloween because they're monsters?

That's possible. That's possible. That's possible. They're so sneaky. It could be also, God, I just need money, please. Please just give it to me. Let's start diving into our

incredibly esoteric topics that we're all talking about today. Can we talk a little bit in general? I was going to say, we should suggest to the readers that before listening to the show, if you could spend about 30 to 40 hours reading Wikipedia entries,

I'd recommend Serebii.net to... Serebii is my jam, too. Yeah, educate yourself. Otherwise, none of this is going to make any sense. You could read my review and the video review and the tips guide that I put up, where you could go through all that hard work that Russ just suggested. You guys just start it guys, to start it off,

you know, to kick it off, put the ball in the air, can I recommend that Frushdick, instead of whatever, you know, dumb thing he was going to talk about, talks about how he's already gaming the entire thing with his ghastly like, crossbreed? That's what I was going to talk about. Oh my gosh, tell everyone about this.

It feels a little niche to me. Why don't we start with something a little beginner, and then we'll move our way up. It sets the tone. Does it? Yes, because it's so weird. Yeah, let's do it. I'm excited. Okay, fine.

So my best thing of the week is the best way to force breed Pokemon to ensure that you've created a master race of Pokemon catching Pokemon. Oh my God, what? So here's the deal. Force breed is so gross. master race of Pokemon catching Pokemon. Oh my god, what? So here's the deal. Forest Breed is so gross.

It's not a great term. You put two baby Pokemon in the daycare center and you come back two hours later and they have an egg. What do you think that is? They don't have to be baby Pokemon. Yeah. I'm confused. I have not encountered breeding. Yeah, that comes about a third of the way into the gyms,

I would say. So you could basically, you basically just stick two Pokemon in the daycare center, you run around for a little while, and then you come back later and there's an egg waiting for you. Now, they will not always fuck. I've been trying to get my Delphox to fuck anything, because I managed to get a female of the Finnegan,

the Firestarter. I've been trying to get that fool to fuck with anything to produce a new Finnegan. Very picky. Very picky. Very picky. A lot of Pokemon will just fuck with Ditto. Because Ditto will fuck with anything. Nasty-ass little blob.

That motherfucker doesn't have a gender. But he can form an orifice at will. Any female Pokemon, most female Pokemon will just fuck with Ditto. They will just squat right down on him. And then, you know, a few thousand steps later, you come back to the daycare center. And then there's an egg. And Ditto's over in the corner just, like, smoking a cigarette in bed. Like, come on back, baby.

Who are you going to bring in next, Griffin? Who's my next conquest? Ditto's all about the negging. Ditto just, like, any... Ditto throws down a few negs, and then he's in there like swimwear. And then he's got an egg on his hand. It's all negs and eggs for Ditto. I don't know what your experience was

as a child, but this is not how daycare centers work, right? No, not at all okay uh so no that that so let me break that part it's like weird but it's weird but that's something that people okay so here's the deal so you can train certain pokemon to get abilities that ordinarily you would never be able to get with that pokemon from leveling up or using those tm things yeah depending on the father that you use so certain fathers will have these abilities that you can then trade over to a baby pokemon so i wanted to do is make a ultra pokemon catching force wherein i'd have on a single pokemon i'd have hypnosis which puts

them to sleep i'd have false swipe which i gotta have false brings them down to one hit point and i'd have mean look which forces the pokemon to not be able to escape um so in order to do this in order to get a single all these abilities on a single pokemon i had to get um chow one of our project managers to to make baby Gastlys and then take one of the baby Gastlys and made it with a baby Ralts. And then. Absolutely 100% an HR violation. Like, no question. It gets worse.

It gets so much worse. And then I had to throw out any female baby Ralts that came out because the females will not evolve into Gallade who will eventually learn the abilities that I needed to learn. Oh my god. I believe there's something called parental mating too. Is that? Oh yeah. There might also be grandparents having sex with grandkids.

You've not only tampered with fucking like eugenics you fucking got in there and did forced incest eugenics in order to get your one master-catching Pokemon. I admire that, and don't get me wrong, I definitely want you to breed that master-catching Pokemon and float me the clone.

But Jesus Christ, Russ. If you're not going to do it gonna do it you gotta go all the way let's rewind the tapes twin he didn't want to talk about this because it was too niche niche is not the word for this this is like morbid creepy playing god nonsense like it doesn't matter what the trick is to not look at them as living beings you just look at them as stats really uh so we're going to talk about pokemon today in in less creepy context than we have just done um good luck overall i'm i've been playing for i don't know maybe like four hours i'm not i'm not very deep into it there's still a lot to figure out and it does not do as think, as much as you would think to help you learn the ropes, as it were.

But, like, those ropes are so... There are some big changes in Pokemon X and Y, but those ropes haven't fucking changed since 1999. They're very similar ropes. Well, okay, for instance, there's this whole training thing, training my Pokemon. I don't know if I need to train my Pokemon. Oh, I don't do any of that stuff. My motherfucking guide, Justin McElroy, I specifically said you don't have to do Pokemon. Oh, I don't do any of that stuff. My motherfucking guide, Justin McElroy, I specifically said you don't have to do that.

Yeah, I don't do any of that stuff. Do you know what you do need to do? Can I talk about my thing? No, Justin. I thought Justin was going. I didn't know it was just being sad about Pokemon. No, I'm enjoying it a lot. I tell you, the feature that I

believe is new in Pokemon X and Y that has really enhanced my enjoyment of Pokemon. My classic problem and the thing that always sort of paralyzes me when I'm playing these games is that I never know if I'm leveling the right Pokemon. I'm always worried about trying to keep my team balanced. leveling the right pokemon i'm always worried about trying to keep my team balanced yeah yeah i'm trying to make sure that like i don't end up with somebody who's too powerful or end up with like a bunch of lame ducks i'm worried that like about adding someone new because it's going to take forever by lame ducks do you mean psy ducks yes basically uh and uh worried about adding um new people to the to the team that sort of stuff and there is a um a tool that you get

that uh about i don't know maybe like three hours into the game it's after the first gym uh it's at right at the first gym it lets you share experience um and it doesn't take away experience what it does is it just gives the pokemon that you didn't use in a certain battle half of the experience from the battle which is like huge for me because i can not only does it make battling uh way more productive because it's going to help everybody but it helps to keep the pokemon that i'm maybe not using as much in a place where they can still hang yeah it's it's the system is is that is a huge huge part of they did fix that problem that's not just a pokemon problem by the way that is that is a role-playing game problem like well any final fantasy game when you have this team of you know three or four people that

you prefer there's always this like like nagging guilt of if i swap these guys out the other people are so weak at this point i have to stick stick with these, with these guys. Um, and, and Pokemon X and Y does a really great job with that experience share of, uh, of, of letting you introduce more Pokemon to your team without, without having them fall too far behind. It also, uh, entices you to catch new Pokemon because now you gain experience when you catch Pokemon, which is also a new change. So like you are incentivized to catch Pokemon as well as to keep your team fairly fluid. Yeah. There's also a weird thing. I don't remember this being the case in previous games, but it seems like any Pokemon you bring into a battle will get full experience. It used to be that they divided it. No, no, no, no. Is that wrong? It's 100% for the players who fight,

and then a 50% share for everybody else. The way it used to work is the experience share was a held item, so you would have a Pokemon on your team that didn't fight that held the experience share. Then whichever players fight and the experience shareholder would split the experience given by the Pokemon they knock out. Right, so if you had one guy fighting and then one guy holding the experience share,

they'd both get 50%. Nobody else would get anything. Got it, got it, got it. Yeah, I think what Freshick's saying is like the Pokemon who gets thrown out at the very beginning of the match, you can withdraw right away, but that Pokemon still gets the highest amount of XP as whichever other Pokemon.

Yeah, you're actually incentivized to bring in, like, every Pokemon in your team. Yeah, but that's fucking bonkers. I don't know why you did it. First of all, each time you switch in a Pokemon, they're going to take a hit. Yeah, that's true. So if you're fighting somebody strong, you're going to get harassed. Yeah, but that's why you put Bulbasaur up there, Leech Seed, right at the beginning. Take them out.

Just start collecting that health. Oh, you're crazy. Plant, you're really, you know, usually you don't get into this like really nitty gritty technique stuff. I hate this stuff, usually. But usually it doesn't have a cute little Bulbasaur named Catfish. His name is Catfish? Actually

Fennekin's name is Catfish, his name is Meatball because he looks like a big spicy meatball. Are you a Bulbasaur? Oh man. Yeah, Bulbasaur's my boy. Hold on, you picked two Grassbasaur? Oh, man. Yeah, Bulbasaur's my boy. Hold on, you picked two grass starters? No, I picked Fennekin. Fennekin's not a grass starter. Fennekin's a fire starter.

Gosh. Justin, so what is your past experience in Pokemon? Just so I understand. I don't remember. You played Red and Blue with me. I played Red and Blue with Griffin, and I think I've dabbled in some of the others, but... I know you were down on one of the recent ones, because I played Red and Blue with Griffin, and I think I've dabbled in some of the others. I know you were down on one of the recent ones because I saw it in your poop room,

and you had your DS there at the ready by your turlet. Maybe Silver. I think I maybe played one second of it and threw it away. I definitely do. I cannot deal with how handsome Professor Sycamore is, by the way. Dude, that hair looks really great. That is it. Man. That mop top, i'll tell you uh so yeah i i the

the experience share has helped me to to enjoy this it makes a lot less pressure i feel like i can just sort of casually build up whatever team i want to i'm still super intimidated by all the different types and how they interact with each other um i i normally just focus on you know hitting people hard yeah more attacks because they added more types i don't think they had one more time let me let me be straight with you griffin okay because i know you probably feel strongly about this does there really need to be a grass, a ground, and a rock type? And a steel. And steel, and like why does a bug

do more damage to a dark type? Like what? It's like just have like 10 types. You needed 15? It's crazy. I think they may have let it get out of hand. I think that once they started adding shit. Well, the original the problem is, I mean, do you really want to get into this yeah let's get let's do it

let's get all right so let's get right down into it gen one the the types were like wicked wicked unbalanced uh psychic type yeah i think was everyone's against bug and i think i can't remember psychic ghost or if it was the other way around. No, Ghost beat Psychic. Psychic was super overpowered. Dragon was super overpowered. Yeah. And basically, I think they've been trying to kind of fix that ever since. In Gen 2, they added Dark and Steel. Dark could beat Psychic, and Steel could stand up uh some of the more heavy hitters um it also gave fire

another thing that it was strong against because fire was actually kind of weak in gen one they they've been trying to tweak the balance that's the entire reason why they added fairy type uh is because they specifically like you can look at the stuff it's drawn against which is dragon uh dark and i don't remember the other one but it's things that maybe and it's weak against poison which poison i think only beats grass and maybe bug so like they've they've they added fairy and specifically to balance out these types um i i i kind of like the fact that there are as many types as there are because i think it really would be when when you talk about types people just assume that the entire game is all rock paper scissors which considering the fact that i think there's 17 different types now and most pokemon in this generation are dual type yeah

it's the dual type stuff that melts my brain. It really throws a multiple generation. Like I can't wrap my head around like how much damage I'm going to take if I'm a dual type Like you see an electric type come out and you're like

I'm going to throw out my ground type. What if it's a mulga? You know what? If he's flying too and your ground attacks aren't going to have any effect on that bitch.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like it's not just rock, paper, scissors. It's like it's rock, paper, scissors in the 1400s. Global thermonuclear war and sometimes

people throw paper and scissors at the same time you have to figure out how to deal with that it's complicated but i think it's complicated by nature and it's one of the elements that sort of helps keep keep the gameplay fresh yeah it's a lot that is a lot though there's a lot to consider but i have enjoyed it is the is the best item in this Pokemon game. So I give it two thumbs up. And it has helped me to enjoy this a lot more. And stop worrying so much. Just don't worry about it.

Just to watch Exhibit and Fat Pun, Fat Joe and Big Pun grow. And Bugs to Rhymes. To watch them all. I can't believe you guys give nicknames to your Pokemon. I only do my first one. I stopped after those. Yeah,'t believe you guys give nicknames to your pokemon i only do the my first after those yeah my first one i give nicknames the problem with nicknames is that you don't remember what the actual pokemon yeah i know i got a random so i did wonder trade i don't know if you guys know what wonder trade oh this is the can this be our halftime because i wanted to talk about okay we're gonna drop some wonder trade knowledge on you so they have wonder trade in

this game and um explain what that is essentially wonder trade is you hop online you put up any pokemon that you have out of your boxes or out of your team whatever any pokemon and you will get a totally random pokemon back you have no idea what you're gonna get and from another player from another player on the internet so another player is also doing wonder trade while you're doing wonder trade so i got a notification like i should try this so i gave it a shot and i was like well i don't want to waste one of my good pokemon so i put up and i feel really bad about this but i put up zigzagoon a level three raccoon one of the first pokemon that you fucking catch super shitty i still got him on my team he needs to go right

he's actually no he's dope justin keep him around really he has an ability where he'll pick up items off the ground and give them to you. Oh, that's crazy. Like a little raccoon vending machine. Anyway, I put a level three Ziggy Zagoon up there and got back a level 25 Spritzy, which is a pure fairy type. It's one of the Y exclusive fairy types, like a legit Pokemon. Damn, that's yes and i was like damn i feel kind of bad so i tried it again a little later and uh put up like

a decent i forget what i put up but it was decent and then i got um who did i get back uh a sproink i got i think his name is sproink he's a little uh pig with a ball on his head but he was japanese so i didn't know what his name was because the characters were all in Japanese because the Japanese guy created him or caught him initially. Or a lady, I guess. Anyway, it really is kind of this magical, like, that feeling you got when you went to the supermarket and you put money into one of those, you know, capsule machines

and opened it up and you had no idea what you were going to get. Same vibe. Do Wonder Trades. If you're playing this game, Wonder Trade that it's really really fun um i i've actually gotten a ton of pokemon that i didn't have in my pokedex like i haven't gotten anything especially strong but i'm i'm in the process now of trying to catch them all i'm sitting pretty at about like 190 trying to get all those eevee evolutions which jesus christ takes so long um but yeah it's like a fun way to like maybe you'll get

something back but you definitely don't need those guys anymore so just just ship them off ship them off to camp um i wanted to talk i wanted to talk right right once you once you have caught one yeah uh then it's in your book it counts as your pokedex it still counts as having caught it like if you evolve a pokemon then it still says that you have the previous evolutions what i wanted to talk about is people are using wonder trade to throw insults across the globe i saw a post on tiny cartridge about somebody did a wonder trade and they got a snorlax whose name was yo mama oh burn oh it's so great there are people finding some truly hilarious accidental things like uh there's this new thing called pokemon ami where you can pet your pokemon and rub them uh but if they have human shapes like may champ and may choke and jinx um then it looks like you're just

like rubbing their balls and stuff yeah and and And they smile and sing as you rub their balls and touch their bathing suit areas. Which seems like a good segue for Chris Plant's topic. It's not. It's just Pokemon and me. So here's the thing. Why do I care about these things, these number thingies,

more than I care about other number thingies in in role-playing games the answer is i can feed them cupcakes um and i do i do a lot i you get down on that pokemon ami here's here's what you do you you turn on football and then you pop on uh pokemon ami and then you you rub the bellies until the hearts go away and it becomes music notes and then you feed the cupcakes and then you do the head bopping minigame to refill your cupcakes. You only have to play it twice and then they have enough energy

to be pet again. And then you do this for like 30 minutes, back and forth, and then they love you forever. It doesn't go away. The love is permanent. And once you have a Pokemon that love you forever it doesn't go away the love is permanent and once you have a pokemon that loves you forever he is one your best friend he'll never betray you ever no matter what it doesn't all have to be about concern sometimes it's best friends yeah no it's definitely best friends i mean at least have you have you taken a uh a sword into pokemon of me

have you taken honnage the sword pokemon into pokemon of me and just like just tickled this little chin i want to get the the key chain how do i can you get oh yeah the keys lucky i've got one yeah give me one of those there are certain some of these pokemon kind of creep me out it's like oh yeah so there's there's two types that creep me out it's one is like you're an inanimate object but you're alive so like the sword or the keys the other one that creeps me out way more are the like that's a lady in a dress pokemon yeah like and i'm commanding them to do like that creeps me out like dude they're they're animals it's like you were putting a dog in a dress. Like, what?

Why? I have a question. Yeah. So I have a Pokemon named Mr. Panda. His name probably isn't Mr. Panda. I think. Panda Chan. Oh, wait, no, no. He's actually Professor Panda.

Yeah, but it's like the little baby fighting panda, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But whenever he starts a fight, it goes, Professor Panda breaks the mold. And then he kind of like flexes. Do all Pokemon do that? What is that? That's his ability.

His ability is Mold Breaker. I will say this. I didn't do a lot of Pokemon on me when I was playing the game for review. And I kind of wish I had because it's not just a silly thing. You can get like major experience point boosts for doing it. They're also more prone to critical hits when they have high affection for you through Pokemon Ami. Like, there's a legit reason to pet that sword of yours.

Yeah, and also they give you gifts. Do they? Yeah, they give you little gifts. Yeah, they're like, here, here's a bed. And I'm like, hey, how'd you find that, Fennekin? How do you know a cupcake? How do you here's a bed and i'm like hey how'd you find that fennec how do you know how do you know what cupcake fish how do you know what cupcake it's gonna like because i i fed them a bunch of cupcakes and they got pissed every time no that's because you feed them they don't want to eat anymore you need to take them into a game and make them rust is

shoving cupcakes in his dogs why don't you like this? Here's the trick. If you're good at the game, you get better cupcakes. So you can feed them legit cupcakes, not that hostess crap. It's just my advice. What are we even talking about? I'm 32

years old. Yeah, I need to get... I had to do a lot of pokemon a meeting to get the uh the new eevee evolution because you get it by by giving your eevee a lot of love yeah i caught oh eevee like the okay so i'm getting confused so eevee you're talking about the like fox looking thing that turns into which you can catch this time around. And I did. Eight times. What? I caught eight. Because there's eight different Eevee evolutions. One for each of the types.

No, there's 17 types. Yeah, but like for the types they can turn into. Like Volperion and stuff like that. Wait, wait, wait. The disdain in your voice. I know. No, there's 17 types. I mean, I don't want him fucking lying on the show.

Like, people are listening to this for hard facts. That's true. That's fact. I don't want him espousing some bullshit about there only being 8 types. Hey, what's your thing? Mine is, I can't think of a best for it, but the multiplayer in this game is so goddamn good. It's so, so good but nintendo

has been like and i know nintendo didn't didn't develop the game uh they publish it but their their games have been showing i think more and more promise on the 3ds in terms of multiplayer um the biggest was i remember when mario kart 7 came out and it like blew me away like it has it has groups and it has uh like really solid online multiplayer um and then animal crossing new leaf had these like internal friends lists that would show you your friend's activity and i felt like that was a step in the right direction but but this kind of blows everything away that they've done before so it not only have they uh turned trading and battling like just the core fundamentals into something you can do anywhere at any time just by tapping on one of your friends in a menu instead of like having to fucking schlep back to the pokemon center

and then connect with them somehow um they have made it like instant access to trading lobbies, battling lobbies, basically any form of interaction that you can possibly do. They have turned into a single menu. They have, to varying degrees of uselessness, they have just sort of wasted the bottom screen in different Pokemon games. The last one had this really archaic networking system that was more built around local multiplayer, which, like, good luck using that in the U.S. ever.

But this one, I think it works really well. You can matchmake with random people. If you communicate with those random people, it'll save them automatically. You can also register friends directly through Pokemon X and Y instead of having to drop back to the uh like 3ds main menu and then enter in friend codes and shit if you interact with somebody enough it'll say do you want to add this person as a 3ds friend you can just say yep um so you

can do those you can do those wonder trades that we were talking about you can watch each other's each other's trainer pr videos i don't know if you guys have put much time into that. Yeah, I don't get that at all. Explain that to me. It's a 10 second long video that you use as literally as PR for yourself to introduce yourself and what you're all about. And you basically go second by second adjusting the camera angles and what's in the shot

and special effects and sound effects and backgrounds and lighting and poses and animations and text to create like a fully customized 10-second long video that introduces yourself. Mine involves me drinking the milk directly out of my milk tank, which is a cow Pokemon. But is it you in the video, or is it your character? No, it's not me. It's my character.

It's not using the camera on the 3DS to film you? No, God, no. it's not me. It's my character. It's not using, like, the camera on the 3DS to film you. No, God, no. Are you kidding me? How long would it take for- I'm getting the image of you drinking from a cow udder. No, no. Also, like, instantly, dicks. Just right away.

Yeah. Just right away, dicks. That's true. But that's the thing. It's like, it feels like Nintendo, slowly but surely, each and every game that's come out this year feels a little bit closer to like them realizing oh this is how you do online where you don't drag people through the mud to make them do stuff like animal crossing was a little bit better

and pokemon um like i was surprised like i did a trade at work and i wasn't friends with the person and the trade literally took 30 seconds in total whereas i'm so used to like pokemon games you walk up to like a link station yeah and it takes like 15 minutes and you could like trade out of the boxes before you had to like have the pokemon in your party to trade them dude they're they're figuring it out between between that and the the super training which justin said he was kind of overwhelmed by it's totally, but it is a sort of easy way to understand. Well, not easy. It's still pretty complicated, but it's way easier than it was.

The systems of Eevee and Ivy training, which in layman's terms are how you boost your Pokemon's maximum stats. Yeah, so that's why I was getting confused because you were saying Eevee earlier, but you weren't talking about Eevee. No, so that's a different thing. no so that's a different thing but between that and the opening up of of online to you know having friends lists and and you know instantaneous contact with people they've sort of democratized high level play of pokemon which that community i i did a big report on them earlier this year like it's it is like a super hardcore community of players that is very small because the ways that the manner in which you, A, get competitive Pokemon,

and then B, find people to compete against are really, really hard for just like a standard player. They were really hard for a player even like myself who has played all the Pokemon games. And now they have opened up the high-level competitive play to basically anybody who wants to invest the time in it and do it. And I think that with all these online features, there's going to be a lot more retention in the post game. Like the peak for me was Pokemon Gold

and Silver that came out while I was, I think, like an eighth grade or something like that. I put probably 110 hours into that game just because i caught them all and i you know did a bunch of battling i went to events while justin worked at toys r us i would go to toys r us events and like battle people there like i got super involved in the scene and like i can't i can't do that really now i can't go to toys r us like sup thugs but because these online i would I would highly recommend directing children's theater because there's all kinds of kids oh

yeah man you know a lot of street passes there that sucks is I went to Tokyo a couple weeks before I got my review copy man I would have street passed with so

many people got so many poke miles there's also cool shit like the Safari so there's a Safari zone in every in every game which kind of allows

you to catch different pokemon in different ways the way it works have any of you beaten the game yet no i'm about halfway um when you beat the game you get access to a new city that has something called friends safari where every friend you have uh registered to your 3ds generates a miniature little safari zone specific to that friend where Pokemon of a specific type will generate. And it's not a lot of Pokemon. It's like two or three for each individual zone. But it's Pokemon that you probably won't be able to catch in the game through any other method. Also, if that friend is online and playing, then there are more Pokemon that will show up in their discrete Safari zone.

So, like, for instance, Rust, you might have a Psychic-type Safari Zone that I can go to. You bet I do. And catch, you know, catch your miserable, illegitimate, capture baby. Island of Dr. Moreau-esque.

And then Justin might have, like, a Bug-type Zone that I can go and catch you know these pokemon that i wouldn't have access to otherwise um sadly i have already cleared out all of the safari zones of everyone i'm registered friends with but i mean that added like 60 pokemon in my collection all right griffin you gotta give it to me straight because i gotta i gotta know are you gonna catch them all or what man i don't know i've been going back and forth. It's generally, it's, I have enjoyed expanding.

Like, I beat the game maybe eight hours ago. I've just been, you know, just testing the waters, taking it one step at a time. I'll get projects. Like, let's get all the Eevees, and then I'll do that. I don't know what comes next, you know?

I'm playing it playing it by year i played the game arguably under the arguably under the worst circumstances imaginable which was review circumstances because i think i had like four days to beat it and i think it is a testament to how fucking good the game is that i wasn't like screw this game forever after After that. But yeah, I've been enjoying my sort of leisurely stroll through. But when you say you're capturing them all, does that include, like, is that 700 Pokemon you need to capture? No, Russ, it's 718. Okay. I meant the approximation.

I mean, it's not going to be an easy process. It's not going to be easy. But you know what else? It counts the evolutions, right? It counts the evolutions, yeah. What's tricky is I'm going to have to do a lot of breeding. Because a lot of the Pokemon you catch in Pokemon X and Y are like the second or third evolution in the chain

for some reason. I don't know why it's like that. So like in order to get the first evolution, gotta make love. Make that baby. Ditto's going to be getting fucking busy. It almost seems like... Gotta make that baby. Ditto's gonna be getting fucking busy. I did have a question about Pokemon to me because we'd been talking about it earlier

and just recently I've had an interest in it for reasons I can't disclose here. How do you know what kind of cream puffs your Pokemon's gonna want to nom? So I think I might have made a mistake um which is to say look where we are right now i think all of us have made our yeah our life choice which is to say you remember earlier in the show when i was talking about how uh i was confused because it seemed like the pokemon hated every single type of puff pastry

that i gave them right it's possible and i'm just going on a limb here but it's possible that i was not actually feeding them the puff pastries i was just throwing them on the floor yeah dog yeah dog do you think that you think that squirtle's gonna like grab the puff pastry from your hand and hold it up they're animals i don't want the like i don't trust ralphs to eat out of my hand after the shit I put Ralts through. Yeah. What, do you have to hold it in front of them until they eat it? Yeah, you gotta hold it, they eat it out of your stylus hand.

That Squirtle, that Squirtle knows bite. Like, I know it knows bite. And I'm weak to Dark-type. You're definitely, well, I think you're weak to pretty much everything. Pretty much everything. Do you guys like how the structure of our show has completely disintegrated Into just like here are some things about Pokemon Do you have a problem with that?

Can I ask Right now Who is everyone's favorite Pokemon Right now in this chat Okay so I really liked Inkay He's a little squid But then he evolved and now he's like a horrible sea monster and i hate him yeah sad every rose has its thorns you know yeah it's true

that's what happened when they grow up empty nest syndrome i'm super into miltank right now because miltank freaks me out miltank shoves those udders. They fly around like crazy. That was Rachel, my fiancee, when I was reviewing the game. Her first exposure to the game was I was in a battle with a wild Miltank. And Miltank moves its udders in a way that is not only wildly seductive. His or her udders pop out like little baby arms arms like they're so big you could say baby arms i would say it's basically four dicks just floating out there okay yeah let's be straight here um and when it moves the way it sort of just idles in battle is it just kind of bounces up and

down and those dicks just swing like four pendulums with completely separate from one another just jiggling and wiggling uh how whichever way they choose and it's hypnotic what is seductive about this that was the word you used to describe it first i don't know maybe i got another thing hey i don't know you got that quacklin because quacklin no no don't listen to chris plant because when he says quacklin he he means Farfetch'd. Griffin, yeah, he means Farfetch'd. He doesn't understand that it's a nickname. Did I name him Quacklin?

Yeah. I don't know. I'm looking him up now. I don't think that's true. I think his name is Quacklin. His name is fucking Farfetch'd. Chris Plant told me when he came through the fucking internet. Oh, his name is Farfetch'd.

Oh, Quacklin, youman you crazy yeah he's great see this is making me miserable this is why i don't name my pokemon things i i when uh in in the original generation one of my friends uh uh cheated and got a team of six mutes and named all of them caterpie and so like they would throw them out like here comes caterpie like oh i got this shit oh Oh no I don't got this shit. Is there a, Griffin if there's one Pokemon that's supposed to be like the dope one that's really hard to get that's like the best and everybody wants it but you can't

get it. Nobody can get it. It's impossible. Um Mew I guess. I still don't know how to get that guy. I want to have the edge. If you can crack that code then I guess more power to you. i can't wait for that pokemon bank to drop because i got shit loads of pokemon on pokemon black white but don't you have to pay money for the pokemon bucks a year but come on come on crazy it's worth it i'm gonna

toss all my pokemon up in the cloud this has been fun i've really enjoyed this Yeah this has been great I could do this all day I've learned so much Me too Alright guys thank you all so much Who won? Pokemon So thanks for listening There's more stuff on Polygon.com

All Pokemon related And keep listening to our show And be back with us next week on Friday for the besties because shouldn't the world's best friends like the world's best things? Besties!