Size A6

So I got a copy of HeartGold this past April, and have spent a total of thirteen hours playing it. Approximately ten of those hours were filled within the past week. This is due to a combination of factors, among them the beginning of summer and the fact that I finally found my DS charger.

HeartGold is the first Pokemon game I've honestly enjoyed in ages, and I'm not entirely sure why. It's got a certain something that other recent Pokemon games lack, and I can't discern precisely what it is.

I'm currently at that point in the game where frustration is God and Shigeru Miyamoto is Pope. It's a place in every single RPG in existence: You've leveled up a lot, grinding painfully on monsters that are perilously close to your own level or even higher, just to get over the hump of that damned boss/gym. You're ridiculously overpowered for the area, and nothing seems to give a decent EXP when you bash it into unconsciousness. Before you clear the gym, it seems like everything around you can reduce your entire team to a puddle of blood-speckled congee, but once you've leveled to the point where you can clear the gym and move on to the next inexplicably sealed off area the average level of whatever you fight in the wild has hardly changed at all. It's almost cruel, especially when you consider that the levels of trained Pokemon HAVE changed. To the level where they can render you into a cloud of chili by looking at you. So not only is it difficult to continue leveling ,but any attempt to grab for higher levels opponents gets you soundly slapped down for your hubris.

I would also like to point out that Voltorb Flip is the exact opposite of fun. I was sort of relieved when I first discovered that the casino in HeartGold wasn't exactly a casino, but I'm steadily getting pissed off at it. Maybe I'm some kind of mental invalid, but I consistently get better results by blindly tapping squares than by carefully selecting my next move. Is my intuition good? Am I actually dumber than random choice? I was able to get an Abra in about a half hour by getting 6-12 coins by random chance, quitting, and repeating that process. Over and over. Just as a 'fuck you' to that damned game.

I'm loving the Pokewalker. It's such a simple little thing, but at the same time it's totally awesome. I'm not entirely sure what it is I'm accomplishing by clipping it to myself and wandering around, playing with it like a more adventurous, less emasculating Tamagochi, but it's gotta be good.