April 30th: Familiar Shores

- Determined the coast area outside Petalburg to be familiar.
- Found the berries near Mr. Briney's Cottage. Got Oran and Pecha berries and replanted them.
- Ran back to the previous berry spot I found to gather and replant those.
- Made it to the Petalburg Woods.
- Bug Catcher Lyle challenged me with a full team of level 3 Wurmples. I used it as an opportunity to get Davey and Gary some experience. Managed to get everyone leveled up once. (Slapkins: 12, Davey and Gary: 4)
- First Team Aqua encounter went smoothly.
- After that battle, my first wild encounter was with a Shroomish. Managed to catch it.
> Caught: ANNIE [F]
- Battled a bug catcher with a Nincada and remembered that's a Pokemon that exists.
- Made it out of the woods.
- Got Bullet Seed (TM09) from some guy standing next to a new berry spot.
- Popped into the flower shop and got a Wailmer Pail and a Persim berry. Nice.
- Did two trainer battles to the right of the flower shop. The lass trainer had a Shroomish that was really giving Slapkins a hard time. Probably a good thing I have one of those now.
- Next battle will be a doubles. Now is not the best time to do some training, but I should get some more levels for the rest of my team.
- Ran all the way back to Petalburg to use the Pokemon Center.
- Got back to the trainer pair standing on the bridge and they ignored me as I walked by.
- Made it to Rustboro City. Guess I didn't need to worry after all.
- Exploring the city, I found a guy who gave me Cut (HM01).
- Decided to grind on Route 116 since Bulbapedia said that Nincada can be found there.
> Caught: SREDSA [F] (Nincada)
- While grinding more, found a Whismur. Annie managed to put it to sleep on the first turn, got two tackles in, and managed to catch it.
> Caught: FITZ [M]
- Next encounter was also a Whismur, and for whatever reason, I felt compelled to catch this one, too.
> Caught: TAMMY [F]
- Annie now at Level 10. Decided to switch to Route 115 to spice things up.
- No, I'm not. There's no tall grass there.
- Eventually found another Skitty. I found one earlier and didn't think anything of it. However, they apparently have attract and don't seem to come up in this spot super often. Didn't want to pass up on this one.
> Caught: Skitty [M] (I accidentally pressed B, I can think of a name in the meantime)
- Got Sredsa and Fitz to Level 8.

My first experience with Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire that I remember is with some original model GBAs that my elementary school had for entertaining the students who arrived early or stayed late. This was also how I got introduced to Super Mario Land and the first Wario Land. This is most of the reason I have a fond view of these games, despite not playing them much beyond that point. The two things I still had at least some recollection of were Mudkip and some kind of shore area. The area just outside of Petalburg looks like the area I remembered. It's not that far into the game, which lends credit to that theory.

I'm already getting into the pattern of my starter getting overleveled (at least in comparison to the rest of my team). To help counteract this, I'm planning to get the six current members of my party up to Level 10, even though that could be a big waste of time).

While I was very familiar with the types of Pokemon I was going to run into during SoulSilver, I'm not as knowledgeable on the third generation Pokemon and where they appear in the game. I probably knew more of them when I was younger, but have since forgotten. I know that Sharpedo and Gardevoir were from these games, and most of the rest I remember were the ones that show up at the beginning, like Zigzagoon.