July 20th: GameCube Lightning Round

Before this entry, I mentioned that I needed to finish the game before something else happened. On the 19th, I spent most of a day traveling to get to Aar's house. From the time I got there until I left the morning of the 23rd, a small group of friends that met on the Internet would eat fast food, play a bunch of games, and watch a couple of "interesting" movies.

Part of the plan for this event was to use our Generation 3 saves to link to a GameCube and to other GBAs. Doing this would let me receive some specific event Pokemon and try out some cool functionality with Pokemon Box: Ruby & Sapphire and Pokemon Colosseum. Sunday morning, after we tried out the LAN Mode for Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (the two exclamation points are part of the official title), we knocked out much of the checklist over the course of about an hour.

Given the nature of the event, I did not write any of this at the time it happened. The majority of the log below was written the night after this happened. The summary above was written less than a week later.

- Apparently, I need to save in a Pokemon Center to mix records and connect to GameCube-based functionality. Last place I saved was... well, the game put me back in my house after I beat the five members of the Elite Four.
- Going downstairs, there was an interaction with the protagonist's dad. I was trying to get to the Pokemon Center without too much delay, so I skimmed through what he had to say.
- Got the S.S. Ticket, which looks to be how I get to the Battle Tower in this game. I understand there's a whole Battle Frontier, but that could be an Emerald-specific thing. Even if it isn't, the Battle Tower would likely be where I'd spend most of my Frontier time.

EDIT: Researching this, I was actually correct about the Frontier being exclusive to Emerald. Ruby and Sapphire just have the Tower.

- Made my way to the Pokemon Center in the next town over.
- Apparently, I need to make a stop at Petalburg's Center specifically.
- Got there and talked to the guy who stands next to the PC. Previously, I gave this man the insightful profile of "Hey, there I am walking great".
- By setting my message to the very specific combination of "Mystery event is exciting", the man gives me a special message about me knowing the secret phrase.
- This unlocks a new menu option for receiving mystery events. Not an option in the menu pulled up in-game by pressing the Start button, but an option in the main menu. What the fuck? Why would they do this? This is such a bad decision.
- After doing this, I was ready to do the handful of things planned.
- Started by mixing records with Aar's save. This is done by going to the second floor of a Pokemon Center and entering the door furthest from the stairs.
- Once the link was established, our characters were able to walk around a room and use stations that almost looked like PCs viewed from the side.
- Using these stations mixed the records.
- I will be honest, I still don't really know what mixing the records accomplishes other than adding the secret base of the other player and changing some other highly-specific things. I think the game probably keeps track of the trainers connected with and can probably be viewed somewhere. I haven't confirmed this.
- Next, it was time for Pokemon Box. The process for connecting to this involved jumping through some hoops, but we got it to work.
- Due to my save and the copy of Pokemon Box having not met previously, I was given an egg as a freebie by Brigette.
- My understanding is that Brigette was created as a sort-of guide figure for Pokemon Box specifically and she never appeared in anything after it. What a shame.

EDIT: After looking it up on Bulbapedia, she was also in Pokemon Bank, which I'm pretty sure is no longer usable. I don't remember what the plans for sun-setting the service were.

- While in box, Aar also instructed me to grab one of the several event Deoxys that he prepared in a box and bring it over to my save. The egg I was given earlier was in one of the GameCube's boxes, so that also had to be brought over.
- Since I was able to put my Pokemon up on the screen for everyone to see, I decided to talk about my team a bit. I shared with the small audience some fun details about my team and briefly talked about my Elite Four experience.
- Once I was done talking, I went to exit the box browsing interface. The button for doing this was labeled "Back to Brigette's Room".
- I delivered a "Well, alright..." in the best Untitled Gamer impression I could muster in that moment, which everyone agreed was hilarious even if they didn't know what I was referencing.
- I saved the changes to my save file and disconnected from the game.
- There was one more thing to be done, but I had to free up a spot in my party first.
- After doing this, I connected with the GameCube again. This time, it was the extremely rare Pokemon Colosseum bonus disc with the special Jirachi.
- Getting the Mystery Event option on the main menu was necessary to receive this specifically.

EDIT: Technically, this was optional for receiving the Jirachi and mandatory for the Eon Ticket.

- This one was somehow slightly more fiddly, but once I figured it out, I was now one Jirachi richer than I had been.

Somewhere in this series of events, I also received an Eon Ticket and was given basic directions for how to start the event associated with it. I'll need to get to that in the future.

EDIT: Some issues arose while trying to get the ticket and it took multiple attempts before I actually received the event. At some point between this day and when I went to try the associated event, I forgot the stipulation that I need to go to Petalburg and talk to Norman before I actually get the ticket. This tricked me into thinking that it hadn't actually worked. I resolved this by editing my save file later.