January 8th: Fluffy the Space Dragon

- Flew to Pewter and headed into Mt. Moon.
- Got to see the Clefairy dancing scene because it's a Monday.
- Flew to the GTS to receive the Squirtle.
> Received: SQUIRTLE (OT: Top/41990)
- Apparently it has Pokerus. I don't remember what that does.
- Went to the Goldenrod tunnel to poke around at whatever the dress up thing is.
- I had Peep be the one to get the special attention.
- Not my jam. I mostly felt unsure as to why I was actually doing it.
- Bought fertilizer from the flower shop. The Oran berries I had been planting weren't giving as many berries anymore, so tried some damp mulch to help produce more berries again.
- Went to the Game Corner. Managed to get to the secret Level 8 table for the first time and fucked it up not long after.
- Flew to Cianwood to try catching a Staryu again. No intention to perform a trade with it anymore, just wanted to catch one.
> Caught: MISTIFIER
- Decided to put together a team and take on the task of capturing Rayquaza.
- Recorded the battle. I managed to catch Rayquaza on my first attempt with the first Heavy Ball I threw at it. The whole thing was done in about five minutes. I honestly couldn't believe it.
> Caught: FLUFFY
- Got back to Cianwood to heal up and switch out the team.
- Flew around to get more black apricorns.
- Flew to Azalea to collect the Heavy Balls and give Kurt more black apricorns for more Heavy Balls.
- Remembered to try getting a Mystery Gift.
- More dice rolling until I eventually landed on one I hadn't gotten before.
> Received: CELEBI (OT: WIN2011/02211)

- YouTube Screen Recordings -

I'm glad I got to see the Clefairy dance at Mt. Moon. I didn't really plan on using the Moon Stone that gets dropped there. My showing up there was just to see what it looked like. It was a fun little secret. This game seems to have a lot of those, with quite a few locked behind needing certain event-only Pokemon. It's a stupid thing, but with the event Pokemon being easy enough to obtain from the WFC replacement, using an Action Replay code, or hacking in a copy of the 'mons using a save editor, it's probably not as much of an issue. Of course, all of this can probably just be found on YouTube anyway.

As a side-note to the event Pokemon, the Celebi that I received tonight looks to be the same as the one I got using the AR code, but the OT information is completely different. I'll probably compare the two with details listed in a save editor at some point.

I didn't end up using Aar's suggestion of "Fluffy" for Giratina, but I did decide to use it for Rayquaza, since I had the opportunity. I'm glad we got to put that to good use.

I actually didn't learn about there being a secret Level 8 table for the coin game until a few days ago. I wanted to see what the highest level was and it's almost simple. The highest level is 7, but the 8th level is a secret that can only be accessed by clearing five tables in a row without flipping over a Voltorb. I might add clearing a Level 8 coin game table to the post-game bucket list, but it's probably more trouble than it's worth.

Speaking of that list from January 2nd, it looks like I still have quite a few of them to do. I've also done some things that I didn't have on there but I'm glad I did them anyway. I'll need to look into getting some people to hop into the Wi-Fi Plaza with, even though it doesn't sound like a particularly eventful thing. There's also the Global Terminal, which I want to try more of.

I had an idea for a future run where I try to beat the game using only Bug-type Pokemon. This experience has led me to appreciate some Pokemon more than I thought I would. Bugs are ones I've never really used much, probably because great Bug Pokemon are few and far between. Bug also appears to be one of the least popular types in Pokemon just from my topical searching of most popular types. I haven't even committed to doing this yet and I'm already guessing that my team will end up being Butterfree, Shuckle, Forretress, Beedril/Ledian, Scizor, and Totodile (I'm guessing some HMs can't be learned by any of the Bugs, so it will just be for those). I'll end up being wrong, but I can't imagine it would be by much.