Pokemon Review: Let’s Go Eevee! [Straight Outta Kanto]

Alola PokeNerds! Welcome to the first Straight Outta Kanto blog post of 2019. Straight Outta  Kanto – your brand new number one blog for nerd culture, nostalgia, nonsense and… more!

So, first and foremost, I wish you all a (belated!) wonderful New Year. May 2019 be the year we finally get our Gen 4 remake – it is the tenth anniversary of Pokemon Platinum‘s release after all so fingers crossed…!

Also, exciting news, Straight Outta Kanto has just been recruited by the fantastic Valkyrie Con to host a Pokemon Panel at this year’s Valkyrie Con convention in Dublin, more news on that sooooon!

Right, down to business. I got Pokemon: Let’s Go Eevee for Christmas 2018 and needless to say I crawled into a vat of gooey Switch based nerdness and did not climb out for several days. (I’m receiving Let’s Go: Pikachu for my birthday later this month!)

Let’s Go Eevee is literally a direct re-make of 1998’s Pokemon Yellow. Pokemon Yellow was the Gen 1 game created entirely as a T.V. franchise tie-in but captured the hearts of fans better than a Master Ball primarily due to the upgraded addition of being able to obtain all three starter Pokemon and a heavy dose of Kawaii As Feck-ness smeared all over it by mascot Pikachu. (And the inclusion of Jesse and James… JOY!!!)

When the news first broke last Spring that the first main Pokemon excursion on the Switch would be a Pokemon Yellow/Pokemon GO mash-up, the feedback was divided. I’ve been championing a Pokemon Yellow remake for years now but don’t play GO myself so was excited but also apprehensive about how skewered a traditional gaming format we were going to get. Thankfully the game was almost completely playable as a standard Pokemon game, the Pokemon GO elements were more light touches and nods than heavily integrated features.

The main things I loved about Let’s Go Eevee are mostly superficial upgrades such as improved and and updated graphics and soundtrack – with each game and console we’re getting a more and more life-like Pokemon gaming experience which I don’t know about you but I am totally okay with. The more immersion in the Pokemon World the better if you ask me.

Sadly there was little or not plot development beyond the basic Pokemon Yellow story line. Game Freak surpassed themselves in 2014 with the Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire remakes and have set a standard of rebooting that sadly Let’s Go falls far short of meeting. Don’t get me wrong, there are the odd tweaks and turns in the story that make an enjoyable and engaging time for old and new players alike but nothing that deviates too far from the original format.

There were also moments in the plot that felt like wasted opportunities – such as: Lorelei from the Elite 4 swimming down the lake by Rock Tunnel on her Lapras like a BOSS and helping you tackle Team Rocket. I thought that this meant the game was going to draw influence from the original Pokemon manga series (out at the time that Yellow was released) and have the Gym Leaders and Elite 4 members take a more invested interest in wiping out Team Rocket, but alas! Lorelei’s appearance was the one and only time the Elite 4 showed up in the fight against crime. This was a sore disappointment as all signs pointed to an increase in story development.

Another high-point/disappointment was the fantastic show down in Team Rocket’s Celadon City Game Corner hide-out. There the game play became more like a Pokemon Ranger/Detective Pikachu game where Pokemon Eevee herself becomes more hands-on in the adventure. A really cool function I thought, but sadly this was the only instance in the game of this happening. If Game Freak were just testing this out this time around, I sincerely hope they’ll include it in future games.

Another controversial point was the method of catching Pokemon in Let’s Go. Instead of carefully battling the wild Pokemon you’d mimic GO‘s capture method of lobbing balls at the Pokemon instead. While I did feel a lack of emotional connection to my party Pokemon because I wasn’t grinding them and using moves in battle, I did enjoy this method of capture as it emulates how I primarily capture my own Pokemon in other games. Yes. I’m lazy.

The complete lack of HMs was a godsend! Eevee learning all the cutsie techniques such as “Chop Down” and “Sky Dash” and “Sea Skim” was a welcome addition and also Kawaii as Feck pottering about the sky in a balloon machine with my Eevee. Eevee travelling with you outside the PokeBall and getting all dressed up in sweet little outfits was an adorable (yet superficial) part of the game. Also having the option to have an extra party Pokemon travel outside the ball with you and in some instance become a method of transport (flying over Kanto on Aerodactyl and leaving cool-as-hell Game of Thrones style dragon shadows over the buildings was an amazing feeling…!)

The Gym Leaders posed relatively no major competition, the stats of Pokemon grow considerably fast in Let’s Go, thankfully so getting to whup the old gang’s ass in beautifully renovated gyms was a pleasure! The option to re-battle all eight Gym Leaders once a day post Championship is also a new addition that is most welcome. Gary Oak taking over from Giovanni is also a great touch that, correct me if I’m wrong, could also hint at a Let’s Go: Gold & Silver version in the future, which I would dearly welcome.

Beyond battling a terrifyingly hyper-powered MewTwo in Cerulean Cave, re-battling Gym Leaders and the Elite 4 and fighting with Alolan Fairy Trial Captain Mina every day in Vermillion City there’s not a whole heap of post-game content. Also, the PokeBall Plus console that I paid nearly as much as the game for was a disappointing and malfunctioning waste of money – it was nice to get the free Mew inside it, but oh my Jigglypuffs, what a fiasco, stay away from it!

Look, as a non-main RPG Pokemon game this was a light and entertaining bit of fluff with really intriguing new elements that I hope they integrate into future Pokemon Switch games. I would give this game 7/10  for lack of plot development but for Eevee based cuteness it gets full marks. Wait till it comes down in price in the January sales and give it at least one decent play through, it’s worth that alone!

There we have it nerdlings! Keep watching the skeys, I mean skies!

For more information on Straight Outta Kanto, feel free to follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/

Follow us on Twitter: @KantoOutta.

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Advertisement

Gary Oak’s 9th and 10th Kanto Gym Badges… Revealed!?

Alola, PokeNerds! And welcome to the 25th instalment of… Straight Outta Kanto! So now that the spooking season is over (LIES! Every day is Halloween!) and we are literally soooo close to the November 16th release of Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee (Why not buy both!?) I think it’s time to absorb as much Pokemon-fuelled mayhem and excitement as possible, and what better way to do that than with some bullshizzy fan theory post about something that isn’t actually real or even a remote possibility! But for the Jigglypuffs of it, let’s just run with this…

Gary Oak’s Two Mystery Kanto Badges: REVEALED!

(Or not, whatever, this is just for fun 😉 )

So as we all know that for each Pokemon region in each Pokemon Nintendo game there EIGHT Gym Badges (barring Sun and Moon and their “trials”) that can be earned by hard-working and talented Pokemon Trainers, right? We also all know at this point that the anime takes tremendous artistic licence with their interpretation of the games, right?

However! The greatest artistic licence ever taken in the Anime versus the Nintendo Game wars (other than James Rocket having a fine ass pair of beach titties) was… Gary Oak’s mysterious ninth and tenth gym badge!

Now, anyone that has watched the 90’s Indigo League Pokemon anime series will know that there is an early episode where Ash meets some punk-ass trainer (with a gimped up Sandshrew) who runs his own indie Gym (hipster much?) that isn’t accredited by the official Pokemon League, but still is a challenge all on it’s own for those who wish to test their out their training thus far.

Teeeeechnically speaking Gary’s two extra badges could have come from two un-accredited but no less badge-giving-out indie Gyms and were for him a bragging right to include them with his own original eight official Pokemon League badges.

HOWEVER!

I’ve got a little plot-hole filled theory that makes no sense that I’d love to share with you all based on two possible extra Kanto Pokemon Gyms based on the original Red and Blue games!

GYM BADGE NUMBER NINE – The Fighting Dojo Gym of Saffron City:

So we all know that there is a redundant Gym in Saffron City that is home to a fearsome karate dojo with some kung-fu-tastic Fighting Type Pokemon. The Fighting Dojo Gym was originally ousted by Sabrina and her Psychic Type Gym, perhaps as a fun little side story that never got developed or perhaps just as a point to highlight the strength of the Psychic Type advantage over Fighting, maybe we were meant to get a ninth Fighting badge, who knows!

But.

What if in the anime series the Saffron City Fighting Dojo Gym awarded Gary Oak a gym badge!? What if that accounts for one of his badges – alongside the gimpshrew owner’s Gym Badge!?

It’s technically noooot beyond the realms of possibility.

NOW!

Here’s a bizarre possibility for a Pokemon Gym that Gary could have gotten a Gym Badge from IF the anime creators were in anyway fuck-giving about what actually happens in the Nintendo game! (To be fair they do follow relatively closely as to what happens in the games and any deviation is usually an entertaining expansion on the Pokemon World)

GYM BADGE NUMBER TEN – Safari Zone Flying Type Gym:

This one I’ll admit is a little Farfetch’d, but Bear(tic) with me.

This theory is based purely on the fact that there is a tremendous abundance of Flying Type Pokemon Trainers en route to Safari Zone, a lack of a Flying Type Gym present in the game as we know it AND the fact that the Safari Zone Secret House is surrounded by Gym Statues.

What if there was meant to be a Flying Type Gym in the Secret House of the Safari Zone!? And that was Gary’s tenth badge!? I know it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense as the Gym Statues are probably just a handy copy/paste design feature as a boundary marker and no real indication of any alleged plans for a Gym, but it bears thinking about in my opinion!

Yes, I know Fuchsia already has a Posion Type Gym, but perhaps just like Saffron’s Psychic Gym over-powered the Fighting Gym, perhaps Koga took over from some unknown Gym Leader as the town’s top dog for the ass-kicking of the local ten year olds?

Or maybe Gary’s two extra badges were just a flight-of-fancy nonsense that the animators came up with on a whim to highlight how far advanced Gary Oak was on HIS Pokemon Journey in comparison to Ash’s own meagre efforts and no one was ever meant to write  blog post about it twenty years later!? Who knows! But I for one would enjoy a Safari Zone Gym and took great pleasure as a child kicking the arse of those Fighting Dojo trainers and liberating their Hitmonchan…!

Whether or not you agree with any of what I’ve just suggested, I think we can all agree that Gary Gary is our man and if he can’t do it no one can…! (So there’s hope for us yet, or maybe not!)

Laters, Loser! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh8DsTP7qe0

There we have it nerdlings! Keep watching the skeys, I mean skies!

For more information on Straight Outta Kanto, feel free to follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/

Follow us on Twitter: @KantoOutta.

Thanks for reading! 🙂

 

 

Horror in Pokemon: A Discussion.

Alola, PokeNerds! Welcome to the latest Straight Outta Kanto blog post! Straight Outta  Kanto – your brand new number one blog nerd culture, nostalgia, nonsense and… more! We’ve been crazy busy lately in the non-Pokemon world AND in the Pokemon World what with the craziness that was both Artist Alleying and panelling at the one and only J Con 2018! If you missed that con then ya-boo-sucks to you – it ROCKED!

So, the J Con panel Straight Outta Kanto held was all about *tiny drum roll* Horror in the Pokemon World! It was a packed out standing room only talk that was lively, heated and with full audience participation – the roaring round of applause and standing ovation from the back was a nice touch as well 😉

Now, while I freely admit the fact that my talk was tremendously improvised and what little notes I did have were written in smudged ink on my hand (much like Homer Simpson when he’s preparing a break up speech for Mindy) – there was enough core material to write down  as an actual blog post here and share for you guys!

How many of you PokeFans out there continued playing this game on from childhood through your teenage and adult years? Or, how many of you actually first discovered Pokemon as a teenager or an adult? I for one started at the age of eight and have carried on playing it religiously for the past nineteen years, I will continue to do so – and will most certainly continue to add to my growing Pokemon tattoo gallery on my body. (Let me be ancient, wrinkled and be-decked with ‘mon…!)

A common refrain many, most or all of you older Pokemon Players will be familiar with from the other “adults” in your life will be “Pokemon!? But Pokemon’s a… CHILDREN’S GAME!”

Is it now?

While we seek comfort and solidarity from our fellow nerds in online forums, on social media and at conventions – there is no escaping the fact that the wider world does generally regard Pokemon as purely a “Children’s Game” – but it’s so much more than that.

While the basic premise of Pokemon may be to entertain the children it’s primarily marketed at, the adults who created this Pokemon built the games on a solid foundation of Japanese cultural influences, references to ye olde folklore and mythology, drawing dark inspiration from the cruel and savage natural world/animal kingdom,  and of course – Japanese Pop Culture. All elements that your typical happy-go-lucky casual child gamer may not initially pick up on until they’re much older.

Like many things, horror is generally taboo – and not something you wouldn’t immediately associate with “a children’s game” such as Pokemon, but hear me out. Horror, whether we know it or not, is everywhere. In everything. Just as there can be no light without dark, there can be no fandom without it’s Creepypasta.

Horror is fascinating because it provokes in a person a series of natural human reactions and emotions just as real, thrilling valid as fanservice or the giddy little thrill that comes from an anime bikini beach summer spin-off episode. (#TentacleFun…) Pulse racing, heart pounding and memories of the event that stay with you long after you’ve switched off and tuned out.

Japan has a rich, flavoured dark folklore and history that has inspired countless anime, manga (take the work of legend Junji Ito for example), J-Horror movies (Ju-On:The Grudge, Ringu etc) and urban legends (If anyone else has seen the movie made about the Slit Mouthed Woman legend you’ll know why I sleep with a very bright Jigglypuff night light…) Japan Pop Culture, cinema and literature has inspired some of the most shit-scary nightmare fuel that the world can create – they live with these legends and stories (and even just their basic and bloody history – Hiroshima, anyone?)

So, as Pokemon is a Japanese game created by Japanese people in Japan, it was inevitable that as big as it is in the West, there are certainly typically Japanese elements prevalent in all the games and T.V. show. For example: tatami mats and shrines in the NPCs houses, the Kimono girls of Johto, the region locations being inspired by real-world Japanese places, Brock’s “Jelly Filled Donuts” actually being Onigiri Rice Balls. The list goes on.

Being a Japanese game by Japanese people it’s inevitable then that certain elements of the darker side of Japanese culture sneak insidiously in to the games. A prime example of this  is the Pokemon Indigo League T.V. episode “The Ghost of Maiden’s Peak.”

This spooky story of lost love isn’t especially Japanese specific but the character’s acts of evil prevention and exorcism by way of Spell/Curse Tags (Or “Stickers” – to dumb it own for us Western viewers…) and recruiting the help of a traditional medium to exorcise the Gastly is overtly Japanese. While this would be a perfectly normal spiritual reaction to the supernatural for the Japanese, at the time when I first watched this episode it seemed so exotic an approach to me, more used to the Western ideas of the West as I was.

Even darker than this, the games themselves are filled with grim an ghoulish segments, such as: Lavender Town, Ghost Type Pokemon, the Celadon Mansion horror story, the mystery of Unown, the story of Cubone’s mother, the Kalos Ghost Girl, Sailor Eldritch’s son, the majority of the storylines for the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon franchise, the list goes on! We discussed a lot of these already on the Straight Outta Kanto blog: https://straightouttakanto.wordpress.com/2018/07/06/pokemon-the-spooky-side-a-top-thirteen-of-terror-straight-outta-kanto/

So, a game filled with juicy tidbits of horror and strangeness is bound to whet the appetites of those already inclined towards Creepypasta and other dark ways of utilising the internet to destroy your happy childhood memories…!

It was at this point here during my panel talk that the audience really came in to their providing me with examples and anecdotes about their own personal favourite Creepypasta stories and general spooky fan theories.

Some of the most famous Pokemon Creepypasta/fan theories as discussed at the panel were: The Lavender Town Syndrome, Lost Silver, Cubone, Buried Alive, Strangled Red, Missingno’s true identity, Pokemon forced to evolve, Pokemon experimented on, are Pokemon aliens, Pokemon BrVr, AZ’s story, are Grimer and Muk Team Rocket’s attempt at making ghost Pokemon, the strange and warped relationships between Pokemon-People-Animals, traditional Japanese Yokai making their way into the backgrounds of the games…  Drifloon, Hypno’s Lullaby, The Pokedex Entries…

As we touched on lightly earlier, some Pokemon are roughly based on real animals in the natural world, however the natural world is a vicious kingdom of Survival of the Fittest. Some of the Pokedex entries are cruel, savage and ‘mon eat ‘mon. For example:

*Dexter Voice* CACTURNE:

“If a traveler is going through a desert in the thick of night, Cacturne will follow in a ragtag group. The Pokémon are biding their time, waiting for the traveler to tire and become incapable of moving.”

And then there’s the more sinister…

*Dexter Voice* FROSLASS:

“The soul of a woman lost on a snowy mountain possessed an icicle, becoming this Pokémon. The food it most relishes is the souls of men.”

Lovely.

Froslass’s is particularly interesting as I’ve read/seen countless old Japanese short stories and old movies about a spectral woman in the mountains leading lost men to their doom… Taken from traditional Japanese folklore? Maybe… (#PiplupPhotobomb)

HOWEVER.

The undisputed King of Pokedex Entries? This muddafuqqa:

Hypno: The Peddafeel ‘Mon.

Jesus. That alone is enough to counter any argument from your mom when she’s in full swing about “Why are you still living at home in your 30’s playing a children’s game all day!?” Just show her Hypno. How did Hypno or any of the other dubious and questionable Pokemon make it legitimately into any of these games!?

This is darker than you could ever imagine. Hypno, Darkrai, Drifloon, Drowzee, Banette, Mimkyu, the theories, the child suicides – look them up online! The list is endless. THIS IS NOT A CHILDREN’S GAME! It is a game that children happen to play, but it’s so much more… So much darker… The nightmare fuel is real… thank you for the childhood, Satoshi Tajiri, thank you for the sleepless nights…

So, this was Straight Outta Kanto’s first ever panel talk and hopefully the first of many. We will expanding and elaborating on this article and bringing you stranger and more in-depth insights into the weirdness that is Pokemon.

Sweet screams… 😉

There we have it nerdlings! Keep watching the skeys, I mean skies!

For more information on Straight Outta Kanto, feel free to follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/

Follow us on Twitter: @KantoOutta.

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Straight Outta Kanto Interviews: J Con Ireland – Ireland’s Newest Biggest Nerd Convention!

Greetings Nerdalingers! Welcome back to Straight Outta Kanto – Ireland’s newest and weirdest Pokemon blog about nostalgia, nerd culture, nonsense… and more! We hope you enjoyed the summer break (we certainly did!) but now that it’s Back to School Season is upon us, it’s Back to Blogging for us!

We are thrilled today to be interviewing one of the most promising conventions I’ve been to in recent years… J Con!

Held for the first time November 2017 at Dublin’s Croke Park Stadium for one day, yours truly was gracing the Artist Alley with her Pokemon Creepypasta prints, and also mingling with cosplayers and fellow nerds, browsing the browsables, purchasing some saucy nerd goods and soaking up the over-all Otakurific atmosphere of the event.

This year I will be back in the Artist Alley (do please stop by my table and pester me with your Pokemon-problems, fan theories, Pocky sharing abilities and hugs – I accept all ❤ ) and I heartily beseech you guys to come along for the bigger and better J Con – it’s two days now! However, if you need more convincing than my puny efforts there… Let’s meet… J Con!

[SOK:] Firstly, please tell me who you are in relation to J Con, what your role is and how long you’ve been a part of the team:

My name is Joe, I am the Director of J Con. (It seems I am also becoming known as “That J Con Guy”. So I have been part of it since the start! I have done some interpretation for Japanese guests at Akumakon, and organised a lot of different events. But this would be my first experience with really organising a con.

[SOK:] Were you apart of the J Con crew last year? How are you finding this year’s prep in comparison to last year’s? Is it crazier? A little less crazy? Just as crazy?

This year… is going okay! It is less crazy in the sense that we have the ball rolling from last year. But more crazy because we decided to expand to two days! So there are a lot more moving parts this year.

[SOK:] You guys are hosting J Con for two days this year as opposed to last year’s one day event – were you surprised at the turn out of last year’s con? The feedback as a trader/attendee my end was nothing but positive, how did you guys yourself find the feedback? Is that what prompted you to turn it into a bigger event?

We were delighted and surprised that so many people came along! And it seems like everyone enjoyed the day, and that is all we were aiming and hoping for. So now we are back being nervous wondering whether enough people will come along to make it all work. But we just want to organise a fun weekend for everyone! [SOK: And I’m sure it will be!]

[SOK:] What events/guests are you most psyched about having at this year’s con?

Everything! We are delighted to have a special guest voice actor, Kyle Hebert. His credits list is incredible, and he seems like an awesome dude. So we are excited to have him over.

Our cosplay guests, Nadia SK from Italy, and Cos Chloo and Shadow Sionnach from here, are wicked too, so we are absolutely psyched for the cosplay this year!

And then we will be having the amazing chef Yoshimi from Wa Café back again, YouTubers Super Eyepatch Wolf and CdawgVA, “Ireland’s Japanese Cuisine Queen” Fiona Uyema, there are too many things! [SOK: Dude, you’re making me hungry… this sounds amazing!]

[SOK:] For future cons if you had a magic wishlist, what event/guest would you like to see grace the programme of events at J Con? Who would be your dream special guest? 

Hayao Miyazaki. And a real pokemon. [SOK: I. Can’t. Concur. Hard. ENOUGH!!!]

[SOK:] There’s been a lot of turbulence over the last couple of years with various conventions in Ireland either ending permanently or going on hiatus or new, smaller cons rising to the forefront and so forth, how do you think this “up in the air-ness” of the convention has effected the convention going fanbase? Has it at all? Are the fans still there but finding new cons? Where does J Con fit into all this? 

Yes, there has been a lot of changes and lots of happenings in the con scene! And it has definitely affected things. I suppose the biggest thing that affected us was the Gamer Con fiasco. People are just wary of new cons because of it. So we were like, “hold on a sec we have nothing to do with that! Judge us on us! We just want to organise a fun day?!” And starting out, especially for gaming cons, has become more difficult because of that.

In terms of cons coming and going… again it makes it difficult for people to go along to a new con, they aren’t sure whether they can trust a new event. Just like going to a new coffee shop, a new pub, or a new anything. I think part of the reason cons struggle to survive is because of the moolah. Fans might think Cons are cashing in all over the place… but it is quite the opposite! Eeeek! In reality, it is super difficult to organise a big event for €20 per person.

As for where J Con fits in… we have no idea, yet! We are in the same space as Eirtakon. But we don’t want people to expect the same thing, or think we are the same. We are a different con, ya know? A huge motivation for me with J Con, is to let people experience not only anime and manga and cosplay, but lots of traditional Japanese culture too. Speaking Japanese, calligraphy, trying Sake (if you’re over 18!), origami, etc etc. Hence the name, Japan Convention!! [SOK: Oh my giddy aunt, I think I’m going to digivolve my dragon balls with excitement here…!]

And at the end of the day, I probably repeat it too often but we just want people to come along, get good value for money and have lots of craic!

[SOK:] What’s been your personal favourite convention experience/memory and do you feel that’s something you’d like to bring to J Con or is J Con and your own personal Con experiences totally separate? Or is a mix of all the cons incorporated somehow organically into convention planning?

Walking into Dublin Comic Con when it’s in mid flow, so many people in such a good mood, you can almost taste the craic in the air. It’s great! I also did a coffee stand and a Sake tasting at Akumakon, and that was really special!

[SOK:] Do you have any hilarious or embarrassing convention stories about J Con from last year that you wouldn’t be too humiliated to share? (We promise we won’t laugh… too hard!)

We could tell you, but we’d have to… [SOK: Oh, you saucy tease! That’s what they all say…!]

[SOK:] As Pokemon is the name of the game here at Straight Outta Kanto, can you divulge to us any Pokemon related plans for this year’s J Con? Do you feel it’s a fandom that does or doesn’t need to represented too intensely at conventions by the organisers? Is there a place/market for hosting the Pokemon TCG/VCG events at conventions? 

There have been multiple sightings of wild Pikachu in the last few months… we sense there might be some kind of coming together of Pikachu?! Just a rumour so far though 

Pokemon is great! It’s probably the single biggest gateway to Japan/anime/cons/being a nerd, so it will always have a place at cons. [SOK: It was certainly MY gateway Nerd Drug…!]

[SOK:] Ok. You’ve got a choice between Bulbasaur, Squirtle or Charmander as your starter ‘Mon… Who do you pick!?

Bulbasaur! 

Thank you sooooo much to J Con for taking time out of their crazy busy schedule to come play with us for a while – I genuinely cannot wait for this year’s convention and I hope you guys are now convinced to come give it a whirl! Ah g’wan… Leave yer mammy’s basement for a while and go minlge with some non-digital humanoids…! 😉

There we have it nerdlings! Keep watching the skeys, I mean skies!

For more information on Straight Outta Kanto, feel free to follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/  

We are also now on Twitter @KantoOutta – follow us, we follow back!

Thanks for reading! 🙂

 

 

Top Ten U.G.L.Y Pokemon! [Straight Outta Kanto]

Greetings PokeNerds and welcome to Straight Outta Kanto – your brand new number one Irish Nerd Blog for all the latest news, reviews, rumours, nostalgia, nonsense and occasionally… more!

Today I am hungover on the memory of last night’s eating of my weight in chocolate biscuits while marathon-ing on Game of Thrones (You Binge Or You Die) so my brain is not functioning adulty enough to give the planned Pokemon Conquest essay the tender loving care it deserves. Feck it. I feel fat. I feel lazy. Here’s some ugly Pokemon:

(10) Seismitoad:

This ballsy beast literally looks like he applied the “Gotta Catch ’em All” motto to STDs. And completed the Pokedex.

(9) Garbodor:

Literally a sack of shit. Literally. Fight me.

(8) Drowzee:

His sprite in Alola is sooooo creepy. The undulating, soft, flabby nose… freaky!

(7) Guzzlord:

This is not a Pokemon. This is a garbage disposal unit. Don’t start with the whole “Oh but he’s NOT a Pokemon, he’s an Ultra Beast blah blah blah” – Don’t care. Not listening. Listening requires getting out of my pyjamas and paying attention. Not happening.

(6) Alolan Muk:

Well if Gamefreak were looking for a way to make Muk worse, yeah, throw some random teeth in there…! I don’t care that they’re meant to be crystallized toxins. It looks like Muk dropped some acid and rolled around in some baby teeth. Maybe Alolan Muk is the tooth fairy…?

(5) Bruxish:

The painted whore of the Alolan ocean. Hello Sailor Huey, lookin’ for a good time…?

(4) Oricorio:

Literally looks like a middle-aged high school librarian trying to re-capture her lost youth by volunteering to run the pep club on weekends.

(3) Venipede:

These literally look like they would crunch if you stepped on them by accident. Crunch and then ooze… I really hate bug types.

(2) Golisopod:

He looks like those freaky bugs that curl up in a freaky little stomach churning ball when you step on them. And then crunch. And then ooze. Oh Christ. Death to Bug ‘Mon…!

(1) Lickitung:

Put. It. Away. Stop trying to make lick happen. It’s not gonna happen. Don’t know what creeps me out more. The pink fat little tummy (I know I’m not one to point fingers there…!) or the endlessly dripping fat pink tongue…!

***This post is literally just my “personal” opinion, partially, this is a post meant for humour and entertainment, I love all Pokemon of all types and description and highly value the diversity of love all PokeFans share for their favourites ❤ ***

There we have it nerdlings! Keep watching the skeys, I mean skies!

For more information on Straight Outta Kanto, feel free to follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/

Follow us on Twitter: @KantoOutta

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Top 5 Worst Pokemon Gym Leader Hairstyles:

Greetings my beautifully coiffed PokeBabes! Today for our “Silly Saturday” post (to counter-act our heavy weight “Big Wednesday Blog Post”) we are going to lather, rinse, repeat our way through some long and luxurious nostalgia!

The world of anime has always presented some magnificent opportunities for us mere mortals to bask in the reflected glow of some laws of physics and gravity defying “Anime Hair” and Pokemon, my dear salon savvy chums, does not leave our eyes un-bedazzled in the weird anime hair stakes.

Look at Jesse Rocket’s magnificent envy-inducing red locks. Professor Oak’s earnest but handsome short, back and sides. Gary Oak’s bad boy points. Nurse Joy’s strange but kawaii pink creations. Pokemon characters have some truly inspiring hair.

But then.

They also have some hair that pushes the envelope a little too far and starts leaning towards U.G.L.Y territory.

Today, my pomaded pompodours, we are going to pay a loving tribute to some of (there are plenty I couldn’t include in just a Top 5) the worst hair in the Pokemon universe:

(5) Clair:

I freely admit Clair is an absolute Boss and my first real girlpower crush as a kid, but oh mah god. There’s just so much going on. In so many directions. It’s Power Dressing gone into over-drive. I get how she’s rivals with Lance and has to prove herself as a competent and strong confident dragon leader in front of all the male elders and I love Clair, just… a little less styling gel, perhaps? You’re not actually a Dragonair… Clair…

(4) Grant:

To be fair I really like Grant and I enjoy his rock climbing gym immeasurably but just… I know his hair is meant to emulate a mountain but… hair shouldn’t emulate mountains!!! Grant looks like someone who fell asleep on a couch at a fellow rock climber’s house party and they put a load of stuff in his hair while he was asleep to mess with him and then Grant woke up and no one told him how bad his hair had been pranked so he just went off Gym Leadering for the day without checking a mirror…

(3) Kiawe:

Very similar to Grant is the reason Kiawe’s hair grates on me. I get that Kiawe’s hair is meant to be symbolic of the towering inferno from which he and his backpacker stoner friend do crazy dance  trials from up on the mountains yada yada yada but Kiawe just looks like he’s going through a teen-angst-rebellion phase and stole his sister’s henna and died his hair ‘all different cos he’s such a non-conformist, mom…! Also, you can’t see it here because this picture is pants, but Google search Kiawe’s eyebrows – they deserve a blog post on their own…

(2) Iris/Drayden:

 That’s not a hair style that’s a beanbag glued to someone’s head.

I’m as a partial to a nice beardy bloke as the next person (and a silver fox to boot) but seriousyl Drayden. Check yourself. And his actual hair is so nice and manly and normal looking… But that beard man. Sort it out.

(1) Samson Oak:

Business at the front, party at the back… Nothing says Ladies Man Party Animal like a Mullet. Clearly a direct counter-part to Professor Samuel Oak’s straight laced traditional stuffed shirt educated man spiel, Samson is Samuel’s wild Hawaiian, sorry Alolan, party spirit set free!

Now, I’m not saying I don’t love a good Mullet, but I think it’s fair to say that in the fashion stakes a Mullet is Number One on everyone’s Shit List…! This is why, despite not being a Gym Leader, Professor Mullet just HAD to top our list…!

There we have it nerdlings! Keep watching the skeys, I mean skies!

For more information on Straight Outta Kanto, feel free to follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/  

We are also now on Twitter @KantoOutta – follow us, we follow back!

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Nostalgia Nerd: Pokemon Trading Card Game for Nintendo Gameboy (1998) [Straight Outta Kanto]

Greetings PokeNerds and welcome to Straight Outta Kanto – your brand new number one Irish Nerd Blog for all the latest news, reviews, rumours, nostalgia, nonsense and occasionally… more!

Today we are going to discuss a game that, I freely admit, I still have not completed – yet: Pokemon Trading Card Game for Nintendo Gameboy Colour.

As I was browsing through the Nintendo eShop a few weeks back I discovered that for five human dollars (are dollarydoos) you could download a wee digital version the Pokemon TCG for Gameboy Colour game. This thrilled me immeasurably as this was one game for the original Gameboy Colour this GenWunner never got to play for first time around.

The Pokemon Trading Card Game in general I am relatively new to. Like I said, this Nintendo game by-passed me as a child, and the actual cards – believe it or not – weren’t as big in my school as they were in others so apart from receiving the odd token packet of cards at Christmas from the odd (and odd) uncle, the anime and manga held much more appeal to me than a side-game I knew little of.

As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, in 2015 I discovered PokeCon Dublin. There I met all my current friends and finally Came Out of the Nerd Closest. Finally I had my eyes opened to the fact that I no longer had to keep my childhood Pokemon obsession secret, because there were many, many other people who shared the same passion for Pokemon as I did – and a lot of them were a heck of a lot older than I was – no more shame, hooray!

During that glorious first wave of fandom (as it were) in 2015 I discovered the physical Pokemon Trading Card game. I was walking past my local Toymaster and saw their Pokemon Card themed window display  and well, the rest (and my credit card) is history…

That summer I first collected the cards, dug out my old “token” cards from the 90’s, bought more and more and more cards, eventually had my good friend and S.O.K interviewee Mike Culligan actually teach me how to play the card game in real life.

I… enjoy the collecting I think more than the battling and appreciating the artwork rather than that technical mechanics of the game, but give me the wrong ten year old with a crappy deck and I can still show them who the boss is…!

The old games of the Pokemon series that I don’t have or missed out on first time around always hold a sort of rose tinted romanticism about them, like this very game. Once I learned to play the card game I was determined to find a physical copy of the Nintendo version, to no prevail! The one copy I did buy second hand that summer was utterly banjaxed and completely put me off buying another copy…

However! Thanks to the glorious power of the internetables I now own a digital copy of the game  and was able at last to relive a little of my lost(ish) childhood!

So, call a spade a spade. This game was clearly some class of a cash-in based on the insane popularity of the actual cards – one of many cash-in side-games that have peppered the Pokemon franchise through-out its history. (But we won’t get in to that today…!)

In the game you play a cool young guy who lives in a place the resembles one of those old Super Mario world maps. The token Pokemon professor is Professor Mason and he has given you the task of “travelling” (also known as clicking your character around this tiny map) to various Pokemon Card Clubs (a bit like Pokemon Gyms) duelling the trainers there with your Pokemon cards (just like in a regular Pokemon Card battle) until you unlock the club Master (Gym Leader!)

You do this eight times until you defeat all eight Pokemon Club Masters and are then entitled to face the four Grand Masters (Elite Four) and hopefully obtain the coveted Legendary Cards.

All the eight Pokemon Club Masters are Type based ie: Fire, Grass, Water, Electric etc and you literally just endlessly duel at random until you manage to defeat them.

There is also the Pokedex based element of “Gotta Collect ’em All!” as you acrue more cards through out the game.

Each time you succeed in your duel with a Pokemon trainer you receive a booster pack (just like in real life) and are then able to expand and edit your own card deck based on the available boosters and hopefully build stronger and stronger decks. This takes a long while to do and the actual game play itself for the parts of the game that I have completed are entirely luck based. You can go against a club Master and get a hand with one Caterpie and the opposition can come at you with five super-strong high level Tauros and Charizard cards.

This random “out of your control” element of the game makes for, in my opinion, a slow, frustrating and monotonous advance through the game. From a nostalgia point of view it’s great to see all the old cards again, see the artwork (the trainer with all the promo Piakchu cards is a particular delight) and get insight into what booster packs of yore was like, but I just don’t know if I have the patience to complete this game!

Eight year old me would have had little else to do with my time but complete this game, however adult me twenty years on has been spoiled rotten by more attention grabbing softer games with easier wins.

That being said, it is a fun game, the animation is RetroGlorious and the soundtrack is dripping with charming and nostalgic ooze and I will one day complete it and it’s a nifty addition to any collector’s collection.

According to Wikipedia there was a Pokemon Trading Card Game 2: Here Comes the Great Team Rocket! available solely as a Japanese release and the original game was apparently banned in Saudi Arabia because of the use of stars on the Pokemon Cards and the star’s connection to Israel… Makes… Sense!?

For curiosity’s sake I’d love to get a nose at that Team Rocket sequel to the game, but I better finish the first one first…!

There we have it nerdlings! Keep watching the skeys, I mean skies!

For more information on Straight Outta Kanto, feel free to follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/

Thanks for reading! 🙂

 

Pokemon: 5 Things In The Old Games You Couldn’t Get Away With Today! [Straight Outta Kanto]

Well hello there, PokeFans! Straight Outta Kanto here! Your brand new Ireland based blog exploding with news, nerd culture, nonsense and an obscene amount of… more!

We made it! This is Day Seven of our Seven Day Blog Challenge!

We are rewarding you today for your hard work and perseverance of having to read a brand new Pokemon related post every day this week by appealing to your slightly naughty sense of self. Today, my dark and dirty dears, we are going to lightly touch on the slightly more… deviant side of Pokemon.

May I present to you… 5 Things In The Old Games You Couldn’t Get Away With Today!

(5) Whirl Island Child Abuse:

I’m sure many of you have noticed this one by now, but just in case you need a refresher…

In Pokemon Gold & Silver there is a house in Olivine City where a little girl informs your character that there’s a monster in the Whirl Islands and that that’s where bad little girls get sent as punishment. Her father also confirms that the Whirl Islands are a great place to send misbehaving children – eh, great! Not.

While the purpose of this abusive bragging is most likely just to foreshadow the fact that the legendary Pokemon Lugia (gentle giant of the ocean) resides in the Whirl Islands – such blatant cruelty would not be seen in the far more PC and user-friendly-content of today…!

(4) Gambling & Vice:

Since the games are originally Japanese and made in Japan by Japanese people it’s fair to say that certain, shock horror, Japanese elements wind up in the game. Such as… a pachinko parlour with some Yakuza connections turning up. They were all the rage in 90s Japan (If Takashi Miike films are anything to go by anyway!) and as the evil do-ers in Pokemon Red and Blue are in essence a trumped up Yakuza gang, it’s no surprise that some sort of gambling establishment was included as a hang-out in one of the main cities meant to have a heavy Team Rocket presence.

Even in later games the Game Corner with its slot machines and card games offering the opportunities to acquire rare Pokemon and prizes were a constant presence. (I can use presence twice in one article, right?)

However! The more the games advanced into the modern age of snowflakes and the PC Brigade, the game corners disappeared, replaced by more wholesome mini-games and so forth.

Even in the Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire re-boots the owner of the Mauville Game Corner stands sadly outside his shuttered store bemoaning how all he wanted to do was make people happy, but all parents wanted to do was complain…

 

(3) 50 Shades of… Pokemon Trainers!? 

Pokemon has always had a weird cult of haters obsessed with comparing catching, training, battling Pokemon to real life animal fighting and other evil things.

I call… BULLSHIT.

It’s just a fun little Pokemon game (no, actually, lie, IT’S A WAY OF LIFE!!!) but still, chill yer tits animal activists, I’m with you on most things, but not on this.

Pokemon is literally just Pokemon.

No one tries to go around in the real world stuffing cats into hollowed out orange wedges or whatever and throwing them at other people’s cats and making them battle just because of a Pokemon game.

It’s just a game. (That also happens to be a hardcore way of life for us nerds)

BUT.

There were a looooooot of whip holding trainers in Pokemon Red and Blue.

I would imagine those whips were used more in the lion tamery way than the Christian Grey way, but still…

Those animal activists may have had a point at the start of the franchise, but thankfully we’re more Pokemon friendly now with our enrichment and battling and trainers can leave those whips behind in the boudoir where they belong!

(2) No Post Game Story:

This is a bit tame after all the bondage and gambling but in Pokemon Red and Blue there was nooooooooo post-game story or activities. At all. ALL. You had three choices when Pokemon Red and Blue ended:

Choice A: Go talk to AfroMan in Cerulean City and go catch a Mewtwo. (That killed an hour or two.)

Choice B: Befriend real life living human being friends to trade Pokemon with so as to complete your Pokedex. (I… did not do any of this.)

Choice C: New Game.

We are literally spoiled for choice these days with our Rainbow Rockets and our Delta Episodes and Ultra Beasts and Battle Zones… non GenWunners will never know the pain of a non-post-game-that’s-more-intense-than-the-pre-game world…!

(1) Extreme Sexism:

Pokemon is surprisingly… dodgy. The anime, not so much the manga, but very much the games. From scantily clad swimmers begging you to question where she keeps her balls, Olivia’s bachelorette-ness all the way to dorrty old men standing outside Erika’s all-women gym.

Personally speaking none of that offends me and the odd mature raunchy double-entendre is a bit of a larf, but they will never be able to get away with such blatant oogling as this old man in Celadon City. Oogle on, old man, oogle on! Our timing is passing, old friend of the oogling eyes!

So there we have it. 5 random mad things they did back then they couldn’t do today in Pokemon! Did you spot something I didn’t mention? Do you have an even filthier Pokemon related fact to share? Get in touch with the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/ 🙂

Thanks for reading and remember, the Pika is out there…! 🙂

Pokemon Top 5 Pain in the Arse Gym Leaders! [Straight Outta Kanto]

Konnichiwa PokeNerds! They say time heals all wounds… well today at Straight Outta Kanto HQ we intend to find out if this is in fact true by doing a brief Top 5 of the most annoying Pokemon Gyms we’ve faced to date!

So buckle up nerds, we’re going remembering!

(5) Brock:

December 25th 1999.

Straight Outta Kanto receive their first Nintendo Gameboy and Pokemon Red Cartridge.

December 26th 1999.

Straight Outta Kanto embark on the epic and seemingly endless challenge of trying to defeat a Level Twelve Onix with a low level Charmander and a purple rat.

July 7th 2018.

Straight Outta Kanto still in therapy for Brock related PTSD.

 

(4) Wallace:

What is it with pretty much all the ice and snow gyms in the Pokemon universe requiring an obscene amount of patience and pain-in-the-arsery!?

Wallace’s gym really takes the biscuit. (Not my biscuit however ’cause Joey doesn’t share food…!)

The whole only being able to walk on one ice tile at a time in one direction ONCE or else you crash through the bottom and have to start again still rankles me to this day.

And I love Wallace! I totally ship the flamboyant Wallace and the snazzy Steven Stone… Just your gym Wallace, your gym I don’t love!

(3) Sabrina:

I LOATHE TELEPORTATION TILES!!!

I get travel sick, okay!?

Even just looking at the amount of spinning my character does on one of these confusing feckers gets me dizzy – never mind how lost and confused and you get trying to navigate how to get around!

I’m sure there’s plenty of people out there who thoroughly enjoy a good teleportation tile, but whenever I see them pop up in any of the later games I die a little inside.

(2) Volkner:

Trust an Emo to have an annoying as hell gym.

I absolutely despise this gym.

While Volkner himself didn’t pose too much of a threat, the mechanical cogs needing to be turned in the right place at the right time was just too hard. Too hard! I still don’t know how I managed to get through this gym. All I know is this gym is genuine deterrent from any more future replays of this game…!

(1) Lt. Surge:

Snitches get switches…

It could be the GenWunner in me but I have a lot of affection for this gym!

I think Lt.. Surge’s gym was a lot of people’s first experience with a gym where you couldn’t just walk up to the leader and straight up challenge (and that’s why it is listed as my number one most annoying gym.)

Finding an alternating set of switches hidden in the trash cans – that also happened to switch around whenever you left the gym or re-set themselves after a wrong guess- was a royal pain in the butt but nostalgia has coloured my anger and frustration with more of an “Awh, I remember how hard that gym was, how cute!”

Needless to say, the only Switch I want to see in Pokemon is the new game for Nintendo Switch… har har. Sorry! Couldn’t resist.

For more information on Straight Outta Kanto, feel free to follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/ 

For more information on the Pokemon related spook art of your autheuse Venus de Vilo, ta da! —> https://www.deviantart.com/venusdevilo.

Thanks for reading! 🙂

Pokemon: The Spooky Side. A Top Thirteen of… Terror! [Straight Outta Kanto]

Greetings PokeFans and welcome to Day 5 of Straight Outta Kanto‘s Seven Day Blog Challenge! As a major horror fan and obsessee of all thangs spookeh it would be a little re-miss of me to blog consistently about Pokemon and not discuss the dark and disturbing side of our favourite super-massive franchise!

From spooky fan art, to creepypasta, urban legends and insane fan theories on Youtube, our cute and cuddly friends and dear childhood memories have been thoroughly shredded and well, quite frankly, I love it!

I love a good scare and whenever Pokemon makes its odd little nod towards da shpookeh shtuff in the games, well, it just gladdens my evil little heart!

So, without further ado, I present to you, Straight Outta Kanto‘s personal Top Thirteen of Pokemon: The Spooky Side.

(13) … RED … :

I know Red is usually discussed in more hushed, reverent tones from a #TrainerGoals point of view. Red is the ultimate trainer. To a Pokemon trainer those three dots “…” are the greatest words (if you can call them that) in the history of the world.

BUT.

I always found it a little creepy the way after completing his Pokemon journey Red just vanished without a trace to the then single most remote location in the games -Mt. Silver.

Why?

What had happened to him that he felt he needed to remove himself from normal daily life?

Sure, some might argue that he went off to further his training, but plenty of other in-game trainers did that, they meditate under Tohjo Falls or go off a-wandering around various regions and that’s fine, it’s not a weird mysterious thing.

I always thought there was something sinister about silent Red on top of Mt. Silver.

Did he feel remorse and guilt for what his Championship has cost him?

He did kill Gary’s Raticate after all, right?

How many other Pokemon and their trainers did Red destroy in order to attain his victory?

Did he escape to Mt. Silver to flee the demons of his past?

Or their ghosts…?

Just something to think about.

(12) Trickmaster of Hoenn:

So, in Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald, and their respective re-boots, there is a relatively unassuming house along the route that runs between the gloriously nautical Slateport City and the shopping district of Mauville.

The house is a wacky building filled with traps and tricks run by “The Trick Master” and your goal is to make it through the various hindrances in your path and escape from the house and win a prize.

In essence it’s mainly an opportunity to test our your various new HMs, such as cutting down small trees or smashing through rocks and each time you beat a new gym leader and unlock the next HM the house changes up to suit your advanced skills.

HOWEVER.

There are trainers in the house, who battle you of course, who can’t get out and openly bemoan the fact that they are indeed trapped inside the house with no way to escape.

I find the idea of an eccentric old man holding a bunch of young trainers hostage in his out-of-the-way house a rather dodgy notion and do wonder if Trick Master knows or cares that he has a strange teens trapped in his house…?

Maybe they’re not real trainers at all, maybe they’re the ghosts of trainers who died inside the Trick Master’s walls doomed to ever wander until they find a way out?

We’ll never know…

(11) Darkrai of Mystery Dungeon… and others: 

Depending on what you read/watch/play, Darkrai can either be a tragic misunderstood figure, or, a destructive God of Nightmares hell sent and bent on wreaking total and utter nightmare-induced chaos.

In Pokemon Rangers: Shadows of Almia Darkrai is responsible for possessing the lead boss villain and trying to destroy the world (or at least the Almia Region) by plunging it into an ever-living nightmare.

In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Explorers of Time/Darkness in a shock post-game plot twist it transpires that Darkrai was responsible for all the evil events that took place in the main game between Dialga and Palkia and he masquerades as a friendly Cresselia until it’s time to drag you and your partner ‘mon into a wee Marill’s nightmare and kick-start an epic showdown between good and evil.

Same goes for Pokemon Park for the Wii!

So, to sum it up:

Movie Version Darkrai: Love-able Emo.

Video Game Darkrai: Malevolent Bastard.

Just stay away from Darkrai, kids. He wants your soul. Or something like that.

And he won’t send no flowers after either…!

(10) The Haunted House of Lentimas:

In Pokemon Black and White 2 there’s a fun little option of being able to fly in an aeroplane to a whole new set of little villages off Undella Town exclusive to the B/W 2 games. Part of this trio of new towns is Lentimas Town and the small route connecting the Reversal Mountain. Along this route is … The Strange House…

Technically this could be included under our last number as it does include a Darkrai storyline, but the house itself is so freaky it’s worth a mention all on it’s own.

The music and lighting is atmospheric and eerie. Plates rattle. Bookshelves quake. Spectral figure flick in and out of view. The furniture moves around differently each time you enter/leave the house so that new parts are/are not accessible to your character meaning you’ve got to invest time and effort into unlocking this mystery.

This is a spooky little jaunt that has a satisfying conclusion, so well worth digging out the old Nintendo DS for a revisit to the Strange House of Lentimas Town.

(9) Pokemon X and Y – Route 14:

In Wednesday’s article (—> found here, by the way!) Nostalgia Top Ten: Pokemon X and Y (2013) Nintendo 3DS/2DS [Straight Outta Kanto] ) I touched on the sheer decaying beauty of the Kalos region. Route 14 is one of the prime examples of this decaying beauty and is one of my favourite places in Kalos to… haunt.

Imagine Viridian Forest, but gloomier. Much gloomier. There’s a creaking and abandoned children’s playground (where the swings seem to play themselves…!) There are decrepit graves littered all up and down this murky route and ghost trainers wait around every dark turn to battle you. Sounds creepy enough. How can we make this creepier!? Let’s add a weird little house where a strange, be-suited gentleman tells you a full on jump-scare horror story…!

The whole vibe is unsettling. Why is there an abandoned playground? What happened to the children to play on it? Why are there so many graves along this route? Why are it’s inhabitants so suspect?

Maybe Route 14 was originally a proper forest and a graveyard and the townsfolk had to de-consecrate the ground there and vandalise graves in order to construct a proper “route” system through from Lumiose to Laverre and the souls disturbed there now wreak a terrible vengeance on anyone who lingers too long near their graves…

Part of me would like to think… maybe there was an horrific accident at the near-by PokeBall Factory in Laverre City that killed off a whole town and while Laverre re-built itself, Route 14, was perhaps un-salvage-able and left to rot to remind the townsfolk “never again…”

Stranger things have happened!

(8) The Celadon City story:

Here’s a li’l nostalgia for all you glorious GenWunners out there!

Remember going to the top floor of the Gamefreak building in Celadon City back in the day and hearing the spooky anecdote about the gobshite who road UP the DOWN hill of Cycling Road at night fall and thought he was being dragged backwards by some malevolent sentient being!?

‘Cause I sure as hell remember!

I loved the stupid plot twist of this random story from that NPC.

Cracks me up every time.

However!

Cycling Road from Celadon to Fuschia is by the waterfront… what if he wasn’t just cycling backwards because he’s a dope but something be-tentacled really was pulling him backwards to his doom…

That’s a doozy of a brain-melt all right!

(6) Eterna Forest: 

This is probably the single best haunted forest out of all the Pokemon games!

The physical forest itself is perfectly cromulent, if not annoying by virtue of the fact you have the clingy Cheryl lost and teaming up with you so you can run into endless insufferable double-trainer battles. (Grr… My Pokemon were always way stronger than Cheryl’s and I had to carry the whole team for the entire journey, this wedding is horseshit, I didn’t want salmon…!)

Things start to get a li’l freak-ay once you get the old abandoned old haunted old chateau!

There are many fan theories about this place.

Some say it was originally Gardenia’s family home and she poisoned her whole family to become gym leader and that’s why there’s an antidote in the trash there that you can find. There’s also the Old Gateau that heals all status problems that comes from there.

This Old Chateau is clearly steeped in a toxic past…

The ghosts are a cute and creepy old family in a crumbling home where the walls have red glowing eyes (Gengar, betches!) and the dining table is still set for a last meal…

My favourite and the scariest Old Chateau interpretation is the one from that animated series Pokemon Generations they released for Pokemon 20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBp1quVhbjo —> available to watch here!

After watching this you will never go down to the woods today again, you’re sure of a big surprise…

(5) No, You’re Not The One… :

Creepy ghost girl randomly appearing in odd places making lights get all flickery and shit and floating around saying spooky shit indicating she’s a lost soul looking for somebody!?

Ah hell no!

She’s turned up in Unova, Hoenn and Kalos that we know of… we’re certain she’s in other places too and she is the one genuine people ghost of the Pokemon series.

This is a long running mystery and I for one welcome our new creepy ghost girl leader!

(4) Hypno’s Lullaby:

Watch this (enough said!) —>

(3) Lavender Town:

My favourite place in the ENTIRE Pokemon universe!

I adored this place as a child and even more so as an adult thanks to all the bad creepypasta fan fiction, urban legends and theories floating out there!

The music alone is unsettling enough but the un-friendly town’s people and their genuine fear of the Pokemon Tower grave site is enough to give anyone the wullies!

While it does transpire that the really vicious ghost haunting Lavender Town is just poor old Mammy Marowak, the constant presence of  traditional Japanese style exorcists in the throes of possession thanks to the abundance of Gastly and Haunters lead me to believe that this place will always be haunted.

If you think the music is bad enough as it is already, here’s a clip of it playing… backwards:

Yeah, there’s a reason people thought that this music contained evil secrets note that induced gruesome suicides in the children that heard it…

(2) Alola!:

I love it! I love it! I love it!

If you talk to one of the school kids on the beach just on the outskirts of Melemele island he will inform you that everyone’s too afraid to approach the school at night because of supernatural doin’s a transpirin’! (Personally speaking I found school to scary to approach during the day never mind the night, but whatever!)

Once you get to the school a strange foreign child approaches you and gives you a list of seven spooky mysteries you need to solve.

This is a surprisingly cinematic episode that contain genuine tropes from full on J-Horror moives, such as: stairs that lead on and on to nowhere no matter how far you climb, eerie mysterious lights, cold in-door breezes, terrifying noises speaking through the PA system, weird footsteps getting louder and louder, hallucination induced class rooms full of ghostly children…

Oh my god, I just loved it! There’s a little plot twist at the end also, but I’ll leave that one for you to find…! 😉

We also cannot mention Haunted Alola without mentioning:

Mimikyu’s Trial:

I’m a sucker for an auld paranormal investigation and making an entire Pokemon trial based on such was one of my highlights of the entire series so far!

(1) The Fans:

For me, personally, the scariest thing about Pokemon is all the thousands of fans who want to turn their favourite childhood memories into pure nightmare fuel!

There has to be some sick and twisted psychology going on there!

As a Creepypasta writer and horror themed Pokemon fan-artist I can’t really point the finger, I’m part of the problem, man, not the solution!

Gamefreak and Nintendo give us tiny tidbits of death and gore and we latch on to that like a Shellder on a Slowpoke tail and don’t let go until we’ve turned an innocuous incident into the darkest back story imaginable.

The internet is full of the most hideous and hilarious creepypasta and spooky fan theories that for copyright reasons I probably can’t delve too deeply into here, but go ahead and search. Don’t come crying to me because your childhood was ruined, we are the fans, and we are the ones ruining the childhoods…!

There we have it you messed up nightmare fuelling nerdlings!

Keep watching the skeys, I mean skies!

For more information on Straight Outta Kanto, feel free to follow our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/StraightOuttaKanto91/ or join our group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1623889321229114/ 

For more information on the Pokemon related spook art of your autheuse Venus de Vilo, ta da! —> https://www.deviantart.com/venusdevilo.

Thanks for reading! 🙂