Sevii Islands or Bust: A Pokémon LeafGreen Playthrough

Hooded Pitohui

Hooded Pitohui

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Hooded Pitohui
Sevii Islands or Bust: A Pokémon LeafGreen Playthrough

Sevii_Islands.png

What's up? What's this?

For years now, actually maybe a decade at this point, I have wanted to return to the Sevii Islands, one of my favorite places in all of Pokémon. FireRed and LeafGreen were among the very first games I ever played, so they hold a special place in my heart, and the Sevii Islands specifically - with their sense of mystery, their relative lack of direction, their sense of adventure - bring out my fondest memories from the series. I've tried many times to do a FRLG rerun to get back to those islands.

Not a one of those reruns has taken off. I get part of the way in, and then I lose steam and lose interest. While Gen III has a great take on Kanto, Kanto is simply… bland. There's no other way to dice it. Gen III works hard to sprinkle Kanto with more interesting details, but, these days, after all the Kanto pandering, after having Kanto appear in RBGY, GSC, FRLG, HGSS, RBGY but on the VC, GSC but on the VC, and Let's Go, I don't care to return to Kanto and do yet another run through the region. Considering that getting to the Sevii Islands requires going through Kanto again… well, as you can see, there's a considerable hurdle to jump over

Hence, this idea! Kanto is bland, and even FRLG can't sprinkle enough spice on it to make another runthrough worthwhile, so I'm adding a side dish with a completely fresh flavor to make the overall meal more palatable. "What in the world does that mean," you ask?

I'm turning this playthrough of LeafGreen into a performance in front of an audience! Hopefully, the simple act of turning this into a light-hearted, low-commitment creative project will give me more inspiration to see it through, and if I pick up anyone following along, uhh, cool, maybe that'll be extra motivation!

So this is a… Let's Play?

I mean, sure, yeah. It's a forum Let's Play. I'm not really going to be including images throughout (and if I do, they'll be potato quality pics), nor am I going to record dialogue or even write out a summary of the game, though.

I'm going to lean into the "RP" of "RPG" and share my progress through the game through in-character "letters" sent to an unseen character. In other words, I've crafted a persona for the player character, and we're going to get insight into her adventure by sneaking a peek at letters she's writing to an old friend.

Will this be interactive?

I don't know, but… probably? I'm not entirely sure in what direction I'm going to take this! You'll find out as I find out! I don't plan, right now, on having, say, other people picking out nicknames or what Pokémon get used. If you want to suggest those kinds of things (especially nicknames, as I'm awful at them, even IC), or even suggest, like, what direction to go at a certain point, or when to tackle some side dungeon like the Power Plant, I'll definitely take it into consideration! If you want to take a more direct approach and write a letter to the main character, I'll at least try and write an in-character letter back!

I mean, basically, if you want to make a suggestion, go for it! The worst I'll do is say "thanks, but I don't think that works". I'll try to let folks get involved to some extent - there's not a point doing it on a forum if I want it to be completely solo - but probably not at the expense of the internal logic of the "story".

Feel free to chime in as this progresses, and we'll both see how this evolves!

Don't you play games slower than a slug climbing uphill on a conveyor belt moving downhill?

Yes, I do! I'm not promising this will be quick, or that there'll be consistent updates, or even that the updates will be substantial. This is just a fun little runthrough of a game for me on the side, not a project I'm holding to a schedule.

As updates are coming in the form of letters from a traveler, expect them to be relatively short and informal. Hopefully, that helps keep this at least somewhat brisk!

Hood why isn't this a section!

Let's experiment with the format and see how this goes before we think about that!


Principal Cast:

Maple Holmwood - The twenty-one-year-old central character in this story. She's adventurous, spunky, fairly athletic, and oftentimes audacious. The daughter of a seafarer, Shad Holmwood, who often spends months away from home as he travels on ships setting out from Vermillion, and a landscaper, Cherry Holmwood, she's long lamented her confinement to the Pallet Town-Pewter City area. With a keen interest in hunting down treasures and a tendency to chafe under authority (leading to her insistence on doing things her own way), she begins her journey to obtain the Ruby and Sapphire rumored to exist somewhere in the Sevii Islands after obtaining a Squirtle from "Sammy".

Boa Oak - Maple's junior by one year, Boa, grandson of Samuel Oak, has long been the only person in town cocky enough to keep up with Maple. As a result, something of a rivalry has developed between the two of them, one that continues as he receives his grandfather's blessing to set off on a journey of his own at the same time as Maple. He's far more interested in regulated Pokémon battling than she is, with his eyes firmly on the Pokémon League.

Marie Legrand - A Kalosian friend of Maple's, the two of them having met through a letter exchange as young teens. She lives in Coumarine Town, hailing from a well-off family. Though she's often one to admonish Maple, the duo have bonded over their distaste for the slow pace of life in their hometowns and an appreciation for fossils. She's the person most of the letters in this LP will be addressed to.

Current Pokémon:

Aquirley - Squirtle - Lv. 11 - Water Gun, Bubble, Tackle, Withdraw
Scruffy - Spearow - Lv. 11 - Peck, Fury Attack, Leer, Growl
Opal - Jigglypuff - Lv. 3
Shia - Nidoran (F) - Lv. 6

Aze - Caterpie - Lv. 4
Daggie - Kakuna - Lv. 5
Nue - Rattata - Lv. 3
Nayru - Pigey - Lv. 7
Porky - Mankey - Lv
Whitetail - Weedle - Lv. 4

Current Items:


Potions x5
Pokéballs x11
Antidotes x6
Paralyze Heal x2
Escape Rope x1

TM39 - Rock Tomb

Oran Berry x1

Town Map
Teachy TV
TM Case
Berry Pouch

N/A
 
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Marie,

Guess who's finally ditching town! Today was sick! So I went to the southside to spend the day by the shore, like I said, right? No scores this time. Just a bunch of garbage and a welt. Forget me ever listening to you about karma ever again.

Just send a check for a tube when you write back, kay? What's important isn't that. The hothead came and found me and said his grandad was looking for me. It's not like I had anything better to do with one whole day off, so I went to see what Sammy had to say this time. Figured it was probably another one of his little errands in Viridian.

Ceeueesh, it was an errand, alright, but old man Sammy made it worth my while this time. I get a package from Viridian for him, and he gives me a Pokémon! I'd be an idiot to turn that down. So now I'm all hooked up with this little bubble-blower. She's got this fat little Skovet tail, so I'm calling her Aquirley. She's already the best. The little hothead got a Pokémon for an errand of his own, and you know what she did when we trounced him (of course he wanted a battle)? She yawned and curled up in her shell! I almost fell over! You should've seen the look on his face!

Shoot, this is getting long. I don't have much for stamps, so let me try and summarize. We brought back his stuff, and then Sammy told us he's too old to get around and sent us off to collect some Pokémon. He even hooked us up with the trainer certs so we could stay at the Cents. I was going out to sea, but Sammy put the kibosh on that. How the hell can they make it illegal to ride on a Pokémon? Is this Kanto, or Unova?

So I guess I'm taking the long road to Vermillion now. You think they've forgotten that whole community service thing in Pewter? Maybe I can just cut through the cave. Now that it's all official, they can't kick me out, right? Whatever, I'll figure it out.

I caught some Pokémon around Viridian today to keep Sammy happy (they aren't giving out Premier Balls at the shop anymore - what gives, Silph? Spent too much on ads this year?). Aquirley's sleeping on my lap right now, and this weird rat-bird keeps going "RAH CRAW RAH CRORAH" and biting my arm because she doesn't like how I'm feeding her or something. I don't know. The lady at the desk said cut it up, but she can just tear it up herself if that's what she wants.

She's kinda cute. She's scruffy, has scratches all over, sounds like she's smoked ten packs a day for eight years. Shoot, maybe I'll just call her Scruffy and keep her around. She can be a lookout or something!

That's about it. We're just chilling in the Viridian Cent now, sleeping for free tonight. Tomorrow, I figure out how the hell we're going north, and you know what comes after that, am I right? The deniers better drink up now. They'll be doing a lot of crying when they read that a Holmwood dug up the famous Ruby and Sapphire of the Sevii Islands!

P.S. I'll send you anything cool I find in the cave. Take it to that conference in Ambrose or whatever. Just tell them who found it if it's worth anything!

Pokémon:

Aquirley - Squirtle - Lv. 10
Scruffy - Spearow - Lv. 5
Nue - Rattata - Lv. 3
Nayru - Pidgey - Lv. 7
Porky - Mankey - Lv. 3

N/A

Items:

Potions x3
Pokéballs x11

N/A

Town Map
Teachy TV

N/A
 
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Don't say I never warned you that these would be slow and insubstantial.

Space exploration in the Pokémon world is kind of an interesting thing, especially with how the series has evolved, huh? The references to the actual moon landing date and the Columbia in Gen I are clearly a part of that early installment weirdness where Pokémon was just the real world but a little to the left, but then you have the Mossdeep Space Center later on, establishing that space travel is still a big deal here, requiring specialized equipment and know-how. Even with the aid of a Legendary in ORAS, traveling into space still requires a suit made with the resources of a whole villainous organization. Even the supernatural instances of easy space travel are rare.

It's kind of nice to have a vaguely advanced fantasy world that still treats space travel as a semi-big deal, I guess. It's just kind of funny, though, because with Cozmo and the Aether Foundation each making technology capable of opening portals to other dimensions, it's kind of like hopping between dimensions is only slightly very marginally more difficult than escaping the atmosphere.

I don't know. Idle thoughts.

Oh, Shoey suggested that I record levels, too, so I'm doing that now.


Marie,

So,

The thing is,

I'm kinda sorta out of cash.

Don't send anything yet. I'm fine. I crawled into some dude's garden after he left for dinner or whatever. My hands have a sheen and everything I've munched on tastes like a shot of Repel directly sprayed in my mouth, but it's cool. I'm pretty sure the stuff's non-toxic. More importantly, I've got a place to chill tonight where the bugs won't bug me.

Yeah, I made a couple of mistakes today, but I'm learning from them, just like you're always saying. First thing I learned? They get really mad if you bring a shovel and try to tunnel into Diglett's Cave. There was some kind of cave-in at the entrance. A bunch of nerds were telling everyone to stay away. Apparently it "disturbs the Diglett" if we don't let them dig it back out themselves. I don't see what difference one person's gonna make, but... uh, they didn't like it when I tried getting in anyways.

You wanna know the second thing? It turns out, when you're hooked up with all the certs, you can make people pay you if they lose to you and they're official, too. Forget picking up junk or waiting around to get one of those yellow rats to sell, there's real money in the woods is battling those dorks looking for bugs! I guess. If you really need cash. This Anthony kid was all sniffling after Scruffy pecked at his bugs, so I kinda hurried out and only battled the ones who came up to me.

You'll love the third thing. I'm already reading your letter back about this one. I know you so well, you don't even need to mention it, so don't, alright? It turns out that a town can ban you from the local Cents. Overkill much? Really? They're supposed to be free for anyone officially registered, but they're going to take that away from me just on "trespassing" and "breaking and entering"? It's not my fault that they didn't listen to me the first seven times I told them there's something in that hunk of amber in the museum. Seriously! What are they waiting for? Sell it to Cinnabar! It's huge money, and they're just sitting on it!

I guess that's all you can expect from a wannabe city like Pewter. You're barely even a city. Stop trying to pretend you're a real city! What's the best thing this place has? The tourism board? Probably. Anyone who can convince the world that Pewter Crunchies are any good should be selling heaters to Hoenn. They can pretend what they want, but all this place has is Mt. Moon. If it didn't have access to the best dig site in all of Kanto, who'd even want to live here? Real cities have water access. You're never going to build anything here but more depressing grey slabs you can call buildings. Dying city. One day, everyone's going to leave this place. They can't dig rocks out of the ground here forever. No wonder they're so desperate to market themselves like they're trendsetters. There's not going to be anything left here if they don't find something else to make people care about this place.

Leaving this place behind for a real city's gonna be great, but I guess I can't leave yet. It's either sweeping the streets for a week or talking to the Gym Leader, and since I kinda blew all my cash thinking I'd have somewhere to stay free, Gym Leader it is. What's the big deal with Gym Leaders, anyways? Why's everyone act like they're important? They barely do anything! I'm not even sure Viridian has an actual Gym Leader, and what's this Brock guy do anyway? He looks at rocks? Fossils sometimes? Tells everyone how important they are? Guess who else could do that! A guy at a pawn shop! Just replace the gym with a pawn shop or something, and, bam, city saves money and people actually get paid for their rocks.

Or, if you need someone smarter than whoever's in charge of that museum to tell you when you've got something worth selling that badly and you're scrapping the costs of maintaining the gym, hire me. I'll do it for half of what you're paying to keep that guy around.

Ceeuesh, what's the point of them? Your guy's like, what, a gardener or something? See, they're pointless to have around!

I'll write again when I get out of this cavetown... or when I convince Brock to pack up and leave. Whatever comes first!

P. S. Scruffy's growing kind of fast. She seemed stoked about all the bugs in the woods. She was singing a little song the whole time we were in there. I don't think she's as into this garden, but, hey, we'll all be out of here in the morning.

Pokémon:

Aquirley - Squirtle - Lv. 11
Scruffy - Spearow - Lv. 11
Nue - Rattata - Lv. 3
Nayru - Pigey - Lv. 7
Porky - Mankey - Lv
Whitetail - Weedle - Lv. 4

Aze - Caterpie - Lv. 4
Daggie - Kakuna - Lv. 5

Items:

Potions x5
Pokéballs x9
Antidotes x6
Paralyze Heal x2

N/A

Town Map
Teachy TV

N/A
 
Step One: Choose letters as a format to limit the amount you're writing with each update.
Step Two: Create a character who isn't big on details and wants to hurry along to limit the amount of writing with each update.
Step Three: Feel like you're constantly over-summarizing and you should be writing so much more
Step Four: Carry on.

You know what minor thing Gen III did that was neat? It played the cries of Pokémon in a given area on occasion. It's such a small little thing, and I suppose it's not even really worth bringing back in any form now that we've moved from random encounters to symbol encounters, but it helped contribute to the idea of a breathing world, going on about its business around you. It went a long way towards making you feel like you were truly in the wild when you ventured outside of a town - something that Kanto, in particular, needed with its short and barren routes!

I also forget how much I let the Johto games influence my memory of Kanto's Pokémon distribution. Setting aside that Ekans is only available in FireRed, I could have sworn Ekans is found on Route 3... which it is... in GSC/HGSS.

Anyways, uh, I realized that I should probably be recording the movesets of Pokémon firmly in my party, too. Even with less of an emphasis on the LP part of this, that's still pretty useful info to know, I suppose, especially because I'm not going to be shy about using TMs in the main storyline (since I don't really need to hoard these TMs). I'm just keeping it to Pokémon that are sticking around, though, to avoid clutter.

Oh, and, also, I promise I, the out-of-universe player of this game, know what light-years are.


Marie,

So that Brock guy? He's a weird dude, but he makes good stew.

Before the sun comes up and anyone comes to check on the garden, I wake up, find a fountain, splashed some water on, let Aqui get a drink, and I went right to the gym. I was kinda thinking I'd have to wait around for an hour or something for anyone to get there, but, uh, that Brock guy was already inside and let me in when he saw me. I kinda told him right away that I was surprised he was there. Someone with a cushy gig like that wouldn't come in until a few hours after everyone else started working, just how it goes, you get me? Someone must've squealed to him. He guessed my name right then, already knew what I was there for, too. I thought he'd be a grouch about everything, but... he just kinda told me to follow him?

We spent all morning going around town to check on people and... just kind of talked? Yeah, he didn't put me to work or anything. Just kind of weird. We visited this old lady and he asked her if the water company had fixed her pipes. We had a meeting with this one dude with a bunch of folders telling us how a bunch of businesses were doing around town. For a guy who's supposed to be all that, Brock was asking some pretty basic questions. Maybe I'm broke, but I know how overhead costs work. The dude who kept me from ditching town yesterday showed up to tell Brock about some illegal digging in Mt. Moon? Or something? Keep staring all you want, dude, when I dig there, I won't get caught.

Since we were talking anyway, I asked him what the point was. Who'd he think he was, the mayor? Was he just feeling guilty about sitting around, getting a stadium and goodies from the city on top of his cushy league gig? I thought he'd get pissed about that, too, but, no, he gave me this whole big speech about how a good Gym Leader is a symbol for a town, or something. I don't have the details. It was like six in the morning still. Don't blame me for tuning out. Besides, didn't you pass out on your bed and completely miss seeing Kalos' big sundial in action when you were on vacation? That's what you get for sleeping like a woman in her 80s.

Besides that, I asked if he really thought Pewter had any future being this far away from water. He said he's pretty sure it does. Whatever, guy. Harvest all the spring water you want from the mountains. You can't float a boat on it. You can't carry cargo in and out. There's nothing to sustain this place.

I asked about the Rock-types he raises, too. They look cool, but it's kinda hard to take them seriously when a little rain sends them running. What I really don't get is why he's confining them to a stadium. He kind of shrugged at that one and said it's league regulations, but, come on man! What good does that do them? Being cooped up just means they have to battle like a Meowth in the vault. There's. Mountains. Go battle in the mountains! Have the gym out in the wild. Shoot, you get a better gym challenge out of that and you don't blow cash on a worthless stadium.

Eventually, he asked me about the museum. Wanted to know why I was so insistent about their hunk of amber, but he was still kind of chill the whole time. Even asked me what I wanted to get from traveling. I didn't tell him that one exactly. Who needs extra competition? All I said was I'm pretty sure there's something to discover in the Sevii Islands, and it'll be me who makes the discovery. He even seemed kinda impressed, but, for real, of course he'd be impressed.

About when the morning ended, we went back to the gym. He made me sit down, asked if I'd be okay with some reheated stew while we talked some more. It was good, I guess. Not the stew. The stew was delicious. I'd go back for seconds. Man should open a restaurant. But the talk was fine. Gym Leaders are still overpaid, overhyped guys who got lucky, if you ask me, but Brock's not sitting doing nothing but battling whatever kid with an allowance and two Pokéballs walks in. They might not all be bad.

I guess he realized they were asking for too much for sneaking in a back door a few times, cause he finally called me harmless and told me I could skip town early if I beat his gym challenge. He's not so tough. Pretty plain and boring challenge. Really fits Pewter, if you ask me. We fought some kid named Liam who doesn't know what light-years are. He tried to "correct" himself by saying they measure distance, and he didn't even say anything about how you have to go fast enough you bend light! Don't throw around big words you don't know! After that, Aqui splashed Brock's rocks, and he gave us this badge thing to prove we could use the Cent and leave.

Plus, that Brock guy mentioned that the next town over on the way to Vermillion has a Water-type Gym Leader. If anyone's able to give out permission to get out on the water, if has to be them!

Now that I had a stop to make, I wasn't sticking around there any longer. Route 3 was calling! One Escape Rope and a couple cans of food, a pit stop, and we were out of there! Is what I thought. I step outside of town, and some guy starts calling out my name, telling me to stop! Thought he was some kind of creep or sent from the gym until he caught up to me an introduced himself. Turns out he's one of Sammy's boys, up here for an errand (I guess it's finally up to the paid help now that I'm gone), and with an extra package to deliver. Ma, uh, sent, uh, new shoes. I knew she'd be fine with me leaving. She's got plenty of work, and she's always been fine alone. Just, I kinda thought she'd be... just fine with it. But these are real nice. They're imports, even. It's... a lot more than I expected.

For one last trip through Pewter, I guess it wasn't all bad.

But it's in my dust now! We've torn through Route 3 today! It's nothing compared to the open sea, but these mountain paths aren't bad. Dark, rough tunnels and caves are the closest you can get to the sea on land. They're bigger than you, they command you to respect them, dangers lurk in them, and there's treasure for the ones brave and strong enough to come in and come out! Mt. Moon, get ready to give up your treasures, cause I'm coming through!

This little outpost Cent is the last place I'll be able to drop mail on this side of the mountain. I'll let you know how much I've made when I'm out on the other side!

P. S. So your gardener guy is called Ramos, huh? Does he pull his weight around there? He... looks kinda shriveled.


Pokémon:

Aquirley - Squirtle - Lv. 11 - Water Gun, Bubble, Tackle, Withdraw
Scruffy - Spearow - Lv. 11 - Peck, Fury Attack, Leer, Growl
Opal - Jigglypuff - Lv. 3
Shia - Nidoran (F) - Lv. 6

Aze - Caterpie - Lv. 4
Daggie - Kakuna - Lv. 5
Nue - Rattata - Lv. 3
Nayru - Pigey - Lv. 7
Porky - Mankey - Lv
Whitetail - Weedle - Lv. 4

Items:

Potions x5
Pokéballs x11
Antidotes x6
Paralyze Heal x2
Escape Rope x1

TM39 - Rock Tomb

Oran Berry x1

Town Map
Teachy TV
TM Case
Berry Pouch

N/A
 
[Excellent news] This, and by extension Handheld Gaming, isn't dead. As a matter of fact, I'm in, uh, Lavender Town. To that extent, it's safe to say this was a success in getting me past the first of the two big Kanto rerun killer chokepoints (Cerulean, after all that early, limited slog).

This thread is on my list of side projects to return to this week, and I've been taking notes for the letters, so, you know, expect an actual update to drop this week at some point.
 
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