Week of September 14, 2003

System is destroyed

A Quick Diversion: Looks like IGNPocket corrected themselves in a recent mailbag (without actually admitting guilt) about the Fire/Leaf thing.

Alright, seems that a lot of things have happened to the forums. I'm not going into it now, all you need to know is that apparently it's gone. And I hadn't backed up for a month. :/ I know, my bad. I think this will just be the last nail in the coffin of using free hosts. BTW, HostOnce sucks. We're trying to remedy that, too.

In the mean time, we're going to everyone's favorite backup forum, Pokemon AAAH! Forums Retro. Unfortunatly, our introductory three-month term of no-ads has gone up, and neither of us can really afford to go gold right now. If you hate the ads, like we do, you can either use a browser like Opera that doesn't allow pop-ups at all, or you could Donate to help us get ad-free forums, or, better yet, new hosting.

One Hundred Billion Hits!

A Quick Diversion: My friend Ray showed me this, it's rather interesting...

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe."

Wow, taht's lkie ttlaloy ture! Good temis, good tmeis.

Yay! PA! has hit one million hits (give or take). But here's the thing... 3 people emailed me screenshots of the 1,000,00th hit. HOWEVER... those are all legit wins (technically), because the way the site counter works. So no one (yet) has lost.

Here's the thing... if you visited PA! earlier in the day, your hit is counted for the day. Then when you visit it again later in the day, that hit is NOT counted, because the counter will only record one of your hits per day. BUT... when you visit the site again, the counter will be reloaded showing a larger number. Meaning if someone else got the one millionth hit, and you visited the site after they got it, you would also see the counter at 1,000,000 as well.

But here's what I'm going to do... whoever emailed me first about it (and has proof of it as well) will be the person who won, because the other people behind that person would have just viewed the reloaded counter.

However now comes the issue of time zones, because in each 3 email I have different times for everything and whatnot. The person who's email is top most in my inbox might not have been the first person to get it. So.... I'll work things out. But later.

[runs really fast to the bathroom]

System is down

A Quick Diversion: Yeah.

Forums are down, just so that everyone knows, and so that everyone knows that I know. :D We're working on it.

Nintendo sez...

A Quick Diversion: Yay for trying not to procrastinate! [looks at long list of things to do, cries]

Well, I tried e-mailing Nintendo through nintendo@noa.nintendo.com, the usual mainstream 'I have a question' address. Let's see what happened!

I wrote:
Dear Nintendo,

I recently found reports of an announcement of two new Pokémon games, Pokémon Fire Red and Pokémon Leaf Green, which are reported to be upgrades to the original Japanese pairing, Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green. I was wondering if there's any official word from NOA on these games being release state side as well as internationally. Also, if they are release state-side, will Pokémon Leaf Green stay as such, or will it be changed to reflect the original American pair, Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue, possibly as something like Pokémon Aqua Blue or Water Blue?

Their automated response was:
Hi!

At this time, no new pokemon games have been announced for North America. You never know what the future might hold, though, so keep checking our web site (www.nintendo.com) for the latest information.

(Insert other crap about finding games on their website)

I like how I made sure to say "Pokémon" and they wrote "pokemon". SHOWS WHO IS MORE PROFFESIONAL, HUH?! :P

In any case, even with this, I bet there's a good chance that the games will see a state-side release. Sites like ours have too much influence and knowledge on that stuff now, so they can't pretend that the games don't exist. :P

By the way, does anyone know of a more 'official' or 'senior' source I can contact to get information like this? Unlike Nick, I'm new to the business, and don't have contacts. :/

Leaf/Fire screenshot and Colosseum info

A Quick Diversion: I still want one of those Pokémotion things. And now I can order one at Play-Asia.com! Though, it's a tad bit pricey, eh?

The Actual News:

All of this information is courtesy of PA! affiliate, Pokémon Forever! Thanks, Meowth346!

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Leaf/Fire screenshot

First of all, he scanned something from Coro Coro. It's another screenshot of Leaf Green/Fire Red:



Now, if that isn't Ash in front of his house in Pallet Town, then I don't know what is!

Needless to say, I think we can throw out the window what IGN said.
[throws it out the window]

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Colosseum info

Here's some info about Pokémon Colosseum that Meowth revealed:
[Note, the following bullet points are descriptions of images and text in Coro Coro]

• A 3D scene of Brendan and May, the player characters from Ruby and Sapphire.
• Something about Pokémon stolen by Team Snatch.
• Only Dark Pokémon can be snatched. (I don't know if this means that the player can only snatch certain Pokémon from the opponent, or if it's a mistranslation about Team Snatch's snatched Pokémon being Dark Pokémon. This isn't the same as "Dark Type", mind you.)
• Dark Pokémon that are snatched won't trust the player.
• Snatched Pokémon will know a move called Dark Crush (or Dark Crash, it's a difficult translation). This move is 100 power with 90% accuracy, and the Pokémon hits itself. This move is limited to battling, and cannot be used in a contest. (New move=neat)
• Take a snatched Pokémon and walk around battling with it to make it more trusting (which makes me wonder if Dark Pokémon start with Tameness 0.)
• A screenshot shows a Makuhita being "revived" from being a "Dark Pokémon". (Yes, yes, I know, everyone was expecting [only] Johto Pokémon for some odd reason.)
• The player is seen with Espeon and Umbreon.
• The Colosseum menu shows "Continue Story" "New Story" "Colosseum Battle". It seems that all "PC" stuff is saved for Pokémon Box.

Later on, he added:

1. "When you catch a Dark Pokémon, it has a 'Black Aura'. You must 'Revive' the true Pokémon. If a Pokémon has not been 'Revived', it can only use 'Dark Crush'."
2. "Dark Crush hits the opponent, and the user is hit with a lot of recoil damage."

Hmm... very interesting!

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A few more tidbits:
- Also according to Pokémon Forever, Nintendo patented "Fire Red" on May 26th, 2003. Makes you wonder how long in the works these games were.
- He also states that "Water Blue" and "Leaf Green" were patented by other companies, but lead back to Nintendo. Weird, huh? And, no. These other companies aren't The Pokémon Company, GAME FREAK, or Creatures.
- Ash is Cerulean Gym to go!

Alright. G'night, everybody! Please help control the pet population!


[bpm]