The New Old Guys

It's no secret that I hold disdain for the Pokémon franchise's fifth generation of games. The overall in-game experience wasn't that exciting and gripping. I didn't really feel as much love for it as I showed the prior generations, and I found playing White Version to be a complete chore (surprising for someone who placed the series in his top three). No wonder it took me three years to take down the Unova region's Elite Four.

Despite the present negativity, I feel like I owe my team in White Version an apology. Yes, the game was boring and dull (of all the times for the story to have a twist, it was at the end - far too late for me to rekindle any genuine interest). Yes, my overall experience was not one I'll cherish for the rest of my days. However, "Team White" stuck with it - even when I didn't - and pushed themselves to their limits from day one all the way to their conquest of the Elite Four. They gave their all so that I could move on and say "goodbye" to Generation V forever.

This is my "Team White."

They don't deserve that kind of treatment. They deserve to be remembered.

As much as I want to memorialize them in my heart and gaming career, there exists a problem that prevents me from doing so. See, I have this rule for my Pokémon games:

"Under no circumstances am I to transfer each game's respective team off its cartridge."

For those of you who don't play the Pokémon games, this isn't a stringent gameplay mechanic GameFreak set up. Rather, it's a self-imposed order set up in the event that I find myself navigating through an old game for some reason. The rule prevents me from being stuck with only one crappy Pokémon (like a Bidoof) in a high-level zone. This is also useful, as some of the games in previous generations have access to various movesets that aren't available in X and Y. An example: the attack Giga Drain was a TM in Generation IV games and a Move Tutor move in Generation V. As of this writing, it exists as neither in Generation VI - meaning that if you want a Gengar with this move, you're going to have to transfer one off of a Generation IV or V game. As such, if I wanted a Giga Drain-wielding Gengar, I'd have to train one in one of the older games, and who better to help me than the reliable team that got me through the game to begin with?

This rule of mine is great and all for "throwback" reasons, but as I said: it poses as a problem. Sure, each cartridge's team acts as a kind of honor guard serving the greater good of the realm ("The greater good!"). However, the rule effectively bans all of them from further participation in my Pokémon career. It's not just "Team White" - teams "Diamond," "Platinum," and "Soul Silver" are affected by this, too. As much as I'd love to see my hard-working teams in Y's luscious three-dimensional graphics, I can't just have these guys abandon their posts.

Because of this, a question popped up several days ago:

How do I honor the Pokémon present in these "left behind" teams?

The solution that soon presented itself was a relatively straightforward one: breed a next-generation, modernized version of each "honor guard." It was a new project idea come true - something that not only pays tribute to these reliable teams of old, but gives me more offensive-capable Pokémon for me to choose from when I battle people. This is a good thing, because as of this writing, I have... maybe four combat-worthy Pokémon (i.e.: perfect IVs and fully EV trained to Lv50+) available. I could use the numbers boost. More importantly, it gives me something to write about! It's a win-win for everyone!

Now, I've got skeleton ideas for each of the five teams, and I'll go through each one with you and explain my rationale. We'll start with "Team Diamond" when we return...