A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jenta

[Nyaa-Neko]

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Jenta

(a Jenta News publication)

Introduction: Don't Panic
By Gabrielle, A Trainer's Guide to Jenta production chief

For many new trainers, attempting to start over in a completely new region is a daunting experience. Here in Jenta, we've had enough changes to make it extremely different from the normalcy of Kanto, Johto, and the other standard public regions.

Private regions such as Jenta often have more Pokemon offered at the beginning, different ways of leveling up, level caps, smaller areas, different numbers of gyms...it can be confusing from a trainer not used to it.

Inside this book we've interviewed real trainers and people of Jenta, broken down processes of things such as the lab and gym battles, outlined strategies, and included information you may find useful.

This was written to help. This is your "strategy guide" to Jenta. This will keep you from panicking.

So don't panic. We're here to help.

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Table of Contents:
Post #1: Introduction and Table of Contents
Post #2: The Lab: Dealing With It
Post #3: Gyms: How Everyone Can Stay Sane

[Nyaa-Neko]

The Lab: Dealing With It
by Gabrielle and Tyler of Jenta News

The first place all Jenta trainers reach in the region is a good-sized, whitewashed building on a large plot of land. Inside is Jenta’s resident professor and starter-giver, Professor Edward Cherry. The building itself, while plain on the outside, is filled with a computer jungle in the main room, with a spacious cage in the middle. The four back rooms are each storage rooms, holding each trainer’s extra Pokemon while they travel, starters, supplies, and archive files. The upstairs rooms are the professor’s living quarters (and off-limits to trainers), and the outside area is for the Pokemon.

We followed the process of a new trainer, being sure to take every step seriously.

“Once a new trainer arrives, I always make sure to explain the new group system in detail,” Professor Cherry said. “It’s quite a bit more complicated than the normal procedures of Kanto and the like. I try to walk them through it so the lab process is as easy as possible.”

In our simulation, we were able to decipher the lab into a few steps:

1. The professor gives you some information, and asks you which Group 1 starter you would like.
2. You narrow down which personality you want, and your (level 5) Group 1 starter is put in your starter package.
3. You pick the color of Pokedex you would like. The professor usually has red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, dark blue, purple, brown, white, black, and grey. However, sometimes he runs out of popular colors (such as red and dark blue).
4. The professor chooses two random Pokemon for your (level 25) Group 2 and (level 45) Group 3 starters, and they are put in your package as well.
5. He guides you through the three routes that leave the laboratory, and recommends which one to take.
6. You receive your starter package, and then are free to go.

The most misunderstood part of the process is the starter selection. Haru, one of the two ekans that the professor keeps as his Pokemon, commented that trainers sometimes think that the Group 2 and 3 Pokemon are chosen completely by the professor. This is not true. The professor has a set of ten randomly chosen, and picks the two from the set that would best compliment the Group 1 starter.

“Trainers have complete control over which Group 1 starter they pick. After I have a list generated of ten possible Group 2 and 3 candidates, I simply pick two that would make a well-balanced team in case of emergencies. Other than that, I have no control. It isn’t a conspiracy,” Professor Cherry said.

The possible Group 1 starters to choose from are zigzagoon, igglybuff, ratatta, torchic, slugma, charmander, cyndaquil, mudkip, azurill, squirtle, totodile, treecko, oddish, bulbasaur, chikorita, sandshrew, pidgey, electrike, pichu, poochyena, aron, zubat, ekans, geodude, wurmple, caterpie, and mankey.

When asked, Professor Cherry said that pichu and sandshrew were the most popular choices for specific Pokemon, with fire being the most popular type. In our simulation, we picked charmander as our Group 1 starter, and received a shiny squirtle for our Group 2 starter and a tropius for our Group 3 starter.

Each new trainer receives their three Pokemon as part of a starter package. The package includes the three starters, five empty Pokeballs, the Pokedex in the color of the trainer’s choice, 5000 pyen (the currency of Jenta), and a bag of assorted berries for on-the-road healing.

The professor also has a special experiment going on for truly exceptional trainers. “I used to do a lot of research in my early days,” he explained with a laugh. “I ended up with a lot of eggs, but I don’t know what’s inside! So sometimes I give one to a trainer I think has a lot of promise. Sometimes I give them away at the beginning, sometimes I call them up [to give them an egg] later in their journey. None of them have hatched yet, so who knows what’s inside! It could be something special!”

((Need a more in-depth look, or a question answered? Visit the "Hitchhiker's Guide Feedback" thread in the Comments forum to ask and give feedback!))

[MorriganFearn]

Gyms: How Everyone Can Stay Sane

The back bone of any pokemon journey is, of course, defeating the gym leaders of the region and the Elite Four to win the championship. However, defeating the gyms isn't something to be taken lightly, as more than one person has discovered.

In this chapter we shall begin to discuss basic strategies for dealing with Gym Leaders. Whether you win or not is often determined by the leg work that you have done before hand. Even the best strategist in the world will be flumoxed by a gym if they didn't do careful research into the pokemon before hand.

The first and most important thing is to know the type favored by the gym leader.

"You'd not believe the number of noobs I have challenging me with bug types," Arisa the ice type gym leader of Sapphire city told us when we asked for her advice. "I know route one isn't the best place to catch pokemon that aren't weak to my ice types, but seriously, you've got to know that your weedle won't win against my gym unless you've gotten it to learn Dynamic Punch or something."

As Arisa stated, knowing your type match-ups is key. Do some reasearch before battle. Michiyo of Fairyland likes to use the Type Analyzer available at Psypokes.

"I find it a great reasearch tool when I'm running test simulations at school," Michiyo confided in us. "If I pick a team concentrating on my opponent's weaknesses then I am more likely to win. I had a challenger recently who thought ahead wonderfully, matching her fighting type against my absol, and her water-ground type against Maaya, my flareon. It was quite obvious that she had come to Fairyland prepared."

"It's not just type alaysis that is needed, though," Michiyo continued. "You also should think about the stats of your opponents. Jenta is really nice in the fact that they tell you not only the gym leader's pokemon, but the level and moves as well. This gives you so much information, if yu'll only do a little leg work and figure out your opponent's strengths and weaknesses."

Together with Michiyo and Arisa we ran a simulated battle, Michiyo pretending to be a challenger. The first thing Michiyo did was use the type analyzer to discover Arisa's weaknesses, and the areas that she was strong in. "I don't want to bring in a pokemon that I think is neutral, only to discover that it has a weakness to a dual type that I forgot," Michiyo pointed out.

What Michiyo discovered was that Arisa's team had no "double" weaknesses.

"Well of course not," Arisa scoffed as we poured over the battle simulation. "I'm the gym leader with the so-called "weakest" pokemon level wise. I'm not going to give people the chance of four times the normal damage on my team. There are a few gym leaders who don't take this into consideration, and believe me, Corwin and his altaria regret it every time they battle me."

However, Michiyo did find several weaknesses to exploit. "The most promising are the weaknesses to grass and electricity. Although this is an ice gym I would not use fire pokemon, as two of Arisa's pokemon are part water types, and will put paid to any flames that come near them. Just judging from the data I got out of the type analyzer I would want to catch at ;least one electric type and a grass type that was somehow resistant to ice. A grass/water type, for example."

As you can see, it's a good idea to keep your future gym opponents in mind before catching you pokemon. For this simulation Michiyo pretended that she had an elekid starter from the lab, caught a lotad on route one, and had managed to convince a magnemite from the Smashed Lab of Outer Island to join her team, which she trained upto level 10 (the level cap for Arisa's gym).

"Now comes the hard part," Michiyo said as we went over the simulation. "Now I have to look at the pokemon Arisa has herself, and find out their weaknesses. It means a bit of work on my payt, however, it is worth it in the end. I used the Psypoke Stat Calculator in order to get a general idea of the stats of her team. For example, her lapras is very strong on special defense, so it probably wouldn't be a great idea to attack with special attacks. a while ago this might have seemed impossible with my electric-grass team, but thanks to research done in the Sinnoh region, we now know that a lot of attacks that we considered "special" were really "physical" attacks. In this case I would use my starter's Thunderpunch, which is a physical attack, to hit the lapras in it's weak second type, water."

"And my poor lapras went down in the computer simulation," Arisa concluded as she crossed her arms and glowered. "Of course, the bookworm only won because her pokemon were at such high levels. If you don't raise your pokemon beyond the levels you catch them at, chances are you're going to get whooped."

A very good point, if a bit blunt. There are three basic things that you should always do in preparation for a gym battle:

1. Know what your opponent is going to bring to the table, and catch pokemon accordingly
2. Know your opponents' strengths and weaknesses in not just type, but stats. It's no use attacking people at their strongest point.
3. Train your pokemon as high as you possibly can. A low leveled pokemon isn't normally going to win against a vastly higher leveled pokemon even with a perfect type and attack combo.

In the next chapter we shall discuss actual gym battles. What happens inside the arena, and how can you improve your game?