Pokemon Platinum: The Empoleon Solo Run

Ooops, I did it again. After inaugurating this blog with a full feature detailing the ins and outs and delights of soloing Dragon Quest IX, I indulged myself with a Solo Run once again, this time using an entry of my newest favourite game series. And boy, was it a total blast!

Let’s be honest: from the moment I cleared my run of Pokemon Diamond and discovered with much joy that Pokemon games could be played with a minimal amount of recruitment, I started fantasizing about a Pokemon Solo Run. However, I was not planning to try it so soon. As a matter of fact, what I initially had in mind for my run of Platinum was the exact opposite: I wanted to create a dream team of six Pokemons of different types that would fight in turn and maintain similar levels throughout the game thanks to regular grinding. This hadn’t worked so well in my run of Pokemon Diamond, forcing me to concentrate solely on four ‘Mons; but I blamed this failure on my lack of experience and I was fairly confident that this time around, I would manage to maintain a unified six-Mon gang. However, things turned out quite differently: despite my best grinding efforts, I struggled quite a lot to progress and found myself in trouble uncomfortably often, up until that fateful moment when over-excited Barry roughed me up in Pastoria City. Huh, seriously? Why, something was drastically wrong there if Barry could get the best of me in battle. After this most unpleasant eye-opener, I called it quits, decided to start all over again and erased my save file with vicious satisfaction. Then, from the depths of my mind exhausted by all the pampering and micromanaging I had just endured, sprouted and quickly blossomed the idea of doing it Solo. Now that was compensation at its finest, and I dove into the process with renewed vigour and excitement.  

Before I expand on my fabulous Solo Run, let’s have a word about the involved material. Pokemon Platinum is an upgraded version of the Pearl/Diamond pair, released in 2008(jp) and 2009(na/eu/aus) for the Nintendo DS; as every other classic Pokemon game, it was developed by Game Freak Inc. and published by Nintendo. It features noticeable changes from the Pearl/Diamond pair in terms of gameplay, storyline, graphics and general presentation, but it remains the same game at its core, albeit more polished and sparkling. 

These changes still make the game perfectly worth purchasing: despite having played Diamond a very short time ago, I was not the slightest bit bored by my run of Platinum. For one thing, the graphics are decidedly finer and crisper, with a higher level of detail and more impressive weather effects; it still remains a fairly simple affair, but it’s definitely more complex than in Diamond. The Sinnoh climate has also been amended to better reflect its real-life model, the very northern Hokkaido, resulting in more frequent patches of snow and characters sporting warmer outfits. The story is meatier, with extra characters and events—as well as the inclusion of a brand-new area to explore, which is every bit as dazzling and intricate as it is beautiful. I won’t keep detailing every single change here, but suffice it to say that there is more than enough to offer a fresh outlook on Sinnoh.  

Let’s now move on to the run per se. I fittingly named my trainer ‘Platine’, and just like for my run of Diamond, I selected a Piplup as my starter, which I also affectionately renamed ‘Piply’. I had chosen a Chimchar for my first aborted run, but I found the performance of the resident Fire starter quite underwhelming, and I didn’t feel like selecting him again for my Solo Run. Now, as far as the Pokemon series is concerned, a Solo Run can translate into several courses of action because of the presence of the HM moves, from the strictest to the loosest. A Piplup can technically learn all the HM moves except for Fly, which would have allowed me to play the whole game while relying solely on that jack-of-all-trades Water starter, providing that I erased old moves in Canalave City to make room for new ones; however, that would have generated a lot of extra travelling, not to mention that I may have been stuck if more than four HM moves were required to go through a certain area. I thus decided to stick to a looser and more forgiving canon for my run, de facto allowing myself to recruit extra ‘Mons in order to learn and perform HM moves. They wouldn’t be allowed to fight, however, and if my Piply was ever to faint in battle, I would consider it a Game Over and start again. The only exceptions to this were obviously the Double Battles, during which another ‘Mon of my roster (i.e. Ponyta, Machop, Starly, Shellos or Pachiru) was forcefully dragged into battle—kicking and screaming, as I liked to imagine it, and only to be wiped out pretty fast as they were all dramatically under-levelled. 

That being said, pursuing a Solo run in a Pokemon game is a bit of a blasphemy: it goes so strongly against the core philosophy of the series that I half-feared that it would turn out to be an unattainable feat. I felt both anxious and thrilled at first, and my trepidation culminated when I reached the second Gym in Eterna City and got seriously roughed up by Gym Leader Gardenia. Despite the fact that I had grinded quite dutifully beforehand to prepare myself for that battle, her deadly mix of Grass and Poison ‘Mons gave me a really hard ride, and my poor Piply was knocked out time after time. It took me no less than six tries to finally beat Gardenia, and it was a hard-earned victory: it took all the Battle Items I had in stock, as well as a good dose of luck, to make it through that ordeal. And remember, this was only the second Gym of the game: at that point, I seriously started fearing what lay ahead and wondering if tackling that Solo Run had not been a monumental act of hubris. 

However, all these fears were unfounded: after Eterna City, I was never again in trouble in a Gym— or in any other battle, for that matter. More than that, I actually noticed a slow but very noticeable shift in the balance of power throughout the game: as I progressed, battles became increasingly easier, and the gap between my Piply’s level and the levels of other Trainers’ Pokemons grew steadily wider. At the beginning of the game, the average gap would be of ten-or-so levels, in favour of my Piply; at the end of my run, I had managed to widen it to a staggering average gap of thirty to thirty-five levels. Talk about a full-blown canyon! The beauty of it is that apart from that initial bout of level-grinding between Twinleaf Town and Eterna City, I never needed to go out of my way again to level-grind: these staggering levels were reached only by fighting all the Trainers I met and by clearing all the random encounters with wild Pokemons. At any rate, this level chasm gave me an obvious edge over virtually everyone, and this time, I approached the Pokemon League with full confidence. I was even a bit boastful, I admit that much; but for all my confidence, I could never have imagined that it would turn out the way it did. My former visit at the Elite Four headquarters had been nothing short of a mess, prompting me to interrupt my run of Diamond; this time, I was determined not to make the fatal mistake of saving between encounters. I was a bit curious, though, and after stocking up a mountain of healing items, I once again engulfed into the building in order to sneak a peek at what was in stock. But what was supposed to be only an appetizer turned unexpectedly into the most epic showdown of them all. My Piply had reached Lv.90 at that point, while the Champions’ Pokemons were around Lv.65: you may imagine what happened next.  

To say that I breezed through the Pokemon League would be a euphemism: I sliced my way through it like a sharp knife through a soft butter pat, taking down most of my opponents in a single, fatal blow. Oh, the thrill! I only used three Full Restores throughout the whole process, and before I knew it, I was hailed as the new League Champion. And blimey, did I feel incredibly proud and overjoyed when I witnessed my own crowning, all spotlights and confetti and celebratory snapshots. Pokemon games sure know how to celebrate a victory and make you feel like a million! Anyway, this marked the glorious end of my Platinum Solo Run, after a little more than twenty hours of play. I visited the Battle Frontier just for the sake of curiosity: I first dabbled in chain battles at the Battle Hall facility, but gave up rapidly as the process was monotonous, uneventful and nowhere near as thrilling as the Pokemon League challenge. And after a couple of trainers implied that I had to complete my Pokedex if I wanted to be allowed to explore the rest of the island, I decided to stop there. I had conquered the Pokemon League already, and that marked the true end of the game; everything else belonged to the post-game realm, and I was certainly not in the mood to venture there if that implied chasing after every single Pokemon in Sinnoh. 

As a whole, my Platinum Solo Run was a tremendously fulfilling experience that further cemented my love for the Pokemon series. It was even better than my already excellent run of Diamond, treating me with a faster pace and smoother battles. It also further proves the glorious malleability of the series: indeed, the very fact that this series centered on collection and completion still allows the player to tackle a Solo Run—with great success to boot—is the ultimate display of flexibility and catering to the player’s desires. I know with absolute certainty that I will solo other Pokemon entries in the future—heck, maybe that will even become my favourite way of playing Pokemon games. 

So, that was my Platinum Solo Run in a nutshell. It was an unexpected turn of events, but I enjoyed it to the fullest nonetheless, and discovered while doing so that the flexibility of the Pokemon series seems virtually limitless. I will absolutely indulge myself in the process again, o yes precious. As for now, thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!