There are 134 days between today and when the pokemon bank officially breathes its last breath. I’ve decided to challenge myself by completing a living national dex in my copy of Ultra Moon. This will be my journal/log of my quest to “catch em all” on legitimate physical hardware before it becomes impossible.
I started this quest once right before the covid pandemic shut the world down. Unfortunately for me, I had an “essential” position during the lockdowns, and went from 40 to 60+ hours a week, causing my living dex quest to come to an abrupt halt. I’ve got a kid in grade school now, so my free time is a little strained, but I estimate I can carve out 2-3 hours at least 4 nights per week to work towards this goal.
Hardware available: 2x “New” 3ds consoles, 1x DS lite, 1x GBA SP
Physical Cartridges (in release order): Ruby, Fire Red, Leaf Green, Diamond, Pearl, Black, White 2, Soul Silver, X, Y, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon.
Virtual Console Games: Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold Silver, Crystal
Saves in post game with catching/hatching teams: Ruby, Leaf Green, Pearl, Black, Soul Silver, Y, Omega Ruby, Sun - VC Blue, VC Yellow, VC Crystal.
I created a tracking spreadsheet to aid in completing each generation’s dex as I tackle them one by one, then migrated a batch of transfers into Pokemon Bank from my VC Yellow, VC Crystal, Y, and Omega Ruby save files. Then I sorted all generation 1 species in Pokemon Bank into national dex specific slots/boxes before I transfer anything into my final landing spot on a fresh save file on Ultra Moon.
I’ve got an optimized catching/breeding/hatching team, as well as a exp/money grinding team on pokemon Y and Pokemon Omega Ruby, so pokemon will drop into those games as needed.
Stage 1: Generation 1 dex
Current Progress : 141/151
Target Pokemon in current Generation: Squirtle, Weedle, Kakuna, Exeggutor, Hitmonlee, Seadra, Electabuzz, Kabuto, Kabutops, Mew.
Plan of action for the next session:
VC Crystal - Fly to Lavender town and go north to Route 10, Catch 2x Electabuzz
Poketransporter - send Electabuzz to bank
Pokemon Y - Fly to Ambrette town and fish 2x Horsea (one to evolve into Seadra, one to evolve into Kingdra.
Pokemon Y - Hop over to Glittering Cave and smash-out 2x dome fossils for Kabuto
Pokemon Y - Visit friend Safari to catch 1x Kakuna and 1x Wartortle, and 3x Tyrogue (1 for Tyrogue, 1 for Hitmonlee, and 1 for Hitmontop later)
Pokemon Y - Route 12 to catch Exeggcute
Pokemon Y - Fly to route 7 and breed for Squirtle and Weedle
Pokemon Y - Fly to Lumiouse City to purchase a leaf stone (evolve for Exeggutor)
Pokemon Y - Battle at Cafe Le Wow to level/evolve Hitmonlee, Hitmontop, Kabutops and Seadra
This leaves me with 1 gap - Mew (mew is unobtainable and not required), effectively completing my generation 1 Dex.
Next Step…
Prep 4x boxes in pokemon bank and filter bank refugee pokemon into generation 2 slots/boxes.
Update tracking spreadsheet and outline my Generation 2 hit list.