As a bonus, after he helped me out with being able to extract a Mew from the obsolete Pokémon Ranch ‘game’, my multi-talented friend @cakeinmilk also took the time to draw this rendition of the Pokémon Ranch proprietor, Hayley, with said Mew. Although I think he captured the game’s weird, bobble-headed art-style very well, I also feel that his artwork might be a little too good for this game as it almost looks adorable here!

My final Generation 4 commission is for my Soul Silver team and was created by the very talented joe_sketches on Instagram. He took payment for this in the form of a donation via this link, providing money to organisations fighting for racial justice. Please check it out and support it if you can. A great piece of art, and a great cause. #blm

This beautiful piece really captures my colourful HeartGold boys in all their glory. It is by Siplick on Deviant Art who was amazingly fast and pleasant to deal with! Check out their art and commissions here.

Next we have my Platinum team (complete with jet-packs!), soaring high above the Sinnoh region! This has been expertly depicted by Gustavo Zanin (gustavo_old_trainer) from Instagram. Check them out for commissions or support their Ko-fi page here.

This is a first; my first commission received as a physical piece of art, drawn by the wonderful Natalia (charmink.tattoo) on Instagram. Check out her page for excellent tattoo designs - if I ever decide to get one myself, I know where I will be heading!

First up is this amazing rendition of my Diamond team by MacIntyre Rath (macintyrerath) on Instagram. I really love the style of this piece and you should check him out for commission (he also does stickers!) and/or support him on Patreon here.

Another pokémon generation, another great set of pokémon to choose from for my top ten. I really don’t think that there are any pokémon that I think are awful - they all range from average to fantastic. Additionally, in Sinnoh, I loved the big expansion on the new evolutions to old pokémon concept - and I think this Top 10 reflects that. As is always the case, I have included both the original Gen4 sprite as well as the shiny sprite, with all sprites taken from Platinum for the sake of consistency. Gen4 also marked my first first shiny since Gen2, and although Bibarel didn’t sneak into my list, I really just wanted to mention it again!

	10. Roserade The last slot on the list is always tricky as it edges out all your honourable mentions, but I couldn’t have a list without Roserade. The first of several on this list that is a new evolved form of a previously establised pokémon, Roserade is a perfect example of how this can breathe new life into a pokémon family. I can’t imagine ever bothering with Gen3’s Roselia which was fine, but nothing too special. But with it evolving into the masquerade ball-inspired Roserade, it was always on my list. I trained one on my Pokémon Pearl team and I think it is now my favourite Grass/Poison type - sorry Venusaur! Also, the shiny is lovely; the blue and red rose-hands change to black and purple and it looks so good. If this was a top ten list of shinies, Roserade would be even higher up!

09. Honchkrow Honchkrow gets into this list head of the regional bird of Sinnoh, Staraptor (which I also think is great), for a couple of reasons. I think Staraptor is great, but the type combination Normal/Flying just isn’t as interesting as the cool Dark/Flying type of Honchkrow. Additionally, as with Roserade, I love how it takes the previously average Murkrow from trickster crows to a group of lackeys who surround the Mafia Boss that is Honckrow. It’s a great evolution concept. I also enjoyed training my Honchkrow (again on my Pokémon Pearl team) to combine it’s Super Luck ability, the Scope Lens held item, and the high critical hit chance move, Night Slash, to dish out a crit every three attacks or so. I don’t hate the shiny either, although I wish it was a bit of a deeper purple as it does stray dangerously close to hot pink. Still at least it isn’t yet another blue pokémon turning to this colour!

	08. Lopunny I feel like Lopunny isn’t a pokémon that would be on many people list of favourites, and I totally see why. It is weirdly sexualised - not too surprising given it seems to be based on a Playboy bunny - with the way it hold it’s arms in front of it’s chest to give the impression of cleavage (which it thankfully doesn;t actually have) and the ‘wolf whistle’ cry that cannot just be a coincidence. I never planned to use one but I needed a male Lopunny to help hunt for a female Combee, and he ended up sticking around on my Pokémon Diamond team. A big part of this was the headcannon I had that given it is a pokémon with such a feminine design, my Lopunny was a bad-ass pokémon drag queen! I also really like the shiny with the (thankfully not hot) pink highlights. YAAASSS!

07. Floatzel I’m not even sure exactly why I like Floatzel so much - but it really appeals to me all the same. I like the animal it is based on - the Weasel presumably, although it could easily be a stoat, ferret, or otter - and think the design with the dual tails acting as a propeller is really cool. I also like how the rubber tubing element of it’s design doesn’t make look clumsey or inept like a Water-type pokémon, with what is essentially a flotation device, could easiy end up. Floatzel is another pokémon that I trained on my Pokémon Diamond team and it is both quick and relatively hard hitting on both the Attack and Special Attack sides, which makes it nice and versatile, especially when playing through and requiring it to learn both Special and Physical HM moves. The shiny is nothing to write home about though, essentially a more washed out orange. Maybe they were going for a gold colour, but if so it just looks kinda off. I’ll stick with the original, thanks!

	06. Mismagius After two original pokémon lines, I’m back to new evolutions to old pokémon, and also my second drag queen pokémon! Another feminine-styled pokémon, my Mismagius is male earning it the nickname Ru Pol (because Ru Poltergeist was just a little too long). Evolving from the very overlooked Misdreavus, I always planned to use Mismagius on a team and he becomes the third member of my Pokémon Pearl team to get into the Top Ten. Really great Speed, Special Attack, and Special Defence, combined with a really good movepool for great type coverage makes Mismagius an excellent pokémon that I was a big fan of before even playing through the Sinnoh games. I’m also a fan of te mustard-coloured shiny, but if I had to choose between the colour options, I think the original is slightly better suited to a spooky Ghost-type.

05. Hippowdon This is the first pokémon in my top ten that I didn’t actually train in Gen4. This is odd because if I had produced the list without playing the games and the chance to bond with various other pokémon, then I think Hippowdon would have been in the top three. Part of the issue here is how difficult/late in the game you can get one. To catch it’s pre-evolved form, Hippopotas, you need to capture a certain number of Unown in order to get into the tunnel where it lives. Since I had all the Unown forms in Emerald, I was never going to do this again, so I never caught it. The fully evolved for is available in the post-game, but this is far too late. Even so, I still love it as a pokémon. I really like the design of a scary looking, Ground-type hippo with sand pouring out of it and I think the sexual diamorphism in colour between the male and female forms helps make up for the fact the male form’s shiny is rather lackluster, being just a more washed out beige. One day I will definitely train a Hippowdon of my own!

	04. Mamoswine Sinnoh certainy introduced some cool (Ice-type pun not intended) Ground-types, as this is the second of three in this top ten, as well as the fourth out of five that evolve previously established pokémon. Interestingly, after Swinub appeared in my Gen2 top ten, this is the first time two members of the same evolution line have been in a list of my favourites! Mammoswine was a key member of my Pokémon HeartGold team and is such a great addition to the Swinub/Piloswine family. According to in-game cannon, it is essentially a pre-historic evolution that only happens in certain circumstances in the modern day which makes it feel like a fossil pokémon, but without the need to saddle it with the Rock-typing. Unfortunately, on the shiny side it draws the short straw of the family as it just looks a bit weird compared to Swinub’s aquamarine or Piloswine’s lovely golden coulouration.

03. Vespiquen Moving into the top three, Vespiquen is another pokémon that I liked before I ever played through Sinnoh and was very keen to use on a team. It’s not hard to see why I like it; it is a fearsome-looking Queen Bee with a great honeycomb design, and the fact it can be a bit of effort to obtain since it only evolves from female Combees makes it feel like a prize when you finally get one. I had earmarked Vespiquen for my Pokémon Platinum team but it ended up missing out as, despite being part Flying-type, it can’t learn the HM Fly. This caused me to drop it out for Drifblim in the end, but it is another pokémon I would love to train someday. Although I definitely prefer the original colouration, the more angry-looking orangey-red of the shiny is still a great look, but the idea of shiny hunting a female Combee doesn’t sound like fun at all!

	02. Yanmega Yanmega was a late choice for my Pokémon SoulSilver team, but using it there rocketed it into the top ten, as I hadn’t really ever considered it muc before using it on that team. It actualy combines everything I like about my previous two entries; it is a bad-ass looking Bug-type with an amazing design, and it is also a pre-historic evolution, based on the huge dragonflies that lived back then and evolving in the same way as Mamoswine. Since it is a new evolution to Johto’s Yanma, it made sense to use it in the Gen2 remakes over and above Vespiquen, which share the same typing but only really has ties to Sinnoh. Finally, Yanmega has a realy excellent shiny with the blue version looking so good and it right up their with Roserade for best Sinnoh shiny!

01. Torterra As we reach the number one slot, it shouldn’t come as much surprise to see a member of a starter pokémon line here. The starter lines are always among the best designed pokémon of any region and my favourite from Sinnoh is easily Torterra. It has an excellent design concept; a Grass/Ground-type tortoise with an entire eco-system on it’s back, my Torterra was an integral part of my Pokémon Diamond team. Given how much I like a lot of starters families, it is interesting that this marks the first time a fully-evolved starter has made the list, although the first-stage evolutions have been well represented with Bulbasaur, Cyndaquil, and Mudkip all previously representing their various regions. The only downside to Torterra is that I don’t love it’s shiny. It certainly isn’t bad, but the variation of green used just can’t hold a candle to the original.

Wow, I can’t believe that I am finally at the end of Generation 4. As always I will be posting all the lovely art that I had commissioned of my Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, and SoulSilver teams before I move onto Gen5. I know these upcoming games are often considered rather devicive within the pokémon fanbase, but I also think this view has softened over time so it might actually be more of a case of fans of the franchise not enjoying new things. Eiter way, I’m excited to see how I fare with Pokémon Black and White!

Now for one of my favourite bits of documenting this journey: Graphs! As ever, we will first take a look at the two graphs that provide a breakout the pokémon type distrbutions in my final teams across the generations; a distribution by type (using a stacked bar graph to indicate each generations) and a 100% stacked bar graph showing the percentage use of each type in each generation.

No great changes at the top here. The Water-type is still way out in front as the most common, with Flying maintaining it’s second-place spot although it actually closed the gap everso slighty. However, both of these types are definitely skewed in their usage, due to the fact that Water-types are typically the only ones who can learn HMs such as Surf, and Flying-types are the only ones wo can learn the HM Fly. Since these HMs are absolutey required to get around, a Water-type and a Flying-type are pretty much guaranteed to be on every team. Looking below the top two, Ground and Psychic retain third and fourth position respectively, but the real mover is Grass, surging ahead of Electric, Normal, Fighting, and Posion to take fifth place in the overall standings.

Since there are a variable number of games in each generations, the second graph helps to give a bit more insight. This shows that Flying was actually my most used type, with over 12% of the pokémon that I used in Gen4 having the Flying-typing. Water and Grass come next with just over 10% usage of each, while there are a few percentage point increaes for Normal, Dark, and Psychic as well. Rock continues to be my least popular type overall, tied with Bug and Dragon for the lowest usage in Gen4, however Dragon can be expained away as being a naturally rarer typing. Despite this, thanks to Garchomp (Dragon), Tyranitar (Rock), and Yanmega (Bug), I did still manage to use at least one pokémon of every type. I don’t actually plan it this way, it just happened naturally, the same as it did in Hoenn. Now let’s move on to the real world graphs, starting with Time:

I’ve smashed straight through the 1000 hours of elapsed game time milestone with Gen4, as I begin to approach 50 total days spent on this project! Still, I did spend less time on Gen4 than Gen3 in total with ~375 hous to Gen3’s mammoth ~411 hours. This is mainly because, although the individual Gen4 games were longer overall (Platinum comes in a close second place to Emerald for the most time spent on a single game so far), there were fewer of them to play in total. Next up, Cost:

Another reduction from Gen3, but this is hardly surprising as I had to buy a lot of kit and way more games then. This time around there were no hardware costs since I already had two Nintendo DS systems, so my only real outlay was the games. In fact, if I hadn’t had to spent £77 on a sealed copy of Pokémon Ranger (to ensure that the Manaphy Egg quest was going to be available), Gen4 would have been nearly as cheap as Gen2! I did however, add a new category to the graph for the various bits of kit that I had to buy for the Gen 1 & 2 rescue mission. This isn’t really a Gen4 cost, so I didn’t think it was fair to include it there just because this is when I started doing it. It comes to just over £150, but I don’t think it will grow further than this - altough I guess we won’t know for sure for a while!

As ever, these stat breakdowns are fun to produce and I really enjoy seeing the variation in pokémon types that I end up using each generation. The cost and time elements are also good to keep track of - especially when I see a reduction in both for Gen4. It gives me hope that I might make it to the end of the project one day!

All I have left to do is consolidate all of my pokémon into Pokémon Platinum for a fully complete Pokédex. Easy, right? Well kinda, but this still took far longer than I was hoping for.

Transferring my teams from Diamond, Pearl, HeartGold, and SoulSilver is simple enough, but there are a lot of pokémon that I need still to transfer up from Emerald via Pal Park and I have discovered a limit; Pal Park only lets you transfer a batch of six pokémon once per day. Not once in a calendar day, once per 24 hour period, which makes it extra annoying if you don’t remember to do it consistently at the same time each day. There is no way around this - messing with the date and time settings don’t seem to help - so I really just have to suck it up do it piecemeal. There are also other tasks to complete to finalise the ‘Dex, such as breeding earlier forms of a pokémon in Platinum since I only have the final form to send from the other games. 

This breeding, hatching, and levelling process actually keeps me pretty busy as there really are a lot of gaps to fill, not least petty much every starter needs to be bred and levelled up to it’s second stage since these are so rare outside of the ones the various professors gift to you. I assembled a good team for this; Blimpy the Drifloon and Ziggy the Empoleon from my Platinum team, and Humph the Camerupt from my Emerald US team take up three of the team slots and Me Too, my Ditto from Emerald, is placed in the day care. I then prioritise transferring pokémon that need prior stages to be obtained out via Pal Park. One is placed in the day-care with Me Too until we get an egg. The Day-Care Checker app on the  Pokétch came in very useful at this point as I could nip back every time an egg appeared and switch another pokémon into the Day-Care. The egg would would then hatch quicker with Humph in the party due to the Flame Body ability that reduces the number of steps required to for hatching to occur. With the use of an Exp. Share item given to the lower level, Blimpy, Ziggy, Humph would then battle strong enemies resulting in the fast levelling the newly hatched ‘mons until all the evolution stages had been registered in the Pokédex. Finally, Blimpy was able to use Fly to move quickly between the day-care, Pal Park, and a route containing stronger enemies, and Ziggy was able to use Surf to make sure that I could access all the biome types in Pal Park. Whew, this was a lot of effort.

As I slowly made progress in this, I also started storing each individual stage of every pokémon in the PC boxes to create what is known as a Living Pokédex. This will be very useful for future games as I won’t have to redo all of this breeding and hatching and levelling. Instead I should just be able to transfer everything across and focus solely on the new pokémon of that region. 

Finally I got there, and my last actions in Gen4 were to do a quick run through of the Elite Four and Champion with each of my Gen3 teams since it was nice to see them all again! But most importantly of all, my Sinnoh Regional Pokédex reads 210 seen/210 caught and my National Pokédex reads 493 seen/493 caught. This extra consolidation work took my Platinum game time up to a whopping 90 hours and 58 minutes, but it is more than worth it to be able to say Generation Four: Completed!

Oh, and I stopped by to visit the Game Freak lead developer, who this time is staying in the Hotel Grand Lake at the Valor Lake Front, in order to get my certificate of completion of the ‘Dex. It’s still shit.