Qust for Mew

I often can't understand quite how I feel about Nintendo's Pokemon franchise. As far as the cute monsters go, I certainly like them, and even have some little Pikachu figures on my desk. But the game series doesn't seem to flow in a very Nintendo-like procession at all. Mario, Metroid, Zelda and Star Fox all take risks and build upon earlier concepts giving each game a unique experience. Pokemon on the other hand recycles pretty much the same formula for each game, only adding a certain new number of pokemon and maybe something like berries. Gold and Silver were interesting for adding the real-time clock concept, but then this feature was mysteriously absent from the next title, Ruby/Sapphire. Yet I always tend to buy them nonetheless. Even if I haven't picked up the games in a couple years, when the next title in the series comes out, I feel the need to pick it up and do some Pokemon battles. So when it was announced that Toys R Us was having a special promotion where they would give you a Mew on any of the Pokemon titles for Game Boy Advance, I grabbed my copy of Sapphire, which I hadn't touched in a year and a half, and headed out.

This is actually my second Quest for Mew, the first occurring long ago when the Pokemon franchise was still new and you only had the option of a Blue or Red version (well, technically three with the special Yellow addition out). In 1998 Nintendo announced a nationwide Pokemon event, with one of the stops being only 45 minutes away, the mall at King of Prussia, PA. The event held there was truly a sight, with card game tournaments, kiosks set up with the soon-to-be-released Pokemon games for N64 for play and more. The line stretched to the outside of the mall and with my friend there with me we were determined to get our Mew. The line moved fairly quickly as they had people going down the lines reminding people that they needed to be in a Pokemon center with one Pokemon they were willing to trade, and the people handling the trading really knew what they were doing. A short wait later, and I walked away with a level 5 Mew, and a cool swag bag that included a certificate for Mew, some Pokemon mangas and other stuff.

Now flash forward to two weeks ago. To say that this event was handled a bit differently is more than an understatement. The line wound around the video game section of the Toys R Us, with two store employees doing the trading at the front of the line. No one came down the line to tell people what they needed to have ready in order to make the trade go smoothly, which I feel really impacted the waiting time. The event was to be from 12 - 3. I got there at 11:45 and wouldn't get my Mew until 1:20. The line simply didn't seem to move for incredibly long stretches at a time, which I can only figure is due to the fact that people either were not in Pokemon centers when it was their turn and had to travel back to one, or didn't have Pokemon in their party they wanted to part with. At times I even saw some parents go to the purchasing line with their kids to buy one of the Pokemon games for the GBA, which really made me wonder what they were waiting in line with.

After a long and boring wait (I didn't want to risk killing my GBA's batteries in line, and neglected to bring my DS with me), it was finally my turn. Two minutes after getting to the front of the line, I had a new level 10 Mew to call my own! They even had a little hand out, which wasn't as cool as the swag bag from yesteryear, but it was still nice, a sticker sheet of the characters from the covers of the new Pokemon Dungeon games, and a 32-page Pokemon newsletter booklet.

I bought Pokemon Sapphire the day it was released, and to this day only have five of the badges, as the leveling up can be so tedious at times. I just put it down and never picked it back up again. Hopefully with my newest acquisition I'll finally get around to playing through the rest of this title. Now the only question is what to teach little Mew here. For those of you that don't know, one of the things that makes Mew so special is that he can learn any TM or HM in the game. I was thinking a psychic, steel and dark power which would leave one slot open for a stat move, like sand attack or heal or something. But I wanted to get the opinions of other gamers out there, as I'm a bit out of touch now when it comes to Pokemon knowledge (Back in the day, I could identify all 151, but now that they're up to god knows what I probably only know half of them). So what do you readers think, what four moves should my Mew learn?