Oh, Pokémon Showdown, where have you been all my life? Right in front of me, apparently, having being released in 2011. I wonder why I haven't used it before... Hmm... Well, that doesn't matter, what matters is that I have found it now and that I intend to use it as both a training scheme for the forthcoming Pokémon World Championships UK Qualifiers as well as for a bit of fun.
And it is fun. Not just the main gameplay either (being an almost perfect replica of the main Pokémon game's battle system - with some added, technical additions such as detailing moves and status effects -, it was bound to be good), but all of the various facets of the simulator.
When developing a team is as easy as typing in some numbers for EVs/IVs, choosing a nature and some moves (or letting Smogan develop a spread for you - depending on what they think your moves would take advantage of), it really takes away some of the tedium and boredom of regular competitive Pokémon. It also means that you can tweak and edit your teams to your heart's desire, all without having to remake your Pokémon/team from scratch. Believe me it's so helpful.
As well as this, you can test out your team against friends (thanks to a handy search system) or randoms from around the world. And, depending on what tier you're entering (or how serious you are about it) you can set various filters so as to find players that you'd be most likely to face in actual games (these filters can also be used so as to check whether your Pokémon are legal in the tier you're entering). Also, from what I've found so far, there's almost no wait time, which is a tremendous help! And, you can set a battle timer in game so as to keep those battles running smoothly and quickly.
The only things I wish the simulator had are a way to take notes and your various team/Pokémon's win/loss ratio - mainly so that I don't have to get a notes program up as well.
Overall, be it that you want to train and tweak and ultimate Pokémon fighting team for the next World's tournament or you want to make your dream team of Magikarp or Arceus but just can't face the time it would take to achieve in the main series then this is the simulator for you! Now excuse me while I go and make some more adjustments... and maybe do some quick battles... and perhaps make another team....
Goodbye for now, Harry
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