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Note: Please do not harass the original author or anyone who makes content related to this pasta. This review was simply made for entertainment purposes only. This is all based on MY OPINION as well.

WELCOME BACK TO SAUCEZ REVIEWZ: POKEPASTAS SERIES.

Pasta Name: Top Percentage by ????

Publish Date: February 20, 2012

Synopsis: The protagonist gets calls from Youngster Joey for rematches constantly as his Rattata gets progressively worse each match.

Fun Fact: You, in fact, can challenge Youngster Joey to a rematch in HGSS (and Crystal) and his Rattata does evolve into Raticate and grow stronger each match (until the fourth match).

Highlight: Joey becoming one with RATTATA

Quote: “But I won’t lose to you again! RATTATA will be stronger next time we meet!” - Joey

Let's finish off the year with one more pokepasta review. I've been hyping up the review for this pasta for over a year too.

Just a quick note: I'm not going to phrase the story in my own words and add my commentary like I normally do for my reviews, but I'm just going to summarize the pasta because the story itself is pretty simple and basic.

This is a creepypasta based on Youngster Joey and his SUPER COOL RATTATA. Now that concept sounds like one of the most ridiculous things you've ever heard and may sound over-the-top on paper, but does its execution work? Well we'll have to see.

So it starts off where the protagonist gets a call from Youngster Joey from their PokéGear, challenging them to a rematch. When the protag went to face Joey, they noticed his Rattata had become a Raticate but the odd thing was that the claws were off like they've belonged to a different Pokémon. The protag of course defeated Joey's Raticate, which Joey still called a Rattata, and Joey hands the player an iron, bluffing that he will beat him next time.

Joey called the player again for another rematch, they got to Joey, and this time, Raticate had an orange, fiery tail that looked like it came from a Rapidash. The Raticate could use Fire Blast but would also lose a chunk of HP like if it was recoil damage per turn. Joey lost again. This same process continued with the Raticate looking progressively worse with stitches, blood leaking out, and new body parts attached to his body. Such as blue wings from a Pelipper, and the Raticate knew Water Pulse too. Raticate would also lose more and more HP per turn for each match.

The Raticate eventually had other Pokémon's body parts attached to its body. It got to the point where Raticate wasn't even recognizable being full of stitches and gore. The protagonist did try to ignore Joey's calls at one point, but they would keep getting ringed by Joey saying that Route 30 is the other way. It was inevitable not to fight Joey at this point. It got to the point where Joey's Raticate's HP would deplete in one turn, but instead of saying Raticate fainted, it said, "Raticate had died."

The battle just ended after the Raticate died. The protag flew back to Kanto to proceed with their journey. The protag thought it was over with Joey since his Raticate had died, but they were wrong. Before entering Mt. Silver, they got one more call from Joey for a rematch. Confused, the protagonist decided to face the music and face Joey. His overworld sprite looked different. The player went into battle and Joey was all bloody and stitched up with Raticate's body parts. "I have become one with Rattata!" Joey said.

This may be the creepiest yet funniest part of the whole story. It's funny because it's Joey saying something like that, but it's creepy because this just shows off Joey's downfall and desperation in wanting to finally beat the player's team. He is so desperate that he was willing to stitch together his own dead Pokémon's body parts on him and fight the protagonist's team by himself.

The protagonist sends out their Ampharos to fight off Joey. Only one issue, Ampharos is too scared to move and fight Joey. Joey uses Crunch on Ampharos, which does a ton of damage, and he also has his HP depleting each turn as if it was from recoil damage. Joey managed to make the protag's Ampharos faint because Ampharos was too scared to move. The protag then sent out Misdreavus. This turned out to be a good move, as Joey used Double-Edge. "MISDREAVUS was unaffected! JOEY was hurt!" There was an ungodly cry as Joey fell from the screen. "JOEY has died!" The battle ended and Joey's overworld sprite was mangled. The protagonist went to a Pokémon Center to heal Ampharos. When the nurse gave him back, she said, “Whatever happened to this Pokémon, don’t let it happen again.” From then on, Ampharos could never fight a Raticate again. He would always be too terrified to move. When the protagonist visited Route 30 one more time, they found an iron right where Joey used to be standing.

And that's the end of the pasta.

FURTHER THOUGHTS:

So... Top Percentage... I have very mixed feelings about this honestly. That's part of why it took me this long to finally get to it because I wasn't sure how to express my thoughts about it without contradicting myself with past points I've made for previous reviews of poképastas. But I think I'm starting to get an idea of what to say about this.

First of all, I think Top Percentage is one of those pastas where I don't think it's very strong story-wise, but I think it's very strong creepy factors-wise, if that makes sense. To be honest, these are creepypastas so that would mean the creepy factors are obviously the most crucial factor, like the special ingredient or secret sauce for the stories. Without them, then it wouldn't really be a creepypasta. Which I can agree is a problem with various pastas out there where they are pretty good story-wise, but aren't very creepy. For example, I think Lost Silver has a good story but I just didn't find it that creepy. Same thing with La Condena de Milotic where the story is very strong and probably even flawless and it has some visuals with a creepy ending to back it up. That's why it got so high on the list.

So going back to Top Percentage, it really works with the creepy factors. Now, I can't deny the cheesy elements and clichés of the pasta that a lot of gaming creepypastas would suffer from. People would critique heavily on them as well. But I'm not the one to critique pastas based on WHAT clichés or tropes are used but I critique pastas based on HOW the clichés or tropes are used within the story to be a little more fair for the reviews. Admittedly, there are things like how it's describing some pretty gruesome details for some pixelated gen 4 sprites nonetheless, which is probably the biggest flaw of the whole pasta. How can the protagonist tell there were stitches on the Raticate and other body parts? I think that's when visuals can really help with it.

I could see those gruesome details working for the sprites, but I think some of them are a big stretch especially for gen 4's sprite limitations. I mean, this is what Joey looks like in HGSS. I can't really picture the details on his sprite as said in the pasta, but that's just a nitpick.

There are stories like Explorers of Death where the blood and gore of Pokémon corpses are supposed to build up to what Myra and Shadow are hiding from, the Squirtle. And Pokémon Dead Channel, where the blood and gore are supposed to represent how much BRVR has gone insane due to his abandonment issues and wanted to showcase the story's protagonist on what has happened while she was gone and how it's affected his life in-game (even though there are too many cheesy elements within the story, but I can appreciate what the author was trying to do).

I'm getting sidetracked, so the creepy factors for Top Percentage, there's more to it than just the blood and gore with Joey and his Raticate, of course. This shows off Joey's desperation in wanting to beat the player's team, as I said earlier, by stitching up other Pokémon together into the mix. It gets to the point where you are feeling with the protagonist. You can feel what the protagonist is feeling from what they are witnessing. It's more of the shock factor that makes it works for the story because it indicates how psychotic Joey has gotten as his Raticate is becoming more and more of a bloody mess because of Joey's frankensteining schemes that led to his and his Raticate's death. You can also feel sad for the Raticate as you can feel the pain and suffering they are going through from what all Joey has done to him. So, I think that can be great for creepy factors. But then again, imagining the frankensteined Raticate in sprite work cannot be easy due to the way too detailed for sprite work in gen 4. Such as blood dripping down Joey's hair (you can barely see his hair in the actual sprite). It's a bit too much for a pixelated game like HGSS.

I agree that there are some gaming pastas out there with clichés that make you facepalm and make you not root for the protagonist and be like, "just shut off the game already". But here, the protagonist is trying to play their game normally, but Joey keeps bugging them for rematches. And speaking of which, this pasta doesn't start off with how the protagonist got the game, so it makes it seem like this was just a random occurrence that happened in a normal cartridge. And it doesn't end with the protagonist breaking or disposing the cartridge either.

So it makes it seem like the rematches with Joey were inevitable without interference with PokéGear calls if the protagonist wanted to finish the game because they did state they just wanted to finish the game like normal.

But yeah, my favorite part as cheesy as it was with frankensteined Joey battle because of how out of place it is and I like it for that reason alone. Also, poor Ampharos. I do like the attention to detail with a callback to a game mechanic for when fighting the Lavender Town Pokémon Tower Ghost with your Pokémon being too scared to move or fight back, but it's strange how it's in this generation because that mechanic is used in gen 1 and 3. Pokémon Tower is a radio station for the Johto games for some odd reason, so the mechanic isn't used for gen 4 as far as I'm aware. Also, I do like the attention to detail where Raticate and Joey's HP slowly depletes like they are losing blood. Kind of clever actually. And Ampharos is now traumatized from fighting a Raticate ever again now pretty much. Poor guy. I appreciate the detail of traumatization.

Also, I like the build-up with Joey giving the player an iron after every single battle and how it ends with an iron laying there where Joey used to stand at the end. That can definitely be eerie. It's like the idea that I saw someone had where in Undertale, if you were to kill Toriel, sleep back in your bed at her home, and you wake up and there's a fresh-new slice of butterscotch pie laying there on the floor.

So, what do I think of Top Percentage, well, I think its concept is ridiculous, but its execution worked out decently. Despite having some overused tropes and clichés, I think the way a lot of them were executed decently and I did get a little shocked and terrified reading this one, which is definitely bonus points for this pasta. It indicates that it's pretty strong with its creepy factors for sure. I know some people are going to disagree with me on this one and if you think the blood and gore ruined it, that's fine. I can totally see where you are going from that standpoint. But for me, I think I'm going to give this one a very light FRESH PASTA, but only by a hair though. It's a very light one for sure. It's nothing too special but nothing too tragic either. This pasta also did get a rewrite as well, which is what I just found out while typing up this review. It can be a little repetitive with how its constant rematches from Joey, but the pasta had good enough pacing to not be bothersome like Abandon Lonliness was with its repetition. It knew when to do a time skip/summary with the rest of the rematches until Raticate dies. So, that's what I think about Top Percentage. A little cheesy with its premise and some of its details, but definitely creepy and sad to read about Joey's downfall and Ampharos getting traumatized.

Well, we ended another year off with a Fresh Pasta.

Quick review of the rewritten version:

I don't know how to feel about this rewrite. It's almost the same but only it goes into more detail on which Pokémon's body parts are with the Raticate like Magnemite's magnets, Hitmonchan's belt, Bulbasaur's bulb, and Glalie's face. The ending is different where Raticate does manage to beat the player's team with Extreme Speed OHKOing them and the player's in-game character gets dragged into the battle with Raticate using Guillotine, making the player sprite's head fall off. Joey walks away after the protagonist's in-game is stuck dead and even after resetting the game, their character is still dead. So, they had to reset the game and when they got to the Arceus event using Action Replay, they were battling Joey instead. That's probably just as cheesy to be honest, but it's all right for what it's worth. Not a bad rewrite and an interesting take on the original.

My rankings for the reviewed PokéPastas so far (from best to worst, top to bottom):
1. Easter Egg - Snow on Mt. Silver – Fresh
2. Forever Mine (Remake) - Fresh
3. Absol (Reaper) - Fresh
4. La Condena de Milotic – Fresh
5. Hypno's Lullaby – Fresh
6. Forever Mine (Original) - Fresh
7. Disabled - Fresh
8. Top Percentage - Fresh
9. Strangled Red – Dried
10. Zombreon - Dried
11. Lost Silver – Dried
12. PMD: Explorers of Death (Original) - Dried
13. White Hand and Buried Alive - Dried
14. Pokémon Violet - Dried
15. Lavender Town Syndrome - Dried
16. Creepy Black – Dried
17. Abandon Lonliness - Spoiled
18. Pokémon Dead Channel – Spoiled
19. Pokémon Dead Channel 2 - Spoiled
20. Prevention of Evolution (Original) - Spoiled
21. Milotic's Revenge – Spoiled
22. Nurse Joy - Spoiled
23. Leaf Green Beta Scene - Spoiled

8 Fresh Pastas | 8 Dried Pastas | 7 Spoiled Pastas

It's simple yet effective with its creepy factors. I would say that I enjoyed Strangled Red better, but like I've said many times before, Strangled Red suffered from having too many holes. But I think Top Percentage is a little bit on the cheesy side which brings it underneath Disabled.

Click here to view the full list of every PokéPasta review so far

OBLIGATORY SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
Twitter: saucez2020
Discord Server: discord.gg/WmuDSQB9hN

Description
Note: Please do not harass the original author or anyone who makes content related to this pasta. This review was simply made for entertainment purposes only. This is all based on MY OPINION as well.

WELCOME BACK TO SAUCEZ REVIEWZ: POKEPASTAS SERIES.

Pasta Name: Top Percentage by ????

Publish Date: February 20, 2012

Synopsis: The protagonist gets calls from Youngster Joey for rematches constantly as his Rattata gets progressively worse each match.

Fun Fact: You, in fact, can challenge Youngster Joey to a rematch in HGSS (and Crystal) and his Rattata does evolve into Raticate and grow stronger each match (until the fourth match).

Highlight: Joey becoming one with RATTATA

Quote: “But I won’t lose to you again! RATTATA will be stronger next time we meet!” - Joey

Let's finish off the year with one more pokepasta review. I've been hyping up the review for this pasta for over a year too.

Just a quick note: I'm not going to phrase the story in my own words and add my commentary like I normally do for my reviews, but I'm just going to summarize the pasta because the story itself is pretty simple and basic.

This is a creepypasta based on Youngster Joey and his SUPER COOL RATTATA. Now that concept sounds like one of the most ridiculous things you've ever heard and may sound over-the-top on paper, but does its execution work? Well we'll have to see.

So it starts off where the protagonist gets a call from Youngster Joey from their PokéGear, challenging them to a rematch. When the protag went to face Joey, they noticed his Rattata had become a Raticate but the odd thing was that the claws were off like they've belonged to a different Pokémon. The protag of course defeated Joey's Raticate, which Joey still called a Rattata, and Joey hands the player an iron, bluffing that he will beat him next time.

Joey called the player again for another rematch, they got to Joey, and this time, Raticate had an orange, fiery tail that looked like it came from a Rapidash. The Raticate could use Fire Blast but would also lose a chunk of HP like if it was recoil damage per turn. Joey lost again. This same process continued with the Raticate looking progressively worse with stitches, blood leaking out, and new body parts attached to his body. Such as blue wings from a Pelipper, and the Raticate knew Water Pulse too. Raticate would also lose more and more HP per turn for each match.

The Raticate eventually had other Pokémon's body parts attached to its body. It got to the point where Raticate wasn't even recognizable being full of stitches and gore. The protagonist did try to ignore Joey's calls at one point, but they would keep getting ringed by Joey saying that Route 30 is the other way. It was inevitable not to fight Joey at this point. It got to the point where Joey's Raticate's HP would deplete in one turn, but instead of saying Raticate fainted, it said, "Raticate had died."

The battle just ended after the Raticate died. The protag flew back to Kanto to proceed with their journey. The protag thought it was over with Joey since his Raticate had died, but they were wrong. Before entering Mt. Silver, they got one more call from Joey for a rematch. Confused, the protagonist decided to face the music and face Joey. His overworld sprite looked different. The player went into battle and Joey was all bloody and stitched up with Raticate's body parts. "I have become one with Rattata!" Joey said.

This may be the creepiest yet funniest part of the whole story. It's funny because it's Joey saying something like that, but it's creepy because this just shows off Joey's downfall and desperation in wanting to finally beat the player's team. He is so desperate that he was willing to stitch together his own dead Pokémon's body parts on him and fight the protagonist's team by himself.

The protagonist sends out their Ampharos to fight off Joey. Only one issue, Ampharos is too scared to move and fight Joey. Joey uses Crunch on Ampharos, which does a ton of damage, and he also has his HP depleting each turn as if it was from recoil damage. Joey managed to make the protag's Ampharos faint because Ampharos was too scared to move. The protag then sent out Misdreavus. This turned out to be a good move, as Joey used Double-Edge. "MISDREAVUS was unaffected! JOEY was hurt!" There was an ungodly cry as Joey fell from the screen. "JOEY has died!" The battle ended and Joey's overworld sprite was mangled. The protagonist went to a Pokémon Center to heal Ampharos. When the nurse gave him back, she said, “Whatever happened to this Pokémon, don’t let it happen again.” From then on, Ampharos could never fight a Raticate again. He would always be too terrified to move. When the protagonist visited Route 30 one more time, they found an iron right where Joey used to be standing.

And that's the end of the pasta.

FURTHER THOUGHTS:

So... Top Percentage... I have very mixed feelings about this honestly. That's part of why it took me this long to finally get to it because I wasn't sure how to express my thoughts about it without contradicting myself with past points I've made for previous reviews of poképastas. But I think I'm starting to get an idea of what to say about this.

First of all, I think Top Percentage is one of those pastas where I don't think it's very strong story-wise, but I think it's very strong creepy factors-wise, if that makes sense. To be honest, these are creepypastas so that would mean the creepy factors are obviously the most crucial factor, like the special ingredient or secret sauce for the stories. Without them, then it wouldn't really be a creepypasta. Which I can agree is a problem with various pastas out there where they are pretty good story-wise, but aren't very creepy. For example, I think Lost Silver has a good story but I just didn't find it that creepy. Same thing with La Condena de Milotic where the story is very strong and probably even flawless and it has some visuals with a creepy ending to back it up. That's why it got so high on the list.

So going back to Top Percentage, it really works with the creepy factors. Now, I can't deny the cheesy elements and clichés of the pasta that a lot of gaming creepypastas would suffer from. People would critique heavily on them as well. But I'm not the one to critique pastas based on WHAT clichés or tropes are used but I critique pastas based on HOW the clichés or tropes are used within the story to be a little more fair for the reviews. Admittedly, there are things like how it's describing some pretty gruesome details for some pixelated gen 4 sprites nonetheless, which is probably the biggest flaw of the whole pasta. How can the protagonist tell there were stitches on the Raticate and other body parts? I think that's when visuals can really help with it.

I could see those gruesome details working for the sprites, but I think some of them are a big stretch especially for gen 4's sprite limitations. I mean, this is what Joey looks like in HGSS. I can't really picture the details on his sprite as said in the pasta, but that's just a nitpick.

There are stories like Explorers of Death where the blood and gore of Pokémon corpses are supposed to build up to what Myra and Shadow are hiding from, the Squirtle. And Pokémon Dead Channel, where the blood and gore are supposed to represent how much BRVR has gone insane due to his abandonment issues and wanted to showcase the story's protagonist on what has happened while she was gone and how it's affected his life in-game (even though there are too many cheesy elements within the story, but I can appreciate what the author was trying to do).

I'm getting sidetracked, so the creepy factors for Top Percentage, there's more to it than just the blood and gore with Joey and his Raticate, of course. This shows off Joey's desperation in wanting to beat the player's team, as I said earlier, by stitching up other Pokémon together into the mix. It gets to the point where you are feeling with the protagonist. You can feel what the protagonist is feeling from what they are witnessing. It's more of the shock factor that makes it works for the story because it indicates how psychotic Joey has gotten as his Raticate is becoming more and more of a bloody mess because of Joey's frankensteining schemes that led to his and his Raticate's death. You can also feel sad for the Raticate as you can feel the pain and suffering they are going through from what all Joey has done to him. So, I think that can be great for creepy factors. But then again, imagining the frankensteined Raticate in sprite work cannot be easy due to the way too detailed for sprite work in gen 4. Such as blood dripping down Joey's hair (you can barely see his hair in the actual sprite). It's a bit too much for a pixelated game like HGSS.

I agree that there are some gaming pastas out there with clichés that make you facepalm and make you not root for the protagonist and be like, "just shut off the game already". But here, the protagonist is trying to play their game normally, but Joey keeps bugging them for rematches. And speaking of which, this pasta doesn't start off with how the protagonist got the game, so it makes it seem like this was just a random occurrence that happened in a normal cartridge. And it doesn't end with the protagonist breaking or disposing the cartridge either.

So it makes it seem like the rematches with Joey were inevitable without interference with PokéGear calls if the protagonist wanted to finish the game because they did state they just wanted to finish the game like normal.

But yeah, my favorite part as cheesy as it was with frankensteined Joey battle because of how out of place it is and I like it for that reason alone. Also, poor Ampharos. I do like the attention to detail with a callback to a game mechanic for when fighting the Lavender Town Pokémon Tower Ghost with your Pokémon being too scared to move or fight back, but it's strange how it's in this generation because that mechanic is used in gen 1 and 3. Pokémon Tower is a radio station for the Johto games for some odd reason, so the mechanic isn't used for gen 4 as far as I'm aware. Also, I do like the attention to detail where Raticate and Joey's HP slowly depletes like they are losing blood. Kind of clever actually. And Ampharos is now traumatized from fighting a Raticate ever again now pretty much. Poor guy. I appreciate the detail of traumatization.

Also, I like the build-up with Joey giving the player an iron after every single battle and how it ends with an iron laying there where Joey used to stand at the end. That can definitely be eerie. It's like the idea that I saw someone had where in Undertale, if you were to kill Toriel, sleep back in your bed at her home, and you wake up and there's a fresh-new slice of butterscotch pie laying there on the floor.

So, what do I think of Top Percentage, well, I think its concept is ridiculous, but its execution worked out decently. Despite having some overused tropes and clichés, I think the way a lot of them were executed decently and I did get a little shocked and terrified reading this one, which is definitely bonus points for this pasta. It indicates that it's pretty strong with its creepy factors for sure. I know some people are going to disagree with me on this one and if you think the blood and gore ruined it, that's fine. I can totally see where you are going from that standpoint. But for me, I think I'm going to give this one a very light FRESH PASTA, but only by a hair though. It's a very light one for sure. It's nothing too special but nothing too tragic either. This pasta also did get a rewrite as well, which is what I just found out while typing up this review. It can be a little repetitive with how its constant rematches from Joey, but the pasta had good enough pacing to not be bothersome like Abandon Lonliness was with its repetition. It knew when to do a time skip/summary with the rest of the rematches until Raticate dies. So, that's what I think about Top Percentage. A little cheesy with its premise and some of its details, but definitely creepy and sad to read about Joey's downfall and Ampharos getting traumatized.

Well, we ended another year off with a Fresh Pasta.

Quick review of the rewritten version:

I don't know how to feel about this rewrite. It's almost the same but only it goes into more detail on which Pokémon's body parts are with the Raticate like Magnemite's magnets, Hitmonchan's belt, Bulbasaur's bulb, and Glalie's face. The ending is different where Raticate does manage to beat the player's team with Extreme Speed OHKOing them and the player's in-game character gets dragged into the battle with Raticate using Guillotine, making the player sprite's head fall off. Joey walks away after the protagonist's in-game is stuck dead and even after resetting the game, their character is still dead. So, they had to reset the game and when they got to the Arceus event using Action Replay, they were battling Joey instead. That's probably just as cheesy to be honest, but it's all right for what it's worth. Not a bad rewrite and an interesting take on the original.

My rankings for the reviewed PokéPastas so far (from best to worst, top to bottom):
1. Easter Egg - Snow on Mt. Silver – Fresh
2. Forever Mine (Remake) - Fresh
3. Absol (Reaper) - Fresh
4. La Condena de Milotic – Fresh
5. Hypno's Lullaby – Fresh
6. Forever Mine (Original) - Fresh
7. Disabled - Fresh
8. Top Percentage - Fresh
9. Strangled Red – Dried
10. Zombreon - Dried
11. Lost Silver – Dried
12. PMD: Explorers of Death (Original) - Dried
13. White Hand and Buried Alive - Dried
14. Pokémon Violet - Dried
15. Lavender Town Syndrome - Dried
16. Creepy Black – Dried
17. Abandon Lonliness - Spoiled
18. Pokémon Dead Channel – Spoiled
19. Pokémon Dead Channel 2 - Spoiled
20. Prevention of Evolution (Original) - Spoiled
21. Milotic's Revenge – Spoiled
22. Nurse Joy - Spoiled
23. Leaf Green Beta Scene - Spoiled

8 Fresh Pastas | 8 Dried Pastas | 7 Spoiled Pastas

It's simple yet effective with its creepy factors. I would say that I enjoyed Strangled Red better, but like I've said many times before, Strangled Red suffered from having too many holes. But I think Top Percentage is a little bit on the cheesy side which brings it underneath Disabled.

Click here to view the full list of every PokéPasta review so far

OBLIGATORY SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
Twitter: saucez2020
Discord Server: discord.gg/WmuDSQB9hN