We're back on one island now, but before kicking things off let's take a look at a little place called Treasure Beach.
Treasure Beach Touhous: EAya (Normal/Flying)
, CShizuha, CHatate, CLunachild, CChen, Lunachild. Level range is 31 to 40.
Nothing new, but EAya is actually pretty common here. You can also find a bunch of hidden items like Pearls and Ultra Orbs if you feel like searching around. You find Treasure Beach by surfing south from the One Island port.
With that out of the way, let's go talk to Celio again. He mentions looking for a gemstone
which, in spite of what he says
, we have to find for him. The first of these is on One Island itself, and before we can go access the other islands we'll need to find that first gemstone.
To get to the gemstone, we first need to go through Kindle Road. Kindle Road is found by surfing east from One Island.
Kindle Road Touhous: Aya, CSunnymilk, CHatate, CSuika, CLunachild, CChen, Sunnymilk, Lunachild. Level range is 31 to 40.
Nothing new here. One thing you might notice, though, is the presence of breakable rocks.
Yeah, we get THAT around here. You can find touhous in the rocks, but always either a CSuika or a Suika.
While battling my way up Kindle Road, a funny thing happened. My Satoko got locked into combat with a CMeiling whose only offensive technique was Counter. And we were locked into combat thanks to Block. In other words, this was coming down to stalling until one of us was out of PP. But then I realized something. I could use the Toho Flute
in battle to waste turns. My touhou doesn't lose PP, the CMeiling was reduced to using Struggle. So I managed to win and get out of that situation with most of my PP still intact, but I NEVER want to do that again. That just sucked...
Going inside the Ember Spa nearby to where I encounter that battle, we get two things. One, healing.
Two, Rock Smash.
And in this game, Rock Smash doesn't suck.
I'd actually rate it slightly better than Brick Break, in fact. You don't encounter Reflect or Light Screen very often, and the defense drop could be a nice boost against a tough opponent. I decide to have Raymoo learn this in place of Jump Kick. Marginally more damage, no drawback.
Crossing more water, we finally get to Mt. Ember. For now, though, I'll only be covering the grass on the outside of the mountain and the cave entrance that Team Rocket
was nice enough to open for us. They also give us one of the passwords to get into their base, which we'll be visiting later. Have to love how the passwords in this game kept the theme from the Pokemon games. And "Am I Mima?" sounds less weird than "Goldeen need log" or "Yes, nah Chansey".
Mt. Ember Outside Touhous: CSunnymilk, CHatate, Aya, CMeiling, CSuika, Sunnymilk. Level range is 30 to 42.
No new touhous out here. But after beating up the two rockets, we can go inside. Their levels are in the 30-50 range but they were still no challenge really.
Mt. Ember Inside Room 1 Touhous: CSuika, CMeiling, Meiling. Level range is 34 to 42.
Well, nothing here but Suikas and Meilings.
Mt. Ember Inside Room 2 Touhous: CSuika, Mokou. Level range is 24 to 42.
Nothing here either. Moving on...
Mt. Ember Inside Room 3 Touhous: CSuika, Mokou. Level range is 22 to 44.
Same. But at least there's actually something in this room. The other two had a few smashable rocks, but none that you actually needed to smash through. Here, there's a Strength puzzle. An easy one.
Then again, they're all easy really. For the distance we have to travel there just seems to be too many rooms...
Mt. Ember Inside Room 4 Touhous: Mokou, CAMokou (Fire/Rock)
. Level range is 18 to 36.
Finally! A thing! A thing to catch! And we're not going through small, pointless rooms anymore. Rather, this is one large room consisting of several tunnels and a few boulders to push around.
So, Advent Mokou. Still don't have a clue who she's supposed to be. She's basically a faster, slightly less bulky Mokou with more evenly distributed offenses. 110 attack and special attack, 90 speed. HP drops down to 110, defense is base 70, special defense base 60. Ability is now ADVENT (why did this line need its own ability again?) According to a later dex entry, she threatens the human village, hunts monsters, and is a health maniac. That ring a bell to anyone?
Taking the first path leading south that we come across eventually leads to this room.
Just a braile guide. Down the ladder here, we grab the ruby.
Neither of these rooms have encounters.
Continuing on past that first path leads us to an exit. There's more small rooms, both contain only CSuika and Mokou. We're done here and can take that Ruby back to Celio now.
After handing over the Ruby
, Celio asks us for one more favor.
You can select "No" over and over again, but he'll just keep spouting the same line.
Sigh. He asks us to find the Sapphire and hands over a ticket to get to the rest of the islands. Next stop, Four Island!
Oh, look who it is.
He mentions something about touhou eggs and then runs off. I believe we get those on either Five Island or Six Island. We get a very special egg in this hack, but I'll cover that when I cover the islands proper. For now we have a sidequest to complete.
Take a peek into Icefall Cave and now there's another HM we need to learn. Waterfall. But first we need to GET the HM. Doing so involves some ice puzzles. One is the typical sliding ice puzzle, the other involves ice that cracks when you step on the first time and breaks completely the second time. After going through this, we get the Waterfall HM.
There's three small areas involved in this. The entrance, the room with the breakable ice, and the room with the sliding ice puzzle below it. Encounters in these rooms are as follows...
Icefall Cave Room 1 Touhous: Cirno, Koakuma, CKoakuma, ACirno (Ice/Steel)
, Letty, EACirno (Ice/Steel)
. Level range is 40 to 53.
Icefall Cave Room 2 Touhous: Mai, Koakuma, ACirno, Cirno. Level range is 25 to 48.
Icefall Cave Room 3 Touhous: Mai, Koakuma, CACirno, CKoakuma, CMai. Level range is 18 to 48.
It's like the deeper you go into this place the more the encounters suck...
Using Waterfall, we can climb that waterfall at the entrance and then take a few ladders down to a different level. Here, we find an old friend
having some trouble with Team Rocket. After beating them up with little effort, Lorelei threatens them with her Cirno. They spill the beans about where their hideout is and Lorelei goes home.
Now, normally there's no encounters down here, but apply a bit of Sweet Scent and...
Icefall Cave Room 4 Touhous: Mai, Koakuma, CKoakuma, Cirno, CChen, CAMarisa (Electric)
. Level range is 20 to 51.
Those Chens, man. They show up in the oddest places. Anyway, we get another new advent here. Advent Marisa. Now we're only missing Letty and Mystia. I'm actually a bit baffled that Advent Letty isn't found here. We kinda ran out of ice-themed dungeons I think and I can't remember off the top of my head where she's found.
Anyway, Advent Marisa. She's Yuffie, I know that much at least. Pure Electric even at EX, ADVENT for an ability. Base 125 speed, 110 special attack, 85 attack, 80 special defense, 60 defense, 70 hp. Faster than normal EX Marisa, but doesn't pack as much punch. Or Speed Boost. She can learn Flamethrower, but lacks the added STAB. Seeing a show she learns Tail Wind, it seems like she wants to try being a mixed attacker of some sort. I'd still go with EMarisa myself. Though, to be fair, I'm a bit biased against the Advents.
Next up, even though the base is on Island Five we'll be heading to Island Six to not pick something up first. Yeah, we're going there just to fail at getting something. Hate the Sevii Islands. Really do.
In the Six Island pokemon center, we run into Gary again. He's decided he's done with the Sevii Islands and is heading home. Well THAT was anti-climatic. After healing up at the center, we head down the Water Path...
Water Path Wild Touhous: Aya, CNazrin, CMedicine, Hatate, CLunachild, Medicine, CChen, Lunachild, CHatate. Level range is 10 to 50.
... and then go through Ruin Valley ...
Ruin Valley Touhous: CShinki, Aya, CKanako, Kanako (Grass/Electric)
, CHatate, CLunachild, CYukari, CChen, Lunachild. Level range is 15 to 52.
... and then finally arrive at a door
we need to use Cut to get past. I remember how much this pissed me off when I came here for the first time in Fire Red. Finally made it through Ruin Valley only to find out I need cut and had to go back and get an HM Slave. Fortunately, I have two touhous that already know it. So Canada gladly opens the door for me.
Here
we have a fairly simple maze. The dots denote a direction, written in braile, and you need to go in that hole to get to the next floor. You probably don't need to translate it, though. It's easy enough to guess based on the number of characters. The directions are Up - Left - Right - Down. So difficult.
Bottom floor, we find the sapphire
and then this random asshole
comes and steals it. Just what gave him the idea to tail us, who is he, and where the hell has he been all this time? It's bad enough that he gets away with this in Pokemon, where I would have many creatures at my command that are quite capable of killing him in ways that would ensure there is no evidence. That still pretty much applies, but I also happen to have a satori in the party if you recall. You'd think she'd have noticed a suspicious character following us. Hell, if I had brought Cold Steel with me on this one, she could just... err... right. She doesn't know "that" move yet.
Anyway, he's at least willing to give us the other password to Team Rocket's base and even suggests we steal it back after he sells it to them. I say we just kick Team Rocket's ass, then his, then get the sapphire back. Because screw Team Rocket and screw this guy. Oh, the other password? "Ate, tah, Hatate". This one's weird...
No point hanging around here though. Off to Five Island for the final confrontation with Team Rocket. Again.
On Five Island, we head straight to the Five Island Meadow where Team Rocket's new base is... not really hidden at all.
There's something in this meadow that's a bit more interesting than that, however...
Five Island Meadow Touhous: CMystia, CMomiji, Mystia, CLunachild, CNazrin, CChen, DCMomiji (Normal)
. Level range is 5 to 50.
Finally got another dark touhou here, leaving just two more to go. And we'll be getting one of those remaining two before the end of this installment. Dark Momiji is basically better than regular Momiji in almost every way. Higher attack, higher hp, and even +5 speed over Momiji. The actual numbers are 100 hp and defense, 155 attack, and 95 speed. There's no huge difference, mind you. Attack is the biggest one, with EMomiji having base 140. What Dark Momiji is slightly lower in, however, is special defense. DEMomiji has base 30 special attack and 40 special defense. Also has Intimidate for an ability, whereas Momiji has Guts and Early Bird.
Momiji and Dark Momiji actually have the same base stat total. Basically, DEMomiji takes 25 points out of special defense and puts 15 in attack, 5 in hp, and 5 in speed.
After catching that dark chibi, we enter the passwords
and begin raiding yet another Team Rocket hideout. More spinny puzzles
await. Why does Team Rocket do this? It must make it a pain for them to get around...
Check out these cages.
We'll be coming back to these after I beat up the rockets.
Since she was the only one behind in levels at this point, by the time I reached the final grunts (and future executives, apparently) I basically had Signum solo the rest. By this point pretty much everything I faced was a dark EX touhou, but even then only DERemilia proved to be any real threat. An Aeroblast from her could ALMOST 1HKO Signum.
After the Rockets are all taken care of, only this scientist
remains. And wouldn't you know it? Even he has a team of powerful touhous. Whatever. Signum rips this guy's team apart. Almost his entire team was weak to ground-type attacks, so Signum made good use of Dig. His VIVIT and EVIVIT were both OHKO'd. Ruukoto proved to be pretty sturdy, but went down without dealing any damage in the end either. His final touhou was Mimi-Chan, who just exploded.
Signum shrugged it off. She really puts the "tank" in Spider Tank.
That's it for Team Rocket, but not for their base. Remember those cages from before. Well, if we go back there now we find out that there's a touhou left in the pen. That touhou is none other than DCPatchouli.
After weakening her with Satoko, and paralyzing her with Misty, she's our's.
All that's left now is dark Wriggle, who is hidden elsewhere in the Sevii Islands.
Incidentally, this one was a pain to find. The only way you'd find it in-game is if you have a tendency to check random objects a lot, in which case the mention of there being touhous in the pen/cage might tip you off to come back there later. So how did I find this? Well, I decided to check the wiki and see if there were locations listed there. Naturally, there weren't. But then on a whim I decided to check the edit history for DCPatchy's page and find someone at one point put, for location, "Check the cages". That eventually lead me to find her.
Dark Patchouli is even worse off physically than regular patchouli, having base 30 attack and defense. She has worse special defense as well, at base 100. Not that base 100 special defense is anything to scoff at. What she does have over regular Patchouli, though, is a whopping base 120 speed. Slightly higher special attack, too, at base 160. One hell of a glass cannon. Also, her ability is Concentrate and she learns a LOT of interesting attacks. Ice Beam, Leaf Blade, Master Spark, Overheat, Hourai Petals, and Psycho Boost all learned via leveling. Nice.
Now that we're finished there, we just hand over the Sapphire
to Celio and we're on our way to Indigo Plateau again. In hopes of finding a challenge this time, I'll be taking them on with a level 55 team (save for Athena, she's 57) So look forward to those rematches next time.
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