To start things off, I make a quick run to Fuschia to grab some ultra orbs.
And I do mean quick. Quick and sloppy. I actually ended up facing some of the trainers along the way. They're no harder than Surge, at least, but my touhous have gained a few levels pretty quickly.
Oh, and as one might expect by now, there's no tree here.
Route 9 Touhous: CTokiko (Normal/Flying)
, CAya, CMomiji. Level range is 11 to 17.
Only three touhous and one of them is new. At a glance, Tokiko didn't look like anything special. 105 speed, attack. 90 hp, defenses pretty low, 80 special attack. That 80 special attack is at least useable, though, and she can learn Morning Sun. A grass-type attack can come in handy against buff rock, ground, or water-types. Could come in handy at any rate. Personally I always pictured Tokiko as more of a special attacker. Or maybe just a more defensive touhou. I mean, does a bookworm really strike you as a physical attacker?
Her ability is Limber, which prevents paralysis. Nice enough ability, particularly in-game where the AI can get VERY annoying with it.
Anyway, beat all the trainers on this route fairly easily. And then, after beating the lone trainer on Route 10 blocking the Rock Tunnel, Satoko hits level 24 and finally evolves.
That just leaves Melon as my only unevolved touhou now. Apparently she evolves at level 26.
Speaking of Route 10...
Route 10 Touhous: CAya, CHatate, CMomiji, CCirno. Level range is 11 to 17.
...there's nothing of interest here. Cirno seems to have missed her route though. Typical.
We arrive at the Route 10 Pokemon Center, which is a very convenient rest stop if you ask me. We pick up an everstone
here. No strings attached.
Next is usually the Rock Tunnel. But we're not going to the Rock Tunnel. Take a look at this.
A path was added to the Abandoned Powerplant. In other words, we can go there now instead of waiting until we can use Surf out of battle.
So what the hell are we waiting for?
Oh, right, there's also a random trainer here.
Wonder how far out of my league he is?
Level 29 Tenshi
and level 29 Rumia
. Eh, nothing I can't manage. Tenshi beats Reimu, but ColdSteel finishes the job. And then Rumia causes some trouble. Not because she's too much for my party to handle. But because she knows Confuse Ray. Damn confusion...
Heal up. Step inside the power plant and... oh god...
it's happening again...
Okay... calm down... this is not that hack... this is not that hack... this is not that hack...
Power Plant Touhous: CNitori, CIku, Marisa, Nitori (Water)
, Rinnosuke, ELunachild (Electric) 
. Level range is 22 to 35.
Surprisingly few new touhous here. Just evolved forms of previous touhous. Speaking of surprises...
GASP!
It's a new touhou! Kogasa actually replaces Voltorb/Electrode as the fake pokeball in this hack. She doesn't quite look like she could pull it off, but it suits her character at least.
Kogasa
is a Flying/Ghost touhou with Rain Dish for an ability. Basically she slowly recovers hp when it's raining. Flying/Ghost is an interesting combination, giving her immunities to Ground, Normal, and Fighting-type attacks. Her physical attack is actually pretty high at a base 120. 90 hp and 70 special attack, so she's not a special attacker. That hp isn't too bad with 80 defense and special defense, though. And she has 80 speed as well. So about average in terms of speed.
There's two Kogasas in total inside the power plant. There's also two Thunderstones, one hidden.
Naturally, the real reason we're here is this.
If you recall, I skipped the legendary puppets in Touhoumon Insane because screw that. In this one I'll go ahead and actually catch them all. And, hey, why not challenge myself a bit by trying to catch it while it's way out of my league?
Fortunately, Kikuri is probably the easiest legendary to attempt this on simply because her only offensive technique is Psychic. The strategy here was to hope for Kikuri to not use Psychic long enough for either Raymoo or Athena to paralyze her. Then switch to Satoko and Mirror Coat back a Psychic to severely weaken Kikuri. Finally, start chucking ultra orbs and hope she holds off on using Recover.
She did end up using Recover, but I managed to catch her anyway.
That was not a fun attempt though. Earlier pokemon games seriously needed something better than the Ultra Ball. And yeah, that probably looked pretty easy since I got lucky with that catch at about half Kikuri's hp... but that was like my fourth or fifth attempt. The others usually ended with her KO'ing the rest of my party.
Anyway, stat-speaking time. Despite replacing Zapdos, she's actually a wee bit stronger than your typical trio-based legendary. Whereas the likes of Zapdos have base stat totals of 580, Kikuri has a base stat total of 600. That's in line with "psuedolegendaries" like Dragonite and Tyranitar, or the non-signature legendaries like Latios and Latias, Heatran, etc. Kikuri is a more defensive type of touhou with base 140 physical defense, 120 special defense, and a decent-enough 90 hp. She's no slouch on the offense either, though, packing a base 100 special attack and her physical attack is still fairly useable at base 85. She's slow, though, with only 65 speed. Psychic type, ability is Pressure. Attacks used against her use up 2 pp instead of 1.
Next installment I'll show off something VERY interesting regarding Kikuri and her kind.
But just before I do that, let's take a side trip through Rock Tunnel. Just because there's trainers here to fight. And some new touhous.
Rock Tunnel Floor 1 Touhous: CKoakuma, CSuika, CRumia, CMeiling (Fighting)
, CYuugi. Level range is 13 to 17.
Meiling's special stats suck, base 50 each. Which is funny considering I believe her EX form shows her preparing a KI blast. Though that's not to say I think Meiling should be a special attacker. Anyway, her physical stats are much better at 110 each. HP is base 100 and speed is base 90. When she reaches EX, she also gains the dragon type. Her ability is Gatekeeper, which prevents her from being switched out by Roar or Whirlwind. Competitively speaking, it's a nice ability. Roar and Whirlwind tend to see more use competitively for a variety of reasons but tend to see little use in-game.
Rock Tunnel Floor 2 Touhous: CKoakuma, CSuika, CRumia, CNue (Dark/Flying)
, CMeiling, CYuugi. Level range is 13 to 17.
Now here's someone I wouldn't have expected to see this early in the game. Nue. Nue is a speedster, base 120 speed, with a bit of offense. Her defenses aren't terrible, but they're not great either. Interestingly, she's incredibly easy to level. She only needs 800,000 exp to reach level 100. The default is 1,000,000 exp. She gets an interesting set of attacks for her type, including Leech Seed and Will-o-Wisp. That'd be annoying to deal with. Finally, her ability is Shape Change. Changes her type to match the type of the attack used against her.
Rock Tunnel is dark as always
, though apparently a dark cave is an unusual thing in the world of Pokemon/Touhoumon. Unless you're playing one of "those" hacks, at least. Anyway, I'm sure we've all navigated the Rock Tunnel blindly at one point or another simply because we didn't want to bother with Flash. Though Flash is actually somewhat useful in this game, you may recall I didn't get Cut. Thus cannot get Flash. Or Fly. I'll get them eventually though...
On another note... have you ever noticed just how many weirdos
are in here? I mean, we have a dark cave filled with creepy guys who seem to be just a bit too into pokemon. Or touhou in this case. I don't know which is worse. Some
of the dialogue
doesn't help things either.
After making our way through the Rock Tunnel, we're in Lavender Town and will be heading from here to Celadon. Next installment you can expect a few more interesting secrets. Including the one I mentioned about Kikuri before.
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