Tenshi suggested I go to Ice Lake and challenge the gym leader there. Unfortunately, I didn't pack any winter clothing...
First off, more grinding. A LOT more grinding. Touhoumon Insane, whyfor doth thou maketh me grind so much? Also, I'm grinding more than a full team. Rather than overleveling a handful of puppets, I'm making sure I have puppets with good stats or type/abilities set aside as well incase I run into a situation my current team can't deal with.
With that said, grinding up to level 36:
- Athena evolves into Ex Marisa
and FINALLY learns a better electric attack than Thundershock, jumping straight to Thunderbolt. Awesome. Now she can actually kill stuff!
- Caught a cTenshi on the upcoming Route 3 and decided to add her to my growing team. Tenshi's defenses and physical attack power are pretty good and rock/ground typing isn't nearly as debilitating in Touhoumon. Some of the type chart has actually changed. Ground is no longer weak to ice, rock is no longer weak to water or resistant to flying. cTenshi evolves into Tenshi
at level 24.
- Decided to raise Wriggle
. Of the two bug types in the game (that I know of, at least) Wriggle is the better one. Fast, and good physical attack and defense.
- Mystia evolved into ExMystia
and learned Crush Claw in place of Quick Attack. Between Tickle, Sing, and Crush Claw, Mystia is looking pretty awesome at this point.
- Leveling up Chen, she also learns Crush Claw and evolves into her Ex form. Apparently I forgot to grab a screenshot of her evolution, though. Still, Chen and Mystia are surprisingly good at this point in spite of being the Rattata and Pidgey of Touhoumon Insane.
- Raised cAlice some more and she finally evolved into Alice.
Knows Little Legion, an 80-power normal-type attack, Aura Beam (which is a 120 power, 85 accuracy dark-type attack for some reason), Psychic Pulse, and Ice Beam. Pretty nice arrange of attacks.
- Trained Yukari to level 36 but no real change. She tried to learn Sleep Talk but thats about it.
- Finally, Medicine evolves into ExMedicine
and learns Poison Bomb in place of Acid. Great poison-type attack. Wish she had a better grass-type attack but apparently she'll need a TM for that.
With that out of the way, onto Route 3!
Route 3 Puppets: cChen, cMystia, Chen, Mystia, Medicine, Momiji, cTenshi (Rock/Ground)
, cTewi (Normal)
. Level range is 13 - 18, but usually you'll run into level 16+ puppets. Evolved puppets are very common here, making it a decent place to train. Also, it snows a bit on Route 3.
When I first entered this route, I had only trained my team to level 30. It didn't make a whole lot of different at first. The first trainer I ran into was Bug Catcher Colton who had a Sunnymilk, Lunachild, and Star Sapphire. Easy win here. Chen beat the first two easy, last one was Medicine's.
Lass Janice was next, with an ExMystia and ExAya. Her ExMystia beat Athena somehow, but my Mystia managed to beat it in return. Alice beat her ExAya. Moving on, we encounter a boy who likes shorts because they're comfy and easy to wear. Youngster Ben. His Hina manages to get lucky and beats both Chen and Athena before Alice finished her off. He then sends out ExWriggle who gets tickled to death by Mystia. On to Lass Sally and Athena once again somehow goes down to an ExMystia, which is finished off by Alice. Geez, she's just not having any luck on this route. Mystia, on the other hand, then proceeds to tickle an ExMedicine to death. Tickle is proving surprisingly useful...
Sadly, after having an easy time with those trainers, the next one creams me in a double battle. Youngster Calvin, who apparently takes offense to my lack of shorts.
What is with these kids and shorts!? Apparently this guy takes shorts pretty seriously because his team kicks my ass pretty thoroughly. He has an ExChen, ExSunnymilk, ExMomiji, ExReisen, and ExMystia. His ExChen managed to take off over half of Yukari's HP with Earthquake. With Reflect up. Ow. It was after losing to this guy that I grinded everyone up to level 36 to get some more Ex-evolutions.
Fighting Calvin again... and it's a joke. When all is said and done, only my ExMystia goes down. And that's after enduring much of the battle I might add. Probably could have stayed in the fight if I used any healing items.
Bug Catcher Greg is up next. ExChen one-shots his Lunachild and Sunnymilk with a Mud Shot each. ExMystia beats his ExWriggle, tickling her to death while she uses Heal Bell 3 times in a row.
For those who don't know, Heal Bell is a technique that removes status effects from all allies. None of his puppets had status effects on them. Way to go, AI. Mystia goes on to beat his Yamame pretty easily. Like I said before, these two are amazing for early game mons.
Bug Catcher James and Lass Robin are all thats left now. ExMedicine was pretty evenly matched against his ExWriggle, but won out in the end largely because James apparently takes after Greg up there in having his ExWriggle use Heal Bell over and over. Athena then oneshots his ExAya. ExMedicine goes up against Robin's ExTewi, her only puppet and level 40 at that. Her ExTewi kept Bitch Slapping (read: Double Slap, a weak move that hits 2-5 times) Medi over and over. Medi didn't take that too kindly and splattered Robin's ExTewi in deadly poison.
Finally past the trainers, I find a berry tree
on this route. Kinda interesting. Kinda pointless. Anyone playing this will have a crack squad of chibi Nazrins while grinding and have more berries than they know what to do with.
In spite of that, here's another.
Going into the pokecenter, we find this guy
offering to sell us an incredible rare puppet. A fairy! This is clearly a worthwhile investment and totally worth the 500 whatevers (yen? poke?), or 1/10th of one of the nuggets my Nazrins keep finding. Honestly, it really is worth it. The fairy evolves into one of three other fairies - Lily White, Lily Black, or Daiyousei - and they're all pretty powerful in their Ex-forms.
After stopping by the pokemon center, I take a brief trip into Youkai Mountain to catch puppets. You'll see why I want to do this now before challenging the dungeon proper in a bit.
Youkai Mountain Puppets: cRumia (Dark), cKisume (Water/Fire), Rumia (Dark)
, Kisume (Water/Fire)
, cYuka (Grass/Dark)
, cKoakuma (Psychic)
, cReisen (Psychic)
. Level range is 13-20, though it's more like 17-20. Koakuma (Psychic) appear further in.
Before going into Youkai Mountain, I pick out my exploration team and train them all to level 40. Why? Because I already know there's a tough boss ahead and am NOT going all the way in, acting like I'm sure there's nothing that can stop me, just to get stomped in a test battle. Not in this dungeon.
- First up, grinding that Fairy. The fairy will evolve at level 20. Who it evolves into depends on its stats at the time. Attack > Defense yields Lily Black. Defense > Attack yields Lily White. Defense = Attack yields Daiyousei. My fairy had more attack.
Leveling up further, she evolves into a ninja-like thing wearing a blindfold.
Since she wears a blindfold, you know she must be badass. Stats here.
She knows Faint Attack, Steel Wing, Extremespeed, and Agility.
- Raised the cYuka I caught, which I nicknamed MsSunshine. Probably a better nickname for a Utsuho but eh. She evolves into this.
Then this.
And as you can tell from this
, she's slow. Slower than Yukari, even. But her power and techniques are incredible. She has Leaf Blade, which has gotten a power boost to 90 in this game, Heart Break which is an 80-power dark-type attack, Face Slam which is just Stomp, and Taunt.
- Yet a third newbie, the Kisume I caught joins the team as BucketTank. She evolves into ExKisume
at level 38 and is, as my nickname would suggest, a tank.
Awesome! She knows Will-o-Wips, Water Gun, Ember, and Spinning (a 50-power Rapid Spin, normal-type)! Not so awesome! Still, just look at that sprite and tell me you don't want one of these on your team. She will prove VERY useful in the upcoming battle.
- Wriggle is raised some more and evolves into ExWriggle
, who is now more noticeably a woman. She knows Jump Kick, Growl, Signal Beam, and Faint Attack. She's pretty speedy
for an ExWriggle. Pretty nice stats all around though.
- Finally, Athena
and ExChen.
ExChen learns Slash in place of Crush Claw. Slash got a bit of a power boost, from 70 to 80, so I decide to go with that. Athena doesn't learn anything new. In her Ex form, however, she is now a Fire/Electric type instead of just Electric. Pretty good coverage there and nice STAB's (same-type attack bonus) overall. And she has Speed Boost, an awesome ability.
With that all out of the way, I'm finally ready to take on Youkai Mountain!
... Scratch that, what the hell am I saying? You will NEVER be ready to take on this
bullshit
of a
maze!
Yes, that's right, there's darkness AND mist this time. On top of three floors of dead ends and false leads. And the mist REALLY sucks because of the color of the floor and rock walls, making it nearly impossible to discern a path from an obstacle. You might as well be running the damn thing blind! Only way through this, of course, is to consult a walkthrough. Help me, Eirin!!
(Notice the levels that walkthrough suggests?)
I don't get in far, however, before deciding that this is not helping. The mist and the tile colorings just make this flatout impossible. I suppose I can't fully blame Drakuaza for this one as this is yet another dungeon ripped straight out of Touhoumon Lunatic Version. Though I do now find myself wondering what demonic entity must possess a person to make them think doing so was a good idea in the first place. I don't get it. Did he spend the inevitable hours upon hours, days upon days traversing these dungeons and think that was FUN!? What the hell, man!? I would rather jab rusty nails into my eyes than try to run this bullshit blind! ...Which I guess I would be if I did that, but you get my point.
I do find an alternative, though, in using those images as a map. After getting through all that, you have to face a boss.
Rocket Grunt Karen: ExLilyB Lv. 43 (Dark), ExChen Lv.42 (Ground), Nue Lv. 45 (Poison/Flying), ExRumia Lv. 48 (Dark), LwReisen Lv. 50 (Psychic)
This grunt can be surprisingly hard if you're not prepared. Full team of EX's save for Nue and LwReisen. But don't be fooled, Nue is as strong as an EX-evolution for some reason. You might be thinking to yourself, "Well, duh! She IS an EX-boss!" But EX bosses don't get special treatment here. They might have higher base stats, but still are in line with most other puppets of the same evolution stage. Rather, the UFO crew seems to have gotten the boost in this hack. Normal forms as strong as EX's and EX-forms as strong as Last Words.
First up is her ExLilyB. A while back I tried playing this hack and this puppet kicked my ass all over the place. Now, however, I have the power of bucket loli. BucketTank shrugs off pretty much everything Lily B throws at her, especially after a Will-o-Wisp. Pretty one-sided in my favor.
ExChen is next so I switch in MsSunshine. Despite having Poison Claw, Chen tries... Earthquake. The AI for this trainer clearly wasn't set very high. MsSunshine takes her out with one Leaf Blade.
LwReisen makes her debut next, surprisingly enough. I send out Athena. Athena proves to be slower but still gets off a Thief thanks to LwReisen using Ice Beam for some reason. She steals a White Herb. Athena lands another hit before being taken out by an Aura Beam. I use Lily Black next and she barely survives an Ice Beam to hit with Faint Attack, nearly knocking LwReisen out. I try to finish the job with Extremespeed but she recalls Reisen to send out ExRumia.
ExRumia is normally something to be feared in Touhou fanon. Rumia's Superpowered Evil Side, sealed away by her ribbon. In this game she might seem impressive at a glance, boasting a whopping 160 base attack stat. That's higher than Groudon and equal to Ramparados, for those in the pokemon fandom. Sadly, in the Touhoumon series, ExRumia bears more in common with Ramparados. A glass cannon with neither the defense nor speed to pull off anything special. Worse, she lacks any decent physical STAB moves as Dark is special in the GBA games. So, really, she's pretty much a joke. BucketTank takes her out much the same way she took out ExLilyB earlier.
Nue is up next. I had originally intended for Athena to take this one on but LwReisen came out earlier than I was expecting. Instead, it's ExChen to the rescue. I briefly forget what type Nue is and go for Metal Claw, thinking her to be dark-type. This changes her type to steel. I don't know the name of Nue's ability off the top of my head (Color Change in the pokemon games) but basically she turns into the type last used against her. It's a horrible ability, really. I followed up that Metal Claw with Mud Shot, which hit for super effective... sorry, "Beautiful!" damage. She managed to get a lucky special defense drop on Chen so I decide to switch to MsSunshine at this point. Nue uses Recover on the switch but it makes no difference. Now that she's ground-type, MsSunshine takes her out in one blow from Leaf Blade. See? Horrible ability.
With Nue down, all that's left is LwReisen. I switch back to Chen when Nue goes down and Chen manages to get in a Mud Shot while LwReisen gets a Full Restore. Very little damage but the speed drop is much appreciated. Chen manages to get in a second shot to drop her speed further before falling to Psychosis.
Pscyhocis is an interesting move. Remember that White Herb Athena stole earlier? Well, what that does is restore any stat drops once. Psychosis is basically a renamed Psycho Boost. Incredibly powerful psychic-type attack at 140 base power, but drops special attack two stages when used. White Herb would have allowed LwReisen one free use of the attack. Athena's sole contribution to this match, stealing her White Herb (and damaging her a bit), is what puts the final nail in LwReisen's coffin.
When Chen goes down, I send Lily Black out again and immediately give her a Super Potion. LwReisen use Psychosis again. In Touhoumon, the dark-type is only resistant to psychic instead of immune for some reason. So Lily Black shrugs off the Psychosis, leaving LwReisen at a huge penalty to her special attacks. Lily Black barely feels the follow-up attacks while beating down LwReisen with Faint Attack. A hard battle fought, but only Athena and Chen go down in the end.
With that Rocket Grunt beat, I'm free to continue on to the exit. There's fossils, but they're not on your route out of the cave. So I'm skipping them. Only a little further and I finally find the exit.
On to the Lake of Ice, where another interesting challenge awaits.
This... this is a nightmare. Is going through this mountain really the only way to get to the Lake of Ice? It's dark. Darker than dark. What little vision I have thanks to my flashlight is obscured by a thick mist. I can't tell where I'm going at all. The puppets don't seem to be bothered by the darkness, though. Both my own and the wild ones.
I can't see them, but I can hear them out there. Moving around me. It's nerve-wracking. My fear gets the better of me.
"I'm not afraid of you!" I call out to the darkness.
"Is that so~?" the darkness replied.
