Though I don't deny the existance of supernatural phenomenon, especially given my current circumstances, I prefer to find solutions to my problems that are grounded firmly in reality and logic.
For my current dilemma, that simply is not possible. The only solution I can come up with is that I have angered some omnipotent being who now considers it their eternal goal to torment me.
Also, the darkness is trying to eat me again...
Oni Tunnel Puppets, Floor 1
: Meiling (Fighting)
, cMeiling (Fighting)
, Rumia, Koakuma, cKurumi (Dark)
, Kisume, cSuika (Rock/Fighting)
, cYuugi (Ground/Fighting)
Oni Tunnel Puppets, Floor 2
: Rumia, Koakuma, Yamame, Kisume, cYuugi, cKoakuma, cSuika, cRumia
Meiling, Suika, and Yuugi are all... pretty much the same, really, aside from their types. A fully evolved Meiling gains the dragon type and Suika and Yuugi's types go unchanged as they evolve. Stats are basically focused toward hp, defense, and attack. Not much else to say, really. Out of the three, I might train a Meiling. Not sure whether her or Sara would be more useful. The fighting type is really lacking versitility in this game. Of course, when you have enough attack power to make some of the most defensive puppets around cry for mercy, who needs it?
Level range for Oni Tunnel is 13 - 27 overall. God these level ranges suck. Not that I'd want to grind in this place. If you've seen the images, you'll know why. Actually, you probably won't. You see, the issue with Oni Tunnel isn't readily visible. It's invisible. Namely, the WALLS are invisible. And it's dark. And it's misty.
Fortunately, I found a walkthrough that remedies one of those issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-Fd2u91r3k
The above walkthrough was a big help in mapping, though the lack of walls isn't. You're basically going to have to take caution going through Oni Tunnel, map or otherwise, 'cause it's fairly easy to misstep. Before you even find your first trainer, though, you'll find yourself a Moon Stone smack dab in the middle of your path. Forgot to get a screenshot of this, but it's just getting burried in my pc anyway. With that out of the way, though, let's move on to the jerks that want to keep us from getting out of this assholish cave.
- Go some time without running into one but eventually find a trainer. Hiker Dudley. Dudley leads with LwTenshi. EXHF makes short work of this. Next is LwYukari. She took some time but actually went down fairly easily to EXHF too thanks to Mana Charge. At max special attack, her Leaf Blade just barely 2HKO's her. A new puppet, LwYoumu, is next. I decide to keep out EXHF and turns out she's somehow faster than a LwYoumu
that's more than 10 levels higher than her. Interesting. Woulda figured Youmu to be fast, turns out she's more defensive. EXHF two-shots it with Miracle Wind.
- Another gap, run into Picnicker Martha who leads with a LwSanae. Seem to be running into all LW's in here. Tried taking it down with a Master Spark from Marisa, but did just over half its health. Sanae wasted that turn using Magic Coat, so next turn I switch in Tokiko to take a Leaf Blade and finish it with Aeroblast. LwReimu
was next. Being a flying-type, Marisa gladly takes this one down with Master Spark.
- Almost immediately following that is Hiker Erik, who leads with an F-Meiling that I gladly take out with a Five Elements from Marisa. The next puppet, ExIku, forces me to rebattle this trainer several times as Tenshi comes - as usual - just shy of a OHKO with Earthquake. On top of that, Iku can OHKO Tenshi if she chooses to use Dragon Rage instead of Dragon Drill or Outrage. Yeah, that's three dragon-type attacks. And Outrage has a chance of randomly raising all stats one stage, just like Ancientpower. Tenshi does eventually win though.
After that battle with the ExIku, Tenshi tries to learn Hisou Tensou. A ground-type Hyper Beam, basically. 150 base power, 90 accuracy, but can't attack the turn after using it thus rendering the attack essentially a 75 base power attack that you use two turns in a row. Earthquake has 100 base power. So guess which move you're far better off with.
- Seems to be a ring of trainers because I fight my first LoliManiac next. That... that just sounds wrong. Lolimaniac Cooper has two ExRins and a LwRin. The first ExRin manages to beat Marisa after just, JUST surviving a Master Spark. Rin just made the list of puppets I fucking hate. Between Substitute and Full Restore spam, it takes a while for Tokiko to finish off the ExRins. LwRin beats Tokiko, but Tenshi manages to beat LwRin fairly easily.
- Fight Lolicon Ashton next, and without going back to the pokemon center since I REALLY don't feel like turning back at this point. Then the ExIku comes out. Fuck. Fortunately, I had EXHF as my lead and she manages to buff up with Mana Charge. A crit Dragon Drill nearly ends it from full health but she still manages to pull through. God I'd love to have better potions at times like this. ExUtsuho is next. Scary. Utsuho's special attack, even at EX, is off the charts. But luckily EXHF has a water attack. With 1 PP left. Cutting it close there...
- Final challenge, Picknicker Dana. She leads with F-Alice, a fire/psychic type. F-Puppets are a funny thing, though. See, while they have amazing stats, they only learn one attack of their own via level-up. In F-Alice's case, that's Psychosis. This means that if an F-puppet isn't manually set custom attacks, they only have that one attack. Drakuaza in his infinite wisdom decided to assign F-puppets to trainers without assigning custom moves. So guess what she gets stuck using while EXHF buffs up. Yeah, easy win. LwAya is next so I switch to Kisume. Between burn, Protect, and Aya trying to use Sky Attack, it's another easy win. LwSanae is last, so EXHF goes back out. A long, hard battle ensues as even with her high defenses EXHF still takes a fair bit of damage. At least, enough that Super Potions can only barely keep up. She wins in the end, however.
With that last trainer out of the way, we're officially out of this hellhole.
There's more trainers outside the cave, but for now I just sneak past them and head to Prismriver so I can heal. I'll come back to them later.
Prismriver isn't much different from Lavender town. At all.
First order of business in the new town is the same as in any pokemon game, stop by ye local Pokemon Center. Or Eirin's Center as they're called in this. Second order of business, check out the selection at ye local mart.
Super Potions still? Not cool. Might need more, though, so I buy 14 to give me an even 30. Revives? Sweet! Buying 100 of those suckers. Great Seals? Nice! I'll buy 30 of those for now. And I STILL have over 600,000 whatever-currency left (poke? yen? pokeyen?)
So, still running on Super Potions. But! I'm not too worried about that. There's not much else to do in Prismriver at this point, it's pretty much a brief stop-in before whatever Celadon is. And in Celadon... is the department store. The glorious, glorious department store. It is in Celadon where all my troubles will finally be washed away as the mightiest of tools are bestowed upon me. The AI's overpowered puppets may be impressive but they are nothing compared to the power of a well-stocked inventory.
That would be one of the things about the actual Touhoumon Lunatic that provides a LEGITIMATE challenge. Oh, you have your inventory. But Revives can only be used out of battle.
One more thing to do in Prismriver itself though. Something I've been meaning to do for a while. As you might recall, I haven't been nicknaming my puppets. I just never think of it when I catch them, and it's a pain when I'm hatching them looking for a specific puppet. So time to nickname my puppets!
Not wanting to re-use names for the few puppets I DID name before, I name F-Marisa "Thief". EXHF is now "Accessory". ExSakuya is now "IronMaiden". ExTenshi is now "Terra". ExKisume is now "Palabin". ExTokiko is now Anonymous. That covers our current team for now at least. So with that done, I decide to head south to Route 12 next. This is kinda sequence-breaking, but there's grass here and the trainers are easily avoided. So let's catch stuff!
Route 12 Puppets: Momiji, Aya, cShou (Rock/Electric)
, Tori (Normal/Flying)
, Wriggle, cKeine (Steel)
, Shizuha, cKaguya (Grass/Psychic)
, cNitori, Minoriko, cMitori (Water/Dragon)
Well. Interesting array of new puppets. Yet I'm not particularly interested in any of them. Shou being a UFO character is pretty much instantly disqualified. She's a physical attacker, useable special attack but the rest of her stats hardly bear mentioning. Tori is an... odd thing. It's practically a novelty puppet. It can be used as a Ditto to breed with anything, but so can Kedama. Kedama is a fluff ball we can encounter later.
Keine is an interesting puppet as she has two evolution paths. Her normal one, ExKeine, is Steel/Psychic and is not her werehakutaku form. That would be ExKeine-H, a Steel/Fighting-type. The first is special-oriented, with strong special attack and good special defense. The second is physical, with special attack swapped for attack and special defense for defense. Also, was a bit slow getting cKeine's picture. So it's her nickname page instead of her dex entry.
Kaguya is the only one here I would consider training... if her type didn't suck. Grass/Psychic sucks. She has good special defense though and amazing hp. She could be a Blissey if her hp was a bit higher and if she didn't have fire, ice, and dark-type attacks as special weaknesses.
Lastly, cMitori. And no, you're not reading that wrong. Apparently Mitori is a fan creation meant to be a Phantasm boss for Subteranean Animism. In any other fandom, such an OC would be frowned upon. Yet in the Touhou fandom, which tends to be fairly hostile toward OC's anyway from what I can tell, characters like Mitori and Sasha tend to pop up in fanworks. But fanmade OC Touhous will be the least of our concerns in this hack I'll say. Heck, if her stats were more defesnsively oriented I would totally add a Water/Dragon puppet to my team. Those are some NICE resists there. Oh well.
While on Route 12, I also take the liberty of grabbing up a few items. TM 27, Return
from the girl in the route house. TM 48, Outrage
off the ground. And a hidden Hyper Potion.
Guess which of the above I'm more excited about. Also, this is as far as I go at this point. A turtle blocks our path here.
And you thought Snorlax made a poor roadblock?
Anyway, now that we're done on Route 12 (for now) I decide to go back and quickly fight the remaining trainers. Though, I'm fighting them in order from Prismriver to Oni Tunnel.
- First up is Lolimaniac Herman, who faces me in a double battle with LwSuika and LwYuugi as his only puppets. Even though there's only two of them, I'm... kinda intimidated, actually. And for good reason it seems. Thief, Terra, and Accessory all go down in one hit. Thief manages to hit the Suika with Five Elements at least, leaving her weak enough for Anonymous to finish with Aeroblast. Terra managed to get off a Yawn before going down, leaving Yuugi fast asleep. Yuugi, thanks to using Superpower so much and lowering her defense, goes down to one Aeroblast after. Painful battle...
- Heal up in Prismriver. Face Hiker Clark. Clark has an EA-Cirno
and LwSakuya
. Both go down in one hit from Thief using Flamethrower.
- Face Picnicker Carol next, who has LwAya and LwMystia. The first is beaten by IronMaiden, the second uses Perish Song on IronMaiden so I switch to Palabin. Palabin tanks until LwMystia goes down.
- Final trainer, Hiker Trent. He leads with an F-Meiling that manages to avoid TWO Will-o-Wisps in a row. As a result, Palabin ends up going down. Thief goes in next, proving herself to be the definitive F-Meiling killer at this point. EA-Letty is next and goes down to a Flamethrower.
Phew. Think it's about time to wrap up this installment. But just a few more things first...
For one thing, let's nickname the rest of my current team. ExMedicine is now "Banette". ExLilyB is now "Autumn". ExLilyW is now "Spring". ExChen is now "Salem". ExParsee is now "Green".
And now on to the last part of this installment... I'll challenge one of the trainers on Route 12. As mentioned before, going down this route is breaking sequence. You normally don't go this way until after you've gotten your fourth badge and have retrieved the Pokeflute. But just for curiosity sake, I decide to challenge the first trainer on the route.
I end up battling Battle Rocker Luca. He leads off with... a level 89 ExIku. ExIku. It just had to be ExIku. Salem goes down in one hit after getting off a Mud Shot, which probably wasn't necessary. Shoulda went with Earthquake. Spring goes down to her as well, but Green manages to get off a Voodoo before fainting. Decided this would be a good time to send in Accessory, particularly since I Encored Iku into using Thunder. Accessory manages to power up a fair bit until the curse finally brings Iku down. Luca then brings out... a SECOND ExIku. Don't I just know how to pick 'em? Fortunately, with her boosted stats, Accessory eventually manages to win out. A hard battle is fought, but somehow I've managed to win. I think this should give me a good idea of what to expect against the next gym leader, though.
Incidentally, thought the difference between the levels of wild puppets and the nearby trainers was bad before? Well, on Route 12, the level range is 22 - 28. Barely budged since the second gym. Thank god for VsSeeker.
