Every part of me is sore. I've been bitten repeatedly on top of bumping into non-existant walls. The worst was the first time I spotted the exit. I made a mad dash straight into a wall and really hurt myself...
Somehow, I'm still alive...
Well, hey! Glad to know we didn't leave our avatar behind! Poor Renko, though. Those dungeons are even worse from an ic-perspective.
Anyway, now that we're all finished up in Prismriver, time to get out of here. Route 8 is our next destination. We'll just be passing through quickly before arriving in Celadon.
Route 8 Pup...Oh, what the hell!?
First off, good luck finding a round or fluffy puppet. Second, you're in my way. Salem handles Lass Julia's first puppet, ExTewi, with Earthquake but is left in the red. Her second puppet, A-Tewi, survives despite being a steel-type and KO's Salem. Thief finishes it with Flamethrower. Take note, neither of those puppets were round. Or fluffy. And I don't think I'd call A-Tewi cute.
Anyone else wanna interrupt? Well? No? Good, now I can introduce Route 8's puppets.
Route 8 Puppets: Mystia, Chen, Nazrin, cMeiling, Momiji, cNue (Poison/Flying)
. Aside from the chibi Nue, not much here of interest. And not much to say about her, either. One note about Nazrin, though. She's essentially our first wild EX puppet at this point. The level range is a bit better here, too. On the low end we see levels 15, 18, and 19 rather rarely. The range is 15 to 30. But typically it will be 26 - 30. Which is actually better than Route 12 was...
Anyway, since the rest of the trainers on this route were kind enough to wait for me to cover the wild puppets, let's kick their asses now.
- Fight Gambler Rich first, who has a LwSatori. Switch to Green and have her put a curse on it, then switch to EXHF to have her power up with Mana Charge. His next puppet is an A-Chen, apparently not the fastest puppet around since EXHF manages to outspeed it and 1HKO with Leaf Blade.
- Next is Lass Paige, who has LwReisen and LwEirin
. The first was a pain thanks to her high level and Psychosis, which actually managed to take out Spring. Need. Better. Potions. Didn't help that she decided to combo Psychosis with Psych Up, negating the lowered stats. Eventually got Banette in after three Psychosis in a row, planted a Leech Seed, then brought Thief in to finish with a Master Spark. Banette and Thief pretty much repeat the process with Eirin.
- Super Geek Glenn informs me that you need strategy to win at puppet battles. I'm already well aware of this, thank you. His first puppet is ExKeine-H, which is beaten by Salem but only barely. She survives a Cross Chop with 3 hp. LwNitori is next, and Banette is better prepared for THESE now. It barely puts up a fight thanks to Giga Drain and Leech Seed. Finally, LwMima. I keep Banette to Leech Seed her before switching to Spring. It was a long battle since Spring lacked any way to really harm Mima, so she had to rely on Leech Seed drain.
- Twins Eli and Anne. Double Battle. Sigh. Well, actually, ends up being not too bad thanks to Artificial Stupidity. They waste the first turn both using Synthesis, giving me a chance to work out how Salem and Anonymous should approach this. Next turn, my puppets double team ExMinoriko and take her out. ExShizuha uses Twister, which ends up doing piddly damage even from a level 78 puppet. Next turn, Salem and Anonymous finish her.
- Next up is Super Geek... Murasa?
Name says Leslie, picture says Murasa. Puppet says ExKoakuma. Level 80 ExKoakuma, her only puppet. Level 80 or not, though, one Master Spark and it's endgame.
- Lass Andrea next. LwChen, Exchen, and A-Chen. The first two had Soar, a flying-type attack which Banette is weak too. It made no difference. The LwChen could take about 3/4ths of Banette's health with one Soar, but didn't use it until the turn she went down. ExChen only did about half her hp and still barely made use of it. A-Chen, if it knew Soar, didn't use it. Though the Chens tried to get revenge, Banette's position as the team's Chen killer remains intact.
- Run into Biker Jaren next, my first Biker. He leads with an ExHina, which Salem takes down in one hit thanks to a crit. Hard to say whether or not the crit was necessary. ExMedicine was next, and my Chen won't make the same mistake. Anonymous takes this one.
- I cringed a bit when I encountered Lass Megan and five pokeballs popped on screen. Then it turned out to be a double battle. I cried a little. A-Ran. LwMystia. LwAya. LwCirno. ExMinoriko. Fortunately, you'll notice a lot of Thief-weaks there. Thief basically owned this battle while A-Ran mostly either killed my other puppets or healed. This was the end result.
- After that tough battle comes Biker Carlos. He leads with ExMedicine, so Salem quickly switches out for Thief to take her down with Flamethrower. ExYamame is next, so I switch to Anonymous. Despite being level 80, Anonymous manages to get her into the red with one Aeroblast. Because she's level 80, she OHKO's in return with Rock Slide. Swear I'm cursed. Banette, by comparison, didn't care about any of Yamame's attacks and wore her down eventually. Last puppet is ExHina. Turns out, Salem's Earthquake doesn't quite OHKO. However, with no Full Restores left, and a turn wasted using Toxic, it didn't matter.
- Super Geek Aidan has four puppets. Oh please god no... and it is. It's a double battle. Fuck. And all his puppets are level 80. Most of my puppets are almost 20 levels behind at this point. Starting to think some more grinding is in order. Aidan leads with Shou and ExTokiko. Interestingly though, after the first three of those puppets are in the red and my Anonymous is fainted. Aidan ends up using two Full Restores next turn. Half his inventory gone. Both Aidan's puppets then go down to Earthquake and Thunderbolt respectively. He then sends out EA-Reisen and... H-KIRISAME!?
Let me explain H-Kirisame for a moment. Remember at the start when I mentioned the AI having overpowered puppets with base stat totals over 1000? H-Kirisame is one of those puppets. Electric type, Levitate, 140 base hp, 100 base attack, 120 base defense, 230 base special attack, 210 base special defense, 210 base speed.
I make quick work of the EA-Reisen, eliminating THAT distraction while I deal with the rather huge threat now placed before me. Thief somehow manages to survive a Five Elements from the blasted thing, landing in the red, and Green manages to survive that same attack quite easily to put a curse on her with voodoo. It wastes one turn using Thunder Wave and ends up at less than 1/4 hp remaining thanks to Green using Envy. A Full Restore gets used. Palabin comes out, who can help stall this with Protect. Before long, the H-Kirisame goes down. Yeesh. I don't think even the next gym leader has anything that tough. Glad I switched out Spring for Green when I did. Totally didn't see anything like THAT coming this early in the game. Incidentally, Spring hasn't been very useful in spite of her defenses...
- One more trainer. Gambler Stan. Has a LwSatori, which Green takes on easily. Said Satori is level 82 and Green is still level 60. After what I just faced, I'm not worrying too much about a level gap at this point. LwYuugi, level 80. Okay, that's a bit scary. I leave Green in hoping it'll rely on fighting attacks just to have it knock her out with Steel Fist. Anonymous comes in next and manages to take Yuugi out while she's using Bulk Up. Last puppet was an ExYamame, which I keep Anonymous in for. This one goes for Poison Bomb instead of Rock Slide, which Anonymous survives to 2HKO with Aeroblast.
With Route 8 now cleared, we can access the Underground Tunnel. How convenient that these tunnels exist at the only points in the game where the presence of a blockade impedes your progress. On the other side of the tunnel, we arrive in... well, Route 7, but it might as well be Celadon since the route basically exists solely as an exit point for the Saffron City route house and the Underground Tunnel. There IS a patch of grass though.
Route 7 Puppets: Mystia, Chen, Momiji, cMeiling, Hanyu (Ghost/Normal)
. Odd. I don't remember anyone named Hanyu being in Touhou. To Google! ... Google's first page of results is mostly just referring to the Chinese language and I believe one famous Chinese individual. Well now I'm just baffled. Worse, her catch rate as as low as the likes of Kyogre or Mewtwo. And she's rare. And she's rather low level. My puppets don't even sneeze to knock her out at this point. In fact, the above battle was actually interrupted by the grim reaper showing up and informing the wild Hanyu that it would save her time to just go with him now.
Anyway, I'll come back and actually catch one of those damn Hanyu things when I have better seals.
30 Great Seals flushed down the drain. Oh, yes, and the level range is 5 to 32. The rare Hanyuu kinda throws it off, appearing at levels 5-10. cMeiling appears fairly rarely at levels 19-20 and the rest of the puppets, all evolved, are level 27 to 32. Getting up there but still too far behind to make leveling against wild puppets even worth it. And I'm sure I'll run into level 100 puppets trying to rematch the nearby trainers. Heck, even back near Ice Lake I could encounter trainers with level 80+ puppets in rematches!
So, let's finally enter the next city. Replacing Celadon City is... Hakugyokurou! Bet we face Yuyuko as the gym leader. Isn't it interesting how the local gym leader will not only be someone who will use the same type of puppets as their pokemon counterpart, but the city itself is suddenly their home location? Incidentally, there's an island with a mansion and a fire-type gym leader in pokemon. Just throwing that out there.
Upon entering the city I, strangely enough, encounter this.
I try talking to her to see what the hell is up and the game froze. Good thing I had the foresight to expect a game freeze and saved beforehand. Glitch! Yay!
But to hell with glitches or random non-touhou puppets! We're here! Finally here! Hell, screw the pokemon center even! We're going straight to the Department Store!
First floor! We find some interesting TM's here. Roar, Lunatic, Dig, Brick Break, Poison Claw, Morning Sun. Morning Sun is a decent grass-type attack that some non-grass puppets can learn, kinda akin to Energy Ball from the fourth gen and on. The rest are practically a waste of money except for maybe Brick Break. If you don't have a better fighting-type attack then Brick Break is decent at least. Just have to keep in mind that a super effective Brick Break has an effective power of 150 (2x 75) whereas a base 100 power attack that gets a same-type attack bonus... ALSO has a base power of 150. So it's no better than a neutral hit from a powerful STAB move if such is a viable option.
Also on the first floor is the shopkeeper from whom I expected to purchase something better than super potions, as this guy is your typical item shop guy. Instead, he carries super potions. Lame.
Second floor! There's nothing here. You can learn Counter once here in the actual pokemon games but that tutor was removed in this hack.
Third floor is where you buy evolution stones. Fire Stone, Water Stone, Leaf Stone, Thunder Stone. Most puppets will evolve by level, Moon Stone, or Sun Stone anyway. I might end up using a Fire Stone though as one puppet has caught my interest that evolves with one. Not even a fire-type, strangely enough...
Fourth floor, vitamins. They basically give 10 ev's in one stat to a max of 100. Also, battle items. Hell yeah. Buy 99 of each. Kinda disappointed that there's no item to boost special defense in-battle. Battle items like EX Power raise one stat in battle by one stage. Useless, you say? Just teach them Swords Dance/Mana Charge/whatever, you say? I say, why give up the moveslot when I have a better option in my inventory for free? Oh, sure, it only raises a stat one stage instead of two, but they can raise ANY stat (except special defense) with PRIORITY. What that means is you can actually raise a puppet's defense before it would even take a hit, guarantee. In fact, there are no attacks that will move faster than using an item. It's part of the reason why items are so damn broken in these games. Got a puppet in the red? Going to finish it with Quick Attack? No you're not! The trainer used a Full Restore!
Incidentally, the AI IS prone to Cherry Tapping.
On the roof, get some TM's from the little girl here and buy a bunch of drinks. Kinda dissapointed that Lemonade is still the best I can get at this point. Coulda sworn I could buy better potions here. Then again, Super Potions and drinks probably qualify in most pokemon games. In this one? I'd like some Hyper Potions, please. Even my lower-hp puppets are getting close to 200 hp now...
Well, just about time to wrap this up, but I just want to check one more thing out. In the pokemon games you can get a free puppet in Celadon on the roof of some building. In the pokemon games, it's an Eevee. In most touhoumon games it's a Reisen. Not that Reisen. The other Reisen. You know, the one on the moon and probably really really unhappy with her current position in life, moreso than the rest of the moon rabbits who are apparently all unwilling slaves to the Lunarians? She was in Silent Sinner in Blue. You'll probably recall how unhappy all the moon rabbits in that manga were. You remember that part from that manga, right? The part where they were all shown to be slaves?
Probably not because it didn't happen in Silent Sinner in Blue and the rabbits, like the moon princesses themselves, were usually seen either smiling or wearing a smug grin on their face. Kinda like they weren't slaves at all.
I have a terrible habit of going off on these tangents don't I? Needless to say my opinion of S Si B is rather low.
Anyway, let's check out this place and see... Oh, Crap!. It's him.
And he's standing between me and a free puppet.
Standing between me and a free puppet? I don't think so!
...
All his puppets are Last Word now and around level 85. Of course, I've been facing nothing but Last Word puppets lately. But I still lose because a battle like this requires just a little more planning than I put into it. I say just a little more because in spite of everything I still beat 4/6 of his puppets. And as you can see above, a 5th puppet was rather low on health.
With all that said though... I think it's about time I got a bit caught up in levels. I keep running into powerful puppets or puppets around 20 or more levels higher than mine. But I've managed to do pretty well with those odds. So I think I'll be getting my puppets to a point where "20" is the maximum level these things CAN be above me.
Incidentally, Revives apparently ARE disabled in-battle in this hack. This surprised me for reasons I may get to into a later installment.
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