They say that, to hide a tree, you use a forest. If that's the case, then how does one hide a forest?
Apparently, you hide it under a Game Corner.
Team Rocket has a hidden forest under there, it seems. One that's inexplicably dark and stormy and at one point features my old nemesis the invisible wall again. Perhaps they're the ones to blame for the invisible walls in Oni Tunnel. I'd question their motive for doing so, but nothing they do is making any sense...
Something about the world being rotten, didn't catch much more than that while I was busy taking out my frustration on them.
Some interesting new puppets have joined our party now.
Firstly, there's that 'M'
I caught. It had a brave nature, which is +atk and that's all I care about. Attack score is immense and its ability is easily abused against the not-so-strategically-inclined AI. Nicknamed it Ghost. I apologize for any bad memories that stirs, but it won't be cursing anyone at least. If you don't get the reference, don't worry about it. Probably shouldn't click that trope link either.
Neko-Chen.
It's Chen, in cat form. Might seem silly, and it doesn't even hit 500 base stat total, but it's a far scarier puppet than most Last Words. Not that I find THEM difficult to face anymore. Base 200 speed, 110 attack, and Oni Power. See that attack score? Neko-Chen's actual attack score is DOUBLE that. Only downside is that it's incredibly frail, but with speed like that and an added ghost type, who cares? The only priority move she even needs to worry about is Blade Flash, a steel-type attack, but I don't think any puppets know that at this point in the game. It's too weak an attack for Drakuaza to give it to any puppets with custom movesets. Salem served me well, but she might be getting replaced...
Finally, Remilia.
Had a number of natures in mind for this one, basically any that
raise speed without hurting her special attack, but I ended up with Timid. Also, she's a he. And the only male puppet in my party for that matter. She has a wide variety of special attacks thanks to another male Tewi I picked up and taught a bunch of attacks to. She knows Shock Wave, Crunch, Flamethrower, and Outrage. Also, she has intimidate for an ability, something potentially very useful for defanging physical attackers. Switch in to lower attack, then switch to something else to take the hit. Nicknamed him Remirio which simulanteously sounds like a male Remilia and Engrish.
Alright! Now that our new puppets are ready, two of which I'll include in my team for this run (but not the Chen), let's go and challenge the next gym!
- Enter the Hakugyokurou gym and run into my first trainer, Aroma Lady Kay. She had an F-Yuka and ExSanae. Queen took care of both. Incidentally, and I could be wrong about this, but aren't the Aroma Ladies a trainer class that only shows up in Hoenn?
- Next is... Hex Maniac Bridget?
Ok, I don't quite remember Aroma Ladies being part of this gym, but I KNOW there were no Hex Maniacs here. Oh, nice. Double Battle. She has an ExLyrica and ExMerlin. Well, given the gym leader I suppose this actually makes sense. Still, double battle. These suck. Switch to Remirio and Anonymous to take out the ghosts. ExLunasa and ExYuyuko come out next. Lunasa ends up the sole survivor and takes down Remirio, but is easily KO'd by Thief who takes her... his place.
- Battle Beauty... err... BITCH Tamia!?
Seriously, Bitch!? The hell? Ugh. She leads with a LwYuka that manages to... well, really, Queen defeated herself thanks to a missed Wriggle Kick. Given my recent run of trouble with Master Spark, you'd think I'd know better than to use an attack that hurts her when it misses. End up taking it out with Anonymous instead. F-Yuka comes out next, which Green handles. F-Yuka is basically a super-defensive version of Yuka, meaning an easy target for Green. Renaming the "Beauty" trainer class "Bitch"... real mature there, Drakuaza.
- Picnicker Tina is next. She leads with an EXHF that tries my pattented "Mana Charge EXHF wins" strategy, forgetting that EXHF normally doesn't do too well on the physical defense side of things. Queen beats her up. She follows up with ExMima. Since Queen got a boost using Nightbug FM, I keep her out and beat up Mima while she's using Doom Desire.
- Cooltrainer Mary is next and this one is another double battle. She leads with LwMystia and F-Yuka. Queen one-shots F-Yuka with Wriggle Kick and narrowly survives an Aeroblast from Mystia. IronMaiden freezes Mystia with Luna Dial. LwYuka comes out for Queen to one-shot as well, only to miss with Wriggle Kick this time and finish herself off. I'm making a note here, Wriggle Kick fucking sucks. Meanwhile, LwYuka nearly oneshots IronMaiden with Flamethrower. Did NOT see that coming. Anonymous comes out and beats the Yuka with Aeroblast. Then Toyohime comes out, a puppet that's flat-out broken even compared to the other puppets you can get in this game. 665 BST and every move it learns is sketch. It's pretty much the same in the regular Touhoumon games, though, where it's FAR more broken. Toyohime manages to survive an Aeroblast from Anonymous and takes out IronMaiden, but now I can freely switch in Thief. Thief one-shots Mystia, who spent most of this battle frozen, with Master Spark. Then Yorihime, the other broken puppet, comes out. She's in the same boat as Toyohime basically. Anonymous and Thief tag team Toyohime, taking her down before she can attack again. Thief takes an Ice Beam from Yorihime and next turn they repeat Toyohime's beatdown on her, winning the battle.
- After beating that pain, Lass Lisa is next. For standing right next to the gym leader, she's easy. Has an ExKanako and LwSanae. Queen gets pretty lucky here, taking out the Kanako with Wriggle Kick and then landing a crit Nightbug FM to oneshot the Sanae. Won't hear me complain.
- Battle the other trainer next to the gym leader, Beauty Lori, whose sole puppet is a LwEirin. Green puts a curse on her before fainting, then Thief finishes it off.
Now, finally, the gym leader. Looking at her team, I figured I'd need four puppets. Thief to take down the two steel/ghost puppets, Queen for the Yuka, Green for the F-Yuyuko, and Anonymous for the Last Word and A-Yuyuoko's.
Battling gym leader Yuyuko. Face it, you saw this coming. When you think Yuyuko, you think of two things: flowers and ghosts.
Youki has good attack and I think defense, but is still a steel-type. LwYoumu is the same, only moreso. They both go down to a Flamethrower from Thief quite handily. Surprisinly, only one of Youmu's forms has a high speed stat (relative to other stats at least) Granted, Youmu's famed speed is likely just how fast she can swing her sword around anyway. Though that doesn't explain why Youmu's forms tend to have decent defense instead. Just seems a bit weird to me for an unarmored swordswoman to have high defense. Then again, she's not exactly human...
F-Yuyuko, being a hyper-defensive puppet with leftovers, takes a bit of effort to defeat. Green takes care of the job eventually. Hate leftovers, though. Wonder if it'd be worthwhile to replace her Maniac Laugh attack with Steal. This part of the battle takes up about half the video I think.
Finally, against LwYuka, the star of this battle hits the field. Queen. Ironically I thought her stats looked a bit low-ish for her level when I finished raising her previously, but she proves me wrong in this battle by kicking ass with Nightbug FM. She OHKO's LwYuka with it, then 2HKO's LwYuyuko, getting stat boosts each time. It nearly OHKO's A-Yuyuko, failing to get a boost, but at this point I decide to rick a Wriggle Kick after making an idiot of myself with Brick Break.
And that's it, game set and match! Beat Yuyuko, got the badge, got the Giga Drain TM, and now we're ready to go check out the tower in Prismriver.
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