I was too late for the party on board the S.S. Titan it seems. I don't think a fancy party really suits me anyway. I did fight a lot of the passengers, though, including Karen. She was incredibly tough this time around as she had a whole team of Last Word puppets, but somehow my puppets were able to pull through. Karen was saying something though... was she trying to say this place isn't really Gensokyo? I suspected as much but, then, where am I?
I seem to be getting answers now at least, and I think I'm ready to face the gym leader of Dragon Palace. I'm not sure if fighting gym leaders is really what I need to do, but I feel like I'm going down the right path at least...
Before challenging the next gym leader, I decide to prepare up a bit and ready two more puppets for the battle ahead and a third one just because I already had her lying around.
- Breed my old ExTenshi with that male cKotohime I caught, which knows Yawn. It's something at least. Focused on attack and hp with her. Both her defenses are good, hp is fairly average, and I definitely want her having a high attack score. Kept Rock Tomb this time for similar reasons to why I kept Mud Shot on Chen, but it might not be as useful for Tenshi. Can be overwritten with a TM later if I find something interesting for her. Rock and Ground provides pretty nice coverage anyway, so she'll likely be fine with Rock Slide and Earthquake. Stats here.
- Was able to breed and evolve a fairy to get a Daiyousei which I raised with a focus on hp and defense. There's an excellent debuff move I want to teach her later. For now, she's fairly tankish grass-type with strong special attack. She's an EXHF now, whatever that's supposed to mean, and knows Leaf Blade, Safeguard, Mana Charge, and Miracle Wind. Her only truly bad stat is attack, so she's pretty awesome all-around. Especially with the buffed defense. Stats here.
- Raise my final fairy next, just because it's the last puppet I've bred but not trained. Joins the team as Ex Lily White. Knows White Wings, Hyper Voice, Swift, and Encore. Very, very defensive. See for yourself.
Wish she had a better set of support moves, but at least she has Encore. With that I'd be able to send her in, let her draw out an attack from the opponent and use Encore. Once I've guaranteed my opponent will be using a certain attack for a while it becomes much easier to switch into.
With three puppets raised and ready for battle, it's finally time to challenge the gym. Here's the picture of the gym that I couldn't get before.
◊ I don't get this redesign. Is it supposed to look more like a palace? Because it doesn't.
The inside of the gym, however, is EXACTLY the same as Surge's. I forgot to get a screenshot, but basically there's a bunch of trash cans, three trainers, and a door. The switches to open said door appear randomly in the trash cans somehow. I won't even ask how that works. Apparently though, back in the days of R/B/Y, something like this constituted a puzzle. Even though there's no actual thinking involved. Check every trash can until you find the first switch randomly placed in one of them, then the second switch will suddenly be in a random adjacent trash can. It's as much of a puzzle as being told to roll a d20 and d4 die until both come up as 1. If any DM actually told their players to do that in a game he could probably expect to have a book thrown at him. I'd use the heaviest throwable object available myself.
I probably shouldn't bash anything in the old pokemon games, though. Otherwise I might get jumped by a legion of fanboys still proclaiming R/B/Y to be the best.
Anyway, enough about the gym's non-puzzle. Let's beat up those trainers now.
- Sailor Dwayne is up first. He has an ExLunachild and ExMarisa, both one-shotted with Earthquake from Chen and Tenshi respectively. Well that was easy.
- Engineer Baily has an ExKanako, which Medicine took down, and an ExLunachild, which Tenshi took down. Neither broke a sweat.
- Final trainer, Gentleman Tucker. Only puppet is LwMarisa. Chen takes a Mist Ball from her, don't got a damn clue why she knew that, and one-shots her with Earthquake.
Now for those trash cans. Thanks to the magic of emulators, we can cut out a lot of time on this non-puzzle. Find the first trash can with a switch, then make a save state. Try one adjacent trash can. Was there a switch there? If yes, go beat up the gym leader now. If no, reload from the save state and try again. This didn't end up being necessary for me as I actually managed to find the second switch on my first try, but it would have greatly reduced the amount of time wasted checking trash can after trash can if it had come to it.
Now it's finally time to face the third gym leader, Iku, whose speech largely resembles Lt. Surge's for some reason. This is making it hard for me not to imagine her speaking in Lt. Surge's voice now. Given how relatively-easy the battle with Cirno went, will Iku fair any better?
This battle was ridiculously easy! Even moreso than I thought it would be! At first I figured I'd need four puppets - Chen, Tenshi, EXHF, and Medicine - to take Iku on. EXHF would handle LwNitori, Medicine would handle LwKanako, Chen would handle ExLunachild and ExIku, and Tenshi would handle the F-Marisa and Kirisame.
Instead, Chen just takes down the Lunachild and EXHF powers up against LwNitori and just sweeps. If Nitori just had an ice-type attack this may have turned out differently, but no. Nitori's only offensive attacks are Thunder and Surf. In fact, Iku's puppets are VERY reliant on offensive electric attacks to the point where ExLunachild ONLY has Thunder to attack with. I think she was supposed to use some strategy with Storm, taking advantage of the increased accuracy Thunder gets from it and the boost in power to water-type attacks, but it fails utterly and completely. By the time F-Marisa hit the field to try to beat EXHF with fire-type attacks, EXHF's special defense was so high she simply didn't care. The rain Nitori caused helped too.
The only reason this battle ends up so drawn out at all is because two of Iku's more defense puppets, ExIku and LwKanako, both resist grass-type attacks. Kirisame resists them as well, but she still goes down pretty easily as she simply doesn't have the defenses. And Miracle Wind, in spite of the name, is a water-type attack. So F-Marisa just ate that and went down in one shot. It's also got the same 10% chance of raising all stats that Ancientpower does, which increases to a 20% chance thanks to EXHF's ability. The speed boost was nice but that was about it.
And that's pretty much it, really. EXHF wins it all without really breaking a sweat. Badge obtained and I decide to start on my merry little way toward the Rock Tunnel. On a final note, here's
a picture of the gym leader Iku's sprite. Kinda... ugly, really. Between the dialogue and the ugly sprite, I wonder if this Iku isn't really just Lt.Surge in disguise?
I didn't get a screenshot of this, but on the way out of Dragon Palace one of Oak's aides shows up to remind you to check out Route 2 to get Flash. I think this is a bigger one of the many reasons I didn't like the R/B/Y remakes, Fire Red and Leaf Green, so much. They took Forced Tutorial to brand new, stupefying heights. I didn't cover this, but the old man in Viridian City (I can't even remember what it was called in this hack) is probably the biggest offender. When you pass by him for the first time, you get forced into a pokemon catching tutorial. A pokemon catching tutorial that was optional in the original games. Even a complete newbie to the games likely would have caught more pokemon by that point to begin with! IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO FIGURE OUT AND THE TUTORIAL ISN'T EVEN HELPFUL!
An better tutorial would be more like the one in R/S/E, where Wally weakens the wild Ralts before catching it. At least then new players would realize that beating up the pokemon first makes it easier to catch. They probably still would have caught a pokemon by then, having already figured out that you use POKEBALLS to catch POKEMON, but at least this would eliminate the very real possibility that they just threw a pokeball at it and hoped for the best. Early game pokemon are easily caught anyway. Pokemon isn't a hard game to figure out, though. Hell, when I was a kid, I figured out type alignments in pokemon by attacking until something worked. A mentality I often keep this very day if I'm playing a hack with an altered type chart like this one simply because I can't be bothered to check.
Why did I go off on this tangent anyway? What I really wanted to say was that this guy can just shut up because I need Surf before I can get Flash anyway. Already covered this.
At this point, it's time to backtrack to Ice Lake so I can cut down that insurmountable waist high tree and move on to Route 9. The image on that trope page is all too true. But first, I decide to train up two more puppets and bring two old favorites back to the team.
- Firstly, I finally breed a new Marisa. This one is timid, +spd/-atk. I'm having trouble picturing Marisa being timid but this is fine beacuse she's just a puppet. Level her up until she learns a certain move and then finally evolve her all the way to F-Marisa by using a Sun Stone on her EX form. F-Marisa actually only has a 600 BST total, so I decided I would use her. She has higher speed than EX, Levitate, MUCH higher special attack, but lacking in the physical department both defensively and offensively. Pumped her speed and special attack. With her new movepool, she'll just wreck stuff. She takes a LOT of experience to level up, though. New Marisa here.
When I get to "Lavender", I'll start nicknaming my puppets again. I never really think to give them names when I catch them and it's a pain to do so when you're breeding for specific natures.
- Speaking of breeding pains, was looking for a Relaxed or Bold cKisume next. I must have bred a hundred of the damn things without seeing EITHER nature. Eventually got a relaxed Kisume knowing Flamethrower courtesy of her cPatchouli father. That same cPatchouli resulted in the Marisa above knowing Five Elements and Flamethrower, by the way. Anyway, pumped up Kisume's defense and hp to make her even MORE tankish. With Will-o-Wisp still in her arsenal, she'll shut down any physical attacker not packing Earthquake. I think most physical attackers end up packing Earthquake later, though. Even if they can't normally learn it. Sigh. Here's her stats.
After re-arranging my team a bit, teaching ExSakuya Cut (doubt she'll need something like Double Kick anytime soon), and then getting rid of that stupid tree, it's time to continue on my way to Route 9.
Route 9 Puppets: cSara (Fighting)
, Momiji, cTokiko, cHatate (Psychic/Flying)
, Aya, Tokiko, cYuki (Fire)
, Sara (Fighting). Level range is 16 - 27. Since those cSara's, the most commong puppet in this route, are the level 16's, you'll run into level 16's a lot. Route 9 is, in this game at least, rather straight forward. Which is rather ironic considering how convoluted the original Route 9 was. Ledges everywhere and lots of backtracking and running around to battle all the trainers. In this game, there's a hill.
And that's about it.
Sara is an interesting puppet. Her physical attack, even in Ex form, is pretty "meh" for a fighting-type at a mere base 90. However, her hp and defense are both VERY high to the point where she'll easily make a better physical wall than ExKisume. I'll likely breed and train one up later.
Hatate is an interesting puppet. She has good speed and special attack. No EX form, but her normal form is as strong as an EX anyway. I guess Drakuaza just couldn't get an ExHatate picture? Stats aren't too bad all around actually and she gets Tailwind, a technique which replaced Dragon Dance as the +1 atk/spd buff technique. Might raise one. She gets an interesting support option in Smile, at least. Smile lowers the target's attack two stages, easily crippling any physical attacker. If only her special movepool was better...
Yuki is an interesting puppet. She has good speed, special defense, and special attack. Now if only she wasn't so focused on fire-type attacks. She can learn Outrage, a dragon-type attack that'd work well for her. Still, don't think I'll raise this one. Her rarity is kinda ironic, actually, considering what we'll see in Route 10...
But before we get to Route 10, we need to get through Route 9. Which means getting through the trainers on Route 9. So let's get through the trainers on Route 9.
- First up is Hiker Jeremy. He has an EA-Meiling and EA-Letty. The Letty goes down in one hit from ExKisume's Flamethrower, being steel and ice. Meiling, however, took a while. Three Full Restores later she finally went down.
- Battle Picknicker Alicia next. She has an ExMedicine, ExSanae, ExShizuha, and ExMinoriko. The first three go down in one Aeroblast each. ExMinoriko took two hits, just barely surviving an Aeroblast with a sliver of health left somehow.
- Camper Drew tells me he's taking Oni Tunnel to Prismriver. Rock Tunnel and Lavender respectively. We battle, and it's a Double Battle. My favorite. He leads with ExRumia and ExMomiji. Marisa takes out Momiji with her new move, Master Spark. 140 base power electric attack but lowers special attack 2 stages after use. Sakuya goes down to a Superpower from Rumia and after a second Master Spark, which fails to KO Rinnosuke, I switch out Marisa for Tokiko. Tenshi takes Sakuya's place. Tokiko finishes Rumia with Aeroblast and F-Yuka, a defensive version of Yuka, takes her place. Rinnosuke goes down to two Aeroblasts from Tokiko, who is taken down by Yuka, but Marisa takes her down with Flamethrower. Geez. Glad these battles are rare. Double battles are innately harder than single battles since it's harder to play types to your advantage.
- Bug Catcher Brent is blocking the only tile I can walk through to get off this hill, so I guess I'm battling him. Despite being a Bug Catcher, he has a Byakuren and a Last Word Shikieiki. Sakuya takes down the first, F-Marisa takes down the Shiki in almost a single Flamethrower. A lucky burn seals the deal.
- And then at the bottom of the stairs, Camper Christ with an ExRumia and ExMarisa. Sakuya manages to take on the first, Tenshi the second. Incidentally... why do the hills always have stairs in Pokemon? Seriously, anywhere you go in Pokemon games there will always be stairs on any incline!
- Bug Catcher Conner attacks me with his SUPER LOLIS! ExYamame! ExWriggle! ExMinoriko! Kisume, Sakuya, and Marisa beat them respectively. They weren't very super at all...
Find a hidden Moon Stone
after battling the above trainer. Joy. Burying this in my PC.
- Few more trainers left. Hiker Alan is next with an EA-Letty and F-Meiling. Kisume took down the first one and I VERY much enjoyed one-shotting the second with Five Elements, a psychic-type attack that Marisa knows now.
- Picknicker Caitlin, the next trainer I battled, had only one puppet. A Lw Rin. Level 72. Not very threatening at this point, but it almost takes out Tenshi with Shadow Ball thanks to a lucky crit. Tenshi returns the favor with Rock Slide, landing a crit in return. Actually meant to use Rock Tomb to slow her down but misclicked. Definitely not going to knock the results though.
- Finally, Hiker Brice. He leads with LwSuika, who manages to be a pain. Dynamicpunch, which confuses my EXHF, then she gets a power boost from Ancientpower. EXHF just barely hangs on after all this and takes her out with Leaf Blade after getting off one Mana Charge. LwYuugi is next and ALMOST goes down to a Leaf Blade. ARGH! No matter what version, hack or otherwise, in pokemon games my attacks will leave my opponents in the red with rather annoying frequency. This is usually followed by said pokemon 1-shotting mine. If you've been paying attention to some of my battle descriptions/videos, you've probably noticed this disturbing trend actually. So annoying.
Marisa gets similar results with Five Elements, only without the KO'd-in-return part as Brice keeps using Full Restores instead to rub salt in the wound. Fuck you, Brice. Finally, LwSuwako after Marisa finally takes down Yuugi. Being ground/water and thus 4x weak to grass attacks this battle would have belonged to EXHF if not for Suika and Yuugi's shenanigans. Fortunately, all Brice's Full Restores were used up on Yuugi. So a burn from Kisume works quite nicely now. She takes down Kisume, but Tokiko manages to finish her off.
With all the trainers on Route 9 beaten I'm free to move on to Route 10. There's another trainer here, but fortunately I seem to be able to avoid her field of vision to get to the pokemon center on this route and heal up. Inside the pokemon center, I get an Everstone.
This item, when held, will keep a puppet from evolving. Good if there's a certain move you want it to learn first. Though, you'll probably be trying to choose between this and the Demon Egg or the Oni Bracer, which doubles the effort values received. So you still might not end up using it. Anyway, as for Route 10...
Route 10's Puppets: cAya, cTokiko, Aya, Momiji, Tokiko, cShinki (Dark/Psychic)
, Cirno, and cCirno. Level range is 14 to 24. Incidentally, seems Cirno missed her route. As for the route itself, hasn't really changed much. Still basically just a pokemon center situated just before entering Oni/Rock Tunnel with a river leading to the Power Plant you can visit later.
You read that right, by the way. cShinki, Goddess of Makai, just appears randomly on this route. And she's more common than cYuki from the previous route. She doesn't have any bad stats and has very nice special attack. Not bad at all. Crippling weakness to bug-type attacks, however. Dunno if I'll use her.
Anyway, just one thing left to do now before we enter Oni Tunnel: Battle that one trainer. Picknicker Heidi. She has a LwReisen and an A-Tewi. LwReisen manages to be a huge pain thanks to knowing Psych Up, catching my EXHF off guard while she was powering up. Psych Up is a technique that copies the opponent's stat increases. She takes down EXHF, ExTokiko, and ExTenshi before I just Master Spark the hell out of her with Marisa. A-Tewi just goes down to Kisume without much of a struggle. With Heidi out of the way...
Here's Oni Tunnel.
Yeah, this should be expected by this point. Especially since Rock Tunnel is the only tunnel you originally needed Flash for. Not that I have it. Nor would it do any good, as you'll see in the next installment...
I was able to beat Iku pretty easily with one of my newest puppets. I think things are finally starting to look up for me!
Oh you poor, poor, optimistic fool...
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