Huh, I didn't know that about Escape Orbs. That would have been nice to know the first time around.
In unrelated news, my Machamp starter now has a higher Special Attack than Attack. The power of uncapped vitamin consumption~!
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
For the first time, I have finally cleared the ultimate dungeon, Purity Forest.
And what powerful behemoth of a Pokemon accomplished this herculean task? Why, none other than... Ariados?
Thing's a beast in reset dungeons, it starts out with Swords Dance and Fell Stinger and levels up fast.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
I was watching my roommate play through this and it made me realize why everyone perceives this games as being really dark.
It starts out really, really kiddy. Like Sesame Street or Blue's Clues tier kiddy. Bad guys named Team Meanies who are about as effectual as their name would suggest and happy fun times for all.
And then out of nowhere you and your carefree little partner are fugitives being chased by a lynch mob that wants you dead, you're exiled from town, and you're locked out of the rest of your party for a long time. It's not necessarily that the game is dark, it's that it's got a bizarrely uneven tone throughout.
Edited by Hashil on Mar 21st 2020 at 12:01:50 PM
The King Without a Kingdom
It's like that with every other game as well.
- Explorers of Time and Darkness: You're a happy explorer joining a guild full of goofy characters with only Team Skull (only slightly more effective than their human counterparts) to deal with. Then it turns out, oh shit, time is literally trying to kill you.
- Gates of Infinity: This one is the most childish but it turns out the person you've been helping and the person you've been scared of are the opposite of what you'd expect.
- Super: You go through life as a carefree student and eventually join a guild. Then everything goes topsy-turvy when everyone dies.
Don't forget Darkrai trying to encourage you to commit suicide in Explorers' postgame.
I love PMD and I usually don't like to say that a game is being held back by its target audience, but sometimes it really feels that way when they keep saying "disappear" instead of "die". It's bad enough when enemies threaten to "make you disappear" but it gets just plain ridiculous in Munna's Jonestown-suicide-cult rant toward the end of GTI.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Industrious Incisors
Going back a few posts, what rare quality did your Ariados have?
SoundCloud
Food Finder, which helped ensure I didn't starve. Small Stomach or XP Boost would be better, though, if you can roll either of those. Also, you'll want Insomnia as your actual Ability, then you'll be immune to both poisoning and sleep.
If you intend to try the Ariados strategy:
- Check your starting moves. If you don't have Swords Dance, Fell Stinger, and either Bug Bite or Poison Sting, choose "Give Up" from the menu and it'll let you reroll the dungeon and try again immediately. Your fourth move doesn't matter, because you'll be replacing it relatively early.
- At level 19 you'll learn Shadow Sneak, which should replace your fourth move, and at level 28 you'll learn Sucker Punch which should replace Shadow Sneak. If a recruited ally has Rapid Bullseye you may consider learning Fury Swipes at 23, but it's somewhat unreliable without RBE so you're screwed if you lose that ally.
- If you find a Leech Life, X-Scissor, or Poison Jab TM, you can replace your primary attack with that. I was fortunate enough to get Leech Life which greatly increased my survivability.
- At the beginning of each floor, use Swords Dance once or twice, and try to score early KO's with Fell Stinger. Swords Dance boosts your attack two levels and Fell Stinger boosts it three, and you can boost up to ten times per floor. Once your attack is maxxed out, use Bug Bite/Poison Sting to fight your way around the floor.
- As far as allies go, they're double-edged swords. Having helpers is extremely useful and camping around the stairs letting them score kills is a good way to farm exp, but when they die (which will happen often, expect lots of ambushes at hallway intersections) the Pokemon that killed them will get an Awakening boost. Some wild Dustox come knowing Moonlight, which is very useful if you can recruit. Pokemon with Thrown Item Boost will also be very useful, I was lucky enough to get a Dustox with that skill. That being said, don't waste your Reviver Seeds on allies, the seeds are too precious and your allies too expendable; feel free to use Revive All Orbs on them, though, since those can't save you from dying.
- As far as I can tell, floors 85-89 are the only place in the game to feature wild Miltank, so if you want one and don't want to gamble on Mystery Houses, that would be the place to try and recruit one. Use a Luminous Orb or Radar Orb if you're gonna hunt on a floor for an extended period of time. Just remember you'll need to keep it alive for the rest of the dungeon.
- Early on you'll want to fight lots of enemies and explore each floor thoroughly for items. Toward the end, if you've got a good safety buffer of Reviver Seeds, Foe-Hold Orbs, and Max Elixirs, you can afford to just beeline for the stairs. I was around level 47 by the end of the dungeon.
- When your max HP is still below 100, save Oran Berries and use them to heal yourself in a pinch. Once your max HP increases above 100, you'll want to eat them while at max health to boost your max. I had over 200 HP by the time I finished the dungeon, which made me nearly indestructible.
- Speaking of stat boosts, don't cling to vitamins or Life Seeds in the hopes that you'll escape the dungeon with them. Just eat 'em as you find 'em, you can always just collect them from Unown Relic if you want them for your friends. Eat a few Joy Seeds too, though I did also hoard a few to bring home with me.
- Magcargo is probably the most dangerous enemy you'll encounter, around the midway point. Some know Earth Power so always be very cautious around them.
- Finally, the most important piece of advice: Collect Iron Thorns and Silver Spikes. They are absolute lifesavers. Their damage scales with your own Attack and they ignore type-effectiveness, so at max Attack they become instant-kill powerful. They make for very good panic buttons to throw at distant dangerous enemies, and you can even throw them through your own allies to hit enemies picking on the back of your line. Just remember that enemies will catch the first Iron Thorn thrown at them unless they're asleep or stunned or you have Thrown Item Boost, so you may need to throw two in a row. Silver Spikes, on the other hand, are both uncatchable and pierce multiple opponents, making them good for Monster Houses or enemies that just need to die in a single turn. Like Magcargo.
Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Mar 22nd 2020 at 3:47:38 PM
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Mad Archivist
Regarding the whole disappearing/suicide thing, I don't mind it much in general but in explorers in particular I end up feeling like it sorta works in favor of the game, cause them "disappearing" brings to mind the idea of being forgotten, which connects with the idea that being forgotten is worse than death, which is an important part of the grovyle/dusknoir arc.
Been replaying the originals myself, mainly cause I didn't liked the remastered ost that much, and also because I wanted to get the full nostalgia trip.
Cleared murky cave. Nice. That's the one plot point that hits better playing it now than when I was a kid. Everything else still works but is hampered by the dialog feeling so... bland ? It's not the correct word, but it has this tendency of having things happen with minimum dialog and then tell you how you're supposed to read the scene instead of letting the scene stand for itself.
Anyway, looking back I can see that as a kid i got the gist of the arc but I didn't really grasped the subtleties. It has a really cool examination of Evil Cannot Comprehend Good, or rather Evil has a Weird Time Figuring out Good.
Bigass, Tobias Drake-Wannabe doorstopper ahead.
Gengar is a little shit. Like, there's no room to argue about it. Dude was such an asshole his humanity left him of its own will and he became a Gengar. Nintetales even spells out he isn't responsible for that one, he did it to himself. Gardevoir took the curse he was meant to receive, and he turned back, ran away, forgot about gardevoir and left his life as a little shit. He knows he's a terrible person, and he doesn't care. probably because he thinks deep down everyone is just like him.
Then most of the game happens. and you get to see exactly how much of a little shit he is. A couple of pokemon beat me to the punch at rescuing at metapod ? WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TIME, IT'S CANCEL'O CLOCK. Man, those pokemons are so easy to mess around, amirite ? Look at how they panic cause they can't find a way to deal with Groudon. Let's salt the wound. Wait, what the fuck, one of them actually is goingto take it and now the entire town is ready to give another try to magma cave again. Aight, you do you, dumbasses.
but then there's this guy. The guy he failed to cancel. The guy who's also a human, just like him. Except... he's not like him. At all. he's the goodiest of goody-two-shoes. Guy even decided to go on a self-imposed trial of wiping his own memory from being a human just to prove he had what it'd take to save the world. This guy is here to Defy the Legends and eat gummi, and he's all out of gummies.
But that HAS to be a facade, right ? Nobody can be that selfless without an ulterior motive. So at night, he breaks into his house and starts to dream-eat the shit out of him. He's gonna find whatever dirt you have and start cancel culture round 2 fifteen years before cancel cutlure becomes a term.
Except... The only thing he does find in your dreams are Gardevoir. THAT gardevoir. Who's busy reaffirming to your amnesiac self that yes, you are THAT selfless. Who also offhandely mentions she can't bring herself to hate her former trainer. Actually, she even still hopes she'll get to see him again. That's an abusive relationship, folks, but that's life as a gardevoir to you.
And knowing that, it breaks him. Like. big oof. It shatters his entire worldview to see that Gardevoir hasn't forgotten him. On the spot. But he doesn't realizes it. He runs away crying. Cause that's what gengar always does. He runs away, stops on his way to help making the teleport crystal so you can complete your mission and fuck off and never see him again while he himself fucks off to places unknown.
But the problem is, Gengar found himself a conscience. And he doesn't realizes it. he wakes up in the morning thinking weird shit, like "I'm gonna lift the curse on gardevoir". he doesn't really understand where this comes from. But he doesn't really need a big reason, now, does it ? Most of the shit he did through his life, "because I can" was the reason he did it, and he never felt he needed a greater motive. So yeah. He's gonna save Gardevoir.
He's gonna Drag the player to hell while he's busy dying. Oh wait, can't find the way to hell. His conscience is screaming at him to save their life, but he doesn't realize what's talking so he just processes it like he decided to let them live, cause why not, amirite ?
So yeah, back to lifting that curse. It's been a couple of months since he dream-eater-ed you. He still hasn't really got around that weird conscience thingy. Actually, it seems to be getting worse. but he doesn't need to figure it out. He never needed a big reason before. But that idea of lifting the curse isn't going away. So he decides he's gonna do it. Fuck it. he's gonna climb Mt.Freeze and ask ninetales to lift the curse.
But then it turns out, Mt.Freeze is actually pretty freaking hard to climb. Yeah, right, there's a reason this is the place people who got cancelled go to. Because no-one managed to follow them that far. Aside from Alakzam's team.
Guess he's gonna need some help then. Someone who's been to Mt.Freeze and do it again. That leaves Alakazam's team, ooooooooooooor... the player's team. THAT guy.
he could probably pick any of them, but I guess his conscience is acting up again cause he decides to ask us for help. Probably partly because such a goody-two-shoes couldn'tp ossibly hold a grudge, and partly because, considering he already knows about gardevoir, might as well ask HIM, right ?
So he finally gets to meet nintales again. Who reaffirms him that for all of his pettiness, he can't ever possibly get on to the level of SPITE a ninetales emits simply by existing - Can't lift a curse he casted himself, because that's how much of a grudge he holds. So Ninetales sends Gengar to murky cave to try to break the curse here. Hitching a ride with the player again.
When they finally reach the bottom, they get in some weird trial thing where he has to show his true feelings to break the curse. Also, he's not allowed to speak for himself, the player's gonna have to do it for him. This is starting to look ugly. He doesn't have a deeper reason for wanting to break the curse, right ? Just a whim. I mean, how else do you explain he decided to it now instead of ten years ago when it happened ? Even if he had a deeper reaosn, how would this imbecile know about it.
And then the player does the omega brain take and goes "Cause he's started to understand Gardevoir. he's seen Gardevoir still loves him and that loyalty, kindness and forgiveness aren't stupidass concepts for losers, after all. Even worse, because he realizes that, he realizes how much it's asking to try to break the curse now, and he's willing to face the consequences of doing that."
And. That's it. That's the supreme Irony with a capitalized I. This loser, this guy who has no reason to care about him the slightest, this guy he's wronged so many times, has a better read on him than himself. Cause it's true. Even Ninetales could see it and said as much. Gengar was the only one who didn't truly realized what he was doing up until now.
And this loser, this guy, is still willing to help him despite how much of a shit he is. This guy is doing a Gardevoir too and it's about to be wasted because of how much of a terrible person he is.
So when the Judge decides not to lift the curse, Gengar isn't going to take it. He embraces his newfound conscience and says how he actually feels, for the first time in a while. He finally expresses gratefulness for soemone - and that, that right there, is what breaks the curse.
Run away, Fugitives, starts playing, and while that may be because the ost simply doesn't have any better track to set the mood, it provides a powerful contrast to reuse the track of when the team had to flee home after the few friends they had said goodbye to them here.
Also, I'm 90% sure this track is what becomes Living Spirit
/ Proud Accomplishment in explorers of sky, which is ALSO Dusknoir's redemption theme, so if it wasn't intentionnal, it's a really nice Call-Forward.
In the end, the curse is lifted, but Gardevoir gets a memory wipe for her trouble. She'll see genger again, but won't get to know what it means for both of them. gengar has a pretty nice redemption arc but the world just isn't going to actually forgive him for what he did.
But that's fine, cause the player's read of him was accurate. He really is ready to face the consequences of his actions. so he does just that. He says goodbye to gardevoir after meeting her one last time, not trying to get her back or anything, thanks the player, and fucks off somewhere else, for good this time.
I didn't really realized that, but considering the topic is regularly brought up in some OTC threads, that arc has a pretty good aversion of Easily Forgiven despite the rest of the game playing it painfully straight as no one ever punishes gengar or his team for any of the condemnable things they do on screen.
So. That was Gengar's arc in rescue team. It's absolutely weird how that arc is both one of the better writing points of the game, and also pretty connected to the main plot, but is hidden in one of the most pants-on-heads hidden parts of the post game, locked behind getting a specific friend camp, then putting up with twenty floors of fucking wish cave, and so on.
It's also really weird that, considering that in many, many aspects, Rescue team is the beta teampltes for Explorers, who essentially took rescue team and improved on everything to make it the cult classic it became known as, but when they looked at redoing gengar, they went "cut the postgame arc and just slap a generic Jerk with a Heart of Gold scene on the Gengar equivalent of this game, it'll work just fine I swear".
Sometimes I wonder if there were plans for skunktank to have more development that just got cut because time or something, and then I remember they didn't fiexed it in explorers of sky despite having the opportunity to do so.
Maybe the problem is simply that gengar also mostly works because there's no actual antagonist for the rest of the game. Everything else that you face are legendary pokemon who aren't inherently evil, just very territorial/hard to convince to look up in the fucking sky. Explorers has one of the most relentlessly evil antagonists of the whole series, and the anti-villain who gets screentime role got handed to Dusknoir Instead.
Then again, I'll take dusknoir getting development over skunktank every day of the week.
Edited by Yumil on Mar 23rd 2020 at 1:06:40 PM
"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."
Gengar always intrigued me because he's such a childish, petty little shit (his team is named "Team Meanies" and their goal as a rescue team is world domination, for crying out loud) but he actually manages to do something truly horrible with the aforementioned cancellation fugitive arc, which feels much more real than the typical "muahaha, I shall rule the universe!" type villain. "Schoolyard bully" is an insult used to mock wannabe-villains, but it undersells just how much pain they can actually cause.
I always liked how the main story left his arc ambiguous; you know he helped make the Teleport Gem and saved your life (despite being unwilling to admit to either), seemingly all because he got spooked by seeing your Gardevoir dream. You can certainly put the pieces together yourself, but it's not until an optional post-game sidequest that you get actual confirmation of your theory.
It pales in comparison to Dusknoir's arc, because not much will really top that, but it's definitely the emotional highlight of Rescue Team.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Skuntank and his crew are just fine in Super Mystery Dungeon. i was worried about them for a while XD
The Protomen enhanced my life.
The Wanderer
So if anyone cares Chuggaaconroy's starting an LP of Rescue Team DX tomorrow.
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
The King Without a Kingdom
I might just buy it now.
It's been 3000 years…
Before the storm closes in, the wolf howls at th
I've been thinking of an idea of a future game having a cheeky reference to the first game; Fighting the Galarian Variants of the Legendary Birds as bosses, but this time in reverse order, starting with Galarian Articuno and ending with Galarian Zapdos.
The storm has now resided, the wolf now rests.
Today I learned that in the Unown Relic, the only Unown that can be found collapsed from hunger and in need of help are Unowns H, E, L, P, ?, and !.
That's an amazing small detail.
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Is there any other users that ships the player character with one of their team members, not counting the partner Pokémon, in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon? I only ship the player character and the partner if they’re opposite genders, I have nothing against gay/lesbian pairings since I support it, I just preferred that my stories have straight couples but in specific fandoms, there will be gay/lesbian pairings.
Oh, yeah, I found myself bringing in an otherwise useless move after my first attempt at Deoxys which only didn’t end in a wipe because escape orbs can be used against bosses now.
Recover’s not so fancy when my Honchkrow can Snatch it.
SoundCloud