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kjorteoLast time: Azalea Town was a perfect feel-good nostalgia trip, except for all the strife.
Pokewalker additions since last time: a bunch of items to sell, plus a Kangaskhan and an Abra. I don't plan on using either of them. Both went straight to Box 2 where they will probably stay for the rest of the game. They were just cool and... you know. There's a comment thread in one of the earlier entries about how it's not worth going for Pokedex completion in this game, mostly since it would be literally impossible to complete the Pokedex in this game anyway thanks to Nintendo WFC being shut down. Even if I wanted to do a sort of "Living Pokedex" project across several games, like in Pokemon Bank or something, there's also the argument that there isn't anything I can acquire in this game that I can't also get far more easily in other games anyway.
That part isn't quite true. Yes, ORAS has all the legendaries, but that would involve playing ORAS, which is another 80-120 hours I don't have. Also, even for something as simple as a Kangaskhan or an Abra, I fail to see how anything could be easier than the Pokewalker all but handing them to you. Like, I got these two pretty much as free "You have the watts anyway so why not" bonuses. I agree that it's not worth going out of my way for anything in this game (except maybe some of the legendaries) but these ones were right there.
I am pretty much out of Pokewalker Pokemon I actually want at this stage of the game, though. I have something like 5,000w built up as of when I'm writing this, but every course that unlocks after about the 3,000w mark also requires the National Dex (aka beating the game.) I've caught everything there is to catch on the pre-National Dex courses, and I'm still logging easily 10,000 steps a day on that thing. Fortunately, I learned my mistakes from last time, so I'm not catching more than one of the same Pokemon even if they're right there and watts are no object. And it's not like the excess is going completely to waste; the highest end course after you get the National Dex takes 100,000w to unlock, so it's good to start saving up early.
Speaking of learning from past mistakes, I'm now fairly certain I've passed the point where I gave up and stopped playing in my last run, and I did it in four fewer hours. Geez, if I was spending that much time just sifting through my eighty Murkrows looking for the Chosen One, no wonder I got bored. I was worried about whether trying this game again after last time was a good idea, but it turns out last time was just me missing this game's point.
Hell, one of my complaints from before was that I was waiting to be knocked off my feet with this overpowering sense of "this music, oh God I remember this place, this takes me back...." but I stopped playing without ever having encountered that. That means I must not have made it to Azalea Town, since I just explained how I was hit with that exact reaction in my last entry.
Well. Let's do it right this time. For the Chikoritalike Empress, and for all the creatures of this world.
Oh, hey, speaking of defending the creatures of this world, we need to go help Kurt stop Team Rocket's SlowpokeTail harvesting operation.
With all this Pokewalking I've been doing, Scout is now level 20, so I pull him into the main game just long enough to evolve him into a Noctowl. He now has twice the amount of visible feet, and is therefore twice as good. While I'm working on that, Fisherman Ralph calls me to tell me all about the time he narrowly beat a Qwilfish but then his son gave him sass about how he could do that, like, easily. Hey, kid, have you seen your dad's Pokemon? His entire team consists of one Level 10 Goldeen. Beating anything with that is a minor miracle, and you should be impressed.
Scout is upgraded and immediately put back in the box, and oh right we still need to help Kurt.
It turns out he came in with such a fury that he scared away that guard up top just by yelling at him, but then fell down the well and hurt his back. Now he's just going to sit there and be injured while I go on and clear the rest of the Rocket Grunts out myself. Well, thanks for opening the place up for us, at least.
There's an entire gang of Rocket Grunts inside the well, but of course they throw weak Pokemon at me and aw-shucks and give up after losing because that's how threat escalation works in this series. They are unrepentant as they freely admit to their operation of hacking off SlowpokeTails for money, but one pleads that aw come on their tails grow back really fast though. This suddenly makes their scheme a lot less gruesome than I'd original assumed. And am still kind of assuming. Forgive me for not taking a Rocket Grunt's word for it that there isn't a pile of dead Slowpoke in the back, especially when everyone in Azalea Town is specifically mentioning how they've been disappearing.
At the end of the well, we do run into a couple Slowpoke with their tails cut off, and... I honestly can't tell if they're otherwise okay. I'm leaning towards yes? The sprites don't look damaged or anything (except the missing tails) because this isn't a creepypasta. The game sure doesn't mention them being dead. They're not moving and they don't make any sort of cry when spoken to, which worries the hell out of me. On the other hand, they're Slowpoke, which makes it harder to tell whether they're dead or just like that.
The game's description when you examine them is "A SLOWPOKE with its tail cut off...." This is ambiguous enough to weird me out even more than if this had been a straight up Laura Bow corpse-discovery party. Like, at least that way I would know. Instead I'm going to be wondering and worrying about those guys.
One has a letter attached to it, which reads: "Be good and look after the house with Grandpa and SLOWPOKE. Love, Dad." Well, geez, if they're not okay then this just got even darker.
As I'm sitting here wondering and attempting to discern whether I am in fact looking at a Pokemon's mutilated carcass, let's take a moment to reflect how this is proof Team Rocket was the most serious villain team in franchise history.
Executive Proton lies in wait at the end of the well, which leads me to assume he's more a middle manager type, possibly the leader of this particular outing, but we're not looking at the new leader of Team Rocket overall. I doubt they would throw the game's main villain at us that quickly. Also, the game's main villain probably wouldn't come at us with a team of two Pokemon who fall to one of Staryu's Water Guns apiece.
Proton's entire gang disappears after the battle, then Kurt (who finally recovered, I guess) comes up to congratulate us. "Let's get out of here," he says, completely ignoring the tailless Slowpoke at our feet. Kurt, please, are they alive this is weirding me out.
Back in Kurt's house, we settle in for some long exposition as Kurt fills us in on Team Rocket's backstory: Three years ago (as seen in the events of Pokemon Red/Blue/Fire Red/Leaf Green,) a boy named Red dismantled their entire organization. Three years later, they've come back. Okay, maybe the exposition wasn't that long.
With the Team Rocket crisis in Azalea Town over, Kurt shares with us his other special skill besides chasing people and falling down wells: once per day, he can make Apricorns into specialized Pokeballs. I give him two Green Apricorns I'd happened to collect playing the game normally, and he tells us to come back tomorrow. He also gives us his number, but the second I pick up my Pokegear to register it, the phone rings.
It's Picnicker Liz, and I'm just going to copy this directly. I'm reciting the greeting part from memory, but everything after "My NIDORAN(F)" was transcribed directly as I was scrolling through it. I swear to God this is what she actually said, verbatim.
"('This is Liz! Listen!' or something like that)
My NIDORAN(F)...it's...so pretty...
and...giggle...so awesome...yes...
but...very much...eeeek!
And...lovely...just ravishing...
Oh, too much! Hug it... Sleeping...
That's right...pretty... Sigh...
So nice...cute...
...Oops! Look at the time! I chatted too long!
I'm sorry I took so much of your time! I love chatting!
Click!
..... ..... ....."
Um.
Okay, so... in fairness, I think the ellipses are supposed to denote her babbling on about something and the player character no longer paying attention, like a narrative "Etc." But when taken... pretty much any other way....
Look, let's just call it what it is: Picnicker Liz pocket-dialed us while fucking her Nidoran.
...
Anyway, I put the phone down and Kurt's granddaughter joyously exclaims that the Slowpoke her dad gave her came back... and its tail has grown back, too! Which lines up with the note we found, and oh good they're alive okay thank you.
Outside, the town now almost has more Slowpoke wandering the streets than people. Great moments in NPC dialogue: "The SLOWPOKE have returned. Knowing them, they could've just been taking it easy somewhere."
Also outside is Silver, who asks if it's true that Team Rocket has returned, then refuses to believe that we beat them. With a cry of "Then let's see how good you are" and a team of three, it's rematch time. My Staryu leads and two Water Guns take out his first Pokemon, a Gastly. I switch out and let Kracko deal with his second, a Zubat, because 1) type advantage and 2) Staryu hit level 16 on the Gastly and it was someone else's turn for leveling. However, this ends up making this part tougher than expected, since Zubat has a 16-to-10 level advantage over Kracko. Still, the type advantage and one Potion see us through, and it's down to his starter, which is now a level 18 Quilava. Sorry, Silver, but this is why I chose to train my Staryu next after Empress. Even slightly outleveled, two more Water Guns and that's that.
Silver blames the loss on his own Pokemon being weak. This is where the game wants you to go into some lesson about raising Pokemon with love and the power of friendship and special bonds and whatnot versus only caring about their strength, but... actually, I'm pretty sure I won because I understand type advantages. Also, having a bottomless inventory of healing items helps.
Silver extends his rant to hating the weak, including Pokemon, trainers, and especially Team Rocket. They think they're so big and tough because they're in a group, but get them alone and they're weak, so he hates them. (He's not wrong about them being pushovers in one-on-one Pokemon battles, admittedly.) He then warns us not to get in his way, and walks off once more. Then Joey calls to tell us he almost caught a Hoothoot, because of course he does.
I suppose we should go follow Silver west into Ilex Forest, but first, there's a gym in Azalea Town which Team Rocket's departure now opens. It's led by Bugsy, "The Walking Bug Pokemon Encyclopedia." You'll never guess what type of gym this is.
Bugsy being a gym leader (which we see through the player character's father in Ruby/Sapphire is in fact an actual job that involves going to work and everything) brings up interesting questions about child labor laws in this setting, but at this point, I'm more curious about the thematic gym leader naming. How do these people always end up having a name that so perfectly matches their gym and team element? Is there a committee that looks for this sort of thing when hiring new gym leaders? "Well, there's an opening for the bug-type gym in Azalea Town. Potential applications and resumes we've received include Bob, Jeff, Susan, Bugsy... never mind we have a winner."
Or is it fate? Is there some sort of name-based predestination in this world? Bugsy's parents named him Bugsy, so obviously he couldn't grow up to become an Ice-type trainer. I was this close to asking what happens if your personality and destiny don't match up, like you've always had this secret longing and passion for Water-type Pokemon even though your parents named you Punchkick Karate McFightingtype, but then I realized that's pretty much what happened to poor Brawly.
Bugsy sticks to the theme, though, and so Bug types it is. For those keeping score: the Grass starter was an excellent choice in generation 1 because the first two gyms were Ground/Rock and Water. To pick Bulbasaur was to have the first entire quarter of the game practically gift-wrapped for you. In generation 2, though, the first two gyms we've encountered have been Flying and now Bug. Poor Empress.
Well, this is why I caught a Murkrow in the Pokewalker. For extra insurance, I also do a Box 1 swap to tag out Dratini (which I still haven't gotten around to training) for Magby. Between the two of them, I should be able to follow the time-honored gym strategy of "come in with whatever has a type advantage, spam the murder button," right?
Murkrow Pecks her way through Bugsy's entire gym with ease, and gains enough levels along the way to learn Wing Attack, which should make the boss himself even eas--
Bugsy is unexpectedly a hell of a battle.
The snare in my brilliant plan is his level 17 Scyther. His other two Pokemon are both pushovers, as I expected them to be. For whatever reason, though, the Scyther hits so hard that victory mostly comes down to whether I get lucky with him wasting turns on useless buffs/debuffs instead of using the power move that could very easily sweep my team.
The battle opens with me leading Murkrow to his leading Scyther, who throws U-Turn (heavy Bug-type damage plus automatic switch out on the user's side, basically it's a hit and run move) to one hit KO Murkrow and vanish. With me sending in my next Pokemon after Murkrow fainted and him switching due to U-Turn, that leaves Magby vs. one of his useless ones. Magby burns the useless one to the ground, but Bugsy switches Scyther back. Scyther one kit KOs Magby with Quick Attack (I blame Magby being a few levels lower.) I send in Staryu next because at this point I'm out of Pokemon with a type advantage, and Staryu is my highest level one besides Empress (who is a Grass type and... not a good idea in this fight.) That's not going to win me the battle, though, and so I take the time while Staryu is out to use a Revive on Murkrow because she's my last hope. Scyther, meanwhile, defeats Staryu with U-Turn and then switches out because U-Turn, which sets the stage for Murkrow vs. Useless Filler #2. One Murkrow Wing Attack ends that one.
It therefore comes down to Murkrow vs. Scyther, a rematch of how this battle opened, only now they're our last Pokemon instead of first. It is my sincerest hope that this means Scyther can't use U-Turn anymore. I don't know whether that's true, but at this moment it's my hope that it's true.
Whether my hopes came true or the AI simply made a bad move choice, Scyther Quick Attacks instead, which Murkrow survives with one hit point remaining. Murkrow responds with one final Super Effective Wing Attack, and the battle is over.
Wow, did I earn that victory. On one hand, maybe I should grind a bit more if this kind of stuff's going to happen. Pokemon games are not supposed to be hard. On the other hand, that... was actually a hell of a battle. I'm feeling the rush from it. I wouldn't have written such a big long recap if it had been easy squash match. Most gym leaders in these games have jovial "Wow, that was a great battle!" speeches after you beat them, but this may be the first time I've truly felt that.
So... that was a thing. Surviving it was an experience, so I can safely say I'm making new memories with this game which I expect to look back on and cherish at some point.
Bugsy hands over the Hive Badge, along with the the TM for U-Turn. That would be a hell of a gift if I had any Bug-type Pokemon to learn it. Bugsy's Scyther sure sold me on its power, anyway.
The Hive Badge allows us to use the HM move Cut outside battle. Do we even have the Cut HM yet? No, but word around town is that the people running the charcoal kiln have it. In the charcoal kiln building, it turns out that even though the Slowpoke have returned, the owner's assistant still hasn't come back after having ventured west into the Ilex Forest. Where Silver went, and also our only path out of town besides back the way we came.
West it is, then. Ilex Forest is our stop next time, and our stopping point for now.
Pokewalker additions since last time: a bunch of items to sell, plus a Kangaskhan and an Abra. I don't plan on using either of them. Both went straight to Box 2 where they will probably stay for the rest of the game. They were just cool and... you know. There's a comment thread in one of the earlier entries about how it's not worth going for Pokedex completion in this game, mostly since it would be literally impossible to complete the Pokedex in this game anyway thanks to Nintendo WFC being shut down. Even if I wanted to do a sort of "Living Pokedex" project across several games, like in Pokemon Bank or something, there's also the argument that there isn't anything I can acquire in this game that I can't also get far more easily in other games anyway.
That part isn't quite true. Yes, ORAS has all the legendaries, but that would involve playing ORAS, which is another 80-120 hours I don't have. Also, even for something as simple as a Kangaskhan or an Abra, I fail to see how anything could be easier than the Pokewalker all but handing them to you. Like, I got these two pretty much as free "You have the watts anyway so why not" bonuses. I agree that it's not worth going out of my way for anything in this game (except maybe some of the legendaries) but these ones were right there.
I am pretty much out of Pokewalker Pokemon I actually want at this stage of the game, though. I have something like 5,000w built up as of when I'm writing this, but every course that unlocks after about the 3,000w mark also requires the National Dex (aka beating the game.) I've caught everything there is to catch on the pre-National Dex courses, and I'm still logging easily 10,000 steps a day on that thing. Fortunately, I learned my mistakes from last time, so I'm not catching more than one of the same Pokemon even if they're right there and watts are no object. And it's not like the excess is going completely to waste; the highest end course after you get the National Dex takes 100,000w to unlock, so it's good to start saving up early.
Speaking of learning from past mistakes, I'm now fairly certain I've passed the point where I gave up and stopped playing in my last run, and I did it in four fewer hours. Geez, if I was spending that much time just sifting through my eighty Murkrows looking for the Chosen One, no wonder I got bored. I was worried about whether trying this game again after last time was a good idea, but it turns out last time was just me missing this game's point.
Hell, one of my complaints from before was that I was waiting to be knocked off my feet with this overpowering sense of "this music, oh God I remember this place, this takes me back...." but I stopped playing without ever having encountered that. That means I must not have made it to Azalea Town, since I just explained how I was hit with that exact reaction in my last entry.
Well. Let's do it right this time. For the Chikoritalike Empress, and for all the creatures of this world.
Oh, hey, speaking of defending the creatures of this world, we need to go help Kurt stop Team Rocket's SlowpokeTail harvesting operation.
With all this Pokewalking I've been doing, Scout is now level 20, so I pull him into the main game just long enough to evolve him into a Noctowl. He now has twice the amount of visible feet, and is therefore twice as good. While I'm working on that, Fisherman Ralph calls me to tell me all about the time he narrowly beat a Qwilfish but then his son gave him sass about how he could do that, like, easily. Hey, kid, have you seen your dad's Pokemon? His entire team consists of one Level 10 Goldeen. Beating anything with that is a minor miracle, and you should be impressed.
Scout is upgraded and immediately put back in the box, and oh right we still need to help Kurt.
It turns out he came in with such a fury that he scared away that guard up top just by yelling at him, but then fell down the well and hurt his back. Now he's just going to sit there and be injured while I go on and clear the rest of the Rocket Grunts out myself. Well, thanks for opening the place up for us, at least.
There's an entire gang of Rocket Grunts inside the well, but of course they throw weak Pokemon at me and aw-shucks and give up after losing because that's how threat escalation works in this series. They are unrepentant as they freely admit to their operation of hacking off SlowpokeTails for money, but one pleads that aw come on their tails grow back really fast though. This suddenly makes their scheme a lot less gruesome than I'd original assumed. And am still kind of assuming. Forgive me for not taking a Rocket Grunt's word for it that there isn't a pile of dead Slowpoke in the back, especially when everyone in Azalea Town is specifically mentioning how they've been disappearing.
At the end of the well, we do run into a couple Slowpoke with their tails cut off, and... I honestly can't tell if they're otherwise okay. I'm leaning towards yes? The sprites don't look damaged or anything (except the missing tails) because this isn't a creepypasta. The game sure doesn't mention them being dead. They're not moving and they don't make any sort of cry when spoken to, which worries the hell out of me. On the other hand, they're Slowpoke, which makes it harder to tell whether they're dead or just like that.
The game's description when you examine them is "A SLOWPOKE with its tail cut off...." This is ambiguous enough to weird me out even more than if this had been a straight up Laura Bow corpse-discovery party. Like, at least that way I would know. Instead I'm going to be wondering and worrying about those guys.
One has a letter attached to it, which reads: "Be good and look after the house with Grandpa and SLOWPOKE. Love, Dad." Well, geez, if they're not okay then this just got even darker.
As I'm sitting here wondering and attempting to discern whether I am in fact looking at a Pokemon's mutilated carcass, let's take a moment to reflect how this is proof Team Rocket was the most serious villain team in franchise history.
Executive Proton lies in wait at the end of the well, which leads me to assume he's more a middle manager type, possibly the leader of this particular outing, but we're not looking at the new leader of Team Rocket overall. I doubt they would throw the game's main villain at us that quickly. Also, the game's main villain probably wouldn't come at us with a team of two Pokemon who fall to one of Staryu's Water Guns apiece.
Proton's entire gang disappears after the battle, then Kurt (who finally recovered, I guess) comes up to congratulate us. "Let's get out of here," he says, completely ignoring the tailless Slowpoke at our feet. Kurt, please, are they alive this is weirding me out.
Back in Kurt's house, we settle in for some long exposition as Kurt fills us in on Team Rocket's backstory: Three years ago (as seen in the events of Pokemon Red/Blue/Fire Red/Leaf Green,) a boy named Red dismantled their entire organization. Three years later, they've come back. Okay, maybe the exposition wasn't that long.
With the Team Rocket crisis in Azalea Town over, Kurt shares with us his other special skill besides chasing people and falling down wells: once per day, he can make Apricorns into specialized Pokeballs. I give him two Green Apricorns I'd happened to collect playing the game normally, and he tells us to come back tomorrow. He also gives us his number, but the second I pick up my Pokegear to register it, the phone rings.
It's Picnicker Liz, and I'm just going to copy this directly. I'm reciting the greeting part from memory, but everything after "My NIDORAN(F)" was transcribed directly as I was scrolling through it. I swear to God this is what she actually said, verbatim.
"('This is Liz! Listen!' or something like that)
My NIDORAN(F)...it's...so pretty...
and...giggle...so awesome...yes...
but...very much...eeeek!
And...lovely...just ravishing...
Oh, too much! Hug it... Sleeping...
That's right...pretty... Sigh...
So nice...cute...
...Oops! Look at the time! I chatted too long!
I'm sorry I took so much of your time! I love chatting!
Click!
..... ..... ....."
Um.
Okay, so... in fairness, I think the ellipses are supposed to denote her babbling on about something and the player character no longer paying attention, like a narrative "Etc." But when taken... pretty much any other way....
Look, let's just call it what it is: Picnicker Liz pocket-dialed us while fucking her Nidoran.
...
Anyway, I put the phone down and Kurt's granddaughter joyously exclaims that the Slowpoke her dad gave her came back... and its tail has grown back, too! Which lines up with the note we found, and oh good they're alive okay thank you.
Outside, the town now almost has more Slowpoke wandering the streets than people. Great moments in NPC dialogue: "The SLOWPOKE have returned. Knowing them, they could've just been taking it easy somewhere."
Also outside is Silver, who asks if it's true that Team Rocket has returned, then refuses to believe that we beat them. With a cry of "Then let's see how good you are" and a team of three, it's rematch time. My Staryu leads and two Water Guns take out his first Pokemon, a Gastly. I switch out and let Kracko deal with his second, a Zubat, because 1) type advantage and 2) Staryu hit level 16 on the Gastly and it was someone else's turn for leveling. However, this ends up making this part tougher than expected, since Zubat has a 16-to-10 level advantage over Kracko. Still, the type advantage and one Potion see us through, and it's down to his starter, which is now a level 18 Quilava. Sorry, Silver, but this is why I chose to train my Staryu next after Empress. Even slightly outleveled, two more Water Guns and that's that.
Silver blames the loss on his own Pokemon being weak. This is where the game wants you to go into some lesson about raising Pokemon with love and the power of friendship and special bonds and whatnot versus only caring about their strength, but... actually, I'm pretty sure I won because I understand type advantages. Also, having a bottomless inventory of healing items helps.
Silver extends his rant to hating the weak, including Pokemon, trainers, and especially Team Rocket. They think they're so big and tough because they're in a group, but get them alone and they're weak, so he hates them. (He's not wrong about them being pushovers in one-on-one Pokemon battles, admittedly.) He then warns us not to get in his way, and walks off once more. Then Joey calls to tell us he almost caught a Hoothoot, because of course he does.
I suppose we should go follow Silver west into Ilex Forest, but first, there's a gym in Azalea Town which Team Rocket's departure now opens. It's led by Bugsy, "The Walking Bug Pokemon Encyclopedia." You'll never guess what type of gym this is.
Bugsy being a gym leader (which we see through the player character's father in Ruby/Sapphire is in fact an actual job that involves going to work and everything) brings up interesting questions about child labor laws in this setting, but at this point, I'm more curious about the thematic gym leader naming. How do these people always end up having a name that so perfectly matches their gym and team element? Is there a committee that looks for this sort of thing when hiring new gym leaders? "Well, there's an opening for the bug-type gym in Azalea Town. Potential applications and resumes we've received include Bob, Jeff, Susan, Bugsy... never mind we have a winner."
Or is it fate? Is there some sort of name-based predestination in this world? Bugsy's parents named him Bugsy, so obviously he couldn't grow up to become an Ice-type trainer. I was this close to asking what happens if your personality and destiny don't match up, like you've always had this secret longing and passion for Water-type Pokemon even though your parents named you Punchkick Karate McFightingtype, but then I realized that's pretty much what happened to poor Brawly.
Bugsy sticks to the theme, though, and so Bug types it is. For those keeping score: the Grass starter was an excellent choice in generation 1 because the first two gyms were Ground/Rock and Water. To pick Bulbasaur was to have the first entire quarter of the game practically gift-wrapped for you. In generation 2, though, the first two gyms we've encountered have been Flying and now Bug. Poor Empress.
Well, this is why I caught a Murkrow in the Pokewalker. For extra insurance, I also do a Box 1 swap to tag out Dratini (which I still haven't gotten around to training) for Magby. Between the two of them, I should be able to follow the time-honored gym strategy of "come in with whatever has a type advantage, spam the murder button," right?
Murkrow Pecks her way through Bugsy's entire gym with ease, and gains enough levels along the way to learn Wing Attack, which should make the boss himself even eas--
Bugsy is unexpectedly a hell of a battle.
The snare in my brilliant plan is his level 17 Scyther. His other two Pokemon are both pushovers, as I expected them to be. For whatever reason, though, the Scyther hits so hard that victory mostly comes down to whether I get lucky with him wasting turns on useless buffs/debuffs instead of using the power move that could very easily sweep my team.
The battle opens with me leading Murkrow to his leading Scyther, who throws U-Turn (heavy Bug-type damage plus automatic switch out on the user's side, basically it's a hit and run move) to one hit KO Murkrow and vanish. With me sending in my next Pokemon after Murkrow fainted and him switching due to U-Turn, that leaves Magby vs. one of his useless ones. Magby burns the useless one to the ground, but Bugsy switches Scyther back. Scyther one kit KOs Magby with Quick Attack (I blame Magby being a few levels lower.) I send in Staryu next because at this point I'm out of Pokemon with a type advantage, and Staryu is my highest level one besides Empress (who is a Grass type and... not a good idea in this fight.) That's not going to win me the battle, though, and so I take the time while Staryu is out to use a Revive on Murkrow because she's my last hope. Scyther, meanwhile, defeats Staryu with U-Turn and then switches out because U-Turn, which sets the stage for Murkrow vs. Useless Filler #2. One Murkrow Wing Attack ends that one.
It therefore comes down to Murkrow vs. Scyther, a rematch of how this battle opened, only now they're our last Pokemon instead of first. It is my sincerest hope that this means Scyther can't use U-Turn anymore. I don't know whether that's true, but at this moment it's my hope that it's true.
Whether my hopes came true or the AI simply made a bad move choice, Scyther Quick Attacks instead, which Murkrow survives with one hit point remaining. Murkrow responds with one final Super Effective Wing Attack, and the battle is over.
Wow, did I earn that victory. On one hand, maybe I should grind a bit more if this kind of stuff's going to happen. Pokemon games are not supposed to be hard. On the other hand, that... was actually a hell of a battle. I'm feeling the rush from it. I wouldn't have written such a big long recap if it had been easy squash match. Most gym leaders in these games have jovial "Wow, that was a great battle!" speeches after you beat them, but this may be the first time I've truly felt that.
So... that was a thing. Surviving it was an experience, so I can safely say I'm making new memories with this game which I expect to look back on and cherish at some point.
Bugsy hands over the Hive Badge, along with the the TM for U-Turn. That would be a hell of a gift if I had any Bug-type Pokemon to learn it. Bugsy's Scyther sure sold me on its power, anyway.
The Hive Badge allows us to use the HM move Cut outside battle. Do we even have the Cut HM yet? No, but word around town is that the people running the charcoal kiln have it. In the charcoal kiln building, it turns out that even though the Slowpoke have returned, the owner's assistant still hasn't come back after having ventured west into the Ilex Forest. Where Silver went, and also our only path out of town besides back the way we came.
West it is, then. Ilex Forest is our stop next time, and our stopping point for now.
no subject
Date: 2017-09-10 09:14 am (UTC)Just to see if I'm keeping tabs here, your current party is...
-Empress
-Kracko (a Mareep, right?)
-Magby
-Staryu
-Murkrow
-...Psyduck? Is Psyduck still there?
no subject
Date: 2017-09-10 12:33 pm (UTC)A part of me does kind of feel like I cheated somehow by using the Revive (especially since that came from the Pokewalker; I don't think you can even get those in-game yet) but... on the other hand, Bugsy used one item too. He stupidly blew his one and only Super Potion on Useless Filler #1 after Magby had Ember'd it down to about 5% health in one hit, at which point Magby shrugged and burninated it again. Taking out one of his Pokemon was important, of course, but in retrospect I think Magby's biggest contribution to the entire battle ended up being getting that Super Potion out of play.
I say this because the Scyther took a total of three hits to bring down. Murkrow went first and got a Wing Attack off (which shaved off, oh, I'm going to guess 45-50% health or so?) on that first round, before falling to a one-hit KO from U-Turn in response. I got essentially a free Water Gun when Staryu first came out and I was experimenting with whether that would be a viable move to take him down; the good news was that the Scyther used Focus Energy that round instead. (The bad news was that Water Gun did about 10%, so the answer to my experiment was, "No, not really." Plan B came next round, when Staryu sacrificed itself eating a one-hit KO U-Turn in exchange for letting me Revive Murkrow.) Finally, Murkrow's second Wing Attack took off Scyther's last remaining health and won the battle just in time. Just think, though, if Bugsy had Potion'd away those first two hits....
Also, I'm beginning to suspect that I was afraid of the wrong move in the end there; if Scyther had tried a last-ditch U-Turn--or any other move, really--then my Murkrow was apparently fast enough to go first (see above) and so she would have just Wing Attacked for the win before Scyther even got its turn. Instead, hitting my woozy half-health (I hadn't bothered to heal her the rest of the way because U-Turn was an OHKO anyway) last viable Pokemon with Quick Attack was actually a brilliant play and the worst thing that could have happened to me.
If you want luck, consider the fact that Murkrow survived the Quick Attack (with 1 HP,) and that was because she had previously one-Wing Attack-KO'd Useless Filler #2 before Scyther came back, and thus had regained like 3 or 4 HP because she was the one I was working on leveling at the moment and therefore she was holding the Shell Bell.
In other news, yes, you are 100% correct on the active party as of the close of this entry, even down to Kracko's species and Psyduck still being there. Excellent catch! That's, uh... I'm not gonna lie, that's actually really flattering. Much like that lovely gift art you drew for me, I just get this odd "wow, he cares enough about my writeup enough to have paid attention to my roster o_o" feeling and I'm actually inwardly blushing a little. Thank you!
That being said, I consider my overall party to be the active six + Box 1 (which, as of the close of this entry, currently holds a Gastly, a Machop, and that Dratini) since I'm just freely tagging them in and out based on who needs more levels and who has a type advantage over something I know will be coming up soon. For those reasons, you can probably expect the Machop to tag in and feature prominently in the next update.
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Date: 2017-09-10 05:31 pm (UTC)...also even if those Slowpokes -were- supposed to be dead, they wouldn't actually REALIZE it until after they'd been healed anyway, so they'd have survived.
Kangakshan being one of my favorites, I am a little "alas" that it won't make a cameo in the playthrough but eh you can't use EVERYTHING. (I was also trying to keep track of your team, although I forgot about the mareep. Oops.)
I sort of wonder if as a gym leader you're allowed to take up like a gym name, like wrestlers pick up a ring name. "My real name is Robert, but in my water type gym I'm Monsoon!" Gorilla optional.
Finally: I figured you'd curbstomp EVERYTHING but if you're having a Daring Battle Full of Twists and Turns, well... ride that sucker as far as it'll go.
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Date: 2017-09-10 05:55 pm (UTC)As for whether gym leaders can pick a stage name... uh, probably.
And yeah, I too was expecting to curbstomp everything. I mean, I don't recall Silver being hard in any way even back in the day, and now I have the Pokewalker on top of that, so this is going to be me crushing everyone so hard my biggest obstacle is how bad I feel for them, right? Bugsy's gym was a huge wake-up call and I'm going to have to reconsider my strategy very carefully from here on out.
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Date: 2017-09-11 08:24 am (UTC)Technician is an absolute murdertrain in the early game, where pretty much every move imaginable gets affected by it. (Once moves get stronger, it only becomes a mild killdozer instead.) Ironically, U-Turn does not, so it's actually not much stronger than Quick Attack - U-Turn gets the same-type bonus, but Quick Attack gets Technician-boosted.
This is not the last time a gym leader in Heart Gold/Soul Silver will use the newfound discovery of pokemon abilities to utterly cave your face in. Look forward to it.
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Date: 2017-09-11 01:24 pm (UTC)Though... like you said, that doesn't explain U-Turn. It gets STAB, sure, but all the Rattata outside get STAB on their Tackles and Quick Attacks and those still aren't exactly scary. Scyther's Quick Attack gets Technician-boosted and its U-Turn gets STAB on top of already being a decently high-power move anyway, but I still think there's something to be said for, you know, maybe deep down Bugsy's Scyther just has a beastly Attack stat and hits like a damn truck anyway.
And ooh, boy, I can't wait for more of this. Is it Whitney's Miltank? Everyone on the Internet has made Whitney's Miltank infamous and given it some sort of That One Boss status, but I have no idea why; I have zero recollection of that fight being even slightly challenging or out of the ordinary in Original Silver. Of course, I remember Bugsy being a straightforward "come in with type advantage, press A to win" stomp, too. Times have changed, I guess.
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Date: 2017-09-11 05:51 pm (UTC)*sound of large cow transforming into murder machine*
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Date: 2017-09-11 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-11 08:30 pm (UTC)At least you didn't lose and get sent back to Violet City. TWICE.
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Date: 2017-09-12 01:51 am (UTC)In retrospect, I wasn't nearly as prepared for Bugsy as I thought I was, level or "This will be fine because I know my types"-wise, and I had no idea he had a freakishly powerful Scyther. All in all, I had no business being in that battle. But... it was a hell of a battle, and I honestly think I had more fun riding out the intensity of it than I would have in a predictable easy squash. I learned my lesson and will strive to be more careful and more prepared next time, because I don't want to make a habit out of this... but just this once, getting away with something I really shouldn't have was fun and something I'm going to recall fondly when all this is over. I'm impressed, too.
... Wait, hold on. Losing to Bugsy sends you back to Violet City!?
Oh.
Oh, God.
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Date: 2017-09-12 05:42 am (UTC)Also no, losing sends you to the last pokemon center you healed at, no exceptions, so please do not panic. I just...hadn't healed since Violet. Like a dumbass. Because I'm kind of a dumbass.
I'll be honest, I kinda only seem to ever pick up a Flying type pokemon for Fly and then they tend to sit at the back of my party doing very little. Except when they're Flygon because Flygon is amazing. Or Staraptor, who is also amazing.
Not everybirdie can be Staraptor. It takes dedication to pull off that hair.
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Date: 2017-09-12 11:36 pm (UTC)I tend to look down on most of each generation's token "Normal/Flying type bird you find on Route 1 just outside your starting village" Pokemon except maybe Pidgey, because the others tend to peak early and be rather forgettable and overall not very good. Then there was my Staraptor, Starbeaks, who was one the MVPs of my team all the way through Diamond, and one of the only two from that game (along with Torterra) I actually remember being in my Hall of Fame party. Brave Bird destroyed everything, and then he had Roost just in case he just beat up too many entire teams and the recoil damage was starting to get to him. It was pretty much all I needed.
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Date: 2017-09-13 06:18 am (UTC)And then it gets Close Combat and the entire Sinnoh region just disintegrates.
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Date: 2017-09-13 02:00 pm (UTC)1) Brave Bird Staraptor hit like a truck and ran over everything.
2) Wood Hammer Torterra also hit like a truck and ran over everything.
3) Crasher Wake having a Quagsire with strong Ground moves was excellent game design, in that it was still thematically appropriate to the Water gym while also being a really clever attempt to catch people who were thinking "Oh, a Water type gym, huh? I'll just bring in Electric and one-shot everything." That was a brilliant play on Wake's part. Unfortunately for him, my first reaction going in was "Oh, a Water type gym, huh? I'll just bring in Grass and one-shot everything." And I did. (See point 2.) Poor Quagsire. It was a really good try, though. Truly.
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Date: 2017-09-12 06:10 am (UTC)In Gen 2, Fury Cutter started out at a whopping 10 power - 15 power with same-type. It needed to spam it for at least three turns in a row for it to be as effective as Quick Attack. In HG/SS, U-Turn exists and, after STAB, reaches 105 power off that top-tier attack stat. Quick Attack, after Technician, is 90 power.
That Scyther is a bit overtuned, for the second gym, but at least it dies quick if you have a Geodude with Rock Tomb. (Protip: Rock-type moves hit weakness on bugs because they squish good)
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Date: 2017-09-12 11:39 pm (UTC)Ah, another type advantage I'd forgotten about because I didn't think about that mnemonic for it. I just knew that bugs were weak to flying because nom nom.
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Date: 2017-09-13 12:17 am (UTC)It's a lot harder to remember mnemonics for what it's strong against. Grass is a gimme, but then everyone I know of only remembers it's strong against Dark because of Kamen Rider jokes (superhero bugmans defeating the twisted evil things) and nobody can come to a solid consensus about why Bug > Psychic.
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Date: 2017-09-13 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 10:23 am (UTC)(−) *chews on your mind?*
*looks innocent*
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Date: 2017-09-13 02:03 pm (UTC)*rrrrh*
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Date: 2017-09-13 10:23 am (UTC)(+) *chews on a bug*
*looks innocent*
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Date: 2017-09-13 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 06:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 08:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 06:19 pm (UTC)It's lookin' a bit early-2000s Livejournal in here.
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Date: 2017-09-13 06:22 pm (UTC)Like, remind me to never say anything like that again.
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Date: 2017-09-13 06:38 pm (UTC)The triforce of self-deprecating procrastination is complete at last!
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Date: 2017-09-13 06:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 06:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 07:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-09-13 07:12 pm (UTC)THE WORLD!
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Date: 2017-09-20 08:35 am (UTC)Less Pokémon slaughtering but still.
Even slowpoke feel pain eventually.
It must suck having your tail cut off over and over again.
I can believe a slowpoke would be okay without its tail while it waits to grow back, I just think the actual cutting part is awful. I doubt Team Rocket gives them painkillers.
The Pokémon universe is surprisingly grim sometimes.
And not in that "socially acceptable dogfighting" way that lazy people latch onto when trying to make Pokémon grimdark.
Look, let's just call it what it is: Picnicker Liz pocket-dialed us while fucking her Nidoran.
I can't help but recall the rapidash fancier from the Pokémon fanclub in RB...
At least in that game he was right in front of you and you could see he wasn't... ehm... involved with anything else while talking to you.
They think they're so big and tough because they're in a group, but get them alone and they're weak, so he hates them.
God anime villains always scorn the power of "strength in numbers" as cheating.
Every man is an island it doesn't count unless you do it 100% yourself with no one else contributing anything blah blah.
I know it's supposed to be the "wrong" viewpoint, and we're supposed to disagree, but I still just get tired of seeing it.
The theme naming would be so much less weirder if the Pokémon world ever acknowledged that name changes were a thing. It's all so much simpler if people just change their name to fit a theme than have some weird sort of destiny or name-based selection process.
Congrats on the win against Bugsy!
That sounds like an intense battle.
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Date: 2017-09-20 06:08 pm (UTC)I feel like it would kind of have to be, for the game to treat it the way it does.
SlowpokeTails are a deep black-market item, super illegal but if you know a guy who knows a guy you can buy one for one million P, if the shady guy by Union Cave was citing actual average market value. For a consumable treat, like the world's most expensive corn dog.
Meanwhile, we live in a world where meat exists, and not only is it legal, but everyone down to your local McDonalds is openly advertising super cheap kids' meals. And this is for a product where we know for a fact the animals in question are killed.
If SlowpokeTails were a renewable resource like that, and there wasn't something heinously unspeakable about the whole thing, then big agribusiness would have moved in, bought a factory half the size of Johto, and filled it with such a tightly-packed tail-harvesting operation that Team Rocket's activities would look downright benevolent by comparison. I mean, at least Rocket-brand SlowpokeTails are free range.
"God anime villains always scorn the power of "strength in numbers" as cheating."
The odd thing here is how the villain is going after other villains with his whole rant. We are clearly meant to have our issues with both Team Rocket and Silver at this point, but they're drawing a clear distinction here that those two are not on the same side.
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Date: 2017-09-21 04:07 am (UTC)Hm, you're right. I hadn't picked up on that distinction yet. I'll have to think more about that when I'm more alert.