Beat him this time by throwing out any concept of strategy. I feel dirty.
So apparently this balloon I picked up in the cemetary is full of souls. Seems normal enough to me. Wish it had a half-decent move though.
Those guys with the armour keep talking about The Blinding One. Why doesn't Hau'oli sell sunglasses?
Route 2 complete. Verdict: not ready for electric types.
I gotta say, Ilima, your trial was pretty boring compared to the nonstop battles of a gym. Even thoes two comedians you hired were pretty bad. Drowzee couldn't even touch Drifloon.
Welp, just lost to Ilima for the second time, this time due to atroucious luck. At least last time (my other file) I had a real reason (fire moves vs mono-bug)
Pointless tip for an unneeded future: Ilima's Smeargle has its extra move based on what's advantageous against your starter. If you pick Litten it knows Water Gun. If you pick Rowlet it knows Ember. I never picked Popplio so I don't know what it knows then, I presume Leafage or Vine Whip.
Welp, just lost to Ilima for the second time, this time due to atroucious luck. At least last time (my other file) I had a real reason (fire moves vs mono-bug)Thinking on it, I may struggle early-game because it's so different to where I spend most of my time. I don't use items much because I normally can't, I'm surprised by item use for the same reason (I can now say I've been beaten by a full heal) I'm used to TM-assisted coverage, I can't take attacking smeargle seriously, I'm used to status moves when they aren't very good yet.
Yeah I think this is where I may have an advantage as a non-competitive player. I have no compulsions about using items, and have learned generally when the AI uses them and how to bait it into wasting them.
I'm so excited, the guys with the armour are thinking about trusting me with this region! Does nobody else here share their appreciation for tech? Though if they're that interested in pokeballs, wait til they see warp tiles.
*gets to end of route 3, sees wooden bridge* I think I'll take the long way around...
Hala's a complete joke with drifloon. I got minimize up on his machop (which had to switch because it had nothing that could hit me, allowing me to dodge crabrawler's pursuit. Makuhita had no moves that could hit ghost either. Yet another z-crystal I have nothing to use with!
What is even with these currents? Is there an extremely weirdly shaped reef under this entire region?
Why does nobody sell sunglasses? I'm going to need those to interact with the Blinding One.
Some guy was hanging around with those bandana-wearing nutjobs. Is he the straight man for this comedy routine? In any case, he had this pokemon I had no recollection of. Mask looks a little haphazard, though.
Oh him. Yeah I've only actually used one once, in my Pearl playthrough. I honestly don't see the appeal. Though admittedly, that's partially because I still have an echo of a Gen1-based stigma against Fighting types sometimes... though, conversely, when I played the Gen5 BlazeBlack/VoltWhite hack, the Fighting/Flying type Farfetch'd in that game was one of my favorite team members.
So I was dumb and didn't heal beyond the backup revive during the totem fight, but whatever adorable thing Dulse sent out really didn't have a good way of hitting mangemite.
Rather large problem, the fire totem is a marowak, which you may realize counters my entire team. The fact that the aura is a speed boos means I can't reliably get grimer in to poison for healing spam or with bite.
Had one on my Sun team. Can confirm.
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Ever since my life flashed before my eyes from a poorly-engineered and poorly-maintained structure, I've been wanting to show this region what technology can do for you. You don't mess with a guy championing tech into this backwater dump of a region. Tech implies innovation, a way around any given problem. Under the cover story of paranormal research, I've recruited a rotom to the team by way of another recently-arrived kanto native. Conveniently, a researcher who has already had rotom has the machinery needed to integrate it. No reason to mindlessly train up the new guy, I carried on with the investigation I used as cover. Results are inconclusive for the most part, but they lean towards ghost-based explanations. At least it's not fey influence. Frankly, I'm not sure how you can be so willfully ignorant to let beings as unreliable and outright malicious as those be your supposed "guardians." You made a mistake saving me, Tapu Koko. I will be coming for you.
Don't discount the fey influence quite yet. The Fairy type has been identified for a reason... and we know just how malicious those buggers can be....
Or the fact that Valerie's extremely-concealing and extremely-complex getup reeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaally looks like she might be further along on that "I want to be a Pokemon" dream of hers than meets the eye?
The first time I saw her I thought she was supposed to be some kind of Harpy-themed Pokemon that I didn't know about, until she started talking like a person.
From a storytelling perspective though, I like that Fairy-type Trainers tend to be... off. I was worried when the type was introduced that all the Fairy types would be "cute" and "cuddly" and Disney-style Tinkerbell critters, like Flabebe and.... well, Clefairy and Jigglypuff. But not only did they also make creepier things like Mawile and Mr. Mime into Fairy-types, but introduced some - both in Gen6 and 7 with the Tapus - that really convey the eerie, not-quite-right, morally-oblivious wrongness that is supposed to be the purview of the Fair Folk. So kudos for that, GameFreak. You done good.
Not to mention that when the FTGs are ever in double battles, they're always paired with Hex Maniacs... and quite often, the dialogue for the FTG is creepier than the Hex's.
Oh also, on the note of Sylveon... Flesh Ribbons. They move like tentacles so they can't just be fur or feathers. Those ribbon-things streaming off its body, and the bow attached to them, are part of its skin/musculature. Suddenly far less cute!
A more minor gripe: why still can't I be ginger? I was ginger in Y! Why did they remove that color option between generations??
Because pokemon trainers need souls? Except in XY, obviously. [/meme]
If I wanted a soul I'd just go catch a Ghost-type. >_>
The railroading is strong in this one.
I do like that they're getting more creative with it, though. "Crab jumping in your way and ushering you where the plot wants you to go" is definitely more interesting than "line of guys blocking the path and directly saying 'we're here for no reason and will eventually vanish if you go forward the plot'".
Also I'm disappointed that Surfer Carlton isn't dancing.
I have three modes when it comes to plot: "interesting enough to look up the lore," "meh," and "how much can I break this?" pokemon has usually been in the meh category, but having your setting have conventional nature emphasized over unconventional nature is a surefire way for me to bring out the proverbial jackhammer. Unfortunately for me, programming quality has improved.
>_>
Alola has a lot of loops and backtracking, so it restricts:
The one I was noticing was Crabrawler not letting you go up Route 2(?) until you go do the thing at the Mantine Surf beach with Team Skull.
But yeah. The sad thing is that the "weirder" monsters are the cooler ones, and the only one that would be considered "natural" but still rates high on the coolness scale is Araquanid; I might include Salazzle, Vikavolt, Lurantis, Dhelmise, and Turtonator, if only for having interesting designs.
The rest of the awesome stuff from this generation - Type:Null/Silvally, Mimikyu, most of the UBs, etc. - is both "not natural" and extremely late-game to acquire. I was hoping USUM would fix some of this, but instead it seems to have doubled down, moving all except Mimikyu to the postgame if they weren't already there.
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Alola has a lot of loops and backtracking, so it restricts:The one I was noticing was Crabrawler not letting you go up Route 2(?) until you go do the thing at the Mantine Surf beach with Team Skull.
I *may* have been trying to teach magnemite electroweb before the first trial, and I *may* have gone to the beach for that before the fight with ilima.
You're pretty tame compared to some other corners of the universe. It's not like the hall of fame records are important. (It never fails to amuse speedrun audiences when Oak's normal dialoge is "Pokemon trainers are honored for their exploits here" when you teleport in 5 minutes after getting your starter.)I have three modes when it comes to plot: "interesting enough to look up the lore," "meh," and "how much can I break this?" pokemon has usually been in the meh category, but having your setting have conventional nature emphasized over unconventional nature is a surefire way for me to bring out the proverbial jackhammer. Unfortunately for me, programming quality has improved.>_>
I've seen a lot of glitchy runs of Gen1 on Youtube for funsies. Like one guy using 8F to manually reprogram the game into Pong.
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Finishing up a stint as a wandering trainer, I found the Flying Z-crystal lying around. Was the person hanging around to teach me the pose hired by park staff? It had the honor of the first z-move I used, attached to drifloon's gust.
Tradition's weakness is it's failure to adapt, and rotom destroyed the trial.
Shortly after unblocking the road (how do vacationers get to the motel?), I met up with the Squad, this time meeting with another researcher. He made a comment about their outfits, but I'm not sure he can complain with that hairstyle.
I don't know why Kukui has so many working appliances boxed up in his basement, but the pilot has changed over to prepare for the exremely obvious grass-type trial.
I end up leading with Drifloon, since it's so close to evolution. Unfortunately, fake bugs didn't push it over.
So there are holes in space? Okay. It's not like it's been the most euclidean thing after warp panels were developed, but I am curious about why so much of this dimensional research deals with Legendaries. Is it still an emerging field with little information, or should I really stop running off with Brunt's husband's appliances?
After trekking through a cave where I wondered who designs a uniform with the insignia on the buttocks, I met a pretty incompetent policeman. By which I mean he tried to cover up his profession and failed. I'm probably going to have to get him out of trouble later.
I added a new member to the team! I didn't start with too many options if I wanted to keep magnemite, but the blocky moai has grown on me.
Olivia was escorting Lillie and her exotic magikarp over to the ruins, so we battled there. Mirror shot took care of the first two, fossils less likely to have ground coverage against magnemite. Z-leaf storm beat out Lycanroc, who for some reason wanted to bite a lawnmower over using a Rock attack.
The guy with the stoutland is finally gone! How many things were on this 10 meter bridge that it took this long, anyway? It's time to hit the beach and all that entails: recruiting an animate pile of sand. That's not what people do at beaches? I came from Kanto, okay? The coast there is rocky!
Mantine Surf is actually rather fun. Not the fastest way to get BP maybe, but a lot more enjoyable for me than the Battle (insert thing here) has been in the past. At least they don't make you use motion controls.
So you're telling me that you're a bunch of park rangers with enough tech for an island-sized boat? Would you mind taking over the job of managing park infrastructure? You seem like the kind of people to build a bridge that stays up. Unrelated, but does Wicke actually work for you? Given how exited she is to find the elevator buttons I have my doubts.
Wandered around, looking for the magnemite habitat. They are endemic to a very small area in the region, after all. Didn't find it in the main area, but they have grimer, so they're not blind to urban life.
What do you mean, "It's just wrong somehow?" It's a space jellyfish! Half my team is weirder than that! You know this, because I keep beating you with it.
We could have furthered extradimensional research along immediately, but nobody turned off the pokeball jammer. We even had somebody with the authority right there with us.
Back on boring old real islands, Hau is showing some signs of intelligence as he switches dartrix out against drifiblm. He still hasn't figured out how to effectively hit steel types though, so once his electric resist was down, he took a charge beam powered sweep.
Libraries have helpful information, like how the tapus have met together and nobody bothered to find out what they're actually doing. Also that Solgaleo is an idiot for giving those guys power.
Space is cool and all, but you drove by a mountainside route. I backtracked and added a quarter of a supercomputer to the team.
What do you mean, "It's just wrong somehow?" It's a space jellyfish! Half my team is weirder than that! You know this, because I keep beating you with it.
It's a space jellyfish made of glass. Living Glass. Which is awesome.
Excited for the free steel Z-crystal, though I'm not sure what that action had to do with the laser I boosted.
I have so many questions. Why are there no stairs to the telescope? Why are they too lazy to herd their own bugs? What's the point of unique names if they all look the same? Do the other scientists just not care about you bringing in random pokemon? Haven't you heard of circuit breakers?
Plowed through grimer and sandygast easily. Metang (who had evolved when I wandered around misinterpreting which bus station to look for charjabugs near) tanked a few hits and recieved a few stat boost items, but the one turn I go for brick break it goes for spiky shield. Then I die to a crit. Nosepass gets a single bulldoze in thanks to the eviolite.
Rotom carries with ominous wind, something I wasn't expecting given he's still a lawnmower. Bounce and Spiky Shield run through the 5 PP, but Bloom Doom takes out the last ~1/4 (the aura boosts physical defnese, and togedemaru never had good Sdef). I switch to magneton to finish skarmory
Guzma is an idiot. He expressly heard that I had a magneton as my main, but he still challenges me with two mons weak to electric. Results are predictable.
You want me to keep cosmog away from the rest of team skull? I've got an idea on how to do that.
Dulse! Just the man I wanted to see. Think you could run some protective custody for me?
With the devastation just next door, how can these people still venerate the tapus? If it was near to the ruins and if there were few casualties I could understand, but this is across the town and has more ghosts than the graveyards. He'll know your pain, I promise you.
Skull is holding a ransom, but that puts them on reaction. I can do whatever to prepare before going in. So I explore the desert for relics who won't mind sticking around after to kick some fairy butt. After much effort, I find golett. A copy of the machine has been sent to a fringe collaborator. I expect their automaton shortly. Revisiting the mass unmarked grave, I realize that if battle is going to erupt, a specialist in sabotage and infiltration may be useful. A prankster tempered by their second type, Klefki had been added to the team.
Trailing a bit behind you, though not by too much; the Fire trial lies just ahead. I don't yet have a steady Ground-, Rock-, or Water-type on hand to deal with them directly, but I do have a Houndoom, who is hopefully fast enough to deliver a few Bites before getting a Ground attack or two in from the enemy.
The team's made short work of things thus far. Mawile with Brick Break made the Normal trial a joke and she and Espurr (now Meowstic) breezed through the kahuna's battle on Fairy Wind and Psyshock. The Water trial was a little trickier, but Electrike (now Manectric) eventually managed to paralyze everything thrown our way and mow things down via Shock (with a little help from a ride-along Ledyba's Light Screen, admittedly).
Not to mention how Mawile and Brick Break again made mincemeat of the challenge at the Battle Royale. Type:Null on one side and Rockruff on the other was no contest. If the battle had actually continued to a full conclusion Dartrix would likely not have been much of a challenge either.
My own Null and Zygarde are still sitting in the computer until I finish this island; until I take out the second kahuna, I can't guarantee their obedience and I don't want to risk a tactical loss to disobedient whim. I'm strongly thinking of bringing Zygarde along to the Fire trial though, if only to tank hits while I mend wounds if Houndoom goes down; its Dragon/Ground typing is too advantageous defensively here to ignore. If I can get it to obey, even just once or twice for a decisive hit, all the better.
EDIT: And ended up not needing it. Houndoom solidly two-shot the totem Marowak, hanging on by a thread after a Brick Break, and Meowstic cleaned up the summoned Salazzle handily after Houndoom fell before it.
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I don't know why I keep coming back to this place. I should be worried about a collapse, or actually dealing with team skull. But there's something here, I just feel like I have a purpose. But it's a calming feeling, not like the rage I've felt at the other marks of the tapu's true nature.
It eats up emotions like malice, jealousy, and resentment, so some people are grateful for its presence.
Oh. That's why.
*muk grew to level 40, learns gunk shot*
*ace trainer Karla is about to send in wigglytuff*
*grins maliciously*
Since I have no intent to honour this deal, I scope out the area around Po Town. The leader of a small group was willing to duel my magneton over the question of his allegiance. I checked Bisharp's nature later, it was gentle.
The supposed parameter was alone, and I arrived with 6 or 8 more supporters than that, depending on how you count magneton. Their preparations were not the most impressive. They had plenty of time to realize that if I was going to fight, posion types wouldn't be the best way to counter me. Are they that worried about rotom as opposed to all the steel, ghost, and ground types I have?All they accomplished is giving sandygast enough EXP to evolve.
I was half-expecting Guzma's pinsir to mega evolve just so he can continue to be cripplingly weak to electric. Instead, it actually gave me some trouble with it's fighting and dark coverage. Shuppet evolved from that battle.
Acerola, what are you doing over here? I haven't yet gotten Dulse to agree to take on cosmog!
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I remind Gladion it's Acerola's fault. He doesn't believe me.
I wish I could be surprised the guy with a Z-crystal around his neck is the kahuna, but instead I teach bisharp X-scissor (the colour is obvious since I already have ghost, and klefki doesn't know play rough yet)
I drop having the last slots as training. If there is evil using all this tech, I need to stop them. It's like any other tribe, if somebody else takes down your evil outlier, suddenly your entire clan is a bunch of criminals. But if you can beat your own traitor, you can hold on to some respect.
I will show you technology, I will fight alongside it, and we will take you down. For every magnemite living in a city, for every golett still running, for every porygon yet to be programmed, you will fall!
I think the Battle Royale ends when rockruff goes down, I had the other three still going strong in my run. It went down to poison (posion gas was my only spread move) once razor leaf took it into the red.
It's when any one player goes down, at least in the first demonstration battle with Kukui/Gladion/Hau. I've never gone back and done more, those might actually be fight to the last rounds.
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Got it the day before Thanksgiving.
Completed the first island by Sunday.
Only got 30+ Pokemon.
Used my first 5 captures throughout the region with only a couple of them fainting ; Litten/Torracat, Yungoos, Buneary, Inkay, Pikepek/Trumbeak, Grubbin/Charjabug.
Torracat was lvl 25 and the rest were 22.
Beat the Kahuna without using Z-Power.
Going to try to do the whole game using the same 6 Pokemon.
To Be Continued
Skull, you're jerks but you aren't the targets of rightous fury. For your saftey, I strongly urge you to leave. They didn't listen, and nothing much happened of interest. Guzma's new vikavolt only got pallosand because my rock user was weakened from pinsir.
Dulse, neither of us want this fight. You don't want to give up on allies, I don't want to burn this place to the ground. As soon as I'm done with politics here, I'll go to save your world. But there are those that must be stopped, and I will not let anybody prevent that.
Cryostasis? really? We have matter/energy converters with accurate pattern storage and you use cryostasis? You are aware of how risky it is to store pokemon in such a type-cast environment, right? Just look at fossils, they've been with the rock so long, we can't seperate what essense is the pokemon and which is the rock?
Oh, right. Misguided applications of the "the needs of the many" speech. What's the point of all this tech if you can't do fine control? We saw that the nihilego brought in the previous setup had unstable energy. There's no indication you've improved your apparatus. Furthermore, if the Squad had used cosmog's abilities, you wouldn't have needed this particular one. The fact that they've pulled of stable transport without death and you haven't marks you a failure. I will teach you your place, below the other masters of technology. Also, are you seriously considering adventuring in a dress, heels, and with that much hair? You won't make it very far.
Talk is uninformative compared to battle. Her lead says everything I need to know about her fall: a pure fairy-type.
So now instead of babysitting a legendary magikarp, I'm babysitting a legendary metapod?
I told you that the Squad had a better plan! Why can't you wait 5 minutes for them to tell you? [sarcasm]It's not like they know exactly what you'd be facing, where to find it and how to get there safely or anything like that[/sarcasm]
That's good to know, for future reference.
Took down the remaining Totem on Akala Island - which, let's be blunt, was a joke against Houndoom. The kahuna herself was no better, easily crumbling under Meowstic's Energy Ball and Mawile's Brick Break.
This Faba person is up to something, I just know it. He's all kinds of sleazy.
It was nice to see Dulse and Zossie again, especially this time without their masks. Dang if I wouldn't like to spend more time with them instead of getting carted around from island to island by Kukui.
On Ula'ula now. Had to go running circles around a park looking for the professor again, predictably. Got to visit a library and meet a royal descendant girl with a patchwork dress who seemed nice enough, and the books had some interesting lore to them. Lillie's going to be chilling there while I move on to the trial on this island, which is apparently up the mountain a ways.
Null is now on my team permanently, since I now have the second Kahuna down and his obedience is secured for a few more levels at least. He hasn't been doing much, but just being in the party seems to be doing good for his mood. As soon as I find a decent toolchest, I'm taking that damned helmet off. Poor guy.
The next trial is apparently Electric, though, so I might bring Zygarde along again as a potential tank to soak hits while I heal or re-assess my tactics if necessary; I'm not sure how obedient it will be, nor if I'm willing to risk it in a trial, but it may be the best option I have, if push comes to shove.
I'm pretty annoyed I don't have the posion Z-crystal yet, considering some random trainer used it on me.
Wait, we're going to the ruins? *frantically stuffs rare candies into metang* *looks around for convienent mega stone* Oh boy...
"If you want to get to vast poni canyon, you need permission from the kahuna first" The kahuna does not currently exist!
Survived the ruins, was a little uncertain about leaving Lillie with just a trial captain, since she was abandoned and kidnapped last time. Cleared out a path with effeicency (and corkscrew crash), got the flute.
Skull, you don't know what you're in for. I need to get to that canyon!
*uses remaining rare candies to evolve nosepass and magneton*
Since I have another grass type, I go to change over rotom to water type. I was not expecting Molayne to be exercising in Kukui's basement. I waited for him to leave before rummaging through the appliances.
There will be secondary attacks being used just as powerful, so eviolite Null might be a better tank.
So noted. [strike]Where do you snag the Eviolite? I don't think I have it yet.[/strike] EDIT: NVM, found it =)