Before the Storm

With eight badges in hand and a box FULL of pokemon, I found myself at victory road, ready to take on all-comers.  I defeated the gatekeeper in battle and passed through the gate and into the cave and was immediately 6-0ed by a level 60 Weavile.  I didn't even get a chance to attack once...

I am wondering how I even made it this far--the wild pokemon I am encountering are all around level 58 and the strongest member of my team is arguably Gardevoir, who is sitting at a tenuous 47.  Either I am one of the luckiest bastards out there or I am just extremely good at not repeating the same mistakes twice.

Now that I think on it, what I recall of my journey could be described as a series of lucky breaks with one or two clever battle decisions thrown in there for giggles.  Along the way I have been defeated a lot (and I mean A LOT) but I always bounced back with a plan for victory.  A little foresight can go a long way.

But against a series of 5 elite trainers (well, an elite 4 and a champion, heehaw-heehaw-heehaw) I am fairly sunk.  I don't think that the pokemon league will allow me to use my 12-pokemon rotating team.

Finally, at the end of the game, I have to make the tough decision about who to bring with me through the finale--and it is a decision that I am not looking forward to one bit.

Current Squad:

GRENINJA/Froakles/lvl.47
VENUSAUR/Venus/lvl.46
FLAREON/Hotfoot/lvl.47
LUCARIO/Knives/lvl.47
DRAGALGE/Toxie/lvl.48
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.45

On Rotation: Pikachu, Scrafty, Hippowdon, Gardevoir

How Do You Even BUILD a Hydraulic Castle?

Well, any suspension of disbelief or emotional involvement I've had in this game is now totally gone, killed, and burned.  This is just total nonsense.

As soon as I beat the Elite 4 and witnessed N put the finishing touches on his win against Alder, I was shown a cutscene of Team Plasma re-entering the story.  There is no way to describe what happened without losing something in the transition because I'm so shocked and confused at the absurdity of it all, so click this to see it yourself... Go ahead, I'll wait...

...

Apparently what their new, genius, totally-going-to-work-this-time plan entails is to build an underground castle beneath the Pokemon League HQ, then to have N become the League Champion (which somehow helps them in their hostile takeover), and finally to smash the castle up through the surface to take the League hostage.

This is something that has just happened.

Ignoring obvious questions like what ridiculous cost and time investment would go into building a castle like this (and inventing a new kind of hard-as-diamond substance that could withstand this kind of crushing force) as well as how the hell they have been able to do this without the people from the League HQ just looking out their windows to notice all the obvious construction equipment necessary for this undertaking, I still have to ask why building the underground castle would be preferable to just invading the Pokemon League in general?

The Greeks fought and won the battle of Marathon, they didn't build a pyramid next to the Persian camps and claim victory.  The English drove the French away at the Battle of Agincourt by shooting them with their bows, not by baking them a better cake.  Richard the Lionheart drove off Saladin's footmen at the Battle of Arsuf by sending in his cavalry, not by making a better science project than him.  You don't win wars by building castles and you can't take over the Pokemon League HQ just because you have a more impressive building!

Once again Team Plasma is caught throwing ideas at the wall and checking on what sticks.  I think I need to lie down for a bit...

The Elite Four (in no particular order)

Every team has its own feel to it.  Some teams are build around type synergy, some teams around setting-up one particular pokemon for a sweep, and stall teams (my favorite) are based upon wearing down your foe from passive effects.  MY team's strategy is currently to overpower my opponents through a combination of heavy hitters and infinity healing potions.

So, I made my traditional $100 billion purchase of HYPER POTIONS and REVIVES at the pokemart and it came time to fight the Elite Four!

The cool thing about this installment in the series is that the Elite Four are all of comparable difficulty and level--and that you can fight them in whatever order you want.  This is fresh and provocative and brilliant and all sorts of fun, expensive words.

Noticing that I have yet to--and will most likely never--address my glaring weakness to FIGHTING pokemon, I chose to battle Marshal the fighting champion first (so that if I screwed up I could just rage quit to my pre-battle save).  I was surprised when the battle went by easily--and even more surprised that the brand-new psychic type that I evolved from Elglelym (or whatever the hell his name is) was totally useless.  He was KOed on turn 1 and I decided not to waste the revive on him.  As far as I'm concerned it's now a 5-pokemon team.

Next I fought Grimsley the Dark trainer (as opposed to his brothers "Grim-Darkstein", "Mr. Darknessburg", and "Admiral NotSoNiceGuyManGuy") and won handily.  Apparently, Red, Scrappy, and Tusks are the anchors of my team of "powerhouses that lack finesse".  There was really no challenge in these supposed champions, and they yielded without any problems.

That is the thing about the pokemon world though--a gymleader or elite four champion is meant to yield to a trainer of sufficient strength and skill.  Gymleaders in the Pokemon world are trainers who exhibit and display the strengths and skills that a candidate on their journey for the championship is meant to have at that point in their training.  They are basically the final exams of the Pokemon world, meant to test your skill at the badge level at which you challenge them.  As a result, a
challenge at the Rank 1 "BOULDER LEVEL" (against Brock) requires a certain knowledge of type resistances and overcoming defenses.  Since this is the most basic level, it is typically very easy and Brock, despite being a trainer of obvious skill and experience, has the job of yielding to a trainer of sufficient skill and foresight.  As a kid I always wondered what fighting Brock would be like if you could fight him at the Rank 8 "BOULDER LEVEL" (as my last gymleader).  Would he be such a pushover?  I bet he would have a super-powerful Rhydon with some crazy move like BLIZZARD to trick up grass types who think they get a free pass.

These four were easy and I beat the Psychic trainer Caitlin and the Ghost trainer Shauntal handily.  From here I went on to battle Alder and, surprise, surprise, N was there and he beat me to it so I'll be battling him instead.  Seems like Black and White version isn't done ripping off the previous games after all!

Current Team: