Pokemon Y Playthrough: Catching all the Misfits

I found Espurr in an alleyway along the Northern Boulevard.  By dancing for it, I gained it trust and both Mimi and FriendofMimi decided to come back with is to the Bureau.  I hope that I never have to dance (literally dance) for my new boss.  FriendofMimi introduced herself to us as Emma.

Chapter 3: Detective, Tourist, Gang

It wasn't long before our next case presented itself to us.  In walks a Japanese tourist.  I know she was japanese because she spoke in written japanese text.  I hope you understand what I mean by that because it's just as incomprehensible to me now that I think on it.  Hopefully the attached picture will help explain.

Looker didn't want to let on that he doesn't know one word of Japanese, so he left to buy the lady tea, leaving the irritated woman to Emma and I.  Luckily, Emma knows Japanese and Mimi knows "psychic", so Emma responded and Mimi used Psychic to link our minds.  I like to see examples of pokemon using their abilities outside of battle.

Apparently, her pokemon were stolen at the train station.  Because this is a kid's game, Emma immediately knew the culprits to be the Lumiose Gang.  Looker ran off to challenge them, but as it were, he doesn't have any pokemon...

...anymore.

The backstory was explained in one line of seemingly throw-away dialogue: Looker's only pokemon died a long time ago.  It isn't a thing that is often discussed in the games, but Pokemon death is a real thing at least in my head cannon.  Whenever I restart a game these days, I make sure to transfer all of the pokemon that I consistently used to the Pokemon Bank so that they may be used later on.  If not, I view those pokemon as having died.  This probably makes me a psychopath, but honestly I was a psychopath well before this came to light.

I battled in Looker's stead and defeated the gauntlet.  It turns out that little, innocent Emma used to be their leader of the Lumiose gang.

And then Looker hired the entire Lumiose gang to be his assistants as well.  He really seems to be building an army of misfit future detectives.  It's like he's collecting 'em all, if " 'em " refers to scrubby street urchin types.

Current Squad:

Greninja/Froakles/lvl 94
Pikachu/PikaPi/lvl 63
Flareon/Rox/lvl 60
Hippowdon/Leviathan/ lvl 68
Dragalge/Toxie/lvl 55
Aerodactyl/Scarydactyl/lvl 54

Pokemon Y Postgame: Looking for Looker Books (#nailedit)

Our story begins...for the second time...at the Looker Bureau of Investigations.  Detective Looker is a character that was introduced in Pokemon Platinum as a member of InterPol.  I scummed his wiki page and he apparently also appeared in Pokemon White somewhere and Pokemon Omega Ruby.  Several Pokemon Generations episodes feature him; he is depicted in these as being involved with the Giovanni case in Pokemon Red among other side story tales.  I think this is revisionist history--he never really played any part of the story in any previous games that I have played...at least as far as I can remember.

Looker asked me to be his partner as a detective He had been looking me up and was aware that I was the newest Kalos League Champion and that I was responsible for taking care of that...ahem...Team Flare problem.  He then casually told me to go back to school to become a detective.

Hhhhaaaa...you're kidding me?

The schooling that Detective Looker mentioned apparently involved me tracking down and finding five books that he had hidden around the city.  He told me, roughly, where they would be found, but it still seems as though he just wanted me gone so that he could beat off or take his coke or something.

The books were hidden all around Lumiose City: the first in a Pokemon Center, the next in a medicine shoppe.  The final clue brought me to an art museum.  I found the book Easily enough, but stayed to browse through the exhibits: paintings of different scenes and locales in the Kalos region--places that I had been to before way back when I played this game for the first time.

I have to admit that being there with Froakles and the rest of my former teammates--pokemon that I had spent so much time with so long ago--was quite the experience.  I have to admit to smiling rather stupidly as I thought back to all the adventures I had had; I also thought of how happy I am to make those same adventures with my Pokemon Moon team and with Pako Pako.

Because of Pokemon Bank, I keep all of my past teams these days.  I have teams from Heartgold, Diamond, Black 2, White, Omega Ruby, and now X and Y versions all in there.  Pokemon that I had played so much with:
Pokemon I can't let go.

Quick shoutout to a few of my favorites:
"Jolty the Jolteon" who took care of me from Heartgold through Black 2.
"Yinkin the Alakazam" who single-handedly defeated the Elite Four in Pearl.
"Yako the Staraptor" whom I could always count on as a reliable switch-in in tougher Diamond battles.
"Zappy the Minun", they said I was crazy for picking you, but you were the MVP of my Sapphire replay.

I'm glad that I took this time to replay this game.

Current Squad:


Greninja/Froakles/lvl 93
Pikachu/PikaPi/lvl 61
Flareon/Rox/lvl 57
Hippowdon/Leviathan/ lvl 66
Dragalge/Toxie/lvl 52
Aerodactyl/Scarydactyl/lvl 51

Team Flare Makes a Move

No sooner had I left the gym than I got a Holo-message from Lysandre, the fellow with the lion's mane who introduced himself to me as the villain near the start of the game (which was nice of him I guess).  Apparently, he was sending this message to trainers everywhere that he was ordering Team Flare to kill everyone in the entire world.

I guess I kind of forgot what was going on in this game and this message reminded me that there was still a story in this thing--and now it is most certainly the time for me to figure out what is going on. 

I pursued Team Flare to Lysandre's Cafe in Lumiose City and found the secret entrance hidden behind the bookcase in the back guarded by two Team Flare Table-Waiters.  This seems familiar...
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Another one of the things I really loved about the earlier games is that they would tell you what to do (or not) by making you put the pieces together yourself.  Pokemon White (and, to a lesser extent, Pokemon Sapphire) spent far too much time talking about what was going on and where you should go.  Go to the Dragonspiral Tower, which is where the legendary dragon pokemon are found, Now go to the Relic Castle to get Zekrom, No, Zekrom isn't here, go back to the City with the Swamp whatever it was called in that game.  That game could not stop explaining things to you and I just felt dumb having to deal with its constantly condescending dialogue.  Not to mention the dialogue was shit to begin with.

This game is kind of a happy middle-ground.  I was shown Lysandre's Cafe earlier in the game in a scripted story event where I met the Professor (on my second tour of Lumiose City), so I knew where it was and that Lysandre owned it.  My fellow Pokemon Thief gang-member (and game Rival) Serena told me that we should look for Team Flare's HQ.  All I had to do was put these two pieces together and I found the place.  Not quite as difficult as curing cancer (and most certainly not as hard as figuring out the opposite-day logic that you needed the Pokeflute to get into the Silph Co. Building), but it was enough to make me feel good about using that fancy Graduate-School education I've been neglecting for the past two years.

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After battling Lysandre himself (he had a Pyroar, go figure), I made my way through a conveyor-belt/teleporter maze, trying to find the administrator with the lift key (yup, definitely been here before).

Along the way, I encountered battles ranging from easy to absurdly difficult.  Of special note was a Malamar which kept boosting its own stats while using Superpower (due to its ability, which raises stats instead of lowering them) and one particularly hairy match against a high level Drapion, who used Acupressure two consecutive times to luckily sharply raise its Attacking power and Speed.  That Drapion tore me apart my first attempt.

At the end, I was treated with a story that I guess was supposed to explain all the "3000 year legend" references people have been making this whole game, but which in reality just made matters even more confusing.  The story was about a guy whose Floette died making a machine that brought it back to life at the cost of the lives of many other pokemon.  Team Flare made it perfectly clear that their doomsday machine is the same machine as this one.

After I failed to stop Team Flare from activating the machine, I was pointed in the direction of Geosenge City again.

Current Squad:

GRENINJA/Froakles/lvl.41
VENUSAUR/Venus/lvl.40
FLAREON/Hotfoot/lvl.42
SCRAFTY/Scrappy/lvl.42
HIPPOWDON*/Leviathan/lvl.40
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.40

On Rotation: Pikachu, Gardevoir, Lucario

Spooky Ghosties

Well, this honestly scared me a little bit.

As I was concluding my exploration of Lumiose City, I found myself in the Northern District at an inauspicious, unmarked building.  The first floor was populated by the typical fare: people who were all to eager to talk about their favorite pokemon Skitty or how using the item X Attack is a really good idea if you're in a pinch.

I took the elevator to the second floor and stepped into the room.  At this point, my 3DS screen went black and the formerly cheery music turned off.  When my 3DS turned back on, a Hex Maniac trainer (pictured above) appeared behind me in the elevator (I had no control over my character at this point) and floated around the room a bit before telling me that I "wasn't the one" and disappeared from the floor.  The regular music resumed and I couldn't find her anymore.

I think I pissed myself a bit.  (Link brings you to a youtube video of someone else going through the event--seriously click it, its pretty weird.)

Possibly related: I found another Hex Maniac in another Lumiose City building who told me to stop talking to her because she needed to be listening for the elevator...
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I have been screwing around a lot more than usual for the past few days trying to catch and train up some interesting pokemon to fill up that pokedex.  Along the way, I was able to find a "Light Ball" for my Pikachu to hold (an item which doubles Pikachu's Special Attack and Attack stats), so I think egoraptor's Pikachu drawing applies to "PikaPi" at this point:

The Route North of Lumiose City leads through a bog full of interesting Water, Poison, and Water/Ground pokemon and I was able to catch Haunter, Quagsire, Skorupi, Carnivine, Poliwhirl, Barboach, as well as a weird new Dragon-type named Goomey.  While Haunter is in my list of top 10 pokemon, I am really quite content with the way my team looks right now.

Along the route, the Pokemon Thieves Gang met-up at a spooky Haunted House to listen to an old man tell a Ghost Story about some person being met by a horde of Slendermen (Slenderman's?), so Pokemon Y has now officially turned into a Survival Horror game.

As I made it into Laverre City, my Ivysaur evolved into Venusaur and Hippopotas evolved into Hippowdon.  The interesting thing, though, is that my Hippopotas evolved into a shiny Hippowdon, meaning that I am an idiot for not realizing that the Hippopotas that I caught just happened to be shiny this whole time.  This was the perfect end to a rather spooky gaming session.

Current Squad:

FROGADIER/Froakles/lvl.33
VENUSAUR/Venus/lvl.35
FLAREON/Hotfoot/lvl.34
SKRELP/Toxie/lvl.35
HIPPOWDON*/Leviathan/lvl.34
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.33

On Rotation: Pikachu, Gardevoir, Scraggy, Lucario

Dexter in the Eiffel Tower

I returned to Lumiose City via the Power Plant backdoor and was immediately led to the gym, which happened to be in the Eiffel Tower.  I kind of saw this coming due to all of the irony surrounding the city of lights losing its power, but it turns out that the Gymleader Clemont is an Electric User.  You may already be familiar with him, though, since he also played the part of Melvin from Sailor Moon.

His gym was a trivia gym--where you answer questions and battle trainers on the way up.  The problem is that after you start to climb you don't really have the option to leave--and since I have been screwing around with my team and raising eggs as I explore Lumiose City's Northern end, I found myself challenging the gym with a bunch of nothing and a Hippopotas.

Gymkiller Squad # 5: What the Hell is This Nonsense?

 

It turns out that there was really nothing to worry about since Hippopotas took me all the way to the gymleader and defeated all three of his pokemon: Emolga, Magneton, and Heliolisk.  While the former two were pokemon I expected him to carry, the new pokemon Heliolisk was a fun pokemon to battle.  Still didn't match-up to Hippopotas though.

The Electric Type is a strong attacking type with only one weakness--but the problem is that this weakness (ground type) completely walls it out.  With other types of pokemon, this is not a major issue because they can still use other moves to hit it for damage.  My Frogadier can still fight grass pokemon with "Thief", "Lick", or "Smack Down" (Dark, Ghost, Rock type, respectively) and my Aerodactyl has "Bite", "Aerial Ace", and "Ancient Power".  Most Electric pokemon, on the other hand, have very limited move-pools and really only get access to attacks that are either Electric or Normal-typed.  The result is that they take-on opponents like Hippopotas in the same way that a cabbage takes-on a sledgehammer.

In my exploration of Lumiose City, I found an Orange Julius and a restaurant that served food and triple pokemon battles  against their waiters and chefs.  The final course was a cheese course, "...our washed-rind cheese made using a female Arbok's Toxic poison" and a battle against a Simisage, Simisear, and Simpour.  Incidentally, my starting combination of Aerodactyl, Frogadier, and Pikachu seemed to be accidentally perfect for the entire gauntlet.

Current Squad:

FROGADIER/Froakles/lvl.33
IVYSAUR/Ivy/lvl.31
FLAREON/Hotfoot/lvl.30
SKRELP/Toxie/lvl.31
SCRAGGY/Scrappy/lvl.31
AERODACTYL/Scarydactyl/lvl.33

On Rotation: Gardevoir, Pikachu, Hippopotas, Lucario

A Dirty Little Horde

Full Disclosure:  this post took a little long to get out because I got a bit lost in Lumiose City.  It's not like it is hard to navigate, it's just really really big and I'm one of the brand of gaming scum called "completionists" who have to do and see everything before moving on.  The thing is the city is not even all unlocked yet.  By this, I mean that AS PER USUAL, the game has invented some arbitrary reason why certain streets or routes are closed.  This time, it is because the power is out in the northern part of the city.  At least the reasoning in this game totally makes sense, I remember one time when I was a kid where there was no electricity in my town and I also couldn't walk around...outside...in broad daylight.

No, wait, that's right, that never happened and never would.

I made my way to the next route and my next pokemon-catching spree, where I picked-up Doduo for the active team.  It was an obvious choice between him and Farfetch'd, despite the fact that Farfetch'd (and Lickitung, for that matter) is something of a closet favorite of mine.

The Gang of Pokemon Thieves

Here, I met-up with two "supporting cast" characters of the Gang of Pokemon Thieves (my "friends"), Tierno and Trevor.  Tierno is a big guy whose only character trait is that he likes to dance (something that the game will remind you of incessantly), and Trevor's only character traits are that he is shy and smart.  Glad to have such deep and thoughtful characters this go-around!  Go Team!


Trevor gave me some Honey (and I'm glad that I resisted leading with the obvious misleading pun "Trevor gave me some sugar") to smear all over my body (okay, that line got just as creepy just as fast) to attract hordes of pokemon in tall grass.

Once again, completionist scum that I am, I had to try this out, wherein I was set-upon by five Scraggy.  "Awesome!" I thought, "time to add my favorite pokemon from white version back into my team!"

Let me preface this next point with a revelation about my play style: I hate to miss with a move.  As a matter of fact, I have never had a pokemon with the moves Fire Blast, Thunder, or Hydropump, because I would rather sacrifice the extra power for perfect accuracy (all of these moves have a 70% hit rate, and I use instead Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, and Surf respectively). 

For me, there has never been anything as terrifying as this: seeing all five Scraggy use Sand Attack on me in one turn.

This is bad enough--but then it just got worse, after my move missed, they all used Leer.  At this point I snapped and awoke several hours later in strange surroundings.

Honestly, this was one of the toughest matches I've had, or at least the most frustrating; the gang of Scraggy decimated my squad while I whittled their number down.  In the end I was reduced to just Flabebe (and tears, can't forget the tears), who I found out has a type advantage with Fairy over either Fighting or Dark (the move was super-effective against Scraggy, but Scraggy is Fight/Dark, so I'm not sure which type it was strong against) and was able to capture one of the Scraggy for my team. 

Feeling good about myself, I made it to the next town, Camphrier Town, where the guy I was supposed to talk to about "Mega-Evolutions" there told me to leave.  Obviously, it was time to call it a day.

Current Squad:

FROAKIE/Froakles/lvl.13
BULBASAUR/Bulby/lvl.13
PIKACHU/PikaPi/lvl.11
DODUO/Birdface/lvl.10
FLABEBE/Pixie/lvl.11
SCRAGGY/Scrappy/lvl.5

On Rotation: Ralts, Zigzagoon

The Good Kind of Tough Choices

I ended-up spending a lot more time than I expected screwing-around in the Route 4 hedge maze getting a feel for this new fairy type and I still haven't decided on whether I prefer Ralts (who was on my main team back when I played Sapphire Version and has always been a sleeper favorite of mine) or this Dandelion thing I just caught.  Ralts is a known commodity, but Flabebe, as I have found after fighting the scores of Combee that inhabit Route 4,  is something of a Special Defense Tank.  I have always been more of a fan of stall-teams, probably because I'm such a huge pussy, so having a Special Tank like Flabebe is fairly fulfilling for me.  For now I'm just going to keep a seven-pokemon rotating roster until I decide I'm tired of something.  These kind of tough choices are the good kind, I feel.

Professor Sycamore as he appears in Pokemon Red

As soon as I made it to Glitch City (Lumiose City), I met up with Professor Sycamore, who immediately challenged me to a battle.  I was expecting a battle against three magnemite or maybe a
Porygon, a Grimer, and a Cubone (These are typical pokemon carried by a "Super-Nerd") or something weird like that, but he surprised me with Bulbasaur, Charmander, and Squirtle.

Updates: Fire type added

And it is at exactly this moment that I found out that Fairy Type Attacks are not very effective against Fire Type Pokemon (sigh).  I updated my chart to reflect this new data, but Flabebe still has not forgiven me for this oversight.


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I'm not quite sure if I was good all this year, but apparently Christmas came for me anyways: Professor Sycamore gave me my choice of his three pokemon.  I was thinking of picking up Charmander because I really wanted to see that Charizard in 3D, but I decided to stick to my roots and pick Bulbasaur--who was my very first pokemon ever.  I named him "Bulby".

Which brings up that question of what to do with my pokemon team--which is now made up of eight pokemon.  Bulbasaur, Froakie and Raich--I mean, Pikachu are non-negotiable and I'm still pretty high on Flabebe and Ralts...

Guess I have an eight-pokemon cycle for now!

My gang of pokemon-thieving friends arrived just after the battle so that Professor Sycamore could give us all a nice pep talk about following our dreams and finding others who have different views or some "Mr. Roger's Neighborhood" nonsense like that. I really wasn't paying attention, I was too high on Bulbasaur at this point--which is a problem because I think he said something important about Mega-Evolving Bulbasaur in his monologue and I definitely missed it.  Hopefully this isn't going to be a problem (SPOILER: it probably is).

On the way out the door I met the obvious villain-du-jour Lysandre.  Why did I immediately identify him as the villain?  Because he said he wanted to save the world.  Only bad
guys say things like that, this is the first thing you learn at protagonist school.  I should have been intimidated, but who can be scared of a guy named Lysandre?  That's like being afraid of a guy named Lloyd!

Current Squad:

FROAKIE/Froakles/lvl.13
BULBASAUR/Bulby/lvl.10
PIKACHU/PikaPi/lvl.11
BUTTERFREE/Felix/lvl.11
FLABEBE/Pixie/lvl.11
FARFETCH'D/Quacklin'/lvl.11

On Rotation: Ralts, Zigzagoon