The Proper Shade of "Pink"

Opal was impressed by my battling, but said that I didn't quite have the shade of "pink" that she was looking for, so she escorted me back to Hammerlocke. We immediately found Bede and Opal seemed so smitten with his tortured version of "pink" that she spirited him away back to Ballollea for training. Crisis averted: I can't quite see him coming back as a villian now...

Although that is truly an awkward way to tie up a plot thread...maybe something more will come of it.

As I wandered East, some more explosions started to happen around town. However, the Sonya/Leon "scooby squad" told me that they had it covered and that I should focus on just playing the videogame for a bit until they were ready for me to intervene. Essentially, this was a reminder that "yeah, eventually there will be some story wrap up, but it ain't yet.

I fought Hop again and crushed him loudly again.  I'm really starting to feel bad for the guy.  This might be the first time in the pokemon series where the rival character is so sympathetic.  If he quite pokemon battling because he can't beat me, then I'm going to feel pretty bad about myself...

Maybe this is what Opal meant by "pink". Someone who is cheerful, yet twisted by their own sense of doubt. Strong, but rotten. Maybe I'm the villain of this game.


Pokedex: 165 caught / 258 encountered




On Rotation: Copperajah, Corviknight, Toxtricity, Sandaconda

Rivals Real and Imagined

My travels through Hammerlocke had me meeting the person who is apparently the 8th gymleader: Rihan the dragon user. It was he who was in the opening cutscene in battle with Leon. One girl that I met around town said that the reason that she likes watching Rihan battle so much is because he always loses to Leon and it makes her happy to see him lose.

In addition to this, a little plot happened. Sonya was there and she mentioned something about how there may have been two heros rather than the one with the sword and the shield. However, as I have already established, the sword and shield are likely to have been pokemon anyways, so this little development is only surprising to plot-driven NPCs and perhaps also babies.

One thing I have really grown to like is the dynamic between the player character, Hop, Bede, and Marnie. At the start of this episode, Bede beat Hop pretty embarrassingly in battle and Hop has been moping and second guessing himself ever since.
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Similarly, my real life little brother and I had our first battle together. He took a commanding lead and paralyzed most of my pokemon, but made one mistake near the end which allowed me to pull ahead and win at the last minute.  He seemed pretty down on himself about it and I told him to cheer up and that it was a great match. This equivalency with what is happening in the game's story, though, is leading me to feel legitimately bad for ole Hop. I hope the rest of this game isn't just me beating up on him until he breaks...

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We went West from Hammerlocke through the deserts towards the fourth gym and stumbled across Team Yell cheering on a delughtful looking snake pokemon named Silicobra lying in the road. They may be eccentric, but they sure  are lovable.

Hop and I took them on, but he's dealing with some stuff, so he lost and I had to fight them both.



On the way to the town I picked up Helioptile, Yamask, Axew, Maractus, and my own Silicobra. I named it Arbuk and I'm testing it out a bit for a team position. It's a ground type.

Pokédex: 102/180
Current squad:

On Rotation: Toxtricity, Silicobra