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:
