Vs. Opal

Marnie met me in the gym lobby (before I got my pump, wth?!) in order to tell me that she considers me to be her primary rival and that she would meet me in the finals for sure. She also mentioned that her Morpeko seemed to like me. I think this means we're dating...

Corvisquire had evolved somewhat recently, but the last time that I had actually used him in battle was several gyms ago. His newly Steel-ed wings may have grown a bit rusty since then. I led with him in the gym warmup to help to him stretch his feathers.

Opal, the octogenarian gym leader (this is foreshadowing for later) and Fairy Type expert awaited me within. She is apparently looking for a replacement to serve as the new leader of her Fairy gym. As a result, the gym task was organized as an audition. Battles were performed on stage and interrupted with Fairy-themed quiz questions. Correct answers would give my pokemon a stat boost. Incorrect answers meant that we would have to fight from a deficit...

I found several identical looking older women...or perhaps the same woman every time (it is hard to say for sure with these NPC's). By the end of it, Chirpy the Corviknight was all warmed up and ready to anchor the team.

I led with Eurypyro against Opal's Galarian Weezing. I didn't expect that the quiz would continue into the gym battle, but it did. Right off the bat, Eurypyro (the Centiscorch) was kneecapped by a quiz question. Since he is a centipede and he has 100 legs, this was a particularly effective kneecapping. He was taken out handily in two turns due to my inability to give him the support that he needed.

3-4

The questions continued and I was completely stumped and unable to assist my pokemon in crucial moments. EMF was able to overpower Weezing despite this. Against her Mawile, I misread another question  and EMF was handicapped just like my previous pokemon. He was able to take out Mawile with Discharge, but his stats were nuked by my quiz answers.

3-2

Togekiss started turning things sour for me right off the bat. It outsped my quiz-weakened Toxtricity and actually got the universal +1 boost from Ancient Power. I was finally able to get one quiz question right when I flattered Opal by saying that she looked 18 rather than 88. It pays sometimes to have tact.

This small victory, however, was short lived as Togekiss got a second Ancient Power stat boost. (This is a 10% possibility for each, remember). Toxtricity is unable to secure the KO against Togekiss.

2-2

Cheeto comes in and is able to finish Togekiss off with a lucky critical  hit. Her last pokemon is Alcremie (pronounced like "alchemy"). Cheeto gets a huge hit against it, but Alcremie Gigantimaxes and takes  it out in one hit whilst restoring its own HP as a bonus effect.

1-1

Corviknight stretched its Steel Wings. It is Gigantamax Alcremie vs Dynamax Chirpy.

Chirpy gets the KO with Max Steelspike! Welcome back, old friend!

The Return of an Old Friend

The Glimwood Tangle is a dark maze of a forest covered in shimmering phosphorescent mushrooms and filled with Fairy and Psychic type pokemon. They seem to be drawn to its ethereal magic. I caught Indeedee, Spritzee, Impidimp, and the beautiful Psychic typed Galarian Ponyta along the way and emerged into Ballonlea Town, ready to compete for my Fairy Badge.

Except that I have a very weak team for this matchup. Most of my team is Dark and few pokemon even have a move that would hit neutrally on the variety of potential foes that I would face in a Fairy-typed matchup. Unless the gymleader uses four Azumarill, bait for Cheeto to barrel over, I am screwed.

EMF (Toxtricity) is a good matchup as a poison type, but could struggle against a lot of different pokemon. Plus, relying only on one pokemon is dangerous in a pinch. I needed to bring back an old friend for the battle.

To be continued...

Scheduled Slacking-Off

Whenever I get deep enough into a game to start to really get it and get into the world and the setting, I like to run off and explore. Breath of the Wild found me filling in my map (and my stamina wheel) with trial locations. Skyrim found me collecting Daedra Hearts and Gold Ore for smithing and alchemy projects. Phantom Hourglass found me using the DS stylus to draw tits on the area map. These escapades are not always materially useful to my journey, but they are always good for either my immersion or at least my own satisfaction.

While Pokemon doesn't offer a great deal in terms of collecting ore or drawing tits, it DOES offer something equally addictive: capturing pokemon and bolstering the pokedex.

I finally added Cuphant, the elephant, to my team! Elephants used to be my favorite aninals, so adding this Steel-typed "Copperderm Pokemon" to my party. This brings me back up to ten pokemon, but as long as I stay on top of my leveling and my abuse of PokeJobs, things should pan out. What is more is that I found an Adamant one with a supermassive Attack stat, so this was meant to be. Bonus points: caught it in a premier ball.

Cheeto evolved into his final stage: Rillaboom. I have ambivalent feelings about this pokemon. It is a cool design and all as a silverback drummer with cool hair, but it is less cool looking than Thwackey and less cute looking than Thwackey. It isn't even close to the bottom of my list for final atage starters (those spots are permanently reserved for Emboar, Samurott, Chesnaught, and Infernape), but it is definitely not at the top (Greninja, Decidueye, Swampert, Sceptile).

I have completed enough Max Raid Battles, by now, to weigh in on them. They're...fine. I find them to be somewhat tiring and repetitive. Every once in a while, I have a fun or interesting matchup--usually against a Gigantamax pokemon or an interesting higher tiered foe--but the lion's share of my matchups involve me rushing through the match so that I can get the rewards and the capture. This is great for filling the Pokedex and the excitement as you approach the beam of an active raid den is something akin to what rushing down the steps for christmas presents feels like. However, The process is quite repetitive most of the time and has little bite to it. It needs more teeth.

Playing with friends certainly makes things more fun: my brother, his brother in law,  and I were able to defeat a Gigantamax Corviknight together. While only one of us was able to actually capture it (hint: it wasn't me), it was a fun experience.

My brother about to send out his Shuckle

Plus, if nothing else, raid battles are slowly getting me used to the mechanics of Dynamax...which may be useful for competitive play later on.

Pokedex: 122/185







On Rotation: Cufant, Toxtricity, Sandaconda

Vs. Bede Rematch

As soon as I left the gym, Sonia met with me to take me to the town mural. The plot must have noticed that we were ready, so all of the sudden we heard a large explosion and we rushed towards the mural.

Bede was there with a huge elephant pokemon that he identified as belonging to Chairman Rose. He mentions that he is still collecting more and more wishing stars and that he is there to stop me from getting any for myself.

BATTLE START!

I led with Arbuk to test him out. His position in my team is only semi-permanent and he DOES know a dark move, so I decided that a neutral matchup like Duosion would be an excellent way to test its staying power. Arbuk was able to take it out easily.

Bede's next pokemon was Hattrem, which must be the evolution of Hattnea.  It was a lot bulkier, faster, and stronger than I had expected and was able to take out much of my team before Trash put a stop to it all at once. I am still surprised at how reliable she is. I used to love Linoone back in the gen 3 days and the cool new design is just choice.

From there, Sizzle was able to bug bite the remaining pokemon to death. Neither Ponyta nor Gothorita could stop him. Sizzle is remarkably bulky, albeit a bit slow. I have Flame Wheel as his main fire move right now, but if he could get Flame charge then that would be ideal.

After I defeated Bede, the Chairman, his aide, and two Gym Challenge referees came upon the scene and declared Bede disqualified from the competition for trying to destroy a historical site. Yeah, I guess that terrorism would disqualify one from sports now that I think of it.

Bede seemed pretty incredulous...and also pretty upset...I wonder if he will be showing up again somewhere as a villian.

All of the sudden, the wall collapsed, revealing an inner cave with two wolf statues in it.

Cue “Roundabout”...

Vs. Allister

Stow-and-Side is a city with a lot of personality: almost straight out of an Indiana Jones story or a pulp fiction with a marketplace on sandy stone walkways and people battling in the square. The gym sat at the top of the hill.

Allister specializes in the Ghost type. As such, I decided to bring in my own nightmarish team.

The task of this gym was to board a giant rotating disk and to guide it through three pachinko-like mazes. I am very happy that I wasn't made to use the motion controls.
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 3 vs 4

I led with Guzma the Golisopod because I figured that its priority moves in Sucker Punch and First Impression combined with its ability Emergency Exit would make it an ideal scout. Allister led Yamask. I had caught one recently and its regional variant was dual typed with ground, sooo...

RAZOR SHELL.

3-3 tied up

This must be the evolution of the regional Corsola. It used curse, so Guzma's Sucker Punch fails. I switch in Zorro and Nasty Plot up. The next turn I pick up the kill with Snarl.

3-2 lead.

Mimikyu is a mismatch for me, but I'm not ready to send in Guzma again...and I forgot about Mimikyu's "Disguise". In previous games, Disguise as an ability prevents all damage for the first  attacking move.  In this game, it must have been debuffed because it still took some small nominal amount of damage.

I am able to whittle it down a bit before it takes me out with Slash. Guzma comes in for Sucker Punch and nets the revenge kill.

2-1

Allister's last pokemon is Gengar and he immediately causes it to Gigantamax. Guzma gets off one more Sucker Punch before Gengar annihilates it with G-Max Phantom.

1-1.

With the match tied up, it all comes down to whether or not Trash can take the hit. Trash will get the KO with Max Darkness but it won't be able to outrun Gengar. It's time for Trash to get her first Dynamax: hopefully it gives her enough bulk to survive Gengar's last move: G-Max Ooze. If she can take the hit, then I win...

And...she lives!!

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...

_________________

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

Catching up to Myself

With the fire badge in my grasp, I set off back into the wilds.

And then I was sent back to the pokemon center because my team was so underleveled.

And then I was sent back again

And again...

And a fourth time.

Yikes, when did this happen?

And it doesn't fucking help that every pokemon has leech seed or synthesis or recover or some fucking bullshit like that. I wasted 28 Great Balls on a level 27 frillish.

I DID manage to nab a uniquely typed Poison/Electric pokemon named Toxel.  It looks like the baby from the old Dinosaurs sitcom. I have an affinity to poison types, hit if it looks this stupid when it evolves, it is out of my team.

So I took the opportunity to train. I was able to take down some overleveled pokemon in the wild area by using pokemon with a hugely supereffective move. Finally, I dragged my entire team up to level 30.

And then everything in my team started evolving...
Stufful evolved into Bewear and can finally hold its own in battle.
Meowth evolved into Perrzerker and has gone from Sailor to Viking.
Sizzlipede evolved into Centiscorch and was able to defeat a pokemon 15 levels higher than it with its powerful fire moves.
Toxel evolved into Toxtricity...and it looks like an absolute creep, but I love her!! She has a unique typing and a brand new ability called "Punk Rock" which boosts the power of voice moves as well as lowering the damage of voice moves used against it.

I may have left Monsoke City in despair...but I entered Hammerlocke in triumph with a brand new team identity.

Pokédex: 48/88
Current Squad:

Thwackey/Cheeto/lvl 30
Thievul/Señor Zorro/lvl 30
Drednaw/Snorkle/lvl 30
Linoone/Trash/lvl 31
Centiscorch/Sizzle/lvl 30

Bewear/Kitiguma/lvl 30

On Rotation: Toxtricity,Perrzerker