Here's a glance at our Pokedex. Look at the National Dex seen number; we're only 9 away from having seen everything. All 9 are within the Sphere Ruins, one way or another. 7 of them are legendary Pokemon, but there's exactly 2 Pokemon who aren't legendary that we just need to go grab.
Welcome to the Sphere Ruins, a gigantic maze full of puzzles. This is by far the largest dungeon in the game and I'd say it's somewhere between a third to half the size of the overworld in all. It's very easy to get lost in and most of the puzzles have solutions that are obscure to say the least. I'll be explaining the puzzles as we encounter them, but we're just going to do a quick in and out right now.
The Pokemon here are extremely high leveled, only getting stronger as we descend, and are mostly rather rare postgame mons.
There's even Pokemon who are otherwise exclusive to the Safari Zone. Due to their
very high level later on and the overall competence of many of the massive variety of Pokemon within the Sphere Ruins (there's so many different Pokemon available overall), it can be well worth picking up Pokemon here if this weren't the end of postgame.
What we're after is this thing though, which first appears at a 5% rate on B2F. Clouff is a Flying/Ghost type with Air Lock as its ability and 50/65/50/65/50/55 base stats. It finishes the weather trio of sorts with Lizzle and Droudrop, being the Rayquaza equivalent to their Kyogre and Groudon respectively. We're just popping in to grab it and then evolve it.
Name suggested by
Mova. Cloubus retains the Ghost/Flying typing but has 75/95/75/95/75/85 base stats. Considering how incredibly late Cloubus is, it's rather useless but even if it came earlier it suffers from a mediocre movepool, largely useless ability, and poor stats. The design's neat though.
To complete the Sphere Ruins, we need a few things. First: every single HM except for Fly. Yes. All of them.
ferry is somewhat obvious, but dance makes a surprise reappearance in order to cover both Flash and Cut in one slot. Welcome back dance.
The next thing is a lot of Repels. Technically we only
need one, but doing the Sphere Ruins without Repels is a madman's task. We'll also want at least one Escape Rope, though at least two is something I'd very highly recommend.
The last thing we need is a level 100 Pokemon. No, this isn't really negotiable. We've got to grind somebody up to level 100.
We're heading back to do another leader rematch a dozen times. Hanza isn't particularly easy for a leader rematch, but he's pretty much perfect for ergo to grind on due to his high experience granting Blissey.
Most of Hanza's rematch team isn't an issue for ergo, although he does need a Choice Band in order for Close Combat to OHKO Folifarig after Tauros' Intimidate.
Hanza's last Pokemon is a Phantonate though, meaning that he can be literally impossible for unprepared teams. daidog does have to eat a Raid basically every time she needs to KO, but Crunch works fine for OHKOing Phantonate.
After a whole bunch of beating on Hanza, ergo finally hits level 100 and we're all set to descend into the depths of the Sphere Ruins. Let's get started.
Yes, that is the entrance on the bottom wall. This is the first weird thing - immediately after using Strength on the boulder and moving it a space to the right, the game freezes. We can't move, but pressing A causes a sound. By mashing A, eventually a message pops up and we're free to advance. This only happens the first time, the other times we enter there's no issue. Also, that tablet has some Braille. The Sphere Ruins are littered with them, and some are very important.
There are little HM checks all over the place down here. Yes, that's a random tree growing out of the stone of the Sphere Ruins. It's also not the only one - while that Surf bit might seem equally absurd there's also a section where we have to surf around what is essentially an underground lake to get between ladders.
The water doesn't have anything special aside from a 1% chance while Surfing to encounter Lapras if we wanted to skip Pressie (who's also an encounter on the water). The Surfing Pokemon are also very underleveled compared to their land counterparts.
Eventually we reach a point where we need to drop down that hole to advance, but it's completely blocked off.
The trigger to get through is in this random rock. If we examine it a whole bunch of times from every angle we finally get a response.
Doing this clears our way to drop to the next floor.
A whole bunch of wandering later, we need to hit this invisible switch in a random tile a space in
front of the rocks at the end of the passage. No, the Itemfinder doesn't pick up on it.
Hitting that switch makes the set of stairs necessary to access the Braille writing on the right side of the screenshot. We have to read that Braille in order to set a flag.
After that brief interlude we can keep going and eventually reach an extra special opening.
Inside is one of Vega's last legendary Pokemon. It will also completely ignore us if we haven't read the Braille.
Rowitsa is the Peace half of the Peace/Fear legendary duo of Vega, and is a Normal/Dragon type with 93/120/92/101/82/112 base stats. No, Vega does not have any original 680 BST legends. At level 70, Rowista has Tail Spin/Stardust/Dragon Dance/Outrage as moves (Tail Spin is an 80/100 physical Normal type move that can raise the user's Speed). With Dragon Dance boosting Outrage to uncomfortable levels, Rowitsa can be difficult to catch.
Not for us though. Phantonate can't take damage from Rowitsa, making it just a matter of time before it's ours. Rowitsa's honestly pretty decent and isn't difficult to justify adding to a team for what little of the game is left.
After catching our new legendary friend, we can keep going until we find Jackie just kind of hanging around in the Sphere Ruins.
In an utterly shocking twist of events, he wants to fight us. With three of our teamslots taken up by Phantonate and the HM slaves and ergo being cheating, we're going to have to fight him with maltet and wish. Let's take a look at his team.
Drapion @ Liechi Berry L85: Swords Dance/Cross Poison/Rampage/Earthquake
Ferrothorn @ Leftovers L86: Explosion/Metal Blast/Raid/Power Whip
Trojalmon @ Salac Berry L84: Wave Splash/Earthquake/Aqua Jet/Icicle Crash
Manaphy L30: Water Sport/Charm/Supersonic/Bubblebeam
Combattle @ Quick Claw L85: Cross Chop/Grand Boulder/Thunder Punch/Bulk Up
Floatzel @ King's Rock L87: Star Freeze/Wave Splash/Chomp/Double Team
Drapion and Trojalmon are pretty much irrelevant, their stats just flat out aren't good enough to be a functional threat. Even though Trojalmon has a good chance of surviving anything but Grass attacks, it just won't do much damage back.
Ferrothorn is incredibly easy if the team has Fire or Fighting type attacks and can be annoying if not. We do, however, have a Fire type attack.
Combattle hurts when Quick Claw activates, but it has enough exploitable weaknesses that it isn't too bad to take out.
Floatzel is just fast and has a good chance of haxing somebody out. It's not very strong fortunately.
Manaphy is level 30.
Stronger than the gym leaders, but ultimately irrelevant.
Drapion gets easily OHKOed by Earthquake.
Next up is Ferrothorn. maltet's got Raging Flame. There are no problems.
Shadow Ball doesn't OHKO, but it does easily 2HKO. Wave Splash followed by Aqua Jet does a decent chunk, but wish is ultimately fine and ready for more.
Infuriatingly, Floatzels also survives Shadow Ball (though barely) and it puts wish to sleep with Shadow Clamp. Both Jackie and us use a Full Restore and wish goes for Quiver Dance while Floatzel Shadow Clamps again but doesn't sleep or confuse. A +1 Shadow Ball manages the OHKO.
lol
Easily taken out by Earthquake, and that's Jackie done.
After the battle we get the Manaphy from Jackie which is exactly as useless as it was in the battle due to being level 30. Even when trained it's not particularly amazing due to weak coverage moves. We can also do level 100 Jackie rematches just like the gym leaders if we head back into the Sphere Ruins.
Going beyond Jackie loops us around eventually to get to the first part of the Sphere Ruins, after a fairly long trip. We'll use an Escape Rope to skip that.
We've got to head through the other entrance to the Sphere Ruins now.
Similar to the other side, there's a plaque with Braille on it right at the entrance. Unlike the other side, it is mandatory to read this Braille. If you're following along,
do not skip reading this Braille.
If we had come in this side earlier then there would just be this small area, but since we've fought Rowitsa we can go deeper. This side of the Sphere Ruins is filled with ledges that lead to the other side of the Sphere Ruins and there's no way back without going back to the entrance. There's also a few ledges we need to jump down to progress. Often these two are right next to each other. Using either a guide or savestates is recommended.
There's a branching part a decent ways into the cave. One way leads to an important dead end while the other way leads deeper. We want to go to the dead end first - if you're following along, if you see golden boulders you've gone too far in the other way.
The dead end is important because PAPER is stuck behind some rubble. We'll need to rescue him.
Directly to the north on the same floor is a set of six rocks. Touching any of them causes them to change color. We'll need to arrange them in a very specific pattern to solve the puzzle. Hitting any incorrect rock will render the puzzle unsolvable until we leave and reenter this floor, though fortunately the ladder's not too far away.
The correct pattern is Braille for "ON". After each letter is entered correctly, there will be a noise and the rocks reset to grey.
Fun fact: in the original Japanese and the bare bones translation I usually play, the pattern is completely different. The translators for this version edited the puzzle to be Braille English for "ON". I did not know this going in. Fortunately it only took 20 minutes to figure out what had happened and find the solution.
That set, we can now get over to PAPER.
Ungrateful as ever, PAPER doesn't bother thanking us for saving him and instead insists on battling us. While normally I'd say that it's PAPER and he's irrelevant, here he's actually almost appropriately leveled relative to the other trainers, so let's see his team.
Miltank @ Salac Berry L83: Wave Splash/Rolling Rock/Attract/Zen Headbutt
Rhyperior @ Quick Claw L84: Raging Flame/Giga Spark/Psycho Punch/Earthquake
Gengar @ King's Rock L85: Hypnosis/Dark Resolve/Psyburn/Sludge Bomb
Abomasnow @ Focus Band L85: Earthquake/Hydro Pump/Icicle Crash/Ice Shard
Lukewran L50: Scary Face/Lava Plume/Fire Spin/Iron Head
Feroceros @ Lansat Berry L86: Metal Blast/Giga Spark/Earthquake/Raid
Miltank is way too weak for this point in the game, although it is rather bulky physically. Attract can be problematic, as can Wave Splash if it gets the evasion boost, but it's not too much of an issue.
Rhyperior folds to Grass or Water type attacks, although it can hit pretty hard. It's not much of a threat though.
Gengar is walled by Steel types because it's running Psyburn. Somehow PAPER makes Gengar look bad. For bonus points, Goabalt is immune to half its moves and 4x resists Dark Resolve.
Abomasnow has a lot of weaknesses to exploit and isn't very strong or bulky. It's a non threat to anything not weak to Ice.
Lukewran is a pre evolution of Heatran. Spoilers: we'll be getting it afterwards and I'll explain it more about Lukewran there. Here it is level 50 and not a problem in any sense of the word.
Feroceros has lost most of its luster. It's not as strong as it once was relative to everything else and hitting its weaknesses isn't too difficult. Intimidate is ok but not great.
what did you do to your starter
Miltank insists on surviving Earthquake but can't attract maltet. Wave Splash doesn't do much, and a follow up Dragon Claw finishes off the cow.
Living life on the wild side, Abomasnow neither goes for Ice Shard or has Focus Band activate so Raging Flame takes it down through Thick Fat.
Rhyperior takes a more than half from Shadow Ball and retaliates with a Giga Spark. A Quick Claw Raging Flame chips down wish even more, but Rhyperior goes down.
wish is really very fast. Gengar is outsped and OHKOed.
4x weaknesses
Feroceros survives the first Earthquake due to Intimidate and hits back with Metal Blast but can't take a second one, and that's PAPER.
Lukewran is a Steel/Fire with 81/80/96/80/96/67 base stats and either Flame Body or Flash Fire as abilities (it keeps the same ability on evolution) and evolves using a Fire Stone. The evolution was actually done after we finished the Sphere Ruins, but it fits best here.
While Manaphy is lackluster, Heatran is outstanding at higher levels. Along with its very solid stats it has an outstanding movepool, including Earth Power and Geo Impact by level along with Diamond Blast by TM, but the real prize is are the moves it learns at level 92 and 99: Eruption and Magma Rush respectively. Magma Rush is a 130/100 physical Fire type move with a 50% chance to raise the user's Speed two stages. While Heatran's Attack isn't the greatest ever, the high BP and amazing side effect make up for it. If neither move appeals, then Heatran can always go with Heat Wave or Flamethrower if it stays as Lukewran until level 64.
After beating PAPER and getting our prize, we can head down the other route.
WHICH HAS MORE GODDAMN MOVING BOULDERS FROM THE 7TH GYM
at least they're not on ice this time
After getting past the boulders, we come across this inconspicuous rock. If we walk around it
clockwise at a distance then the game will lag with every step. After doing that for a little while there's a noise and a message. This is necessary.
Otherwise this hole is actually a rock and we can't go down. Before we jump again though, we're going to head into that cave entrance.
Where another legendary is waiting for us. Much like Rowitsa, it will not fight us unless we read a specific bit of Braille. This would be why reading that Braille at the entrance was necessary. If you didn't, it's a very long backtrack.
Gatanoa is the Fear half of Vega's Peace/Fear duo and is a Dark/Dragon type with 93/120/82/101/92/112 base stats. Unlike Rowitsa, we can't just park Phantonate in front of Gatanoa and throw balls at our leisure since it knows Crunch instead of Tail Spin - otherwise everything else is the same. Just like Rowitsa (since they're virtually identical), Gatanoa is a fine choice to add to teams.
After catching Gatanoa, we can jump down the hole to the next floor.
After a bunch more walking around and not jumping off ledges that would mean we have to start again, we find Mosmero in a dead end - the ladder to actually progress is just a little bit back in the direction we came. We can't skip Mosmero though.
heavy sigh
Cacturne @ Quick Claw L85: Wild Growth/Giga Spark/Rampage/Cross Poison
Honchkrow @ Salac Berry L84: Night Slash/Thunder Wave/Brave Bird/Sandblast
Darca @ Lum Berry L85: Wave Splash/Rampage/Psygatling/Icicle Crash
Bakeko @ White Herb L86: Psygatling/Rampage/Overheat/Giga Spark
Drapion @ Liechi Berry L86: Wave Splash/Raid/Earthquake/Swords Dance
Dizasol @ Scope Lens L87: Night Slash/Raging Flame/Psycho Cut/Extremespeed
As the absolute last major battle of postgame, the fact that Mosmero has the completely unthreatening Cacturne, Darca, Drapion, and Bakeko is unfortunate. None of those three are any real issue as long as the team isn't weak to their moves, frail, and slow.
Honchkrow can be somewhat dangerous with Brave Bird but it's not very fast and very frail, making it easy enough to take out.
Dizasol is the only possible threat here, but its largely low BP moves hold it back. Night Slash crits will hurt but there's no Super Luck to boost that to consistent levels. Dizasol is also fairly easy to outspeed by this point.
It is he.
Cacturne is 4x weak to Raid.
Darca is only 2x weak to Raid but gets OHKOed just the same.
wish will be taking out Honchkrow with Diamond Blast so there's no chance of Dragon Claw somehow missing the KO.
As an even frailer Pokemon also weak to Diamond Blast, Bakeko goes down too.
maltet outspeeds with ease and OHKOs with Raid.
To round things off, this Drapion is no more threatening than Jackie's. With that we've completed the last trainer of main postgame.
As icing on the disappointment cake, Mosmero does not give us a legendary like PAPER or Jackie, only his (very incorrect) thoughts on Soy Sauce. Like the others, Mosmero can be refought by coming back here but he's way too deep in the Sphere Ruins and not even slightly worth it.
Goodbye Mosmero. You got us into buildings a few times.
After climbing the ladder near Mosmero and jumping down yet another hole we can find this rock which gives us the Altair. This is also necessary to grab.
yes cut and strength are still necessary even this far down
There are no more trainers to find. Just some of the most bizarre and obscure puzzles in the entire game. Let's jump right in.
We're near the bottom of the ruins now and the wilds are getting past the Max Repels when maltet's leading. ergo's got to take point from now on.
After some more wandering around we come across three rows that seemingly do nothing since on the right side is a dead end. In fact this is yet another very important puzzle. Starting on the
right side, we need to run across the top lane, then the middle, followed by the bottom, the middle again, and then finally cross the top lane again. There's a sound to indicate something happened but no message box.
After finishing that we go grab the Sirius from this random plaque.
Deeper still is this random rock which lets us turn the Altair and Sirius into the Vega. This is the last item we need - just four more puzzles to go.
First up is the first time we need to use Rock Smash. Which is to break down the walls.
A lot of walls, which are kind of finicky about what parts we can break. After breaking down enough though, we can get to a ladder to keep moving deeper.
On what is very close to the bottom floor is a ladder leading down into pitch blackness. This is the only dark room, and while Flash isn't
necessary it certainly makes this easier.
All of these entrances and exits lead immediately back to this room. It's not yet time for this place. Our actual destination is beyond the ladder down here.
Our actual destination is this room full of holes. While it looks easy enough to navigate without going down the holes, the puzzle is not "pick a hole". Every other tile, in a checkerboard pattern, has a script that will push us one space in a specific direction, like a really fast spinning tile puzzle of sorts. Most of them will attempt to push us into the holes. The solution is hard to explain, but it's largely about staying roughly in the column you see in the screenshot and heading mostly downward - going one square to the left of the hole we're facing towards in the screenshot.
The tile we're facing towards in the screenshot is the exit point. It is also different from the rest of the moving script tiles - if we haven't completed the lane puzzle it will send us one space up instead of one space down. Right into the hole. Told you it was important.
Down the ladder is the first and only time we need Waterfall in the Sphere Ruins. This is pretty much the bottom of the Sphere Ruins.
As such, the wilds have taken their game well beyond just the next level. Wilds range from level 90 to 100 in here.
This is the only puzzle on this floor. It is also the most hellish of all the puzzles. Those crater tiles are actually warps right back to the ladder near the waterfall. Once we take a step to the right of where we're standing in the screenshot (or the tile below which is where we
actually start) the puzzle begins.
After every step the game will push the player an additional step in a direction. This happens in sequence and the order is up, down, left, right, no push. It repeats this constantly until we are through the maze.
To explain a little better, take a look at the screenshot. If we take a step to the right, the script starts and we move an additional step upwards into the warp crater. If we start a tile lower we get pushed a step up into a safe space. By moving one space left we then get pushed downwards, right at the entrance to the one tile corridor. If we step left again we move yet another square left, ending up exactly halfway between the 2x2 area and the turn. Another step left brings us a step right, a null gain. We then get a free step left, being one step away from entering the up-down corridor. On our next step left we move up one tile, ending up in the dead end before we have to move down again.
As long as we know the pattern and think our moves carefully we can make it through. But for a little extra twist, wild encounters break the script so that virtually always the maze is no longer solvable. This is why we needed a level 100 explicitly, so that we could reduce the number of wild encounters as much as possible. There is, however, still a small chance of encountering a level 100 and having to start the maze again.
This is simultaneously the worst and best puzzle in Vega. I hate it in many ways.
Through a miracle, no wild encounters break the maze and we can get to the end and finally put our Vega into this tablet. We're nearly done now.
This is the last puzzle in Vega. By putting the Vega into the plaque in the basement and having fought all three trainers, this puzzle becomes solvable.
We need to go through the right, left, middle, right, right, middle, then left door. Each will lead to this room again, but if done in the right order will lead to a new area, a short passageway with a ladder further down at the end.
Here, in the depths of the Sphere Ruins, is the 386th and either strongest or second strongest Pokemon in Vega after Phantonate. Asphere.
The conversation is short but the gist is that Asphere is going to hit us with the power of a star.
Asphere: Fire/Dragon w/ Marvel Scale 100/120/110/150/110/130 - 720 BST.
At level 90, Asphere knows Fire Blast, Recover, Dragon Rush, and Nova Inferno. Nova Inferno is a 180/95 special Dragon type move that lowers the user's Speed, Defense, and Special Defense one stage. Taking hits from Asphere is a challenge for anything not Flash Fire Heatran, and with Recover it can make it very difficult to catch. Fortunately, it does have one weakness.
gg
Asphere is absolutely fantastic and well worth adding to pretty much any team that intends to do what remains in the unstructured postgame. It learns 34/50 of the TMs, and while much of its TMs and tutor moves are physical Asphere can pull of an incredibly nasty Swords Dance, Dragon Dance, or even Coil set. It can of course also go with an even deadlier Nasty Plot set and go with Dragon Beat instead of Nova Inferno. There's really not much Asphere can't do.
After catching (or KOing) Asphere, we're actually not teleported out of the Sphere Ruins, so unless we fancy a very long journey back to the surface now is the time for an Escape Rope.
The spoils of war. Natures are fine, not all that great, and fantastic in that order. We will be adding Asphere to the team over nickel, who has served incredibly well but is outclassed completely.
With that, we've completed Vega's structured postgame. After we breed a Phione we'll have seen every single Pokemon in Vega, all 386. There's still a couple things that I plan to do, but let's call that an epilogue rather than the end of postgame.
I've put some brief thoughts about Vega's postgame into a different hide, if you're interested in my ramblings. Either way, I'll see you in the epilogue.