Let's Play! Gotta Play (A Handful) Of Em' All (Current Project: Pokemon Platinum)

[DrumstickGaming]

Platinum Reboot: Episode 3: Probopassing the Grass

Felt like playing more because I’m really having fun. While grinding on Route 212 I ran into the 1% Dustox LOL. Also got Stomp for Ponyta.

LOL

Our levels are pretty comfortable now.

I actually really like Gardenia as a Gym Leader. Some might think “oh, bland Grass gym leader” but I think she has a fun contemporary flare to her dialogue and has some fun battle quotes (“it’s not the end yet” - “you think you have me cornered?” when on last Pokemon). They made her stand out quite a bit from Erika as Gardenia is pretty confident. Ponyta and Chingling gain one level inside the Gym more or less, barring one wild so Chingling could level up.

Honestly, I think Eterna Gym’s puzzle was more interesting in DP. The Platinum clock is more visually impressive sure, but DP at least had a cute little hide-and-seek game. There really is no puzzle here in Platinum, it’s just a fancy walkway.

Despite her vast array of counters, most notably Staravia, Gardenia is surprisingly durable for a Grass type leader. Her Turtwig is defensive enough to live STAB Flame Wheel from Ponyta (one of the strongest SE moves you can have at this point) and set up Reflect, at a time when your special attacking options are rather limited. We get a lucky burn which helps us two shot on heal. Cherrim also has Leech Seed which aids Reflect’s defensive nature, but it is no match for Ponyta.

It’s not the end yet!

Roserade is no joke. The evolved stats are beefy enough to eat a SE Confusion and Magical Leaf hits like a truck unresisted. Thankfully we can sacrifice Bidoof for a free switch.

Ponyta finishes it off though. You definitely have to work for your win against Gardenia, keeping the trend of rather difficult bosses going. I like this battle because it shows you you can’t always just spam super effective moves in a braindead way. It’s a shame Grass Knot isn’t the greatest reward though, it’s a very inconsistent move.

Looker stop being pointless, I’m the main character LOL.

Honestly Probopass isn’t too bad early on. Yeah, you don’t want it against Gardenia’s Grass Knot, but against standard stuff Rock Throw does good business and it’s a good tank. I remember while training 2 Water Pulses from Goldeen and even some confusion damage I believe left me in green. It helps that unlike fellow wall Bronzor, Extrasensory isn’t walled by the occasional Stunky.

Something weird happened on the way up the building. I had Probopass out against Stunky, but the Grunt switched it out for Croagunk…which proceeded to Pursuit trap me as I switched out to Ponyta.

Jupiter is easily the hardest boss you’ll face yet. Her Skunktank is a beast and more or less has no weakness outside Geodude’s unreliable Magnitude.

Clutch-ling

Skuntank does have Screech but Charm can help give teammates a buffer, especially because it’s only 85% accurate and Pachirisu can outspeed even at a lower level (I hit 49 Speed). Watch out for Night Slash’s high crit rate though.

We debuff it to +6 with Charm, it poisons Kricketune as we surprisingly first turn land Sing. Nice. We roll multiple Defense drops with Rock Smash before finally succumbing to poison as Skuntank is in the red.

Die skunk! You don’t belong at this level!

We get Cynthia’s Egg, the Bicycle, and the Exp Share.

Rolled a Relaxed Serene Grace Togepi first try. Might use it.

Named our Togepi Lemmy.

More fun Gardenia characterization.

We backtrack the long way to avoid some trainers but unfortunately Geodude goes boom on poor Chingling losing us some friendship. Dawn is relatable, we get the VS Seeker and the Dowsing Machine.

And that’s gonna do it for this episode because I really need to grind friendship offscreen.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Platinum Reboot: Episode 4: Fantina is Obnoxious

Time to resume the journey. Here’s our team. Probably gonna drop Pachirisu and Kricketune soon, I like memes but we need some actual type synergy and decent moves if we’re gonna win this thing. I like the others quite a bit though, I think they all pull their weight.

Had some obvious fun evolutions in the interim.

Togetic has quite a lot of fun support moves, the problem is that it is rather TM dependent for coverage early on. Still though, Return does good business in spite of silly base 40 Attack. However, it plays a vital role in our upcoming boss fight...

Fun reaction image courtesy of Cyrus.

In spite of Rock Throw being rather meh, Probopass does good business with it.

THE BROKEN REMAINS OF THE BEE FALL TO THE GRASS AS THE WEEDS TURN RED WITH THE BLOOD OF THE INNOCENT - we killed a Combee

We get some new moves.

Probopass gets Thunder Wave (albeit offscreen).

I’ll spare you the irrelevant Hearthome stuff we do: just know I gave the Quick Claw to Chimecho and the Amulet Coin to Ponyta. Look how many Super Potions we have from Pickup LOL

Hearthome Gym is a neat puzzle but some of the Trainers here are really mean. A lot of things just can’t handle STAB Shadow Ball…except for Chimecho!

Dixon the Chimecho just got the honorary “chad/cool guy reward” because my wind chime tanked a STAB Shadow Ball from Haunter, lived, and then one shot it back with Confusion!!! Remember, that's coming from Haunter's higher-than-Mismagius 115 Special Attack!

Levels before Fantina.

Honestly I consider Fantina more notoriously difficult than Whitney. A Level 26 Mismagius with Confuse Ray, Magical Leaf, Psybeam and Shadow Ball should simply not exist this early in the game. It’s borderline unwallable.

I have an idea though.

Oops. It went for Future Sight instead of Will-O-Wisping to boost me with Flash Fire.

She outplayed me, I used Pachirisu as a sacrifice for some chip.

Chimecho picks up the kill because thankfully Duskull is too dumb to use Shadow Sneak.

Oh boy.

Great.

Huh, Magical Leaf does nothing to Probopass…and we get the non-confusion roll next turn!

Not the damage I’d like with Rock Throw but it’s something.

I've got another idea.

ENCORE BAY BEE

Paralysis masochism FTW

We do some solid damage activating her Sitrus Berry.

More paralysis masochism!

Super Potion because of course.

I think we rolled another full para, and it took a while for Encore to wear off. We took Mismagius to SCHOOL.

LOL

We won pretty easily.

We beat up Barry. Probopass easily beats Staravia and the bulk is again insane, we live BubbleBeam comfortably.

Thanks to rolling two more full paras (what is my luck today?) Chimecho prevails despite BubbleBeam doing a fair chunk. Ponyta toasts Roselia and beats Barry’s Ponyta easily (why does it still have Tackle LOL)

Clutchecho AGAIN? We lived a Flail and rolled the confuse chance that turn too.

We get the Good Rod and I know just what to catch with it, though I’m pretty sure it’ll be very underwhelming just like last time.

Yup, I’m using Barboach.

Rash nature is actually pretty good for it. Oblivious for the Ability. We name it Jade.

That’s gonna do it for this episode though. See you all next time when we trek to Veilstone City.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Platinum Reboot: Episode 5: Nothing Works Out

Fun fact this episode was like 39 pages of stuff in Word.

So when I booted up the game next I saw the Journal recap and I gotta admit, as easy as it is to skip past this feature…I kind of like it. The fact it even remembers the time of day you caught a Pokemon at is really neat.

During training in Wayward Cave Barboach actually got KOed by a random Buneary’s Frustration…as did Togetic. That thing can easily 3 shot you unresisted. And your reward is TM32 Double Team. Just LOL.

Speaking of Wayward Cave, I really, really do not like 1F of this cave (the unblocked entrance). I think it’s arguably the worst cave in the entire Pokemon franchise. It’s filled with a bunch of virtually identical corridors and dead ends, you need Cut, Rock Smash and Flash (which I legit forgot about in Oreburgh Gate in this playthrough) to even traverse the place, and if you do that, you get to find the most out of the way partner Trainer in the game, Mira, who, to add insult to injury, is actually very helpful, but good luck finding her. At least Rock Tunnel had some visual variation in how the layout was. This cave is just lazy. The B1F stuff with Gible is a little more interesting, but most people wouldn’t know it existed because the Cycling Road blocks it. Even if you just want Gible and TM26 Earthquake, Dragon Rage can rip your team to shreds at this point.

What’s funny about getting TM26 Earthquake before 3 badges (as I could have technically gotten this earlier) is that the game puts up a fair amount of resistance to it. Fantina’s team floats over it, Wake has Gyarados with Intimidate, and almost all STAB users of it will be weak to his attacks. You can use it against Maylene at least, especially her Lucario. I’m not gonna give Earthquake to Barboach though, as it gets it naturally and I want to keep my coverage options open for future team members. Speaking from experience here, even early Earthquake doesn’t really redeem Whiscash. I distinctly remember my Whiscash failing to OHKO Maylene’s Lucario with super-effective STAB Earthquake.

Further proof that the Togepi line gets every support move known to man.

Barboach is six levels higher and can’t 2HKO Bidoof with Water Pulse (remember, Bidoof is a pure Normal, not Normal / Water as Bibarel is). Bidoof. This…is dire. I think what makes Barboach feel underpowered is that you get it RIGHT AFTER the game stops throwing random short caves and Hikers at you (you don’t really face many more Rock or Ground type mooks frequently until like, Iron Island, and even then that’s only one area) and by the time you hit level 30 Whiscash’s modest stats don’t really do much.

Even a Buizel’s Aqua Jet and Buneary’s Jump Kick can already put Barboach in low health. Granted, Jump Kick is a pretty strong move, but yeah.

So funny thing about Lost Tower, be wary of the Gastly here if you lead with a Normal type. My Togetic was too slow to run away, and Gastly used Mean Look. Return is my only damaging move. Thank goodness I just saved a lot of data seconds ago: I’m gonna soft reset and use a Repel.

BARBOACH VS BARBOACH, THE BATTLE OF THE CENTURY

(It uses Water Sport then dies)

I think Cleffa used Sing, put Barboach to sleep (55 accuracy reduced by Fog yeah right), knocked it to like 4 HP with Magical Leaf, then Copycat Water Pulse to kill me. Barboach just lost to a baby Pokemon LOL

In annoyance, I went and battled the Rapidash and Ponyta duo. Surely that should be easy, right? Nope! Rapidash and Ponyta Stomp it to death (even a crit Water Pulse left Rapidash alive!). They even initially teamed up on it in a VS Seeker rematch before changing targets to Togetic.

Even in a 1 on 1 (against another Trainer) Ponyta’s Stomp can almost overpower Barboach.

I used Amnesia on a freaking Happiny because Copycat Water Pulse was doing decent damage to me.

Even with Rash nature (+ Special Attack - Defense), 5 levels higher, I cannot 2HKO Togepi with Water Pulse.

It then Metronomed a CRITICAL HIT HYDRO CANNON shortly after to kill me thanks to my confusion masochism.

I can’t take it anymore. I'm dropping Barboach even if it is two levels from evolution. Barboach borders on unusably weak. Getting to level 30 for an evolution is too much to bother with.

On Route 215 we grab a Quirky Marill with Huge Power.

It’s gonna be a long road before physical Water moves, but fresh out of the ball at level 22, these are not bad starting moves at all.

That being said most of the Marill line's learnset otherwise is not good. If you’re willing to spend some shards for Ice Punch and maybe TM on Return and Brick Break, I think this should be workable. Quick Claw for an item can help.

Even with its paltry Special Attack, BubbleBeam can still do decent damage. While Whiscash is in the Medium Fast EXP Group, Azumarill is in the even better Fast EXP Group, so that’s another advantage we get.

One level later we get Aqua Ring and Azumarill, with some pretty good stats to boot.

It’s worth noting that that rematchable Route 210 Double Battle with the Ponyta line gives you $5,376 in money with Amulet Coin on.

So this random Heracross used STAB Brick Break on me and Azumarill easily lived it in green health. Granted I had fought the cafe trainers earlier but I don’t think they damaged me.

After some more grinding Probopass gets Rock Slide. Figured I’d go ahead and do it since it will be obviously useless in the next Gym.

We get another Return TM, might have to give that to Azumarill later.

Also, in the Solaceon Ruins, this happens.

LOL what are the odds? What’s interesting about Solaceon Ruins is that several rooms have hidden elemental stones in them. Could be very helpful if you don’t want to buy them.

Mind Plate is going on Chimecho.

We conquer the infamous Ace Trainer duo with relative ease (though Chimecho fainted).

In Veilstone City we buy the Metronome for Azumarill (Rollout) and the Silk Scarf for Togetic.

We head south of Veilstone to Pastoria City to gain some levels, and Probopass notably almost defeats a Thrash Dragon Rage Gyarados…until we whiff Rock Slide and barely die.

Obscure trivia: if you come to Pastoria early, Barry won’t challenge you immediately.

After messing around with the Sinnoh Underground for a while and not having any luck with Heart Scales, I look on the Pokemon News Press page on Bulbapedia and by sheer coincidence the picture is-

There are no words. Keep this in mind for later though...

With a hidden Heart Scale on the beach we relearn Defense Curl to replace Water Gun on Azumarill.

We head inside the Safari Zone and find something interesting.

Also the Great Marsh / Safari Zone rules are just not fun, not helped by the daily Pokemon mechanic. It’s not unplayably bad (Johto Safari Zone lol) but it’s nothing special here. You see way too many Bibarel more than anything.

We grab the Big Root on Route 214, which will come in handy later.

We backtrack near Hearthome and grab a male Roselia.

We then backtrack to the Day-Care in Solaceon to make some Eggs.

The unlikely romance: a Venus flytrap and a flower bouquet.

Took a bit, but we got an Egg.

So guys, remember that Bulbapedia picture? I actually go to them in-game and I kid you not-

THE GAME KNOWS

Take it, it is useless. We then hatch Carnivine. Docile Nature.

Carnivine’s natural learnset is really lacking until high levels, so we had to give it some good moves to get off the ground (giving it Grass Knot via TM isn’t all that reliable). My plan is to give it Stockpile, Leech Seed, and Ingrain to get it going until it gets better moves, and have the rest of the team support it with dual screens from Chimecho or Togetic’s Charm.

THE BACKSPRITE IS SO DERPY! Thankfully with a few levels Carnivine can pick off wild Graveler easily. We eventually replace Stun Spore with Ingrain.

Now that Carnvine is properly leveled, we head to the Gym. I really don’t like Veilstone Gym in terms of puzzle design. The puzzle is slow and drawn out.

Clutchvine

We get Stockpile at level 31, then challenge Maylene.

Maylene I’d say is pretty well designed. Like most bosses up to now, she’s mostly rocking evolved Pokemon which feel strong but not overpowering halfway through the game. Meditite crits Fake Out and then crits Drain Punch stopping my Stockpile plans (granted I prob should have healed at low HP but got greedy and wanted to Leech Seed, so we gotta go to plan B.

We set up Defense Curl and Aqua Ring, then Rollout. We crit..but then we miss and get confused by Confusion, because apparently everything has to go wrong today.

Thankfully we still have Chimecho.

Lucario wakes up but we beat it with Ponyta before it kills us.

Chimecho’s Confusion is still putting in work even though the power is waning a little on neutral foes (read: not Machoke).

Maylene oddly gave me more trouble than I thought she would.

We help Dawn out with Team Galactic, hilariously her Clefairy Metronomed Rock Wrecker when there were no enemies on the field.

We get Fly and give it to Togetic over Wish.

That’s gonna do it for this episode, where absolutely nothing went right LOL.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Platinum Reboot Episode 6: The Plot Thickens

Platinum Stuff
After hours of extortion of the old people near Hearthome with the Amulet Coin, I hit the money cap LOL

With my money, I bought Psychic and dual screens for Chimecho and Return for Ponyta and Carnivine from Veilstone.

Our levels are looking pretty good now. Carnivine’s on probation so I gave it a silly nickname. Azumarill, on the other hand, is a shout out to BIG ASHLEY, a fellow Smogon user I’ve always thought is very pleasant. I very much appreciate them showing interest in my books and I think they once called a form of Typhlosion a “Scrimblo Bimblo,” an obscure geeky term I can’t help but respect. So she gets to be our bulky tank and show the world Azumarill can be good even before it started becoming more mainstream in-game (BW2/XY onward).

Barry challenges us in Pastoria, a great opportunity to test out our new moves.

Mind Plate-boosted Psychic deletes Staravia, Ponyta, and chunks Prinplup pretty hard. Yeah, you need to drop 200,000 to get a Psychic TM from the Game Corner early, but the insane damage clearly makes up for it.

We could have easily taken Roselia, but I let Azumarill do that because she has Amulet Coin. She easily tanks a Magical Leaf and fires back with a Return OHKO. Very nice. We took Barry to school.

TFW Carnivine can’t OHKO Seaking 5 levels lower with an super-effective STAB move (it kills Golduck later I guess). A little later we replace Stockpile for Crunch.

Pastoria Gym has one of the better Water-type Gym puzzles in the series. It’s cool how it uses primitive 3D DS graphics to make a fun puzzle.

Wake is really tough. His Pokemon are hard to answer defensively and very well-rounded. I think this is the point where the game really stresses the importance of having a balanced team. Even outside a gameplay sense, Wake is a really cool character who at least tries to get involved with Team Galactic later.

Luckily for me, Probopass’s Quick Claw activated and we got a crucial Thunder Wave off. Unfortunately, Gyarados also crit me to death with Waterfall.

After a miss we get off a Leech Seed.

Then we switch to our real team member, haha.

We get off a Defense Curl and Rollout it to red with Leech Seed help, and two more Rollouts take it out.

Floatzel comes in and gets deleted by Rollout 4.

“It’s not very effective…” bro I just one shot you with max Rollout LOL. Azumarill has definitively earned her spot on the team. Big Ashley, indeed.

Barry has his priorities straight after the recent bombing.

As humorously as the Grunt is portrayed afterward, it’s kind of odd they decided to play this for laughs considering how serious Team Galactic gets taken later. Though this Grunt is a bit character, I like him quite a bit. It’s rare Grunts get to do anything in these games so this is a nice change of pace.

It’s a little weird how Cynthia can’t use her Champion qualifications to literally waltz into Lake Valor. Also, it’s a small thing, but I like how Cynthia says “uh,” here, it makes her endearingly casual for a Champion (same with calling her grandmother bossy). Cynthia says she went on a big adventure with a Pokedex when she was younger. Why not make a Pokemon game where you play as an eventual Champion as a prequel of some kind? Maybe start with their ace pseudo-legend. The story writes itself!

A very easy-to-miss continuity nod to Johto happens if you talk to the Lake Valor cameramen who are probably Team Galactic members. I like it. I put Carnivine in the PC so Yanma can use Defog on the next route.

I like how this route looks when under fog, but gameplay wise it’s pretty bad, not helped by this officially being the point where the Trainers start using stronger, often evolved Pokemon.

The hate Ponyta gets for being an underwhelming Fire type is a little overblown. As long as you are keeping up with the level curve, Flame Wheel still does solid damage and Ponyta has some pretty good stats for an unevolved Pokemon, allowing it to get to level 40 relatively easily. Fire Blast toasts the Stunky in one shot in the same battle.

These two are diabolical.

Thundebolt Raichu and Aqua Tail Gyarados hurt.

Probopass was the MVP here. It paralyzed both mons (remember this is before Gen VI made Electric types immune to paralysis) and lived a THUNDERBOLT AND AN AQUA TAIL COMBINED. WOW. Chimecho hitting Raichu to half is pretty great too.

Major props to both mons for not having any faints here!

Thanks to a lucky Special Defense drop, Chimecho overpowers an Ace Trainer’s Probopass.

EVEN WHEN PARALYZED AND ON THE LAST OUNCE OF VIGOR, THE WIND CHIME KNOWN AS DIXON NEVER SUCUMBS (though I switched it out).

Serene Grace Ancient Power is hilarious.

We make it to Celestic Town and face off against Team Galactic once more. I like this part of the game, it shows Team Galactic getting steadily more involved. It feels actually exciting.

OH MY GOODNESS CARNIVINE BEAT SOMETHING.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg though. We have our first battle with Cyrus, which I feel is sold completely by him reappearing beforehand. And unlike Archie/Maxie, Cyrus really puts up a proper fight with actual strong moves (the first Aqua/Magma Admin battle was only really hard because they were evolved and you likely weren’t, rather than the moves themselves being scary). While it’s kinda obvious Cyrus would be the boss of Team Galactic, I actually like how it’s not revealed until this moment. Great boss music for Cyrus too.

Chimecho sets up Reflect on Screech…but then gets crit out by Ice Punch. It did what it needed to though. Probopass takes it out.

Probopass literally only loses because of Night Shade bypassing its bulk. I rolled a Quick Claw confusion damage to faint myself, LOL.

CARNIVINE LIVED STAB DRILL PECK WHAT

We give Surf to Azumarill over BubbleBeam and get our next destination.

Next time we make our way to Canalave City!

Do ya'll think I should swap out Carnivine for something else? I feel like each of my team members does more interesting roles than Carnivine. Chimecho is a support compressor, Azumarill is slow but is our powerhouse, Probopass is a good wall, Ponya is a solid fast damage dealer, and Togekiss helps glue the team together despite being outpaced in damage (and will be getting the Togekiss upgrade shortly where I'm sure it'll nuke things with Choice Specs).

I think mons I could swap Carnivine out with include but are not limited to Abomasnow, Mamoswine, Glaceon, Toxicroak, and maybe even Drapion, among others. Feel free to make other suggestions for a sixth team member too! Abomasnow is one of my personal favorite Sinnoh mons so I'm slightly leaning towards that. I just feel like Carnivine is too slow to be an attacker, too vulnerable to be a tank, and just outclassed defensive type wise by basically the entire rest of the team. I struggle to find a situation where Carnivine feels worthwhile over the others (Wake would have likely been a slow battle outside of Quagsire if I used Carnivine, and I know the next two bosses will make me want to bench out). Drapion I can easily give Swords Dance to in order to compensate for its lacking early movepool.

What do you all think?