Let's Play! Ceal's epic and very cool Pokemon White playthrough

[ceal]

Hello and welcome to my Pokemon White forum Let's Play! I was inspired by my good friend DrumstickGaming who is doing his own LP of Pokemon Blue, it seemed fun and I wanted to give it a shot too. I chose White because Gen 5 is GOATed and I haven't played BW1 as much as I would like recently. I hope you enjoy my witty commentary and epic gamer skills!

Chapter 1: Liquid Swords

First in a long line of baddies in this game ngl.

Gender reveal!

Big fan of the rivals in this game, they're around a lot but distinct personalities and actual character arcs stop them from being an unwanted presence. Loads better than fucking Hugh.

I'll be taking Oshawott as my starter. It's got a nice theme, good, well-balanced stats, and a strong, if unoriginal, pure Water typing. It's one of the few post-Sinnoh starters I feel strongly for. It also happens to be far better than that piece of dogshit silhouetted in the background.

So we choose our starters and Bianca makes a suggestion:

Bianca I just bought that Wii it's brand new let's not break it by battling in my fucking house

The music in this game goes hard asf and the rival battle theme is the first example of this. Obviously I whoop Bianca's ass and...

You asshole.

Just a bit too close for comfort there.

I pull through vs my rivals, dump the responsibility of repairing my room on my poor single mother working her ass off to put food on the table, and go to see Professor Juniper, but not without having to see Bianca first:

Refer to the name of the above image file for this joke

Overbearing father aside we go to Juniper's place and to spare you from a lot of boring dialogue I got to nickname my starter:

Perhaps the best rap album ever made.

Me n the gang make our way to route 1, where Juniper shows us how to catch a Pokemon and cuts us loose. I capture a Patrat for cutting and a Lillipup to fight gym 1. Once we compare dick party sizes it's onto the next city:

The girls show me the Pokemon Center and when I leave, I'm drawn to a disturbance over yonder:

"Yeah I was just reading about how uh... the Renaissance Men are coming to town."

Team Plasma goes so fucking hard. Ghetsis especially is my favorite villain in all of Pokemon, for reasons that will make themselves clear over time. For now though we just get to see his gaslighting skills at work.

After the Knights who Say Nee leave the town some green-haired hippie decides to make himself known:

How original.

N is often touted as one of the best characters in Pokemon, for good reason, but it's hilariously creepy how he comes up to you talking about what your Pokemon are saying to him. Stranger danger, kids!

MFW I defeat the king of Team Plasma by using harsh language.

After dealing with the local treehugger, it's time to make haste and continue on to the next route, but not before we get a call:

Mom decides to ambush us in the woods to give us Running Shoes. Make no mistake, I'm glad these got added to the game and all, but why do they make it an item you have to unlock instead of it just being the default way of getting around? It just makes the pre-Running Shoes phase a million times more tedious than it needs to be. Firered/Leafgreen fans can attest to this.

I blow through the route pretty easily until I get to the end and Bianca ambushes me.

Bianca you have to ask for consent first.

Obviously she gets her butt whooped again and it's time for Striaton City. First stop is Cheren at the trainer school.

Beat him, get some Oran Berries, and it's off to the Dreamyard, where we encounter...

Holy shit, I didn't know there was a celebrity in this game! Too bad his team is shit and we demolish him easily!

With all the grinding out of the way, time to head onto the gym!

Clyde is the OG for real. As for the gym itself, it kinda sucks. It's designed around the FWG type circle, which is neat, but it didn't have to exist in the same game where you have two starters with the other two parts of the circle who'll teach you about type effectiveness naturally. Just feels like a waste of potential.

The triplets are also pretty boring. Since I chose Oshawott I get Cilan. Why is he such a pussy in this game? I swear he didn't act like this in the anime.

"Tell me about the rabbits, George."

Funny thing I learned this playthrough, if there is a Pickup Pokemon on the field and another Pokemon eats a berry, the Pickup mon will get a berry as well and eat it! I bet you can guess what happened!!!

I could've gotten Pansear for this fight but Pansear is fucking awful and legitimately would've been worse than the god Lillipup. Tackle spam brings down the monkey.

Trio Badge get!

With my first gym down, I walk out of the gym to go heal up when I'm suddenly kidnapped by some lady in a scientist coat and dragged into her apartment.

Imagine completing the Pokedex

What kind of "research" are we talking about here

In any case this weirdo decides we should go to the Dreamyard to do something and since I'm the main character I'll help this total stranger, why not? Fortunately she gives us the Cut HM to give us full access to the area and with that we can be on our way.

I stop at the Pokemon Center and heal up, and there will our run end for the day. Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this first part of our LP. Look forward to the next installment!

 

[DrumstickGaming]

ceal playing one of the best games in the series, so naturally I will follow it, especially with the zany pop culture references

Honestly, I never really got the hate for the monkeys. It's a great tutorial and all three are capable once fully evolved. Yeah, the gym doesn't give you a ton of options for dealing with it, but like ceal showed here, you have Lillipup which is good for the game anyway (especially if you have level 15 Take Down). I'll take this just as easily as the typical "lol crutch character Bug type / couple other randos" situation most of the previous gens employed. Plus, the gen has to let you break the new mons in somehow.

Pansear unevolved is uniquely terrible though.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

ceal playing one of the best games in the series, so naturally I will follow it, especially with the zany pop culture references

Honestly, I never really got the hate for the monkeys. It's a great tutorial and all three are capable once fully evolved. Yeah, the gym doesn't give you a ton of options for dealing with it, but like ceal showed here, you have Lillipup which is good for the game anyway (especially if you have level 15 Take Down). I'll take this just as easily as the typical "lol crutch character Bug type / couple other randos" situation most of the previous gens employed. Plus, the gen has to let you break the new mons in somehow.

Pansear unevolved is uniquely terrible though.

I feel like if the monkeys were made today they'd be one species that could adopt Fire, Grass, or Water as needed. Or something like that, but a bit more mechanically interesting. I personally don't loathe them the way some people do but I think a lot of the hate comes from the fact that there's three of them and they're so generic.

Also having played through BW multiple times, my god does the starting sequence get dull as fuck. Thankfully it's short and I've always actually found the first gym fairly challenging, but the lack of freedom does irk me.

 

[ceal]

Pansear unevolved is uniquely terrible though.

Whoever decided that Pansear should be stuck with 30 BP Incinerate will be facing a swift death by my hands

Chapter 2: Of Books and Bongs

We resume our journey in the late evening, using our Patrat to fell the tree in the Dreamyard and moving forward to explore this new open area.

Ah fuck she's back. And what do you mean mysterious Pokemon? There's no mysterious pokemo-

AH FUCK KILL IT WITH FIRE

I'm just kidding, Munna isn't so bad, although the reason for its Mystery Machine-ass floral patterning eludes me.

Oh fuck the Renaissance men are back. What do they want this time, you gonna lecture us again?

Oh, they want the "Dream Mist." Riiiiiiight. Shouldn't there be police around dealing with these drug addicts in knight costumes?

And now he's kicking it, these are DESPERATE drug addicts!

Not satisfied with beating up on a weird pink flower thing for another hit of that good shit, the Plasma grunt turns his attention on me, probably to take my money to buy more crack.

OH SHIT

TURN THAT SHIT UP FAM


Best music in the game aside, we beat druggie #1 and druggie #2 comes to assist.

Things that raise my resting heart rate in Pokemon, part 1.

I beat both grunts, but that doesn't seem to dissuade them, because they just go back to kicking Munna again!

My Oshawott could fucking bisect you right now dude. Fortunately I don't need to because suddenly, Ghetsis appears. Multiple of him, in fact.

(That strange text on the screen is, presumably, also part of the illusion, and not because I'm an idiot.)

Ghetsis berates his underlings for not securing him his daily fix, and they run off. Once they're gone, the mastermind behind the illusion appears...

The perverted scientist from earlier reappears (thanks for waiting until the conflict ended to intervene, you fucking pussy) and gets her Dream Mist from the disgusting mutant pigs. Is everyone around here a crackhead?

While grabbing items at the Dreamyard I encounter an Audino. The first of many victims

Against my better judgment, I meet this woman back at her place to get my reward for helping her, which hopefully doesn't include getting my liver extracted.

Nope, it's just the bottom half of my screen, C-Gear is cool looking, I guess, but outside of wifi stuff it doesn't have much purpose. Big miss compared to the Poketch or even the Pokewalker. In any case, I can finally leave Striaton and continue on my journey. On my way, I happen across a preschool which bizarrely is a good place to grind up levels. Feels kinda fucked up beating on kids, you know?

"Hey kids, you wanna get the shit kicked out of your Pokemon?"

After I'm done getting myself banned from school zones across Unova I walk a little bit to the left before...

Ah man what do you want?

Fair enough, I guess. I just hope you don't make a habit out of this, wouldn't it get old if you challenged me after literally every gym badge?

Lillipup just spams Take Down, nothing to see there, and once I think I can catch a break, here comes Bianca in a panic, with some small child beside her. What could be the meaning of this?

Man Plasma will pawn off ANYTHING for more of that dream mist, won't they? Cheren and I agree to track down the pokenappers and we find them cornered in this cave:

Nice hiding spot, dumbasses.

Things that raise my resting heart rate in Pokemon, part 2.

Lillipup smacks them around pretty easily, but then reinforcements arrive, from where who knows.

By the power of friendship, WE SHALL PREVAIL!!!

Inevitably they get their asses kicked and Lillipup happens to hit level 16. Time for my first evolution!

Well now the nickname doesn't make much sense, but that's a small price to pay for Intimidate.

After Plasma gives Cheren the Pokemon, everyone leaves and I get some alone time to catch a Pokemon:

Drums swears by Roggenrola and it's even ranked as high as A tier on the BW ingame tier list, so I decided to try it out.

"Rhinestone Cowboy" is technically a Glen Campbell song first and foremost, but we all know what the real reference here is:

Yeah that works.

With Roggenrola in tow, we exit back to route 3 where the little girl has received her Pokemon. As a reward, she gives us...

After that, we battle our way thru the rest of route 3 and get into Nacrene city. Who do you imagine is waiting for us there?

Just say you're lonely, man. I'd get it.

He shows us to the Pokemon center, presumably just as a way to spend time with a member of his own species for once, and gifts us some Chesto berries. I wonder if there will be a major battle upcoming that involves sleep moves??? Until then though I make my win to the outer area of Pinwheel forest to do some grinding.

Gen 5 Rock Smash is pretty decent, fairly strong early game and the 50% chance to drop Defense is insane.

is one of my favorite Pokemon ever but I already have a Water type for this run, sorry little fella.

After clearing out the area we get Dewott, a pretty dope mid-stage starter whose entrance is marked by a big power spike in the form of Razor Shell, aka Rock Smash on Dream Mist.

With the grinding out of the way, let's head to the museum, I sure there aren't any strange people waiting there to ambush me-

Oh goddamnit. Hippy here rambles on some more and challenges us to a fight, Dewott handles him easily.

Man you sure sound a lot like a pack of drug addicts I know. In fact, you being hopped up on Dream Mist would explain a lot about your ability to "hear Pokemon."

Oh that's not good. I know a guy with an unhealthy obsession with Reshiram, and trust me buddy, you do not wanna go down that route.

Once King Crackhead leaves we can enter the museum. The curator, Hawes, decides to give us a tour.

Oh suuuuuuuure, that stone definitely has nothing do with the plot. I absolutely believe you.

Once the tour is over, he leads us to the back where the gym is located.

Nacrene gym is cool enough, obviously the questions can't be too challenging but at least the atmosphere is comfy. Once we solve all the questions, we can make our way down to the gym leader:

Ok Batman.

Lenora leads with Herdier, and I have to sack Patrat to dodge Intimidate. Once Roggenrola is back in, I can deploy my secret weapon:

Iron Defense at level 20 makes Roggenrola absolutely insurmountable, and gives me all the time I could need to spam Rock Smash until everything dies. This strat is somewhat inconvenienced by Herdier knowing Leer but ID outboosts the Defense drops so we come out on top regardless. Herdier is taken down and Watchog comes in. This is a pretty scary mon usually, as Watchog has strong moves and Hypnosis to put things to sleep, we should be careful versus this dangerous threa-

Aw come on it didn't even click Hypnosis! That Chesto berry was for nothing.

Basic Badge get! (Doesn't sound like something I should be proud of does it?) As Lenora gives me a TM I will literally never use her hubby rushes in; Team Plasma is stealing a display!

Oh come on, they will never have a smoke scree-

Damn they really need that drug money don't they?

Oh god anyone but Burgh, can't wait for you to do jack shit as usual!

Our rivals show up and are given the unenviable task of guarding the museum as Burgh and I go to find Team Plasma, and there we shall end for the day. Thank you for reading, I hope you look forward to the next installment of my journey!

 

[TerrickTerran]

Fun to relive the joys of White and Black. Burgh is definitely my least favorite gym leader in all of Unova.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

View attachment 520462
Well now the nickname doesn't make much sense, but that's a small price to pay for Intimidate.

Rename it to Her Deer at the first opportunity. And then to St. Outland when it evolves again.

 

[ceal]

I've given up on downsizing all the images, if the thumbnail mechanic on this site was worth a shit maybe it'd be worth it but as it is it's far less tedious to just leave the screenshots big.

Chapter 3: Bugs in the Big City

We continue our adventure where we left off, heading into the Pinwheel Forest to hunt down Team Plasma

Burgh, being the useless fuck he is, decides to stay on the easy path straight ahead while I have to go trouncing through the woods to find a bunch of drugged-out LARPers.

You could say that for all of Unova in this game, HEYO!!!

The nice thing about being forced to do all the dirty work is that it gives me the opportunity to catch my next team member:

Sewaddle is a personal favorite of mine from BW2 and I'm interested to know how it fares in this game.

Will I ever name a Pokemon after something that isn't a rap song? Stay tuned.

With Sewaddle secured we can begin working through the forest, taking out Plasma grunts along the way.

Purrloin is kinda dogshit (or catshit, I guess) but I can at least appreciate its sprite in this game, as opposed to what we got in later gens:

Look, it's standing, just like Meowth? Get it?? BECAUSE IT'S GEN 5'S VERSION OF MEOWTH????

You would have to be on drugs to think those outfits are cool.

Has it struck anyone else how fucking creepy it is that Pokemon Rangers just hide themselves in the wilderness waiting to ambush passing children? Who would accept berries from these psychos?

Grass Knot isn't super impressive but it's neat coverage for Dewott should I need it to click a Grass move instead of, you know, my Grass type.

We catch up with the last grunt and whoop him, getting back the Dragon Skull in the process:

But then-

Gorn????

Hey man, what are you doing here? Wow you look so old and mammalian now, time hasn't been kind to you has it, do you remember when you and Kirk were- oh wait his name is Gorm, well now this joke makes no sense.

Oh hey Burgh, wow you swooped in soon as I got done doing all the hard work, ain't that a recurring theme?

Lenora comes in soon after and Team Plasma scuttle off to the next plot point. Lenora rewards me for saving her display, and her dignity, with:

Wow, the evolutionary stone that only affects 1 evolutionary line in the game!

At least this is a decent reward, Razor Leaves are gonna pack a wallop now!

After a little more grinding on the straight path that Burgh oh so valiantly defended from nobody, it's time to say goodbye to Pinwheel Forest and move on to the best location in the game. That's right baby, I'm talking about:

SOULarrow Bridge!!! Who's the most long-winded, unimpressive technical flex in a Pokemon game ever? That's right, YOU ARE BABY!!!

Soon though we cross the bridge into Castelia City, and there's a few things we need to take care of.

First is grabbing Eviolite, which will give us an incredible defensive boost to any unevolved Pokemon in our party. Roggenrola is a shoo-in for this item right now but it'll get passed around a bunch I'm sure.

I don't plan on using Herdier as a full-time party memeber but so long as it's gonna stick around, I'm gonna follow the advice of QuentinQuonce and give it a more fitting nickname.

OH GOD HE'S A FLASHER

Next is the Battle Company, a great place to grind some levels for the upcoming gym battle.

Man wouldn't it be so much better if this is how it worked in real life? If you're gonna have petty office drama over who slept with who, might as well throw Dragon Dance Tyranitars and Choice Sacarf Landorus-Ts in the mix!

Thanks to dedicated grinding in the forest and here in Castelia my Sewaddle evolves into the much uglier Swadloon.

Be sure to talk to this fella for the very useful Quick and Timer balls he provides.

You can also chat up this guy for a much less useful Scope Lens

I've been noticing Sewaddle/Swadloon haven't really been ohkoing things even when hitting with super-effective damage, usually requiring a 4 level advantage to do so. I hope that isn't foreshadowing a painful experience later on!

In its defense though, Dewott couldn't even ohko Woobat with Razor Shell, so maybe I'm just asking for too much.

Yeah sure where is he

We beat up the janitor-disguised CEO and he gives us an EXP share. Not the greatest reward but in this case the real treasure was the EXP we gained along the way.

With all that done, we can go challenge the gym and settle the score with that asshole artist.

GET OUT OF MY WAY CHEREN I GOT BUSINESS TO TAKE CARE OF

He eventually bugs off but Burgh comes rushing out after him.

Burgh claims the junkies are at it again and asks me to meet him at Prime Pier. Fine.

All the running about you do in this section really makes you appreciate the fact they give you the Bicycle as soon as you get here in BW2.

After doubling back once I realized I ran past my destination grabbing that screenshot, I discover what's happened:

Bianca you poor thing, don't worry, we'll get your Tepig back soon as-

....of course they stole the Pokemon that can make drugs for them, I don't know what I was thinking earlier.

This young lady, Iris, takes some time to state the obvious while we decide what to do. Obviously finding someone in a city as big as Castelia is a tough challenge, perhaps we should split up and-

Our little AP student here runs off and we pursue, tracking her down to... in front of the gym?

We beat the guards handily and rush in, only to find Ghetsis and some more of the old Sage dudes.

Holy shit you guys really are strung out on drugs, what sober mind would think it'd be a good idea to set up your base of operations in front of a gym leader, more or less the de-facto lawkeeper in this town, as a joke?

...I would but that doesn't count.

Oh sick dude the LORE

Nice slip up dumbass.

Ghetsis and Burgh continue to wax poetic at each other for a while until the former acquiesces and releases Munna.

I wonder if Bianca's Munna is meant to be the very same we see get jumped by Team Percocet in th Dreamyard, it'd be a huge coincidence but holy hell would it be funny. Poor thing just can't catch a break!

Look at Pokecuck over here.

With the Pokemon returned, Team Plasma escapes yet again. Iris points out why Burgh doesn't just stop them from running away, to which he says:

If this is the kind of horseshit gym leaders come up with to eschew responsibility there really needs to be an increased police presence in the Pokemon world.

Iris and Bianca have a cute little friendship, it's one thing I'd have liked to see more of in the sequel.

Castelia gym is fine but getting through the honey walls gets old after a while. I find it funny that this beehive-themed gym only exists in BW1 and they got rid of it in the sequel, the same game where they introduce Combee, the Bee Pokemon.

After working through the puzzle and getting stickier than any man ever should we finally get to Burgh. Time to teach you a lesson you bastard.

Lead off with Roggenrola into Whirlipede, Rock Blast easily takes care of it.

Leavanny comes in next and since I've been Screech'd and I wanna share the EXP around I swap to Swadloon. One Bug Bite drops it to yellow while Struggle Bug 3hkos back. This seems like it'll be an easy 2hko but-

Well that's great. And with two Hyper Potions on Burgh's side this is gonna get tedious. Seeing the writing on the wall I swap back to Roggenrola and finish it off with a lucky Rock Blast roll.

Finally Dwebble comes in, and Dewott handles it easily, securing the victory against Burgh. Thank God I'll never have to see him again!

I exit the gym, vindicated and in high spirits, when I get a call on the ol X-transceiver:

Man you just got your Pokemon stolen and now you wanna go through the anguish of getting your ass kicked by me? Are you some kind of masochist?

Heal up and this is where we leave off for now. Thanks for reading!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

View attachment 521537
Has it struck anyone else how fucking creepy it is that Pokemon Rangers just hide themselves in the wilderness waiting to ambush passing children? Who would accept berries from these psychos?

It is odd, as usually hiding from you is something sneaky trainer classes like Ninja Boys or evil team grunts do, but Rangers are meant to be heroic and upright. Clearly in Unova they're all corporate stooges and not actual eco-activists.

View attachment 521545
Gorn????

View attachment 521546

Gormless, am I right hyukhyukhuk-

After a little more grinding on the straight path that Burgh oh so valiantly defended from nobody

I'm glad this annoyed you as much as it did me.

View attachment 521552
I don't plan on using Herdier as a full-time party memeber

I see what you did there

View attachment 521557

View attachment 521558
OH GOD HE'S A FLASHER

View attachment 521564
Yeah sure where is he

View attachment 521565

I wonder if Bianca's Munna is meant to be the very same we see get jumped by Team Percocet in th Dreamyard, it'd be a huge coincidence but holy hell would it be funny. Poor thing just can't catch a break!

Always thought this

 

[ceal]

It is odd, as usually hiding from you is something sneaky trainer classes like Ninja Boys or evil team grunts do, but Rangers are meant to be heroic and upright. Clearly in Unova they're all corporate stooges and not actual eco-activists.

That's why they cover up all the strange disappearances in Lostlorn Forest.

Chapter 4: Ride the Lightning

When we left off we got a call from chronic bullying victim Bianca to have a Pokemon battle with her and I suppose it's time we oblige her request.

In the spirit of summer we might as well pick up some Lemonade on our way out! No luck with a free drop this time though :(

We meet up with Bianca in the gate to route 4 and she wants to battle us before, but before doing that...

...she asks for permission to battle indoors! This is unironically character development.

Well...

Should've brought your bodyguard to fight your battles for you.

Bianca I agree with your father the Onlyfans is a bad idea.

Bianca heads off to lick her wounds and we continue on to route 4

The desert here is iconic to me, many good memories exploring around here and the Pokemon you can find here and in the Desert Resort are in a league of their own, seriously. Still, this is like the ultimate example of just shoving random biomes into regions, America does have a lot of desert but it's not right outside of New York City. BW2 had better representation for this biome with Lentimas town. And look, there's Cheren.

You got some insecurity issues or something man

The nice thing about Cheren's team is Pidove notwithstanding it's complete Swadloon food.

Speaking of food. Thanks for the free berry, nerd!

With this victory, Roggenrola hits level 25, and you know what that means!

I oculd evolve Gigalith immediately but I feel bad for Boldore so I'm gonna let him stick around for a little bit longer. Helps that Eviolite Boldore is tanky af.

After that we get a call from Professor Juniper.

Probably in the middle of getting her Pokemon jacked again.

She tells us to meet her at the gate into Nimbasa City, but I got some business to take care of first.

Dig TM is in this house under the Desert Resort. A classic in-game move but useless for my party. I know Gigalith doesn't need Dig for Elesa, but it irks me regardless that he doesn't learn it.

Into the Desert Resort, a great place to grind and catch some rare Pokemon.

Would you look at that, why it's my favorite Yugioh card, Sigilyph! I think we all know where this is going.

Quick Balls OP

At least it's not a song reference this time!

Yeah you're standing in a hole in the middle of a desert what were you expecting?

Clearing through the desert is pretty much a cakewalk so we can continue on to Nimbasa, we save to see Juniper first though

Ma'am I have Quick Balls these are practically worthless to me.

Of course, why, I would never do something like n-neglect the Pokedex! Hahaha...

Juniper bids us farewell and goes to find where Bianca has lost herself and we continue into Nimbasa.

Oh great the welcoming committee is here. Y'know if you guys just got jobs or something you'd probably be able to afford all the Dream Mist you want!

Well you did inflate my ego there so why not

Now we're starting to run into Watchog more, AKA the worst Pokemon of all time. Confuse Ray, Sand Attack, Hypnosis, Detect, Super Fang, if you can think of an obnoxious move that makes you wanna snap your DS in half, Watchog probably learns it. If only they'd just pawn this Pokemon over for drug money instead of anything valuable or fun to battle.

Despite the annoyances we defeat the White Noses and they flee into the carnival area. The old man chooses to give us a reward.

Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! You lookin Lenora? This is what a real reward looks like.

Guess I can't escape my friends for long can I?

So long as it is in my power I will NOT be going there with you. In fact I got some things to do first.

Picking up Return here gives a massive buff to my Pokemons' coverage since 3/4 are physical attackers atm and have enough happiness to where Return will outclass basically any option available to us right now. With that nabbed we can do some grinding.

The court areas are pretty nifty places to get some levels up

Unless they're closed, in which case you can go fuck yourself.

You have to hand it to them, Game Freak kept the Contest/Musical gimmick going for a long time, 4 generations counting the RSE remakes. And during that whole time they almost never tried to force it onto you! Alola games, take notes.

Dude I just saved an old man from getting jumped by a bunch of druggies and you're dicking around out here?! DO YOU DAMN JOB MAN!!!

During grinding I manage to get enough happiness to evolve my Swadloon into Leavanny.

Lostlorn Forest might've had the biggest glowup of any area in the transition from BW1 to BW2. In this game there's basically no reason to come here, but the sequel gave it several powerful and unique Pokemon as well as actual trainers to battle.

Alright we've done everything there is to do, time to catch up with those grunts.

Coincidentally the hippie is here, volunteering to help me track down Plasma.

Nuh uh man. Not falling for this trap. It ain't like that between us man.

Yeah so long as you love them and not me we'll be cool.

Despite my protests I get dragged on to the ferris wheel, passionately insisting to the operator that this is purely platonic.

This is so uncomfortable, made worse by this little confession:

To be fair this does explain his neurotic ramblings and ability to understand Pokemon. Dude's the king of the crackheads!

N chooses to cover for his subjects by battling us

Pretty epic not gonna lie.

N's gimmick of using Pokemon from the surrounding areas is certainly an interesting choice. It does make every battle feel unique, but at the same time predictable, and given they all have their normal levelup movesets he's not a huge challenge.

We beat N and for some reason he feels it necessary to get all up in my grill:

I don't care about all that man, personal space! Learn the meaning!

He fucks off and now we can go take on the gym. Before that though, it's high time we "trade" our Boldore to evolve it into Gigalith.

Slap a Quick Claw onto that bad boy and trade off the Eviolite to Dewott.

Now this gym goes hard. The neon lights, the roller coaster, it comes together nicely. A shame this got relegated to a side area (still mandatory though for some reason) and the gym was changed into a boring runway in the sequel.

Bitch I am the best protagonist design in all of Pokemon I will slaughter you.

A showcase of Eviolite's power.

>25 Speed
>Relaxed nature
>9 Speed ivs
>still goes first
Nice.

One thing I'll say, these guys are cunts.

A few sick roller coaster moves later and we make it to the queen herself:

You're enough to make my head spin baby

Strategy is pretty straight-forward here, Emolga has two Flying types and no Rock resists so Gigalith will just spam Rock Blast to its heart's content.

That said, Volt Switch does take a chunk. If Zebstrika's AI was actually reliable than maybe I'd be in trouble. Close rolls like these though certainly make me yearn for the Leftovers in BW2.

Who needs recovery though when you have the GOD claw!

I've been known to do that to women

Look at that, I even have her flustered! I have this one in the bag boys.

they call me Mr. Spheal yo Girl

Bolt Badge get! Do I get your number too?

And we got a first date!

Ok that's more than enough thornyposting, we exit the gym and go heal up at the Pokecenter.

This is where we'll leave off for the day. Thanks for reading!

 

[TerrickTerran]

Don't think I ever touched musicals. Did love the movies though for BW2.

 

[ceal]

This was a little late coming out, I had some irl things to do and I ended up only finishing the post halfway before planning to come back later. As it turns out, if you leave the images in the draft for a couple days, they inexplicably break! How infuriating!

Chapter 5: An Icy Reception

Continuing where we left off, Bianca's still posted up in front of the musical...place, so I decide to roll past her to route 5. Hopeefully I've managed to slip by undetected, it would be really annoying were I forced to-

Oh no.

NO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

This is beneath me.

After some ritual humiliation Bianca decides to leave the theater anyways and I can go on my merry way.

I suppose grabbing this TM can make it worth it for certain runs but I can't imagine what Pokemon in this game actually makes use of Echoed Voice beyond I guess Tympole. At least we can finally leave and-

Oh fuck, character development!

Bianca's dad has come all the way from Numeva Town to bring his daughter back home, but now that she's tasted freedom, she ain't gonna go back so easily.

Sir it really isn't like that, I swear

Before Bianca can dish out some more sick burns, someone else comes along to intervene:

On the one hand, fair, but on the other hand, you're doing this in the middle of the street, obviously people are gonna notice.

Elesa gives a pretty basic spiel about choosing your own path in life and yada yada yada it's been too long between playing this and making the post to remember the details. The point is Bianca's dad gives in.

Well I guess she's calling me daddy now.

This is pretty much the big character moment for Bianca, someone whose been sorta timid and unsure of herself for the game thus far but finally manages to stand up for herself, against her own father no less. Sure she's had some bad times (imagine how much harder her dad would argue if he knew about what happened in Castelia) and is bound to have more, but she's had many more good experiences too, and it's not like you can have a perfectly good adventure without things going wrong. Almost as if life isn't so black and white. Hey, I get it!

After big papa leaves we can trail Elesa to route 5 to get to the bridge.

Who could've seen this coming?

Joke's on you nerd, I have Magic Guard!

After wiping the floor with Cheren Elesa shows up again and escorts us over to the bridge, when we're interrupted again by a mysterious stranger...

Alder certainly is an interesting character. He is technically the champion of Unova, but due to the way the story plays out you don't actually get to fight him until postgame. By then he's still the champion, which I don't really get, if N goes through the entire Elite 4 at the end of the game and beats Alder, that would make him the champion, right? And when we eventually fight and beat N, that would mean we become the champion, right? So what the hell is Alder still doing being the champion after the story's over? Did N forget to go to that little back room and put his Pokemon in the Pokeball scanner thingy and so he doesn't technically count as being champion? What a load. In any case, I intend on being the champion of Unova, so suffice to say we'll be seeing him at the Pokemon League someday.

Talk shit get hit, Cheren.

Cheren obviously is only intent on being the strongest trainer, a foolish goal when you're a rival in a Pokemon game but Alder wishes to impart on him that strength alone isn't everything to life (or he's probably just coping because he knows he's gonna get his ass kicked later in the story). Much like with Bianca and her father, the lesson is that things aren't so black and white. That theme sure comes up a lot, they should've named the games after it or something.

Hey man I hate to be a drag, but after the incident outside of Striaton I don't know if I should be seen having battles with children again.

This was very scary but fortunately only one Herdier has Intimidate so the fight won't be as drawn out as it could've been.

Liepard, ladies and gentlemen.

This Panpour however did much better, burning both Herdiers with Scald.

That's just ignant!

Things in Pokemon that raise my resting heart rate, part 3.

After finishing up grinding in route 5 we check out the drawbridge.

Boy I hope this doesn't lead to a gratuitous and unskippable 3D cutscene!

it did.

The bridge itself is completely unremarkable so we just cross over to Driftveil City.

Aw yeah turn that shit up man!

We meet Clay pretty quickly but he doesn't seem to be in the best of moods.

As it turns out, while they were lowering the drawbridge, the Team Plasma grunts they had captured escaped. I'll give the cowboy credit for actually taking Team Plasma into custody instead of just letting them get away like some gym leaders I know, but how do they get away from you just because you dropped a bridge?

Thank you Eeyore.

So now we have to find Plasma in order to take on Clay. Fine.

One important thing to do is stop in the market center and talk to this guy, should you have a Pokemon at level 30 or higher he'll give you an Expert Belt. A pretty strong item for mons with a lot of coverage as well as ones that don't get a good type-related boosting move in the main game. Going on Sigi for now.

Cold Storage got cut from the sequel to make room for the PWT, but that's a shame, it's a nice little place with some unique Pokemon and vibes.

Speaking of, Vanillite won't be making an appearance on my team, unfortunately, but he is pretty cute and probably the best Ice type in the game, not that that's a very high bar to begin with, but I digress. Try him out sometime!

Rocky Helmet is a cool little item for tanks in lieu of Leftovers. Going on Gigalith.

You can also find a heart scale up here in case you need to do some move reminding. Now with all those boxes checked we can enter the one building here that's open. I wonder if anyone's in there?

Kinda weird that BW has two "glide across the ice" puzzles in one game but if I had to pick one to keep it'd be Cold Storage for sure. This place also has a banger theme.

This guy isn't cold, he's actually shaking with fear because he knows I'm about to fuck him up beyond all repair.

Well considering you magically appeared to ask me, I'm gonna say yes.

Ahhh, Zinzolin. Probably the biggest dork in all of Pokemon. BW2 players will know this guy well, and I'm thankful he plays a considerably smaller role in this story.

Plasma forms a wall to protect him which just means we get to wail on them for free exp. Nice!

Probably the Dream Mist kicking in.

Once we beat all the grunts, Clay comes in with some workers and hauls the drug addicts straight to rehab.

Clay thanks us for our help and allows us to challenge his gym.

We'll leave off here for now. Thank you for reading!

 

[QuentinQuonce]

This was a little late coming out, I had some irl things to do and I ended up only finishing the post halfway before planning to come back later. As it turns out, if you leave the images in the draft for a couple days, they inexplicably break! How infuriating!

Literally the bane of my life when doing challenge runs

View attachment 524341
Continuing where we left off, Bianca's still posted up in front of the musical...place, so I decide to roll past her to route 5. Hopeefully I've managed to slip by undetected, it would be really annoying were I forced to-

View attachment 524342
Oh no.

View attachment 524343
NO

View attachment 524344
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

View attachment 524345
This is beneath me.

Every time, every time I play BW I hope I'll be able to get out of Nimbasa without doing musicals

This is pretty much the big character moment for Bianca, someone whose been sorta timid and unsure of herself for the game thus far but finally manages to stand up for herself, against her own father no less. Sure she's had some bad times (imagine how much harder her dad would argue if he knew about what happened in Castelia) and is bound to have more, but she's had many more good experiences too, and it's not like you can have a perfectly good adventure without things going wrong

Maybe it's just me but I take a perverse enjoyment in telling my parents "so yeah the other day this awful horrific catastrophe happened and multiple things went wrong but I fixed it and everything's fine now". Here, have some ironclad proof I'm competent and don't need you all the time!

View attachment 524365
Alder certainly is an interesting character. He is technically the champion of Unova, but due to the way the story plays out you don't actually get to fight him until postgame. By then he's still the champion, which I don't really get, if N goes through the entire Elite 4 at the end of the game and beats Alder, that would make him the champion, right? And when we eventually fight and beat N, that would mean we become the champion, right? So what the hell is Alder still doing being the champion after the story's over? Did N forget to go to that little back room and put his Pokemon in the Pokeball scanner thingy and so he doesn't technically count as being champion? What a load. In any case, I intend on being the champion of Unova, so suffice to say we'll be seeing him at the Pokemon League someday.

I guess if N never claims the title then it defaults back to Alder...? That's my best guess. In previous games I always headcanoned that the existing champion (Blue, Lance, Steven et al) beats the E4 again before you do. But it's (probably intentionally) unclear how all this works.

 

[BreloomBuddy]

As it turns out, if you leave the images in the draft for a couple days, they inexplicably break! How infuriating!

Trouble with your posts getting messed up before they’re posted? Try Sandbox, a nifty little tool that allows you to create drafts of your posts to be copied and pasted elsewhere. You can even create entire threads to group similar posts. Sandbox is a tool everyone must have. Simply go to the menu and click “Sandbox” to begin making draft posts. You’ll wonder how you ever made posts without it! And remember, it’s the feature I get paid to endorse because I’m famous!

in all seriousness Sandbox is very cool.

 

[bdt2002]

Writing a Let’s Play of my own like this sounds like a lot of fun. Following in the spirit of some of you guys I would love to make one of these some time in the not-too-distant future… but there’s one small problem.

I don’t have any way of editing raw screenshots of gameplay from my devices. I play my games on the specific consoles they were made for, not having access to emulators at the moment, nor do I have a way of recording gameplay such as with a capture card. What would you recommend I do in this situation? I don’t want to just give you guys raw pictures from, like, my phone or something.

 

[ceal]

in all seriousness Sandbox is very cool.

I actually used sandbox to create the OP, way easier than using the text box you get when starting a thread. When I went to c/p my post over to this forum, however, all my pictures ended up breaking when I posted. I had to rush to fix every image in the post before someone saw it. Drums can attest to how angry I was.

Writing a Let’s Play of my own like this sounds like a lot of fun. Following in the spirit of some of you guys I would love to make one of these some time in the not-too-distant future… but there’s one small problem.

I don’t have any way of editing raw screenshots of gameplay from my devices. I play my games on the specific consoles they were made for, not having access to emulators at the moment, nor do I have a way of recording gameplay such as with a capture card. What would you recommend I do in this situation? I don’t want to just give you guys raw pictures from, like, my phone or something.

I play on emulator and use the snip tool to take screenshots, that way I can capture as much or as little of the screens as I need. If you have even a semi-competent PC this should be pretty easy to do.

Chapter 6: Spelunkin'

Thank God I remembered this was here before leaving because I certainly didn't last time I played. That said it is fairly well hidden by angles so I'm not kicking myself. Scald is a very broken move in general and a very good power spike for Dewott until Surf comes along. With that we can leave the Cold Storage and head up to take on the gym.

Oh I don't like the looks of this

Ghetsis has come to Driftveil with reinforcements to collect his fellow petrol sniffers.

Despite Clay doing so well up until now, he basically hands them over for free! I had faith in you.

Yeah fuck you man.

He's the de-facto leader of an organized army of drug addicts and is probably on the Dream Mist himself, why would you ever think he's normal?

Onto the gym, it's pretty cool. The puzzle is quick and painless, and the atmosphere of descending into a mining shaft to find the gym leader is nice. Not to mention the dinosaur bones you see when you go to the bottom, that's pretty dope.

This gym also makes use of Palpitoad to mess with Water types, something that's sorely missing in BW2. Why they decided to remove the best Water type in Unova from Unova is beyond me.

Clay is a pretty notorious boss for how frustrating he can be, but with both a Water and Grass type in tow, I'm feeling confident.

Krook leads with Intimidate and gets off Swagger before I can move. Pretty obnoxious but at least I'll break through and ohko him with Scald, right?

.....fuck my life.

Ok we send in Mantis to finish him off and Exca is gonna come out, I sack Patrat to revive Dewott and bring him back in. I'm at half health but with Eviolite on he shouldn't be able to ohko me.

Nevermind! Forgot it had Hone Claws in this game.

No burn on Scald either, so you know what's gonna happen!

Yeah I really should've sacked Herdier as well to get the Intimidate off and potion on Dewott, I was playing too impatiently after the Krok horseshit. Least tilted Pokemon player!

Fortunately Dewott at least got Drill low enough for Mantis to pick it off.

Like how you gave up vs Team Plasma, right?

Earth Badge get! I really didn't intend on this being a #MantisSweep but I guess that was what's in the cards. Really goes to show how dangerous Clay can be even to a prepared team.

Most normal gym leaders would just hand me a TM by this point but this guy is taking a page out of Clair's book and fucking off before giving me my prize. So to Route 6 I go!

As if I could ever get that far uninterrupted.

I'm sure she means it because Bianca is too innocent to be mean but that is the most passive-aggressive text bubble I've ever had the pleasure of reading in a Pokemon game. Anyways, we all know where this is going:

Musharna is annoying at this point should you not have a way to hit her super-effectively. I do, of course, but I decided I wanted Dewott to make up for the lost experience at the gym battle. Scald at least helps makes the battle a little quicker.

Was there ever any doubt?

Unlike some cowboys I know, Bianca is nice enough to give me my reward immediately after the battle. Fly is pretty useless on Sigilyph so I better remember to catch a Fly slave later.

Onto Route 6, Gigalith is juuuuust not strong enough to ohko Deerlings from full. Hard Stone could not come soon enough.

But then again, Rocky Helmet is good compensation.

Hey just like the Unova region!

At Chargestone Cave, looks like Miles Morales has been here recently.

But only half-heartedly, otherwise Team Percocet would be all behind bars by now.

Anyhoo, Clay clears the web blocking the entrance (I feel like I could've done that myself, y'know) and finally gives us the TM:

Bulldoze isn't amazing in of itself but in lieu of Earthquake this is the best Ground coverage Gigalith is gonna get. Better teach it to him and go into Chargestone Cave!

Immediately upon entering, I get ambushed by ninjas. Yeah this is about what I could've expected to happen.

Oh and they work for the drug addicts too. Explains the smell of weed and the hand feeling around for my wallet.

What an incredibly cool name and gimmick, I'm sure they'll turn out to be interesting and challenging bosses in later games!

Look at me. I'm the main character. Of course I'm not surprised.

N explains that Team Plasma is lying in wait in the cave to shoot up without the cops seeing test what kind of trainer I am and then fucks off. Fine, whatever.

And wouldn't you know, Bianca and Juniper are here as well to do some research. Bianca claims to be her bodyguard later on, which I find laughable considering what's happened to her over the course of this story.

Lucky Egg is an insane item to just be handed to you, and with proper item management can make even a team of 6 Pokemon viable without falling behind in levels. Still, I plan on reserving its use for grinding or new, underleveled party members, to try and make things more challenging for myself.

Chargestone Cave itself is a nice little dungeon, interesting aesthetics and music. The floating stone gimmick is also pretty cool but if you hit a stone that can't move the forced animation can be pretty annoying. Just let me move!

We get assaulted by the ninjas again and dragged over to a staircase where Team Plasma are waiting for us. Not like I could go north anyways due to a stone blocking the way.

Strange detail, but in the lower levels the music goes down in pitch. Not sure why but it's neat.

Doctors being in most of the big dungeons in Unova means you aren't as hard-pressed to use items to heal. Convenient!

Alright time to send you guys back to rehab.

This has to be the most useless move in Pokemon that isn't literally useless. At least on Sigi you can click it on Flying types too but it's still only 5 BP stronger than Psybeam, so easy skip.

Things that raise my resting heartrate in Pokemon, part 4. Watchog is a fucking demon and was the source of much frustration during this dungeon, which I will make very clear right now.

Just in this one encounter I got confused, slept, and Super Fang'd multiple times. Whoever designed Watchog needs to be shot.

Eat shit and die you miserable rodent.

At least this one I get a lucky Psybeam confuse on. How does it feel to be on the other side of the hax, bitch?

It feels really fucking good apparently because it breaks through and confuses me right back. It is a fact that the ai is less likely to get haxxed than you are and I will not accept any evidence to the contrary. It's bullshit, they put it on the field just to aggravate me and unless I run a Fighting type there's nothing I can do about it! I HATE IT, I HATE IT SO FUCKING MUCH AGHAHJGBFHBFJHA

All in all, seeing a Watchog on the field makes me want to die. One nice thing about the expanded dex in BW2 is that Neo-Plasma uses Watchogs considerably less in exchange for non-Unova mons. Far less frustrating that way.

Despite the bullshit, we get through to the end. Hopefully Ghetsis understands what kind of trainer I am now: the kind who puts a hole in his monitor everytime he misses Focus Blast on Showdown. We finally get to N and can have some sweet revenge.

He said it! He said the name of the game!!!

Dewott's lackluster Speed has been a notable issue lately so gaining a way to circumvent that is fantastic.

N proves to be little trouble yet again. Only Ferroseed was ever considerably a threat but Dewott beat it pretty easily with boosted Revenge.

After I make the king eat shit yet again the ladies re-appear. Bianca apparently has good hearing, but I just think she's that obsessed with me. I didn't ask for a groupie, ok, she came onto me!

N is not a big fan of Juniper thanks to her Pokedex contributing to the whole "Pokemon getting put in balls" thing.

Hey that's what I just said!

No that's cringe, I'd rather have supreme power and make everyone do what I want. As soon as N and Juniper are done mouthing off to each other everyone leaves and I can continue on my journey.

Tune in next time as we enter Mistralton City!

 

[ceal]

Chapter 7: Mile High

We're now into Mistralton City, and once again, the music is banging.

Oh hi, complete stranger I've never encountered before. How do you know my name?

It's Professor Juniper's father, actually. If there's a character you could write out of the game and never notice, this is definitely one of the top contenders.

Professor, who's that baddy? (That's my one thirstpost for this chapter I'm sorry) It's just Skyla, the gym leader of Mistralton and a pilot. How do you know she's a pilot? Don't worry, she'll tell you!

Way to talk to her like a creepy old man dude

Even she thought it was weird!

Skyla mentions she needs to go to the Celestial Tower, where an unnamed Pokemon we never get to see and never gets mentioned again is stranded and needs help. Guess we better go there too.

Before that we can pick up this Sharp Beak at the airport and slap it on Nazca.

This Tranquill will serve as our Fly slave so I can spare Nazca the moveslot.

In case you have an Electric or Psychic type at this point, Charge Beam is incredibly useful. Nazca will likely be making use of this later given the lack of Calm Mind in the main game.

I come down here and get ambushed by this dork who challenges me to a triple battle. The weird thing is that the tutorial for the gimmick battles in this game is entirely skippable unlike BW2, but in this game they force you to take this fight unless you go through the tall grass, which, I don't know if you've seen The Lost World before, but that isn't a great idea.

Fortunately I have Rhinestone in the perfect position in my party to get max coverage with Rock Slide, so this fight isn't very scary at all.

We're 2 for 2 with sexist old men this chapter, very cool.

Mom randomly calls you on Route 7 and says a whole lot of nothing. IDK maybe they liked the sprite for her and wanted to shove it in an extra scene.

Deeplore on your mother, she was a trainer at some point. Also check out those eyes she's shooting me!

This guy has a Sigilyph but no Magic Guard! Oops!

A good grab for many of the good Bugs in this game, going right on Mantis.

Into Celestial Tower, it's basically just Pokemon Tower in semi-3D. Not a ton to say except, as always, the music is great.

Imagine getting to 36 with Dewott and your reward for being ready to evolve is a move as lame as Encore? C'mon.

Oh wait shit I'm at 36, evolution time!

People dunk on Samurott a lot, mostly for the biped --> quadruped transformation from what I've seen. I think it's fine personally, I've seen enough cases in evolution of bipeds evolving into quadrupeds when they become too bulky to stand up on their own two feet, which is definitely the case for Samurott. Besides it's only facultatively quadrupedal and can rise up on its back legs to use the swords sheathed in its armor. Though that's probably the most useless detail Samurott can have since there's no way the games will ever get advanced enough animations to show that off.

Slash is at least more thematically relevant than Encore, but c'mon now.

Here's a good slashing move though! Now Leavanny's got two powerful STABs under its belt.

And she's also getting Shadow Claw too! Mantis's movepool went crazy this episode.

We get up here and the Pokemon is gone, although Skyla now wants us to ring the bell before we leave.

Once she's satisfied she walks down the stairs (really? You're a Flying type specialist, use Fly!) and we can go to the gym.

Mistralton Gym is banging. Themed as an airport warehouse with cannons to go flying around in and rings to go through. Very fun.

Although I'm not sure about the brain damage!

Skyla is going to be very straight-forward. Just lead Gigalith and spam Rock Slide.

This Swoobat could've been a major pain in the ass with Attract shenanigans but instead it opted to Heart Stamp and not flinch. So it dies and I go to 36.

I'm not picking up Stealth Rock right now, buuuuuut...

I'm actually overleveled for this fight, 4 man team doing well with the level curve. I would've liked to see what damage Swanna could do with Bubblebeam but instead it just Aqua Rings, as if it already knows its fate.

I understand what they were doing with the gender differences in Unfezant, but both designs are ugly as shit.

Jet Badge get! This is probably the easiest gym I've had so far, surprising since Skyla in BW2 can be kinda annoying depending on the team. But I guess that's just the power of Gigalith!

Acrobatics is an amazing move, if only any of the Flying types in Unova actually learned it!

Looks like Team Percocet is on the loose again, better hurry out of here and track em down before something happens!

OH SWEET JUMPING JEHOSAPHET! Don't jumpscare me like that dude!

No, no way man! Stranger danger! STRANGER DANGER!!!

Your signature Pokemon, legends notwithstanding, are the Zorua line, Pokemon which use the Illusion ability to change into other people, tricking people into thinking they're something they're not. Isn't that by definition lying? Checkmate atheist!

IDK why this line is really funny to me. At least use his nickname man!

N rambles on and eventually fucks off. Dude was really waiting outside of this gym to ambush me and chat up a sentient rock. Don't do drugs kids.

Tune in next time as we head after Team Plasma!

 

[DrumstickGaming]

N rambles on and eventually fucks off. Dude was really waiting outside of this gym to ambush me and chat up a sentient rock. Don't do drugs kids.

Hilarious commentary from you as usual. It's sad Gigalith goes from "legit top ten contender" to "literally who?" from BW1 to BW2.

 

[ceal]

Chapter 8: What a Twist!

We would begin by heading off to Twist Mountain, but of course we're interrupted by Cheren.

Aqua Jet value!

And for some reason I'm learning Encore again? Fuck off and come back with a good move!

Holy shit, didn't you learn from last time? You already found out before I'm Magic Guard.

He still maanages to recover HP though, thanks to his Leftovers. IDK where he got it from, he probably found the Castelia Sewers 2 years before anyone else. What I do know is even if you Thief it off of him you don't keep it after the battle's over. Total horseshit.

Anyways I cream Cheren yet again and in keeping the tradition of creepy old men from last episode, turns out Alder was watching us the whole time!

Cheren and Alder go back and forth about his goals and shit but in the end Alder imparts on us this gift:

Finally we can traverse water and we get a minor power spike for Samurott. I'm gonna miss Scald's burn chance but 15 more BP is 15 more BP.

In fact we get to test that new power spike on this poor Hiker outside of the mountain!

Into the mountain, and we have another reunion of crotchety old men for Cheren to snark with.

Wow you mean the gym leaders are gonna get off their asses and do something about the drug cult threatening the region? Say it ain't so!

Now that we're into Twist Mountain proper, I have to say: I really like this dungeon. It's at its best in winter with the mounds of snow that open up alternate pathways, but even in the off seasons it's got a fun atmosphere. It's mazelike but not frustrating and I like running around the mountain exploring every opening and passageway. Add on the Cold Storage music in the background and its a fun time.

Nice phrasing buddy. Say, you ever think about joining Team Plasma?

I have refused to heal this Samurott out of Torrent range and I will keep it unhealed so long as the game lets me.

This is the damage a Torrent-boosted Aqua Jet does by the way.

I was fully expecting to get ohko'd after seeing the Jet damage but instead it just used Hone Claws??? One of the scariest enemy Pokemon turned into a joke by mediocre AI, what a Pokemon moment.

FUCK OFF WITH ENCORE ALREADY

I have to say, it's some real bullshit they put like a million Psychic types in Unova with no Calm Mind TM, and the only ones that learn it naturally are Beheeyem and this piece of shit.

And then I learn trash like Synchronoise and Gravity! Fuck you!!!

I ran into another Excadrill with Samurott and it did the exact same thing as before, so it's a consistent AI problem. Weird.

Finally this Musharna comes to humble me, and GZA's Liquid Sword spree comes to an end. Not that it hugely matters since this guy is a doctor and would've healed me back up anyways.

It's also worth mentioning I'm a moron and forgot to take off Eviolite back when Dewott evolved. Imagine what kind of damage I really could've been doing!

In the room with the Icy Rock you can find this TM, probably entirely useless unless you have a Vanillish (and even then...).

We're really 3 for 3 for character interactions that just bring out the snark in Cheren.

I don't remember what they're referring to but I'd assume it was the White Stone. Anyways unlike Chargestone Cave they fuck off and this is the end of Twist Mountain.

Exiting into Icirrus we run into genderbent Juniper again. Stop talking about my Pokemon like you're N.

Idk where else to weasel this in, but I think it's a funny coincidence that the two big dungeons we go through at this part of the game are Twist Mountain and Dragonspiral Tower. Idk if that's intentional on Gamefreak's part or not.

Hey look at that, Emboar learns a good Fighting type move in this game! And yet it's somehow worse in this game than in the one where it doesn't. Really makes ya think

Going to Dragonspiral Tower, you can't actually access the tower itself but fortunately almost every pokemon you can find inside the tower is encounterable outside the tower. New team member time!

It wouldn't be a BW playthrough if you didn't use a Fighting type! To be real, this was going to be a Druddigon, but Drums was gassing me up about how Mienfoo was underrated and since I decided on going postgame I was bound to get more use out of Mienshao than I normally would, so there's no better time to use it than ever!

You knew it was gonna be a song reference but you didn't think it'd be that one, did you?

Tune in next time as we put our new team member to the test!

 

[ceal]

Chpater 9: Of Ice and Fire

Before we do the Icirrus stuff, I wanted to go back and do some things I missed before.

First is tutoring Megahorn onto Samurott. It's a pretty strong move and is Samu's best move for hitting Grass types / Hydreigon, so on it goes.

Next is going around this route with my newfound Surfing abilities. Poison Jab is here for some reason, not that it's a hugely important move but I cannot fathom why it was here in BW and then Gamefreak decided to lock it to postgame in BW2, when Pokemon in that game could've actually benefitted from it.

Silk Scarf being this late is kind of poopy ngl, but Lillipup still cleans house in this game don't worry.

Mistralton Cave is a pretty useful location, offering some good items, a legendary Pokemon (and Axew, which should be the legend considering how much better it is), and, for me, a few levels for Mienfoo. Fortunately Leavanny can learn Flash and Herdier has Strength covered, so navagating this place is no big deal.

Hard Stone is useful in case I need that extra damage on Gigalith, but for the time being Rocky Helmet is staying on.

Rock Slide is a great TM for Mienfoo and means I can be more flexible with Gigalith's moveset later on without sacrificing its best STAB move. I don't need Cobalion, so after training Mienfoo I head out and Fly back to Icirrus.

Now onto the gym. Kinda odd that there's two major ice puzzles in this game but this isn't a bad one at least. The angled pieces you can curve around with certainly make it more involved than Cold Storage.

Things that make Ceal's rising heart rate rise in Pokemon part WHATEVER

Drain Punch is a very efficient move and as strong as Brick Break so it's definitely going on.

With this and that brain damage wall in the Mistralton Gym, there's no way OSHA exists in the Unova region.

Despite Mienfoo's many good qualities, it definitely has problems holding it back. STAB Brick Break barely misses the ohko on Vanillish, while its own Ice Beam does more than half despite my Careful nature and Eviolite boost. I expect these issues to only exacerbate as time goes on.

Then again, it may only take a level's difference to improve Mienfoo's performance. Also Drain Punch coming in clutch for recovery.

Brycen is kind of a joke and can be run over by Samu or Giga easily, but I wanna give our new friend some time in the limelight. Pretty straightforward mu, just Work Up twice and click buttons.

Acid Armor slightly complicates this strategy, I'll admit, but we (brick) break through it regardless.

Beartic comes out right after and despite me being at +2 I fail to ohko the big guy. Mienfoo moment. Fortunately Beartic only Slashes and doesn't crit, so after it potions up I click Drain Punch and it actually gets the roll and ohkos. Ok.

I guess if I just had like 200 more xp I would've had the move to ohko it.

Last mon is Cryo and it tries to Reflect up to compensate for its pathetic Defense stat. I doubt it really makes a difference, but I kept Brick Break around for this reason anyways. Snowflake goes down and Brycen is defeated.

Freeze badge get!

Kinda worthless TBH but alright.

Outside the gym our good friends have come by to drop more character development on us.

You've gotten snarkier, at least.

Brycen pops his head out and starts interrogating Cheren for no reason.

...or maybe he's off his meds again. Can Clyde come out and get his mans?

OH FUCK NINJAS! Of course Brycen can see through their shadowclonejutsu, being a ninja himself!

The Triad explain that Team Plasma has infiltrated Dragonspiral Tower, and that we should go there to try and stop them, if we dare. Which I will. Eventually.

Yeah so I took a few days before coming back to do Dragonspiral and it turned into autumn. Oops!

The trees look nice, could do with less rain though.

Cedric fills us in on what's happened, and that Cheren and Brycen have already entered the Tower to try and stop Team Percocet.

Bianca being a coward volunteers to stay outside. Thanks for nothing!

Not sure if this is a "remember Sinnooooooooooh????" moment or just a joke about Cedric being an eccentric old man that would hand out that shit like candy.

Into Dragonspiral Tower, I really love the design of this place, this floor specifically reminds me of Phenac City from the Gamecube games with the water and the tiling. Not to keep beating a dead Zebstrika, but the music here is awesome as well.

Sounds like we're too late, but that won't stop us from trying! Pretty sure Gigalith could beat Reshiram right fucking now honestly.

One of two little puzzles in the tower, not too challenging but not annoying to go through either.

We find Brycen and Cheren wasting their time with shitty grunts while the big bosses upstairs are resurrecting ancient dragons. Good job guys! Guess that just leaves us to put a stop to these druggies.

God, nothing is more satisfying than outspeeding and ohkoing a Watchog. So glad to have a Fighting type.

The other puzzle, makes pretty good use of the pseudo-3D stuff BW has going on. If only Pokemon 3D stayed pseudo.

Reshiram is so cool apparently that N grew a soul and expressed some real emotion. Seriously this feels almost out of character for him to say, but I guess he still is a kid. Or teenager, whatever it is.

The sages in this game can have some silly names but Giallo might just take the cake.

Aaaaaaaand suddenly the age rating for this game just went from E for everyone to AO 18+. Seriously what are they doing to me, there's no space to have a Pokemon battle!

Regardless we make it through the pill-popping predators and ascend To the Top of the Tower, where...

Goddamn the cutscene actually works. I'm so used to the BW2 cutscenes glitching out on emulator for whatever reason I wasn't sure if I would be able to show this. Also here's another good example of the 2D/3D blend gen 5 does so well.

NGL, Reshiram looks silly as hell. Nice hair, Fabio!

With his OP legend in tow, N can now go become leader of the world. Seriously N challenge me right now and I will Rock Slide that thing into oblivion.

Instead of trying to finish me off here, N demands I go find Reshiram's counterpart, Zekrom, and face him at the Pokemon League to determine whose ideals will influence the future of Unova. Kind of like him to be too cocky and idealistic to crush me now, TBH.

Nyoom!

Dude it was right in front of me I just met a goddamn kaiju I gotta go dig up Godzilla to fight this guy WHAT DO YOU MEAN "DID I SEE IT"?!?!

Outside the tower we discuss what to do next. Alder drops by and lends his wisdom to help us out.

He decides that searching for the stone that holds Zekrom is the best course of action, and points us to Desert Resort to find it. Hey Alder, this might sound random, but I remember seeing a black stone in the museum in Nacrene, and considering Zekrom is a black dragon, wouldn't it make sense to try- no? Ok I guess we'll go digging around in the desert to find it, yeah that makes more sense, totally.

Tune in next time as we go dragon(stone) hunting!

 

[Ernesto]

The sages in this game can have some silly names but Giallo might just take the cake.

I guess if you know Italian it's less silly since it's plain yellow. The other Sages (except for Ghetsis) are also named after colors but at least they're more interesting, like I never would've guessed Gorm meant blue.

Fun commentary as always!

Edit: Oh and yea, Mienfoo is pretty cool even if it evolves late (which you can say of a lot of BW mons as we know). I never finished my Black playthrough with it but I prolly should, U-turning out and getting health back is never a bad trait when you're trying to grind.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

View attachment 532139
Next is going around this route with my newfound Surfing abilities. Poison Jab is here for some reason, not that it's a hugely important move but I cannot fathom why it was here in BW and then Gamefreak decided to lock it to postgame in BW2, when Pokemon in that game could've actually benefitted from it.

My instinctive reaction was "well it's a really powerful move, probably best off being postgame" but then I checked and it's only 80 base power (for some reason I always think it's more) and DPP had it available around the same point of the game. Tbh even if it was 120 base power it's still Poison so probably wouldn't be totally game-breaking.

and Axew, which should be the legend considering how much better it is)

Niantic: wait, Axew *isn't* Unova's legendary??

Seriously I literally forgot how easy Axew is to find in the MSG for ages after they introduced Axew in PoGo, it's crazy

View attachment 532152
With this and that brain damage wall in the Mistralton Gym, there's no way OSHA exists in the Unova region.

Does OSHA exist anywhere in the Pokemon world? Johto literally had a gym filled with lava

Despite Mienfoo's many good qualities, it definitely has problems holding it back. STAB Brick Break barely misses the ohko on Vanillish, while its own Ice Beam does more than half despite my Careful nature and Eviolite boost. I expect these issues to only exacerbate as time goes on.

Then again, it may only take a level's difference to improve Mienfoo's performance. Also Drain Punch coming in clutch for recovery.

Brycen is kind of a joke and can be run over by Samu or Giga easily, but I wanna give our new friend some time in the limelight. Pretty straightforward mu, just Work Up twice and click buttons.

Having never used Mienfoo/Mienshao in any game I was genuinely blown away by how much of a gigachad it turned out to be when I was doing my White challenge last year. Truly a delight considering how long it stays unevolved.

Bianca being a coward volunteers to stay outside. Thanks for nothing!

I would have loved it if Cedric had said how un-reassured he was by Bianca pledging to protect him.

View attachment 532183
Not sure if this is a "remember Sinnooooooooooh????" moment or just a joke about Cedric being an eccentric old man that would hand out that shit like candy.

More "oh yeah we've got this random item from the previous gen games, I guess we have to make it available somehow"

"Any thematic way we could incorporate it?"

"Fuck it, let's just have an old man give it to you as a parting gift before you storm an old ruin"

View attachment 532184
Into Dragonspiral Tower, I really love the design of this place, this floor specifically reminds me of Phenac City from the Gamecube games with the water and the tiling. Not to keep beating a dead Zebstrika, but the music here is awesome as well.

Seconded, I love the atmosphere of this place. Also bouncing off my point about the Old Gateau being really out of place from Cedric, I love that you get the timespace trio's items here in the sequels: it's so ancient and mysterious and lost to time that it feels totally justified.

View attachment 532191
Reshiram is so cool apparently that N grew a soul and expressed some real emotion. Seriously this feels almost out of character for him to say, but I guess he still is a kid. Or teenager, whatever it is.

Is it meant to be N that says this? I always assumed it was one of the grunts, but tbh the thought of it being him is so hilarious I could accept it.

View attachment 532195
Goddamn the cutscene actually works. I'm so used to the BW2 cutscenes glitching out on emulator for whatever reason I wasn't sure if I would be able to show this. Also here's another good example of the 2D/3D blend gen 5 does so well.

View attachment 532196
NGL, Reshiram looks silly as hell. Nice hair, Fabio!

Underappreciated dialogue change is N saying that Zekrom looks "powerful" in Black and Reshiram "beautiful" in White. Like, it's so floofy and ethereal. It's majestic af but I rarely look at Reshiram and think "powerful"...

 

[ceal]

Chapter 10: Relic in the Castle

Before we continue with the plot, let's do some grinding on route 8. The marsh-like environment is pretty unique, although there's no tall grass the puddles will still contain wild Pokemon.

I really wish Sludge Bomb was moved out of this location in BW2 so Roserade could use it in the main game. Otherwise, not too impactful in BW, not a lot of Poisons in the first place, let alone special attacking ones.

Pretty sure without Eviolite I'd be dead here.

Moor of Icirrus expands on the marsh concept further but there's not a whole lot here that really justifies it being its own place. There is a big empty hill in here that probably has to do with something in the postgame but if it does Idk what it is.

More bitching about Mienfoo's stats, Jump Kick is supposed to be my big nuke move for neutral targets but even with 5 levels on it this Fraxure eats the hit and is almost able to kill me with +1 Dragon Claw. Eviolite coming in clutch yet again. Once we deal with all the trainers around here we can fly over to the Desert Resort.

I didn't even touch the Relic Castle my first time here but it's a neat enough place, if you want a fossil Pokemon you have to talk to the Backpacker lady down there. There's also some Zen Mode Darmanitans outside that you can wake up with a RageCandyBar IIRC but trust me, just catch a normal Darukmaka.

PLEASE can we not have a rematch right now?

Oh thank god.

No wonder you're always losing to me man, how are you supposed to be the item guy with the cool flashy Leftovers but can't figure out how to use a fucking Repel?

Into the Castle and yeah, could've seen this coming. Though why don't we just fight this guy and capture him? I mean he's right there. Presumedly Cheren will pass this guy on his way down too and I doubt even more that he would ignore this chump.

A move that needs no introduction. Going on Sigilyph immediately. Despite nearing level 40, Shadow Ball is now Nazca's best attack in terms of raw BP.

The gimmick of sinking into the quicksand is neat albeit horrifying. I discovered soon as I took this screenshot you don't actually sink into the hole but slightly above it! 0/10 game, what was Gamefreak thinking, they didn't even put in Chariza-

Despite how it looks, this isn't a double battle, which unironically disappointed me. More games need to take cues from XD and put more double battles in.

Based.

This dungeon is a lot shorter than I remembered. Cheren and I reach the end and come across Ghetsis being confronted by the inspiration for the title of this chapter, Alder. (This is an Alder bullying episode)

Ghetsis saw SSBU coming 7 years before it ever got revealed.

ALDER YOU STUPID BASTARD I TOLD YOU!

Ghetsis again affirms that we are supposed to find and revive Zekrom so we can challenge N at the E4

I wasn't lying, this IS an Alder bullying episode. Also reaffirming the concept of death in the Pokemon world, very cool.

Alder really is the most cucked champion in the franchise. Say what you will about Diantha but she didn't exist to get embarrassed left and right.

Yeah, pretty much. He did a good job of it too

Alder decides to go to the League and challenge N to save Unova. As a backup we can try and find Zekrom in the event Alder fails. I wonder if he'll succeed or not?

Back outside Professor Juniper summons us to Nacrene City.

SEE I WAS RIGHT THEY DID HAVE ZEKROM ALL ALONG WHY DIDNT YOU LISTEN TO ME IM A FUCKING HERO FOR ARCEUS' SAKE!!!

It's cute the way you pretend I have a choice in this matter Alder, but don't worry, I'm kind of a badass.

Dark Stone get!

Gee, I'm glad we thought about this before we found the dragon!

Fortunately Alder remembers the Dragon type gym leaders in Opelucid City, whom at this point are our only hope for figuring this thing out. Tune in next time to see what they have to say!