Let's Play! Wuzzy Journeys Through Sacred Gold... the Nuzlocke kind of Journey (Update #21)

HotFuzzBall · Oct 28, 2018

Heya! Welcome back to Update #8! :D It's been a while since I posted an update and, updates will probably be slow for the next week or so just because I'm traveling. With that out of the way, I actually cover quite a bit in this update, fitting in 2 major battles and also some miscellaneous errands in between.

Speaking of miscellaneous errands, I actually do some back tracking to the Ruins of Alph to pick up an Old Amber. Remember, the Old Amber was not part of the "generous gift" from the Archaeology Center, so I had to start breaking rocks over here in order to get one.

Back in Update #2, I remember I said I wanted to get my Ruins of Alph encounter from that grass patch that I had to go through Union Cave to get to. Well about that... I totally forgot you could get encounters from breaking rocks sooooo, this Nosepass is our new 1st encounter. I nicknamed it Moulder after a mature priest, who is known for his mustache by the FE community, from FE8.

Both Nosepass and Probopass received some buffs that makes them sort of decent I guess? Nosepass received a buff to its Special Attack (45 -> 65), while Probopass also received a buff to its Special Attack (75 -> 85). Both Pokemon now learn Block (Lvl 17), Ancient Power (Lvl 21), Earth Power (Lvl 37), and Sandstorm (Lvl 79), keep in mind that Block, Earth Power, and Sandstorm were shifted around.

Nosepass is alright I guess, specially offensive Rock-types are quite rare in Pokemon in general (especially in this game), so it seems like it'd be an interesting pickup. Though it'll go in the MAYBE box since I don't see myself using it for now.

After like 25 minutes of smashing rocks, I finally find the Old Amber! Also, I got a crap ton of shards (which are used to trade for berries, not really interested in that), Max Ethers, and Max Revives (which sell for quite a bit, which is nice).

I also revived the Old Amber off-screen. I nicknamed Aerodactyl Haar after a lazy wyvern knight (also one of the best units in FE10) from FE9/10.

Interestingly enough, Aerodactyl received no changes because it is that perfect of a Pokemon (according to Dray). Anyways, I'd use Aerodactyl in a heartbeat if it weren't for its terrible nature (+SpA - Spe), which doesn't even help it at all. Though, I can see myself using it sometime in the future so it'll go in the MAYBE box, unfortunate that it is -Spe.

After all of that, I'm back in Ecruteak City to continue on with the story!

First stop is the Dance Theater, and as you all probably know, we get probably the best thing ever in the Johto games (in my opinion).

Well this is a fantastic greeting to my first visit, apparently this single Team Rocket Grunt is causing an entire scene. It's literally 1v4 guys (and also don't you have like an OP Eeveelution Ms. Kimono Girl?).

Alright then, I guess everyone is relying on some 13 year old to swoop in and save the Kimono Girl. Also, this Rocket Grunt just starts randomly spinning in place, terrible dance.

Couldn't you have helped her? I mean you have a Pokemon like right there (not like Rocket Grunts are the hardest trainers to beat anyways) .-.

Yes I do dare get in your way, party is over... get out. Battle wasn't even that difficult either, since all he had was a Koffing and a Golbat. Though I guess he has an "important" mission after all.

Looks like I'm famous all over the region, that's cool. Though, we did save her from the Rocket Grunt (doubt she needed to be saved tbh).

Compliments are all cool but, what I'm really here for is HM03 Surf! Such an amazing power-spike for all Water-types, especially this early on in the game where almost all the Water-types are relying on Water Gun / Bubble. Of course, I immediately teach it to Wartortle.

This will be an ongoing theme in SG/SS, meeting Sinnoh Gym Leaders throughout the region. Anyways, we meet up with Fantina while I stock up on supplies.

And we get a decent-ish gift from Fantina, being TM62 Will-O-Wisp. It seems like it'd be a great filler move so, it will probably see use in the future.

Also, a pretty important item I did not want to miss. Especially if you want to reach the true, true ending of the game, the Dowsing Machine is a must have item.

I also receive TM92 Trick Room from this clown just chillin' by the gate. Not sure if I'm going to ever utilize this move but, it is most likely going to be no since I find Trick Room strategies kind of cheesy in general.

Also, even more TMs! Can't really think of many Pokemon that actually benefit from Shadow Claw as STAB and/or coverage (only ones that come to mind are Shedinja, Spiritomb, and Sableye, the latter not being so hot in this game).

Lol, I wonder how many people actually steered clear of the Burned Tower. Well, I'm not going to be one of those people.

Time to explore the Burned Tower! Also shout out to the legendary dogs down below in the basement.

I actually quite like Eusine as a character fsr, his unhealthy obsession with finding Suicune while looking like some sort of magician, to me, sounds like a very interesting pairing.

Well, I doubt that they'd stay for me if I do choose to go down the stairs. Also, it seems weird that the legendary dogs are just standing in place, rather than running away considering there's like a handful of trainers within the tower, probably all looking directly at them.

I also meet up with Morty too, just because he's just over there. Might as well greet him.

Well there isn't a rule saying you haaaaave to but, it's good that Morty is going above and beyond.

And we got Silver trying to pretend he's Red. Sorry, Red actually wins battles when it counts >.>

Alright after Silver tries to use his empty roasts against me, he challenges me to a battle. Though, this should be an easy victory for me, besides I don't see the legendary dogs going towards you lol.

Vs. Silver

Similarly to the previous battle, Silver leads with Murkrow while I lead with Luxio (you should know how this will end, considering the previous encounters with Murkrow).

Murkrow attacks with Night Shade, which dealt a pretty decent chunk. Luxio retaliates with Spark, which takes down Murkrow in 1 hit (as usual).

Next up, is Elekid and I switch in Leafeon.

Leafeon leads with Bullet Seed, which hits 3 times and nearly takes down Elekid, then it attacks with Swift, barely denting Leafeon. On the following turn, another Bullet Seed takes down Elekid.

Afterwards, Silver sends in his stolen starter, Croconaw. I stay in with Leafeon for obvious reasons.

I've been unlucky with Bullet Seeds lately for some reason. Anyways, Leafeon's Bullet Seed hits twice and deals quite a lot to Croconaw, then it lowers Leafeon's Speed with Scary Face.

Croconaw outspeeds and attacks with Flail (is Silver aware that his Croconaw has Ice Fang?), which doesn't do that much even though its HP is quite low. Another Bullet Seed from Leafeon knocks out Croconaw.

In comes Kadabra, and I switch out to Spiritomb.

Now this was the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me in Pokemon. For whatever reason, Silver withdraws his Kadabra and sends in his Haunter to tank the obvious Ominous Wind (or another Dark-type move). Not quite sure what was happening, also Spiritomb does snag the all-stats boost from Ominous Wind.

Unfortunately even with the Speed boost, Haunter still outspeeds Spiritomb and uses Confuse Ray. Lucky for me, Spiritomb breaks through and takes out Haunter with another Ominous Wind (no boost this time though).

Well, after that incredibly questionable play, I don't think your remarks have any weight behind them. Anyways, Silver sends in his last Pokemon being Kadabra (again).

Kadabra leads with Miracle Eye (first time I've actually seen the move in action) but, Spiritomb hurts itself unfortunately.

Next turn, Kadabra lands the Psybeam due to Miracle Eye, which does a decent amount. Faint Attack from Spiritomb knocks out Kadabra in 1 hit.

And we won! Look at Silver throwing around the word weak despite losing to the same person 3 times :thinking:

I beg to differ, I believe someone is just jealous that they lost.

I guess I'm secretly a cop since everyone scrammed the minute I went near the party.

Well Suicune seemed to hop out of the tower than "race by like a blur" from my perspective but, I guess it was because you just came down the stairs as Suicune was leaving.

That is an... interesting aspiration o.o Though I guess in the Pokemon world, you can do whatever with your time. Even if it means tracking down a Pokemon that really doesn't want to interact with anyone (or Suicune just thinks Eusine is unworthy, which it probably does if it has been eluding him for 10 years).

Well, stalking and/or tailing a particular Pokemon for 10 years without end seems pretty aggressive to me, though I assume you mean actually forcing it to battle or something.

Also, I got my 1st encounter of the Burned Tower in the basement area since it had higher-leveled mons. Nicknamed Duskull Knoll after an intellectual dark mage, who holds really powerful and forbidden knowledge, from FE8.

Oddly enough (in my opinion), the Duskull-line did not receive any changes. I guess like Aerodactyl, Dray just believes the Duskull-line to be extremely perfect beings. Anyways, Duskull will be going into the MAYBE box (the MAYBE box is pretty much Pokemon with usable natures, that are actually somewhat decent usually). Duskull seems pretty decent but, I already have Spiritomb on my team sooooo... yeah.

I could've sworn this guy wasn't here before the first time I entered the Burned Tower. I guess he shows up after the legendary trio flees to wander around Johto.

As usual, it's time to clear out Morty's Gym and do some off-screenshot grinding.

Decided to give Luxio a few extra levels so it could evolve into a Luxray. The maximum level I chose was Lvl 28 for the battle against Morty (except Luxray who is now overleveled).

And we are ready to begin! Morty's puzzle has always been annoying since I it's annoying to have to restart if you accidentally overshoot one of the pathways. The teleporting animation also takes quite a bit of time.

Secretly trained here? Lol what? I assume Morty means that he sneaks into the Burned Tower to commune with the spirits or something. Though, it makes sense that Pokemon are revered since Ecruteak is the birth of all the legends of Ho-Oh and what not.

Well from the anime, Morty was a seer that could see the future for some reason. I assume you mean that I will be the one to summon Ho-Oh? I hope so but, let's not get carried away. Anyways, the battle against Morty commences!

Vs. Morty

For lack of a better term, Morty is kind of a pushover. Just looking at his team, you can tell it's kind of a joke (half his team is practically useless, in my opinion). The weirdest thing about this is that you battle a Froslass and Drifblim during 2 of the Gym Trainer (the mediums) battles, so it was weird to see Pokemon like Duskull and Shuppet on Morty's Team. Also, there are Ghost-types such as Spiritomb and Rotom available so, no excuse why Morty still has 1st-stage Ghost-types on his team.

Anyways, Morty's main strategy is just to annoy you with straight up status inducing moves. Every single one of his Pokemon have some sort of status-inducing move (except Sableye but, I think Torment kinda counts?), the main ones you have to watch out for are really the 100% accurate confusion moves (though they are both on the 2 Pokemon that are the easiest to take out). Though, Morty's Gengar is nothing to scoff at since it can be a nuisance due to how fast it is and it's coverage moves, so be prepared for that.

To start off, Morty leads with his Duskull while I chose Monferno as my lead.

Monferno uses Flame Wheel, which does a bit under half of Duskull's HP and snags the burn. Duskull then proceeds to use everyone's favorite move, Confuse Ray.

A second Flame Wheel from Monferno almost takes out Duskull and it retaliates with Shadow Ball, however, the damage from burn does take down Duskull. So that's 1 down!

Next, Morty sends in his Haunter and I switch out to Spiritomb.

RIP Screenshot. Anyways, Haunter misses its Hypnosis and a single Faint Attack from Spiritomb takes down Haunter.

Morty then sends in his next joke mon, Shuppet and I switch in Leafeon to deal with it.

That didn't last long, 3 hits from Leafeon's Bullet Seed takes out Shuppet.

After that, Morty sends in his Misdreavus and I stay in with Leafeon. Side note, while Misdreavus is a 1st-stage Pokemon, it's actually pretty annoying.

Leafeon's Bite does quite a bit of damage but, unfortunately Misdreavus lands Will-O-Wisp.

Bite does a little bit less damage and lands Misdreavus in the "red zone" (sadly), though Misdreavus got flinched so that's nice. On the next turn, Morty heals Misdreavus back to full with a Hyper Potion and Leafeon does a decent-ish amount with Bite.

I switch out Leafeon with Spiritomb, and Misdreavus traps Spiritomb with Mean Look (I'm glad I got that flinch and I switch out the turn after, or else I would've been here for a while).

RIP this screenshot as well. Misdreavus misses the Will-O-Wisp and Spiritomb attacks with Faint Attack (I honestly should've used Ominous Wind, anticipating a potential burn).

Next turn, Misdreavus manages to land the Will-O-Wisp but, it doesn't matter because a 2nd Faint Attack knocks out Msidreavus. That was way more work than it needed to be honestly.

The most dreaded (no pun intended) part of the battle, Morty sends in his Gengar while I switch out to Luxray.

Unfortunately, Gengar actually lands its Hypnosis, so now Luxray can't really do anything.

For the next 3 turns, all Gengar did was attack Luxray with Giga Drain while I just hoped that Luxray will be able to wake up (spoiler alert, it didn't).

Also due to how low Luxray was, I needed to heal it up with a Hyper Potion. Then Gengar randomly decided to switch it up and use Thunderbolt instead (pretty sure Shadow Ball would've done more).

Gengar then snags a lucky critical hit with Giga Drain (good thing it didn't KO), and Luxray manages to wake up (great 5-turn sleep), and OHKO Gengar with Night Slash (no critical hit needed).

Morty sends in his last Pokemon, Sableye, and I switch out to Wartortle. Though honestly, after you defeat Gengar and Misdreavus, the battle is pretty much over since the rest of his team are sort of pushovers.

Wartortle leads off with a Surf, while Sableye uses Torment to prevent Surf-spam.

On the next turn, I'm forced to switch it up and use Water Pulse and it managed to confuse Sableye in the process. Though, I really did not want Sableye to hit itself since it would've been in the "red-zone", meaning Morty would probably heal it in the next turn.

Well that's good to know but, I don't discipline will change the outcome of this battle. Also sure enough, Morty does heal up Sableye with a Hyper Potion, while Wartortle attacks it with Surf.

Feels bad for Sableye, anyways Wartortle fires off another Water Pulse and Sableye still isn't able to act since it hit itself again. On the final turn, Wartortle takes out Sableye with an Aqua Jet.

With that, we defeated Morty! This was possible because you chose a bad team of Ghost-types lol...

Words of wisdom from the oracle himself, also that's what everyone seems to say about me... "You've something more to you".

Spoils from the battle, TM30 Shadow Ball is great but, not sure if I'm going to teach it to Spiritomb.

The Kimono Girls must really like me if they keep talking to me. Anyways, according to Morty our next stop should be to surf across the sea to reach Cianwood City.

Aftermath of the battle, as you can see a 1/3 of my team is burned. Not really sure who the MVP would be since I used most of my team pretty equally overall. Though, I guess I'd say Spiritomb again since it got the most KOs. Luxray is pretty close since it did 1-shot Gengar which was pretty nice (the 5-turn sleep was not though).

With that, this concludes Update #8. Not sure what I'm going to cover in the next update, maybe some encounters (there will be quite a bit) and also some backtracking now that I have Surf.

Rinkah

(Monferno) @ Charcoal
Level 28
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Flame Wheel
- Brick Break
- Rock Smash
- Nasty Plot

Xane

(Leafeon) @ Miracle Seed
Level 28
Ability: Chlorophyll
Jolly Nature
- Bullet Seed
- Quick Attack
- Bite
- Rock Smash

Seth

(Luxray)
Level 30
Ability: Guts
Modest Nature
- Spark
- Night Slash
- Headbutt
- Leer

Laslow

(Noctowl)
Level 28
Ability: Tinted Lens
Lonely Nature
- Air Cutter
- Uproar
- Hypnosis
- Reflect

Dart

(Wartortle) @ Mystic Water
Level 28
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Aqua Jet
- Protect

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 29
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Faint Attack
- Ominous Wind
- Hypnosis
- Dream Eater

HotFuzzBall · Nov 26, 2018

This run is back from the dead! I actually had everything prepared for like 2 weeks but, I just never had time to actually create the actual update to post. So now a month later since my last post... I present Update #9! This update is most likely going to be boring, since all I'm doing is backtracking (now that I have access to Surf) to get new stuff and also getting new "1st area" encounters. Though Update #10 should hopefully be a bit more interesting.

On a side note... The annoying part about this game is that these 2 explorers don't move until you defeated Jasmine (for reference, this is the gate that leads to Mt. Mortar). This means that what used to be an early-accessible HM (Strength) is now barred from me until I defeat Jasmine.

In the vanilla games, you are actually able to battle Pryce before Chuck/Jasmine since all you need to reach Mahogany Town is Surf, which you should already have by now. The first time I played HG/SS I actually defeated Pryce before I defeated Chuck and Jasmine since for whatever reason I was afraid of Chuck's team. Obviously Dray really wants us to go in order but, he could've moved these 2 explorers like in front of the water that leads towards the town?

With that rant out of the way, I shall make my way to Olivine City!

As I walk through the gate, Hoenn Champion Steven sneaks up behind me, see you just run into everyone in SG/SS (like literally everyone from Sinnoh)

Well, that's good to know. Though, not really sure what Cynthia means since I've only seen her twice and we basically free-loaded off of her for 2 pretty nice Pokemon.

By that you mean Arceus I assume though, I guess Steven would know about it since he's an archaeologist (I assume) based on my adventures in the Hoenn region.

Anyways, Steven gives us the 1st plate we should be able to get (I believe)... the Iron Plate! I probably won't be doing any plate hunting until the very end but, having the plates would be nice as held items for the team, so I might end up changing my mind. With that, Steven literally just disappears (if my memory serves me correctly, you just get a black screen and he poofs away).

After all of that, I reach Route 38 meaning that I should get a new encounter!

Since this was a while back, not really sure why I named Miltank Juno after a pegasus knight mercenary (who is the oldest of the 3 pegasus knight mercenary sisters) from FE6. Though I was excited when I saw Miltank since it is a pretty solid mon.

Miltank only received 2 buffs, which are pretty nice additions. Now Miltank will learn Hammer Arm at Level 62 (I'm pretty sure this was a tutor move in later gens), and Double-Edge at Level 69.

Obviously, Miltank will be going into the "YES" box since it is a really good mon with great stats and a great movepool early on (also a nice mon to squeeze HMs in since my team doesn't have many Pokemon that can use HMs).

Also snagged this somewhat useful TM hidden in the corner. Not to sure if I'll ever use this but, at least I have the option.

Anyways, next up is Route 39 and we are conveniently set up for an ambush.

Well, the Pokedex is a device entrusted by professors to some random kids he just so happened to meet. So it's not surprising that you haven't seen one in AGES.

You should introduce yourself first next time but, not sure what you mean by new entertainment since the game is a carbon copy of another game (so theoretically everything should be the same).

Having first access to the Safari Zone will be nice but, idk not sure how I feel about giving my number to someone I just met (considering I'm a 13 year old in this game I guess)

Also snagged 2 really nice TMs from the ranch!

So in reference to Rule #9 "(Exclusive to SG/SS) I may be able to catch certain Pokemon to trade or to get certain items (will get into both later), that I may not be able to obtain otherwise. I'm not allowed to use these Pokemon after I have obtained said items and they must be boxed immediately." this is what I meant...

In this game, in order to get certain items or TMs, you must show them a specific Pokemon and then they will give you said item/TM in return. So this girl actually gives you TM 53 Energy Ball if you show her a Bellossom! Since I don't have a Sun Stone or a Gloom (I can't be bothered training up an Oddish), I'll be picking this TM up in the future. Obviously, once I get this TM I won't be allowed to use this Bellossom (unless it becomes a future 1st Pokemon in a new route ordeal).

After some sidetracking, this is the 1st encounter of Route 39 being this Raticate (which is actually not bad in this game). I nicknamed him Mozu (which is actually a female in FE and I swore this Raticate was female when I first caught it, I might change it in the future) after a villager who joins the royal family after her village gets wiped out by monsters.

Raticate received both movepool and stat buffs in this game. As for stat buffs, Raticate gets an increase in HP (55 -> 65), Attack (81 -> 91), and Speed (97 -> 107). As for the movepool additions, Raticate now learns all 3 elemental fangs (Fire/Thunder/Ice Fang) at Level 20, and Reversal at Level 49. In addition, Raticate now has Hustle, which replaces Run Away, as one of its possible abilities.

Not sure whether I'll use Raticate or not, it does have a really great movepool now but, it's at that point in the game where I don't feel like it will hit hard enough but, it sure won't be able to take many hits. For now, it'll go in the "MAYBE" box since it is usable as of now but, still not sure if I will be using it.

At last, we have made it to Olivine City!

Then the moment got ruined when we ran into our rival, who begins to make fun of us (despite losing each battle during our unfortunate encounters with each other).

Well the Gym Leader's job is to take care of the city (I believe) so she kinda has to make sure boats don't get lost or crash into each other .-. (by helping out Amphy)

Well then, this was an interesting conversation.

Though I do get a Good Rod for all of my troubles so far (which is great since it lessens the chance of a Magikarp encounter, which I'm desperately trying to avoid).

There's really like 1 (not counting Magikarp) other Pokemon I can get from fishing with a Good Rod at Olivine City being Staryu. So I nicknamed it Catria after the middle sister of the White Wings trio from FE1/2/3/11/12/15 (they have been in a lot of Fire Emblem games). Also, I love that Timid nature it has :D

Both Staryu and Starmie received some movepool additions (like they needed it, since their TM pool is pretty massive). Staryu now learns Water Gun (Level 1), Rapid Spin (Level 6), Recover (Level 10), Camouflage (Level 15), and Psybeam (Level 19). As for Starmie, it learns a pretty nice move through Aura Sphere at Level 52 (though I'm not sure if that'll be useful for Starmie, since it does have 4MSS).

Anyways, Staryu has been known as one of the best Water-types in most games, and SG/SS is no exception (especially since it has a nice nature). Staryu will be going to the "YES" box for sure, though the "YES" box is starting to fill up with a lot of Water-types (considering the next few encounters will be from water routes and fishing).

Not going to Cianwood City yet, I'm really here just to poke my head in.

Got this useless TM beside the entrance to the Battle Frontier, I will probably end up selling it for money when I need to.

This NPC also hints that you will be able to find wild Phione in the oceans (I believe it is not just Route 40 but, the entire stretch of ocean from Olivine to Cianwood City), though I believe you don't need to trigger anything (beating E4, all 16 gym leaders, etc.) for them to spawn. However, I don't see why you would want a wild Phione (2% spawn) when you can just breed a Manaphy).

Now with all of the exploration done, it's time to start the backtracking adventures!

First stop is picking up these 2 evolutionary stones in Route 35 and Route 34 respectively that you couldn't get without Surf.

There's also this little cove where the 3 Misty wannabes reside.

Maybe I shouldn't have called them Misty wannabes since this happened. Anyways, what had happened was is that Modest nature reaaaally came through since Spark wasn't able to OHKO Seadra. Then Seadra snags a critical hit with Brine which knocks out Luxray (which was at slightly above half health since I used it during the previous double battle). Man, right when Luxray just reached its final stage that it had to fall >.>

Not worth the faint, the time, and the repels that I had to use.

Luxray's replacement was decided pretty quickly, I chose Rotom and changed it into Rotom-Frost with the help of that burglar within the Department Store. Don't think I will grind it since I can't be bothered atm (or atm a few weeks ago).

Skipping all the way to this point, this bug catcher staring into the trees also gives us TM81 X-Scissor, which is very nice to have.

More skipping, we are now in the Union Cave to go to the blocked off areas of the Ruins of Alph.

Now with the power of Surfing, I can cross this body of water that I wasn't able to before. Unfortunate that I won't be able to catch Lapras until much later because of those 2 explorers...

So this is pretty much the chamber dedicated to Ho-Oh because fk Lugia, that inferior bird? (Lugia doesn't even look like a bird). Also, I will probably have to come back here in the future because I believe the stuff you get behind that door is good but, I obviously don't have access to a Ho-Oh atm.

Then we have this block puzzle, and we fall through the hole and opened up the portal for more Unown forms to come and harass us.

Yes, these 2 screenshots were taken at different times but, I'm able to surf across this body of water to pick up this amazing TM29 Psychic! I'm just getting all the good TMs during this update :D

At some point, I also went and picked up my Bellsprout (this was actually a 1st encounter way back in Update #2 or #3) so I could use Flash to open up the door.

Once again, another good TM find!

Rinse and repeat, I solved the block puzzle and fell through the hole. If it wasn't obvious enough, that Pokemon is Aerodactyl, the most perfect mon in the game that it didn't need any buffs.

With all of the backtracking done (still not the end of it since I still need Strength), this will be the end of Update #9. In the next update, there will probably be a boss fight coming up (maybe I'll battle Chuck?) and also a lot of Water-type encounters to be caught. Also, Rotom will be grinded to match up with the rest of the team. Hopefully, the next update will be a bit more interesting!

Rinkah

(Monferno) @ Charcoal
Level 30
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Flame Wheel
- Brick Break
- Rock Smash
- Cut

Xane

(Leafeon) @ Miracle Seed
Level 31
Ability: Chlorophyll
Jolly Nature
- Bullet Seed
- Quick Attack
- Bite
- Rock Smash

Ewan (Rotom-Frost)
Level 22
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Shock Wave
- Blizzard
- Uproar
- Confuse Ray

Laslow

(Noctowl)
Level 30
Ability: Tinted Lens
Lonely Nature
- Air Cutter
- Uproar
- Hypnosis
- Reflect

Dart

(Wartortle) @ Mystic Water
Level 29
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Aqua Jet
- Protect

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 29
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Faint Attack
- Ominous Wind
- Hypnosis
- Dream Eater

Altissimo · Nov 27, 2018

Luxray noooo...! :C looking forward to seeing rotom though, always interesting when it gets used.

HotFuzzBall · Dec 2, 2018

And welcome back to Update #10! Last time I did pretty much nothing interesting, since all it really was, was a whole lot of backtracking. Anyways, this update should be a lil' bit more interesting this time around.

On a side note, as you can tell I switched Rotom to Rotom-Fan, since the only reason why I chose Rotom-Frost was to avoid type-stacking. Though, Rotom-Frost would've struggled in the next 2 gyms so, I opted to switch it to Rotom-Fan for the next gym battle.

I don't really remember where this house is (I believe it should be one of the two houses nearest to the lighthouse) but, they give you the Metal Coat which is nice.

Anyways, time to explore the Lighthouse and see what's up with it.

Volkner also shows up and reminisces about the past. Though I do quite enjoy the Sinnoh league, it actually presented a decent challenge compared to some of the other leagues out there.

And because we talked to him, he gives us TM73 Thunder Wave (I thought it'd be Charge Beam but, I prefer Thunder Wave). Also now that I'm looking at these screenshots, that lady in the corner will probably give me something important, though I didn't speak to her since I didn't notice her at all first time around.

With all that aside, time to climb this lighthouse and battle some trainers!

Kind of a "mixed bag" TM, not entirely sure if I'll use it but, I might end up selling it in the end.

Also this part of the lighthouse climb always messes me up since the exit blends in very well with its surroundings. I know the first time I played HG/SS I was confused and needed a guide to find out how to keep going. Then we pick up this pretty decent TM on our way out (also, I like how the character literally looks like he jumped out the door with how loud the landing sound was).

Time to resume the climb!

Not really sure if there was a reason for Jasmine to lock the door since it's not like anyone in the lighthouse is inherently evil and wants to kidnap a sick Pokemon.

It must be boring for just a lone Ampharos staying within the top of the lighthouse 24/7 just to light it up. Also, I'm assuming this Ampharos must be discharging its electricity for the entire night so, I can assume it can get sick pretty easily if it has to use so much of its power in one go.

Well, there are a ton of trainers like right below (also I'm sure someone would've tried to help you if you kept the door unlocked >.>) but, I'm heading there next so, I guess it works out.

With that, time to set out to Cianwood City!

Just kidding, just a quite pitstop at the gate to the Battle Frontier. I could've sworn the first few times I played SG/SS that you were able to participate in the Battle Frontier when you first arrive here. Though, I guess I have to wait until I beat the E4 to do so.

Alright, time to see what the first encounter of Route 40 is. I'm not really a huge fan of the fishing and surfing encounters (with species clause in mind), so I'll be going for the surfing encounter this time around.

This Wingull is not bad, it does have a great nature after all. I named it Fiora after the eldest sister of the pegasus knight sisters from FE7.

Wingull/Pelipper just received a few buffs, though they are pretty nice buffs in my opinion. Both Wingull and Pelipper now have Rain Dish as a possible ability, in addition to the already existing Keen Eye (I'm assuming both get Rain Dish but, the documentation only says Wingull gets it). Pelipper also received some stats buffs to its Defense (100 -> 120) and Special Attack (85 -> 95) as well. More over, Pelipper also learns Air Slash at Level 43, replacing Fling.

Since I like having a Flying-type on my team at all times (since I do find myself backtracking a lot in Nuzlockes for grinding and exploring purposes), I decided to put it in the "MAYBE" box since Wingull is still kind of a mediocre Pokemon but, I think I'd make it work.

Also more TMs! There's a lot of random TMs just scattered throughout Johto in SG/SS.

Didn't take very long but, I managed to surf my way to Route 41 (Route 40 is surprisingly quite short).

Then we got whirlpools that somehow don't suck you in even if you stand incredibly close to them. Side note, while I understand that this HM is part of the story in HG/SS, I honestly think Whirlpool is a dumb HM, it's right up there with pre-gen 6 Defog imo.

Since it's a new route, it means a new encounter! I much prefer the fishing encounters over the surfing ones so, I managed to fish myself up a Horsea! Also great that I was somehow lucky enough to find one holding its evolutionary item. Anyways, I nicknamed it Elice after Marth's sister from FE1/3/11/12 (she really doesn't have a personality besides being Marth's sister honestly).

In Horsea's evolutionary line, only Seadra and Kingdra received changes. Both Seadra and Kingdra now learn Dragonbreath at Level 32 (when Horsea evolves), and received stat buffs to its HP (55 -> 65), Attack (65 -> 75) and Special Defense (45 -> 75). In addition to Dragonbreath, Kingdra learns Outrage at Level 65.

Horsea is a really good Pokemon in my opinion, I was also fortunate enough to capture one that is close to evolving to Seadra, and then I can immediately evolve it into a Kingdra right after. Overall, pretty solid Pokemon really no reason for me not to put it in the "YES" box.

While I was lucky to find a pretty solid Horsea, this also happened... The battle was against Swimmer Susie who only had her Dewgong. I Lead with Spiritomb who missed Hypnosis, and somehow gets chunked by Brine (dealing over 50%). I decide to switch to Rotom-Fan who had to tank a random Aurora Beam because the AI is just the advanced. Then I decided to switch to Noctowl since I was confident it could tank a hit (even Aurora Beam) and surprise...! Noctowl could not tank a random Sheer Cold.

Also Leafeon manages to take out Dewgong with 3-hits from Bullet Seed fyi. Unfortunate I lost Noctowl :c it did really well and contributed to a lot of my success (especially against Bugsy) during boss fights.

Drama aside, I reached Cianwood City! Not exactly in one piece considering I did lose a member of the team. Also, there is quite a lot to do in Cianwood City (moreso than Olivine City believe it or not).

This guy also gives me the Choice Band (which is surprisingly pretty handy). The theme of SG/SS is to basically talk to everyone inside the Pokemon Centers (especially any Harlequins and people standing to the left of the counter).

Since I always try to have a Flying-type on my team, I decided to add Pidgeotto to the team!

In the lonely house towards the north of Cianwood, the Move Reminder and Deleter moved into this space (all the way from Blackthorn City), so I took this opportunity to get rid of Rock Smash on Monferno since I taught it Brick Break a while back. I'll probably end up getting rid of Cut in the future but, for now I don't have a big reason to do so.

Next stop is the pharmacy to pick up Amphy's medicine and... the guy ran out of stuff unfortunately (in HG/SS you were able to pick up the medicine right away, so Dray really doesn't want you to battle Jasmine before Chuck).

Well, that sounds like our best buddy Silver. Though I highly doubt he's interested in your "prized" Pokemon.

Though, I don't mind keeping it I guess? Of course, said prized Pokemon was a Shuckle, who I will not be using, not because "Shuckie" isn't a character in Fire Emblem but, it's because it's not worth using.

Also in case you are curious, Shuckle received one change which is having Solid Rock as a possible ability, replacing Sturdy.

Then as I arrive to the seashore, I encounter Caitlyn! The Caitlyn before she ditches everyone and moves to Unova, who talks to us about a Pikachu who washed up on the shore.

If you have a Pokemon with max happiness (in this case my Leafeon) leading your party, Caitlyn will entrust you with the care of this special Pikachu, and then disappears.

Unfortunate that I got a bad nature (I'm pretty sure like 4 other mons in my reserve also have a Quiet Nature, and quite a few of them would've been solid picks had it not been for a bad nature). I wasn't able to choose a nickname for Pikachu at the moment (I'm the original trainer of this Pikachu, not Caitlyn fyi), but I think I would name it Delthea after a young, naturally gifted mage who likes to make fun of her older brother from FE2/15.

All 3 Pokemon in the Pikachu (or Pichu I guess) line did receive changes. In regards to Pichu, it learns Sing (Level 23), Petal Dance (Level 24), and Wish (Level 29). Both Pikachu and Raichu received stat buffs and movepool additions as well. Pikachu gained buffs to its Attack (55 -> 65), Special Attack (50 -> 60), and Speed (90 -> 95). Raichu's stat changes include buffs to Attack (90 -> 100), Special Attack (90 -> 100), and Speed (100 -> 121). Pikachu learns Charge at Level 1, while both Pikachu and Raichu will learn Volt Tackle at Level 49. All 3 Pokemon in the evolutionary line also received Lightningrod as a potential ability, in addition to Static.

Side note, I always thought Pikachu was stronger but, it's offensive stats actually aren't too hot. Anyways, as you can tell by the moveset, this Pikachu is actually already pretty solid but, because of the Quiet nature, I will be putting it in the "MAYBE" box (though Quiet nature isn't the worst thing in the world since it is +SpA -Spe after all).

Yes it would be much easier and way more convenient if I had Fly .-. Though, I guess we can't help the fact that we need the Storm Badge to be able to use Fly, somehow.

More evolutionary items! Though Gligar and Sneasel are available fairly late into the Johto region though it's cool that they gave us these items early on I guess?

Last stop on our journey through Cianwood City, is to actually fish up an encounter! There's really only 2 Pokemon we can get with a Good Rod in Cianwood (both are pretty decent options), being Carvanha and Clamperl. Obviously, Carvanha is the one I got in the end. I named it Geitz after a warrior who has bad ties with his family from FE7.

Needed to head back to Olivine City to pick up a TM I forgot (a very important one at that) which I used on Rotom. I also to have a decent place to grind my team for the next boss fight, since the places to grind near Cianwood are either bad or inaccessible.

Time to grind! See ya in a while :D

During that grinding experience, I will say that Pidgeotto was a pain to grind even when it spammed a Choice Band-boosted Pluck the entire time but, I managed to pull through and got everyone to Level 34.

Unfortunately, can't enter the Safari Zone since it's still under construction... This is where the good area to grind Pokemon is located fyi (and no, it's not the Safari Zone itself).

With that out of the way, time to go approach Suicune and... it ran away :c

Well, I don't think I saw it up close since all it did was run circles around me and fled somewhere else.

Ehh... I honestly don't want to but, I don't think I have a choice at this point (I really wish Pokemon would just give you the option to decline battles but, it wouldn't be Pokemon without being forced to battle without consent).

Vs. Eusine

Hypno - Lvl 34 - Psychic | Focus Blast | Hypnosis | Nasty Plot
Rotom - Lvl 34 - Thunderbolt | Shadow Ball | Will-O-Wisp | Double Team
Electrode - Lvl 34 - Screech | Sonicboom | Thunder | Explosion
Jumpluff - Lvl 34 - Leech Seed | Cotton Spore | Reflect | Aerial Ace

So Eusine is most likely one of the hardest trainers you will battle so far (especially if you don't have Spiritomb available). His Pokemon are either setting up to sweep or snag a KO (Hypno and Electrode) or ready to annoy the living hell out of you (Rotom and Jumpluff). Also, 3 of his Pokemon are also incredibly fast, so there's also that to keep in mind. This battle is definitely like, 5 leagues up from Morty's Gym Battle so, definitely do not underestimate Eusine.

So with that out of the way, Eusine leads with his Hypno while I lead with Spiritomb.

Because Hypno can't possibly damage Spiritomb (bar like annoy me with Hypnosis), he withdrew Hypno and sends in... Rotom? Interesting play right there and gets chunked by Faint Attack.

Rotom thought it could've annoyed me by spamming Double Team but, Faint Attack always hits and a second Faint Attack from Spiritomb takes out Rotom (which is arguably, Eusine's strongest Pokemon).

Next up is Electrode, and I switch out to Leafeon. Thinking back, I probably should've stayed in with Spiritomb since almost all the Electrodes in any game probably have Selfdestruct or Explosion.

Unfortunately, Electrode missed its Screech (Electrode loves to use Screech to lower your defense, and the use Explosion once it's low to ensure a KO), though Bullet Seed manages to deal a decent amount to Electrode (I believe it was 2 hits).

The hax gods must be looking down on Eusine since Electrode misses Thunder, and Leafeon chunks Electrode with another Bullet Seed. On the following turn, Leafeon picks up the KO with Quick Attack (surprised Eusine didn't choose to heal, though I'm not even sure whether Eusine had healing items on hand regardless).

Eusine then sends in his "last" Pokemon, Jumpluff while I switch out to Pidgeotto.

Jumpuff sets up the Reflect while Pidgeotto attacks with Pluck, which barely did anything despite being super-effective.

I decided to switch out to Rotom, and it tanks an Aerial Ace beautifully.

On the following turn, Jumpluff attacks with another Aerial Ace but, I misclicked and accidentally had Rotom attack with Thunderbolt. Due to a speed tie on the next turn, Rotom outspeeds and knocks out Jumpluff with Air Slash,

Then Eusine sends in his Hypno, while I send in Spiritomb. At this point it's GG since Hypno can't touch Spiritomb at all.

Hypno can't really do much except annoy me with Hypnosis, which it did. Combined with the Reflect from Jumpluff earlier, what was supposed to be a 2HKO with Faint Attack became a 3HKO. After mindlessly spamming Faint Attack (Spiritomb got put to sleep twice) while Hypno tried to attack with Psychic and boost up with Nasty Plot, a final Faint Attack knocks out Hypno.

That was easier than I anticipated. I've always struggled against Eusine during previous runs of SG/SS so, it was surprising to see this battle go by so well.

Suicune chose me not you, so you should probably give up and live your life by pursuing a new hobby ._.

Or not, well since you'll be where Suicune is, and since Suicune is always trying to watch me... I'm sure we'll run into each other whether I want to or not.

Now that that's done, this concludes Update #10. Next update I'll be challenging the Cianwood City Gym and some other events that I won't bring up until the next update. o/

Rinkah

(Monferno) @ Charcoal
Level 34
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Flame Wheel
- Brick Break
- Cut

Xane

(Leafeon) @ Miracle Seed
Level 34
Ability: Chlorophyll
Jolly Nature
- Bullet Seed
- Quick Attack
- Bite
- Rock Smash

Ewan (Rotom-Fan)
Level 34
Ability: Motor Drive
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Air Slash
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Shanna

(Pidgeotto)
Level 34
Ability: Tangled Feet
Adamant Nature
- Pluck
- Quick Attack
- Featherdance
- Agility

Dart

(Wartortle) @ Mystic Water
Level 34
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Aqua Jet
- Protect

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 34
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Faint Attack
- Sucker Punch
- Ominous Wind
- Hypnosis

@ Altissimo - Yeah it did suck that Luxray fainted like, right when I evolved it too. I was excited to use it in the long run since Electric/Dark is such a cool-typing :c On a side note, yeah Rotom is incredibly good since it's so versatile, it should definitely be putting in a ton of work during this run.

HotFuzzBall · Dec 5, 2018

Alright, back again for Update #11!

Like most of the other gym challenges, I always clear out the gym (aka beating the gym trainers), then proceed to grind somewhere to get my team to the appropriate level.

Also, I taught Monferno Rock Slide using the TM. Initially, I was going to train in Route 41, but it took forever so I decided to just suck it up and surf all the way back to Olivine City to train.

In the previous update, I mentioned something about how this girl in the corner looked important... Well she asks for these items so, I guess I'll try and get them for her whenever I can (not entirely sure where the Destiny Knot is off the top of my head though).

Then it's time to grind again! BRB

Interesting that half my team all evolved around the same time...

Just like that, the team actually looks pretty solid and complete. Interestingly enough (as mentioned in previous updates when I obtained these Pokemon), Pidgeot learns Close Combat while Blastoise learns Zen Headbutt and Zap Cannon upon evolution.

Originally, the level I was aiming for was Level 35. However, since I had to overlevel half my team (it'd be a waste to not give them that extra level), I thought keeping Spiritomb, Rotom, and Leafeon at Level 34 was a good compromise.

Back to Cianwood City and, I will officially be challenging Chuck in due time.

Just kidding, looks like I have to stop his training session .-.

The Johto region has either really annoying puzzles (Bugsy's slow Spinarak tiles, and Clair's slow rotating platforms) or just nonexistent puzzles in HG/SS.

Well, how else will I be able to challenge you and get my gym badge?

Looks like the protagonist of this game has a hint of personality it seems.

With that, the Cianwood City Gym Challenge commences!

Vs. Chuck

So Chuck can be quite difficult to face (compared to Morty at least) if you don't have many mons on your team that can either OHKO his mons, or at least tank a Focus Punch. Chuck's strategy is to essentially try to get off Focus Punch successfully either by using Substitute or sleep-inducing moves (Spore and Hypnosis on Breloom and Poliwrath respectively). He also has access to other hard hitting moves on his other mons without Focus Punch as well so, keep that in mind.

The battle begins with Chuck sending in his Primeape while I opt for Spiritomb.

Primeape leads with Thunder Punch, fortunately for Chuck, it manages to paralyze Spiritomb. Though, Spiritomb's Ominous Wind manages to snag the all stat boost (which comes in handy later on, you'll see).

Stalemate turn, no one gets in an attack. I believe Primeape misses Rock Slide, while Spiritomb gets paralyzed and can't attack with Ominous Wind.

Primeape proceeds to set up a decoy with Substitute, luckily enough, Spiritomb breaks pass the paralysis and breaks the decoy with Ominous Wind.

This battle feels like it has gone on longer than it should have. Anyways, Primeape attacks with Rock Slide, while Spiritomb attacks with Ominous Wind.

Chuck then heals up Primeape with a Hyper Potion, and a bittersweet critical hit Ominous Wind almost takes out Primeape.

And then this happens... I was surprised since I forgot that Anger Point was an ability in this game. So now, I have to deal with a maxed out Primeape during a Nuzlocke :D

On the turn I was going to end it with Sucker Punch, Spiritomb gets paralyzed and Primeape attacks with a maxed out Rock Slide.

Because of the +1 all stats boost from Ominous Wind during Turn 1, Spiritomb miraculously lived (I bet it was just a low roll). I immediately healed up Spiritomb and Primeape attacks with Thunder Punch which also did quite a bit.

On the following turn, Spiritomb doesn't get paralyzed and takes out Primeape with Sucker Punch.

Chuck sends in his Hariyama while I chose to send in Rotom.

Hariyama leads with Fake Out, which doesn't do too much damage to Rotom.

Air Slash deals more than half to Hariyama, and Hariyama retaliates with Cross Chop. During the next turn, another Air Slash from Rotom takes out Hariyama.

Next up, Chuck sends in his ace, Poliwrath and I switch out to Leafeon.

Leafeon deals pretty decent damage with 2 hits from Bullet Seed, unfortunately Poliwrath does land its Hypnosis, putting Leafeon to sleep.

What a fun turn... Anyways, Poliwrath manages to land a Focus Punch due to Leafeon staying asleep. Unluckily for me, Focus Punch was a critical hit onto Leafeon, which takes it out. Really sucks since Leafeon has been with me for so long ;w;

I send in Pidgeot in order to "revenge kill/faint" Poliwrath.

Pidgeot's Pluck manages to take out Poliwrath, while stealing its Sitrus Berry in the process (not that it mattered).

I decide to stay in with Pidgeot, while Chuck sends in his Hitmonlee.

Hitmonlee flinches Pidgeot with Fake Out. However, on the next turn Pluck OHKOs Hitmonlee.

Hitmonchan is up next, and I switch out to Blastoise.

Surf deals a hefty chunk to Hitmonchan, though since Blastoise outspeeds it, Hitmonchan is able to safely set up a Substitute.

Hitmonchan charges up a Focus Punch while Surf easily breaks the decoy, though Blastoise does end up living the Focus Punch in the end (good thing it wasn't a critical hit).

One last Surf from Blastoise takes out Hitmonchan.

Well Chuck, sorry to say but you are about to lose. With that out of the way, Chuck sends in his final Pokemon Breloom while I switch to Infernape.

Breloom attacks with Mach Punch (most likely Technician boosted), while Infernape nearly OHKOs Breloom with Flame Wheel.

Chuck decides to heal up Breloom with a Hyper Potion but, it ends up being in vain since Infernape takes out Breloom with a single Flame Wheel.

We beat Chuck!

The part that was cutoff in the second screenshot was "...of the Storm Badge" FYI. Though, I mean how could you not notice instantly that you lost lol?

All the spoils of the gym battle. TM 01 Focus Punch is cool but, I don't see myself using it at all.

Aftermath of the gym battle. Unfortunately, Leafeon is the first KO from a gym battle (I'm surprised the other gym battles bar Morty didn't snag a KO). Leafeon put in so much work this run, thought I'd be able to keep it alive since I did manage to keep my Eeveelution (it was an Espeon) during my last SG/SS Nuzlocke.

The MVP for this gym battle is probably Pidgeot, it managed to snag 2 KOs with relative ease, without risking too much in the end. Though, Pidgeot didn't have too much of a splash compared to the other MVPs in previous gym battles.

Since we did receive the Storm Badge, Chuck's wife gives us HM02 Fly! Which I'm excited for since now I don't have to waste a whole lot of repels just to go back and forth between cities.

As for Leafeon's replacement, since I have been doing the same-type replacement thing (like replacing a Water-type, with another Water-type), I thought I'd switch it up this time. So, welcome Ekans (Volke) to the team!

Follow up to receiving the Storm Badge, the pharmacy magically stocked up during that time and now we have the medicine for Amphy!

The convenience of Fly is so nice ;w;

Now that I have access to Fly, I decide to run a few errands. I changed Pikachu's nickname officially to Delthea, swapped Rotom-Fan to Rotom-Mow (I guess I reaaaally wanted a Grass-type in the end), and also picked up the Magnet from Sunny (the Sunday Week Sibling).

I also decided to do an overhaul of my "Reserves" situation since the "MAYBE" box was starting to almost be full, and the encounters are only going to keep increasing.

YES - Dropped Poliwag from the box. I find that with how many Water-types I've been getting (Staryu, Horsea, etc.) and how much I dislike type-stacking, I don't see myself gravitating to Poliwag over the other Water-types in the same box.

MAYBE - Only noticeable change is that I moved like a lot of the Pokemon to the "MAYBE NO" (it was supposed to be maybe not but, it didn't fit). A lot of the Pokemon here are Pokemon that I will probably gravitate to (usually have good movepools, natures, and appeal) if nothing in the "YES" box speaks to me.

MAYBE NO - A lot of the Pokemon in this box are either very situational Pokemon (Zigzagoon, Sudowoodo, Nosepass, and Carvanha), or just Pokemon that had potential to be decent/great but suffered a less-than-ideal nature (Metapod, Vulpix, and Aerodactyl) from the previous "MAYBE" box.

NO - Besides the background, it remains the same

All of those side tasks aside, time to deliver the medicine!

Well, the medicine did give a horde of Psyducks a terrible migraine at one point but, suuuuuure it'll cure Amphy.

It would've been cool if Amphy mega evolved but, the technology just wasn't out yet at the time.

Silver must be jumping for joy, I hope Jasmine anticipates an angry trainer at some point challenging her.

When exiting the lighthouse, Warden Baoba finally calls us to tell us about the grand opening of the Safari Zone!

Also in that same phone call, he gets robbed or something I assume? Well time to go check it out!

Back to Cianwood we go

For someone in a crisis, you sure are rude. Anyways, as mentioned in the OP, this is one of the unique events exclusive to SG/SS. The first exclusive event being Team Rocket's invasion into the Safari Zone.

There are grunts scattered throughout the area but not to worry, the original trainers will return once the invasion has been halted.

I mentioned in the previous update that I would show more of the event but, I didn't feel like playing on at the time since I wanted to grind up Ekans, so I'll delay that until the next update. Anyways, next update will show more of the Rocket invasion but, I doubt I'll be showcasing the entirety of it.

Rinkah

(Infernape) @ Charcoal
Level 36
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Flame Wheel
- Brick Break
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide

Volke

(Ekans) @ Exp. Share
Level 16
Ability: Intimidate
Hasty Nature
- Poison Sting
- Bite
- Glare
- Leer

Ewan (Rotom-Mow) @ Magnet
Level 34
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Leaf Storm
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Shanna

(Pidgeot) @ Choice Band
Level 36
Ability: Tangled Feet
Adamant Nature
- Pluck
- Fly
- Quick Attack
- Close Combat

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Mystic Water
Level 36
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Zen Headbutt
- Zap Cannon

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 34
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Faint Attack
- Sucker Punch
- Ominous Wind
- Hypnosis

HotFuzzBall · Dec 9, 2018

Alright welcome to the continuation of the Rocket Invasion (aka Update #12)!

I also obtained 2 additional type-boosting items from the week siblings Monica and Tuscany (Monday and Tuesday respectively). I also taught Spiritomb TM30 Shadow Ball (should've done that before Chuck honestly) as well.

With that aside, it's time to continue to disrupt Team Rocket's plans to take over the Safari Zone! Through this grunt, we find out that the executives are actually going to be apart of this whole plan.

Interestingly enough, the route music is still the same, as opposed to some dramatic, Team Rocket-inspired BGM.

Then we spot our first 2 victims, and Mira from the Sinnoh region (you can probably expect a theme for the next upcoming battles).

Well looks like Baoba has connections to the partner trainers from the Sinnoh region. Looks like we gotta help Mira defeat them (also nice 3rd person speech girl).

Battle was pretty easy overall, despite Mira's Porygon2 fainting midway. All of the trainers will also heal up your team after the battle (though they won't reheal your team if you speak to them again). Also, Mira you could follow me and help take out the rest of the goons...

After the battle, Ekans also evolves into an Arbok!

At first, I thought this was a cruel joke since the HM Strength is blocked away by 2 annoying explorers. But, I guess the technology in Team Rocket must be that advanced. Also, s/o to Cheryl chilling right above us.

I mean, 1v2 double battles don't seem to difficult (considering you'll probably stay put after we defeat these 2).

Umbreon - Lvl 35 - Dark Pulse | Confuse Ray | Double Team | Psychic
Torkoal - Lvl 35 - Flamethrower | Protect | Toxic | Earthquake
Claydol - Lvl 36 - Psychic | Ice Beam | Earth Power | Protect

Buck's team is probably the worst team out of the 5 (spoiler alert, you'll be partnering with all 5 Sinnoh partner trainers, shouldn't be a surprise at this point). Umbreon loves to spam Double Team and doesn't hit very hard, while Torkoal has Earthquake and isn't afraid to use it. So, just be prepared for not having the most useful partner (though this battle in particular isn't that hard tbh).

Yeah, though you could also try and help your friends too y'know?

Well I guess Team Rocket's technology isn't thaaat advanced yet.

New area time! Though the Cliff Cave is kind of a random addition to HG/SS imo, though it will let me snag a new encounter so that's all good.

I decide to do a lil' extra exploring and take the right ladder (leading to the lower floor) first.

Not too bad of a find, I've actually had quite a few successful runs with a Baltoy before so it'll be interesting to see how it fares in this game. I named it Etzel after a wandering sorcerer from FE11/12.

The Baltoy line didn't receive too many changes oddly enough (considering Baltoy isn't exactly known to be one of the better Pokemon in the game). Both Baltoy and Claydol learn Gravity at Level 81 and Level 97 respectively, while Claydol is able to learn HM02 Fly as well.

Overall Baltoy is probably going to be pretty decent, so I'll be putting it in the MAYBE box for now.

And freedom!

Also found one of Clamperl's evolutionary items hidden in the sand.

Unfortunate that we are blocked off by these 2 HM checks. Also, I'll be coming back here again once I get access to Waterfall to get my Route 47 encounter (as long as I just keep Repels on while I'm surfing).

Side note, I'm pretty sure you are supposed to find the Deep Sea Scale around the beach area near the Embedded Tower (the documentation said so anyways), during my last SG/SS run I did use Gorebyss, and I know I evolved it around this time so... not sure what's going on here. Though since I don't have a Clamperl, I'll save this problem for another time.

Decided to take some time off the invasion and trained Arbok to be on par with the rest of the team.

I also taught Infernape Fire Punch through the Move Reminder, as well as purchased TM13 Ice Beam for Blastoise and a Silk Scarf for Miltank from the Game Corner. Furthermore, I swapped out Pidgeot's Choice Band for the Sharp Beak, and gave the Choice Band to Infernape (since I want Pidgeot to be able to use Quick Attack, without being locked in).

Back to the Cliff Cave and this time, I will be going up the left ladder to meet up with Cheryl.

Aaaaand the way is blocked, though the grunt from earlier did say the Rocket Executives will be here.

Well isn't that the job of every Pokemon game's protagonist? Anyways, Proton was kind of a joke so I hope this battle will be easy (it's really not honestly).

Vs. Petrel

Anyways, Petrel leads the battle off with his Raticate while I lead with Arbok to get the Intimidate off.

Raticate attacks with Hyper Fang which does a surprising amount of damage (later on I found this Raticate had Hustle as its ability, you'll find out further down), while Arbok does decent damage with Poison Tail.

Petrel ends up withdrawing Raticate and sends in his Golbat, however, I also decided to withdraw Arbok and send in Spiritomb.

Unfortunately, Golbat is able to put Spiritomb to sleep with Hypnosis.

Then this back and forth happens for 2 additional turns, where Golbat attacks with Wing Attack while Spiritomb sleeps.

Golbat then attacks with another Wing Attack but, Spiritomb manages to wake up and fire off a Shadow Ball while getting the Special Defense drop in the process.

Since Spiritomb was low, I healed it up with a Hyper Potion while Golbat goes for yet another Wing Attack.

Guess what? Golbat attacks with another Wing Attack while Spiritomb attacks with Shadow Ball, nearly taking down Golbat (I honestly should've just switch to Rotom at this point since this battle is taking too long, but I was stubborn at the time).

And Golbat lands Hypnosis (I swear I can never land 2 Hypnosis attacks in a row, what is this luck...)

Anyways, I decide to speed up the process by using an Awakening on Spiritomb while Golbat uses Wing Attack again. During the next turn, Spiritomb finishes off Golbat with a Sucker Punch.

Petrel then sends in his ace, Weezing while I opt for Blastoise.

Blastoise attacks with Zen Headbutt (I thought it would do more damage but, I believe Surf probably would've done more), while Weezing manages to land Thunder onto Blastoise.

Since another Thunder would've finished off Blastoise, I decided to switch out to Infernape.

Weezing does land another Thunder but unfortunately, it was a Critical Hit and it also paralyzes Infernape (what is this luck?)

I heal up Infernape with a Max Potion this time (I misclicked it, wanted to use a Hyper Potion instead). Though oddly enough, Weezing does go for a Fire Blast but misses.

On the next turn, Weezing fires off a Sludge Bomb which dealt quite a bit but, Infernape gets paralyzed and can't attack.

Since this was pretty much futile, I decide to switch out to Pidgeot knowing well aware that Weezing has Thunder (literally playing with fire here).

Weezing attacks with Sludge Bomb on the same turn as well.

This was honestly a reaaaally dumb turn on my part, but the RNG hax gods decided to bless me during this turn. I decide for whatever reason that using Fly was a great idea, luckily enough, Weezing does miss both of its Thunders (if you didn't know, Thunder does double damage to mons that ascended with Fly) on the ascent and descent.

Finally, Weezing gets taken down by Pidgeot's Pluck.

Next up, Petrel sends in his Skuntank and I switch back out to Blastoise.

I also decided to heal up Blastoise while Skuntank uses Poison Jab on it.

Blastoise then attacks with Surf, dealing more than half of Skuntank's HP, while Skuntank randomly decides to attack with Double-Edge.

Another Surf seals the deal and Skuntank is taken out.

Lastly, Petrel sends in his Raticate again and I swap out to Pidgeot (which was a dumb move, again and you'll see why).

I completely forgot that Raticate did receive a buff to its Speed, meaning that in SG/SS alone, Raticate is faster than Pidgeot (Pidgeot is normally faster). So Raticate manages to take out Pidgeot with a critical-hit-boosted Hyper Fang (though I don't think the critical hit mattered since it was Hustle-boosted as well).

This was a huge misplay on my part, and it cost me my flier ;w; So much for all that pep-talk about how I always need a flier on my team during a Nuzlocke.

I decide to send in Rotom to seek revenge for Pidgeot :c

Raticate randomly decides to attack with Super Fang (really weird move on Petrel's AI's part since Hyper Fang would've done more), but I misclicked Thunderbolt and Raticate nearly gets taken out. I know Leaf Storm would've taken down Raticate if it landed so, I was annoyed at that misclick since I wanted this battle to be over.

This is really the turn where I figured out Raticate had Hustle as its ability. Anticipating a Hyper Fang, I decided to switch out to Spiritomb since it is immune to it. Petrel then decides to use Flame Wheel instead but, it ended up missing.

I was so confused at the time but then I realized it was because of Hustle, this battle was just haxy on both sides of the field.

To wrap this battle up quickly, Spiritomb ends up taking down Raticate with Sucker Punch.

With that, Petrel has been defeated!

I mean, considering you are trying to take over the Safari Zone... you guys are probably after the Safari Zone's large arsenal of wild Pokemon. Also, Petrel ends up dropping TM06 Toxic as he runs off (probably to warn the other executives).

Unfortunate that I lost Pidgeot, right when it became less obnoxious to use (Pidgeotto was really annoying to use and train honestly). I decide to replace Pidgeot with Miltank (you can also see the aftermath of the battle against Petrel, it was a really hard battle overall) and grind it up in Route 39.

Alright, I'm back now with a fully-trained Miltank and ready to kick Team Rocket out! I also swapped out Infernape's Charcoal for the Choice Band as well, since it will probably benefit from it moreso than my other team members.

Skipping ahead, we end up meeting with Cheryl to take out 2 additional Team Rocket grunts. Though, it's unusual to see a person like Cheryl use the word "goon".

Drifblim - Lvl 35 - Ominous Wind | Fly | Toxic | Thunderbolt
Wobbuffet - Lvl 35 - Encore | Mirror Coat | Counter | Safeguard
Blissey - Lvl 36 - Flamethrower | Ice Beam | Softboiled | Counter

Cheryl's team is surprisingly decent since the AI likes to target her (not sure if the "AI always going for the bulkiest Pokemon" thing applies to HG/SS, though I know it was a thing in the Orre games). I mean, during this battle they kept bombarding Cheryl's Drifblim and Blissey so, it could be a possibility?

Anyways, that battle went by smoothly and Cheryl heals up our team.

Round 4! This time with Marley.

Sneasel - Lvl 35 - Ice Punch | Pursuit | Aerial Ace | Slash
Ninjask - Lvl 35 - Swords Dance | Aerial Ace | X-Scissor | Slash
Arcanine - Lvl 36 - Fire Fang | Thunder Fang | Dragon Pulse | Morning Sun

Marley's team is surprisingly underwhelming, considering I thought her team would be one of the better ones. Sneasel and Ninjask can't even take a hit, while Arcanine doesn't really hit too hard so, it was kind of a let down. Granted, the Team Rocket grunts here stepped their game up with a more "threatening"-ish team.

...Just a bit you say... .-.

We get another Rocket Executive blocking our way, this time it's Ariana! Also, have those 2 boulders always been there (even in HG/SS)?

Well, even if I do lose I'll end up coming back so it doesn't matter if my heroic journey ends.

Vs. Ariana

Arbok - Lvl 37 - Gunk Shot | Seed Bomb | Earthquake | Crunch
Vileplume - Lvl 37 - Petal Dance | Sludge Bomb | Drain Punch | Sleep Powder
Jynx - Lvl 37 - Lovely Kiss | Blizzard | Psychic | Fake Tears
Honchkrow - Lvl 38 - Brave Bird | Dark Pulse | Swagger | Icy Wind

Ariana is really a mixed bag, she can either be really difficult or really easy depending on your team. Also, this is the point of the game where the boss trainer's Pokemon will start to have stronger sets, using both move tutor, egg moves, and TMs. However, Ariana's team is relatively squishy and slow (except Jynx since it's decently fast). So really, any powerful super-effective move should take out her Pokemon in 1-2 hits.

Though, she can be difficult considering all her Pokemon have hard hitting moves that have the potential to OHKO some of you Pokemon as well.

To lead us off, Ariana sends in her Arbok while I lead with Blastoise. With most Arboks you encounter in this game, it will have Intimidate to lower your Pokemon's Attack.

Blastoise attacks with Surf, dealing a lot of damage to Arbok, while Arbok attacks with Gunk Shot, poisoning Blastoise in the process.

On the following turn, another Surf takes out Arbok.

Next up, Ariana sends in her Vileplume while I decide to opt for Infernape.

Really easy battle, Infernape easily OHKOes Vileplume with a Choice-Band-boosted Fire Punch.

Ariana then sends in her Jynx, while I decide to send in Spiritomb (I was originally going to keep Infernape in but, it has a -Spe nature so I knew Jynx would've outsped it).

Anyways, Jynx fires off a Blizzard (I was expecting Lovely Kiss but, I'm glad it didn't use it) which deals quite a bit of damage, while Spiritomb attacks with Shadow Ball.

During the next turn, Spiritomb finishes off Jynx with a Sucker Punch.

Ariana then sends in her ace, Honchkrow, while I send in Miltank.

Thinking back, this was a really weird turn for me. Also as an FYI, I don't know the sets off any of the boss trainers, I only find them out the day I write up these updates by looking them up on a Trainer Editor.

Anyways, I was expecting Honchkrow to use Superpower for some reason, so I decided to send in Arbok to tank it while also getting off an Intimidate in the process. Instead, Honchkrow goes for Swagger onto it.

Since I didn't really know what to expect, I switch back out to Miltank and Honchkrow uses Icy Wind, which decreases Miltank's Speed. Well with that, I knew at the time that Honchkrow probably doesn't have Superpower since the last 2 moves it has would be STAB (and I was right).

Since Honchkrow is now faster, it is able to get off a Swagger onto Miltank. Luckily, Miltank breaks through the confusion and attacks with a critical-hit-boosted Body Slam (not that the critical hit mattered, since Miltank was at +2 and Honchkrow's bulk is pretty bad).

Ariana has been defeated!

Ignore the first SS, I forgot to take the screenshot at the time and wanted to showcase her dialogue, so I did a lil' editing to produce a really badly-produced screenshot. Though, she did tell us Archer will be up ahead. As she runs away, Ariana dropped TM84 Poison Jab, which I immediately used on Arbok.

And we made it to Route 48! So close to the Safari Zone. This is one of the best training spots in the game honestly, mainly because the Pokemon give a ton of exp and you can find wild Chanseys here as well.

Anyways, this is the 1st route encounter of Route 48! I actually like Girafarig, I enjoyed using it during my Mono-Normal Platinum run I did at some point. I nicknamed it Percival after one of the 3 knight generals of Etruria from FE6.

Girafarig got some pretty nice buffs overall, even though there are only 3 of them. Girafarig received buffs to its stats, being Special Attack (90 -> 110) and Speed (85 -> 105). In addition, Girafarig also learns Nasty Plot at Level 50.

Overall, I think the buffs do make Girafarig a better Pokemon. I'm interested in using it in the future but, for now I'll be putting it in the MAYBE box (though it's kind of like borderline between YES and MAYBE).

Since wild Glooms are also found in this route, I decide to catch one so I could evolve it into a Bellossom for that one girl in Route 39. Obviously, I won't be using said Bellossom once I finish up that side-quest with the girl.

With all that aside, I needed to rush back to Cianwood City to heal up the team.

That concludes Update #12! In the next update, I'll be wrapping up the Rocket Invasion and hopefully, seeing whether I will be able to challenge the Olivine City gym as well.

Rinkah

(Infernape) @ Choice Band
Level 36
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Fire Punch
- Brick Break
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide

Volke

(Arbok)
Level 35
Ability: Intimidate
Hasty Nature
- Poison Jab
- Crunch
- Mud Bomb
- Glare

Ewan (Rotom-Mow) @ Magnet
Level 35
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Leaf Storm
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Juno

(Miltank) @ Silk Scarf
Level 37
Ability: Scrappy
Impish Nature
- Body Slam
- Zen Headbutt
- Rollout
- Milk Drink

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Mystic Water
Level 37
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Zen Headbutt

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 37
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot
- Hypnosis

Author_Pendragon · Dec 9, 2018

Ey, another Nuzlocker, and a Fire Emblem nerd at that. (I'm a Tellius guy btw)
Good luck on the run!

HotFuzzBall · Dec 11, 2018

Back again for unlucky Update #13!

Over the break, I decided to grind up my team up to Level 37. Besides the level increase, the movesets and items remain the same.

With that, time to save the Safari Zone by infiltrating its core!

Well, that's not very convincing. They don't seem willing to budge either.

Right when I least expected it, Cameron nailed that part on the head. Team Rocket must have kicked everyone out except this guy for some reason (or he hid somewhere and decided to come out regardless). Either way, we get our picture taken and the 2 Rocket Grunts decided it was rude to photo-bomb and went away.

Though since there's no where else to go... Pokemon Center seems to be the best place to visit. Also, no one is here except Nurse Joy oddly enough.

Everything seems normal for now...

Just kidding!

Nurse Joy reveals herself to be a Rocket Grunt in disguise, while Archer comes down to follow up with his ambush. Though, let's not destroy and make a mess inside the Pokemon Center by battling in here.

The last of the partner trainers comes and rescues me ;w;

Good good, at least Archer has some morals.

2 completely different responses, from 2 very different people.

Now with all of that out of the way, time to start this tag-team battle!

Vs. Archer + Rocket Grunt (Multi-Battle)

Zangoose - Lvl 38 - Crush Claw | Close Combat | X-Scissor | Detect........................Scyther - Lvl 37 - Fury Cutter | Slash | Bug Bite | Double Team
Gyarados - Lvl 38 - Waterfall | Bounce | Ice Fang | Dragon Dance............................Mawile - Lvl 37 - Vicegrip | Faint Attack | Iron Head | Crunch
Houndoom - Lvl 39 - Fire Blast | Faint Attack | Will-O-Wisp | Thunder Fang........Granbull - Lvl 37 - Lick | Headbutt | Roar | Rage

Absol - Lvl 37 - Swords Dance | Night Slash | Psycho Cut | Quick Attack
Ursaring - Lvl 37 - Aerial Ace | Avalanche | Shadow Claw | Slash
Lucario - Lvl 37 - Aura Sphere | Blaze Kick | Bone Rush | Psychic

Excuse the formatting, it is a bit funky since there's so many sets. I should've switched around Archer and the Rocket Grunt's (Archer is on the right, the Grunt is on the left but, I switched em around when posting the sets) but, I'm too lazy to at this point. Riley's sets are right below Archer's fyi.

Anyways, Archer can be pretty tough but, with the help of Riley it should be too difficult. Just try to take out Archer's Pokemon ASAP since they hit very hard and are also decently fast as well. Keep in mind that 3 of the 6 Pokemon (Granbull, Gyarados, and Houndoom) have Intimidate which can be annoying to your damage output (also considering that Riley's team is mainly physical and he rarely switches).

The battle commences with Archer sending in his Zangoose, with the Grunt leading with Scyther. On our side, Riley and I lead with Arbok and Absol respectively, with Arbok getting off the Intimidate from the get go as well.

Zangoose shields itself from incoming attacks with Detect, which causes both Arbok's and Absol's moves to miss. Scyther then attacks Absol with Bug Bite, dealing more than half of its health.

During the next turn, Absol gets a bit greedy and decides to set up a Swords Dance (despite knowing well aware it won't have the bulk to survive another hit).

Zangoose then attacks Absol with Close Combat, netting the KO.

Since Absol already fainted, Scyther switches and attacks Arbok with Bug Bite, while Arbok attacks Zangoose with Poison Jab.

Riley then sends in his next Pokemon, Ursaring.

This is a stalemate turn. Zangoose uses Detect once again, causing both Arbok's and Ursaring's moves to miss. However, Scyther does miss its Fury Cutter onto Ursaring (I hope the AI realizes it has Bug Bite...)

On the next turn, Zangoose attacks Arbok with Crush Claw while Scyther proceeds to boost its Evasion with Double Team.

Arbok finishes off Zangoose with another Poison Jab, while Ursaring attacks Scyther with Slash.

Next up, Archer sends in his Gyarados which gets off the Intimidate on our mons.

I decided to switch out Arbok for Blastoise since it was low and had its Attack dropped.

Scyther proceeds to attack Ursaring with another Fury Cutter, while Gyarados uses Ice Fang onto Blastoise.

Ursaring strikes Scyther with an Aerial Ace, nearly taking it out.

Scyther continues to boost its Evasion with Double Team, while Blastoise fires off an Ice Beam onto Gyarados and nets the freeze chance.

Though it becomes futile as Gyarados immediately thaws out and uses Bounce.

Ursaring also manages to knock out Scyther with another Aerial Ace as well, good thing Aerial Ace is always guaranteed to hit.

The Rocket Grunt then sends in her Mawile, which surprisingly did not have Intimidate (I believe, it might have and I just forgot to take a screenshot).

Blastoise fires off a Water Pulse onto Mawile, getting the confusion hax in the process.

Gyarados then strikes Blastoise with the descent from Bounce and unfortunately, paralyzes it.

Ursaring attacks Gyarados with Shadow Claw, while Mawile attacks Ursaring with Faint Attack.

Since Blastoise was pretty much close to fainting, I decided to switch it out for Spiritomb.

Once again, Gyarados uses Bounce and bounces away, causing Ursaring to miss its Avalanche. Not pictured but, Mawile also attacks Spiritomb with Faint Attack.

Gyarados strikes Spiritomb with the descent from Bounce, while Ursaring attacks Mawile with Slash. Mawile then retaliates by going for an Iron Head onto Ursaring.

Spiritomb then fires off a Shadow Ball onto Gyarados, snagging the critical-hit boost in the process.

Riley decides to swap out his Ursaring for his ace, Lucario.

Spiritomb finishes off Gyarados with a priority Sucker Punch, while Mawile goes and attacks Spiritomb with Faint Attack.

Archer then sends in his ace and final Pokemon, Houndoom, which also gets off an Intimidate on our mons.

Once again, Spiritomb was low so I swapped it for Infernape.

Houndoom goes for a Faint Attack onto Infernape (targeting Spiritomb obviously), while Lucario takes out Mawile with a Blaze Kick.

The Rocket Grunt proceeds to send in her final Pokemon, Granbull, and yet again, another Intimidate lowers our Attack.

During the next turn, Houndoom also OHKOs Lucario.

Infernape goes for a Rock Slide (I should've used Brick Break honestly), which is able to flinch Granbull as well.

Riley also sends in his Ursaring again.

Unfortunately, Houndoom ends up missing its Fire Blast and Infernape lands Rock Slide on both Pokemon.

Ursaring manages to snag a critical hit with Slash onto Granbull, taking it out.

Once again, Houndoom is not in favor of the RNG gods and misses another Fire Blast. Unfortunately as well, Rock Slide ends up knocking out Houndoom, wrapping up the battle.

And we won!

Well, I don't need you guys to be generous at all honestly. I probably could've beat you guys with or without Riley's help.

And with that the Safari Zone and the surrounding routes should go back to normal. Though, your colleagues didn't exactly move once they were finish with their double battles.

Oh so they did decide to help out with the Battle Frontier.

Ok so back then, we just needed to halt the Rocket Invasion in order to unlock the Battle Frontier. Initially, I thought you just needed to reach that point to unlock it. Well, it's better than having to wait until you beat the Elite 4 I guess.

Yeah I'm definitely going to visit all of you, to see if you guys have anything fun from Sinnoh to give me :3

And with that, we say goodbye to all the Sinnoh partners.

Aftermath of the battle against Archer. Wasn't too hard of a battle after all, though Riley's Pokemon taking all the hits from Archer certainly did make things easier.

Now it's time to visit Baoba, the real reason why we are here.

Well the Safari Zone is very nice (imo, I think HGSS's Safari Zone is my favorite just because of the biome customization aspect of it, I also quite enjoy the block placing segment in the post-game so you can get higher-leveled mons as well).

To be honest, I'm not really too interested in the Safari Zone but I can't decline soooo... I'm just going to leave. Not sure how I'm going to do encounters for the Safari Zone, I think for me, it'd be easier to just skip it.

Look how normal the Safari Zone Gate is now! Also, that lady must've sold her Butterfree for a Beautifly.

And it's time to heal up with the real Nurse Joy. I also receive an Up-Grade from this nice person too.

Alright, back to Cianwood City we go. The normal trainers in Route 48/47 are back now, so I'm hoping that my team will be able to reach Level 38 from the trainers alone.

Well, I didn't participate but, Team Rocket sure did make things fun.

And here we are back in Olivine City. The Rocket Grunt blocking the entrance to the Gym disappeared and, it's time to challenge the Olivine City Gym!

This is kind of lame, no Gym trainers :| But, the words of encouragement help I guess?

Well honestly, any person with a brain and a heart could've known something was wrong with the lighthouse. Considering the Gym Leader was gone and the lighthouse stayed dark for quite a while >.>

And this is the team right now, had to do a bit of grinding to get Miltank to the right level but, it didn't take too much time.

Very interesting introduction (I think I might have just forgot to SS the part where she introduces herself as Jasmine). Well, let's begin the Olivine City Gym challenge!

Vs. Jasmine

Overall, Jasmine might be easier than Morty. I'm really only giving Morty the edge since his Pokemon have status-inducing moves, which are very annoying while Jasmine doesn't really have that. Her Pokemon are slow, with Skarmory being the fastest (even then it's still really slow) and don't hit very hard honestly. The only thing to watch out for is Bronzong's Damp Rock + Rain Dance combo and Forretress' Explosion but other than that, Jasmine should be a cake walk.

With that, Jasmine leads with her Metang while I lead with Infernape.

Boom, Fire Punch OHKOs Metang with ease.

Next up is Skarmory, since I didn't want this to be a boring battle, I switched out Infernape for Rotom.

A single Thunderbolt takes out Skarmory, fun battle so far.

Poor Jasmine, she sends in her Forretress and I switch back to Infernape.

Yet again, another clean knockout with Fire Punch.

This is when things get sort of interesting I guess, Jasmine sends in her Bronzong and I send in Spiritomb (didn't want to risk a possibility of Bronzong surviving that Fire Punch by keeping Infernape in).

Spiritomb sets up the Nasty Plot to boost its Special Attack but fortunately for me, Brozong missed its Hypnosis.

I feel really bad for Jasmine honestly, Spiritomb fires off a Shadow Ball which dealt quite a bit of damage but again, Bronzong misses another Hypnosis.

On the following turn, another Shadow Ball takes out Bronzong.

Jasmine then sends in her ace, Steelix, and I send in Blastoise.

Blastoise's Surf deals a lot of damage onto Steelix and, it heals off a bit of the damage with a Sitrus Berry. Unfortunately, Steelix ends up missing its Screech. Poor Jasmine is just not on the RNG god's good side.

One last Surf takes out Steelix.

Well, Jasmine sends in her final Pokemon, Magneton and I switch back to Infernape.

Oh what a surprise, Fire Punch knocks out Magneton in a hit (maybe I should've used Close Combat to switch things up a bit).

With that, we have defeated Jasmine!

Well, I'm kind because the game won't let me progress if I don't run all these errands for people.

All of the spoils of the Gym Battle, TM23 Iron Tail is nice but, I don't think I'd want to teach it to anyone at the moment.

This is the aftermath of the battle, the only thing different is the Infernape gained a level. Speaking of Infernape, it's easily the MVP of this Gym battle. Infernape could've honestly swept Jasmine single-handedly but, I didn't want to risk Bronzong and Steelix surviving an attack (since they are quite physically bulky) and potentially knocking out Infernape with their super-effective moves. But other than that, Infernape made this battle kind of a joke.

That concludes Update #13! The next update will be incredibly boring after all the fun things that happened. I anticipate doing a lot of backtracking (mainly around the Azalea Town, Ruins of Alph area) now that I will be receiving another important HM.

Rinkah

(Infernape) @ Choice Band
Level 39
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Fire Punch
- Brick Break
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide

Volke

(Arbok)
Level 38
Ability: Intimidate
Hasty Nature
- Poison Jab
- Crunch
- Mud Bomb
- Glare

Ewan (Rotom-Mow) @ Magnet
Level 38
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Leaf Storm
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Juno

(Miltank) @ Silk Scarf
Level 38
Ability: Scrappy
Impish Nature
- Body Slam
- Zen Headbutt
- Rollout
- Milk Drink

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Mystic Water
Level 38
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Zen Headbutt

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 38
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot
- Hypnosis

Author_Pendragon - Thanks! Yeah the Tellius series is probably my favorite of the bunch, with Radiant Dawn being my favorite Fire Emblem of all time. :D Some of my favorite characters of Fire Emblem of all time are from Tellius such as Titania, Oscar, Ilyana, Nephenee, Sothe, and Kieran!

HotFuzzBall · Dec 16, 2018

Hello all! Been a bit since I posted an update. Anyways, this update is going to be one of my "backtracking sessions" now that I will have access to HM Strength pretty soon.

First stop is to pick up a Sun Stone from this house in Olivine City. Normally, you'd have to get elemental stones as prizes from winning the Bug-Catching Contest but, you can pick up either a Sun Stone or Moon Stone a day from this house (depending on the time you talk to this guy).

Since I caught a Gloom last update (in Route 48), I can now evolve it into a Bellossom for a side quest that I mentioned a while back.

Time to set off and talk to this lady in Route 39.

She asks Bellossom to dance for her, not much happens other than watching it jump up and down.

Well, looks like it worked (somehow). With that, we get TM53 Energy Ball from her but no, I will not be using it on this Bellossom.

In addition, she also provides us with a Meadow Plate! So you get 2 pretty decent rewards for doing this relatively easy side quest.

Made my way back to Ecruteak City to progress the story, and it's time to say goodbye to this Bellossom.

Now that those 2 annoying archaeologists are gone, we can progress forward into Route 42!

On my way, this hiker suddenly pops out of the entrance to Mt. Mortar and runs into me.

Well, this is an HM that I reaaally needed a while back >.> Anyways, the big change to Strength is that it is now a Rock-type move (as opposed to a Normal-type move), so it provides Rock-types with a nice reliable STAB move. Also taught the HM to Volke so I can get rid of Mud Bomb.

Also Pidgeot makes a cameo since I was using it as a HM Fly slave (that's allowed in nuzlockes right? I didn't use it in battle so, it should be fine theoretically)

I will be ignoring Mt. Mortar for now until I get access to Waterfall, so expect another fun backtracking session in the future.

Time to progress forwards! Also made sure to have a Repel handy so I don't get some random water encounter as my Route 42 encounter.

Originally, there is supposed to be a tree you needed to use Cut on but, looks like Dray removed it. Anyways, we meet our old friend Suicune who then bails on us and runs (it probably saw Eusine trailing behind me).

And speak of the devil, it's Eusine.

Well, you did mention that Suicune is attracted to me for whatever reason. Also, I wonder what will happen to Eusine once I capture Suicune, hope he has another hobby.

I mean, I think Suicune wants to challenge me but alright...

Moving forward, time to see what my Route 42 encounter is (I have way too many Water-types in my reserve at the moment).

Quite a lucky find in my opinion, I caught myself a Trapinch! I named it Misha after a pegasus knight who your typical a battle-hardened knight that values honor above anything from FE5. '

The Trapinch line received quite a few buffs that improve their offensive capabilities (most of the buffs already exist in future generations). Trapinch can now learn Bug Bite at Level 1, while both Vibrava and Flygon now learn Earth Power (Level 57), Dragon Dance (Level 65), Outrage (Level 73) and Hyper Beam (Level 81). As for stat changes, Flygon received buffs to its Attack (100 -> 110) and Special Attack (80 -> 100), allowing it to be a pretty decent mixed attacker.

Overall, Flygon is still quite good but, the Bold nature on Trapinch kind of sucks (though it still has a Special Attack stat it can utilize). However, Trapinch won't be too useful in the next boss fight and, Flygon learns Dragon Dance fairly late as well to help circumvent the -Atk nature. With that in mind, I'll be putting Trapinch in the "MAYBE NO" box (though it is borderline between MAYBE and MAYBE NO honestly).

And with that, we reached Mahogany Town!

Is there a reason you just have to block the entrance to the Gym?

Clearly, the citizens of Johto lack awareness on some of the most important figures in the region.

We can also obtain another King's Rock in Mahogany Town as well (the first one you receive is within Slowpoke Well).

WOw only $300 for a candy bar! What a steal (in regards to pokedollars).

Ok... who made you the security guard of Mahogany Town .-.

Please don't tell me what to do .-. Looks like we'll have to go sightseeing on places, I have already been to (Lighthouse and the Pharmacy).

As mentioned in the previous update, Riley told us that he resides in Mahogany Town with Buck. So I can now claim the reward he promised us for saving the Safari Zone! Buck doesn't say anything too important, he just wants to battle us at some point.

Jeez, nice spoilers Riley... Though Riolu is a pretty nice mon to have (however, I think Lucario is kind of overrated honestly, but that's just my opinion).

How to act suspicious 101

Kind of a sad selection of items for a souvenir shop.

Great thing to tell some random person that you were in charge of some big experiment that could've had an impact on the situation at the Lake of Rage...

Nope, I'm actually going to halt my progress and start backtracking now!

Anyways, first stop on my backtracking session is in Azalea Town!

I actually completely forgot we could get a unique encounter here by headbutting trees. FYI, due to species clause there isn't any Pokemon I can capture in the Safari Zone Gate. Anyways, I caught myself a Spearow (honestly, an underrated Pokemon due to Pidgey existing) which I named Subaki after another pegasus (in FE14's case Sky Knight) knight who strives for perfection from FE14.

Both Spearow and Fearow received their share of changes like the majority of the Pokemon in this game. Both Spearow and Fearow learn Pursuit (Level 1), Sonicboom (Level 13), and Tailwind (at Level 41 and Level 53 respectively), while also gaining Sniper as a possible ability as well. Fearow also learns Megahorn at Level 59, while receiving buffs to its Attack (90 -> 95) and Speed (100 -> 105).

As usual, I always place Pokemon that can learn Fly pretty high on my tier list for convenience sake (aka not having to deposit/withdraw a flier each time I want to use Fly, considering how often I backtrack). Though, don't think Spearow requires any of my "flier favoritism" since it is a pretty solid mon overall (despite not being Kenya or Dux). With that, I'll be putting Spearow inside the "YES" box.

Since I'm at Azalea Town, there was a section within the Slowpoke Well that was blocked off.

And here we are, on the bottom floor of the well.

All that effort just for a single TM (that isn't even too useful). Based on the description, it should be obvious what the TM is.

Next stop, is the Union Cave to explore 2 additional parts of it.

Back in my 2nd backtracking session (when I first obtained Surf), I thought you need Strength to reach this part of the Union Cave. Turns out, you just only needed Surf to reach the room where you can get Lapras (surprise spoiler alert). So that was a bit of a nooby mistake on my part.

Since it's Friday, we can now encounter this wild Lapras (though, how did it enter the cave anyways, since there doesn't seem to be any waterways or entrances that it could enter).

Usually I'd take a screenshot of the Pokemon with full HP but, I forgot to this time around. Anyways, I named this Lapras Clive after the previous leader of the Deliverance (rebel army) from FE2/15.

Lapras got some... fairly interesting changes in this game. It now learns Dragon Dance (Level 55, replacing Sheer Cold) and Outrage (Level 67). Lapras still learns Sheer Cold but, it learns it at Level 61 instead. Though, I guess I didn't realize that Lapras's Attack and Special Attack stats are the same but, I still not sure if a physical Lapras sounds appealing (considering Level 55 is fairly late-ish in the game).

Anyways rant aside, Lapras is a fantastic Pokemon. I think every game Lapras has appeared in (except in B2W2), it has been either an amazing or at least decent Pokemon to use, and SG/SS is no exception. With that in mind, I'll be placing Lapras in the "YES" box! Though, I'm probably overrating Lapras like, a lot but, it is one of my favorite mons after all.

Now with that mistake out of the way, I can now explore this part of the Union Cave that was originally blocked off by a boulder as well.

And we arrived in the final, exclusive area of the Ruins of Alph.

The tablet just wants us to use a Water Stone (which I had to backtrack for because I forgot) which can be purchased at the Goldenrod Department Store. This chamber didn't have anything too fancy in (though you get a Stardust and Star Piece to sell). I already received a Mystic Water from the Castform Bill gave me so, this was redundant.

The puzzle this time around is an Omanyte (obviously) which was a pretty easy one to solve, and then we fall through the hole in the ground! With that, all the Unown forms (bar ! and ?) can be caught (but I'm not going to because I could care less)!

Now we can say goodbye to the Ruins of Alph for good... is what I would've liked to say because I lowkey hate this area. There's still one more chamber we have to visit since we don't have a Ho-Oh at the moment.

Also because it's Friday, I can get one of the type-boosting items from Frieda, which I immediately gave to Arbok.

Now time to visit the Battle Frontier since Riley did say it was going to be open.

Well, I guess the guy is too tired to tell that he stepped out of line?

I mean, I wasn't the first either if that's any consolation since there was a ton of people here before me.

And we get such a warm greeting from the staff.

Not that it matters but, we get our Vs. Recorder upgraded (honestly never really paid attention to the Vs. Recorder because I rarely battled or save my battles).

So here's the Battle Frontier in case you are interested! Though, a lot of the items you get here can be obtained in either the overworld, or be purchased at one of the Department Stores so, the only reason you'd wanna come here is for tutors (or if you really want to challenge the Frontier Brains).

The last stop on this backtracking session is to go back to Goldenrod City!

I like how no one cares about the obvious Rocket Grunt standing right out in the open, nice security here.

Riley mentioned that the female Sinnoh Partners are living in Goldenrod City so, I paid them a visit.

Marley and Mira basically talk about wanting to battle me (like Buck) but, Cheryl is the only one that has something sort of meaningful. The trade doesn't seem like something I'm interested in though, I guess the Chansey could have a Lucky Egg so that's cool? (Not actually sure, it could either have the Lucky Punch or just be a plain ol' Chansey).

Fast forward and I made my way back to Mahogany Town and decided to quickly hatch the Riolu egg.

Ahhh... that took quite long since I don't have access to any Pokemon with Flame Body or Magma Armor. Anyways, I named Riolu Athena after a myrmidon/sword fighter with a Russian accent (or just some sort of accent) from FE11/12.

Oddly enough both Riolu and Lucario got different additions to their movepool. Riolu learns Vaccuum Wave (Level 34) and Crunch (Level 39) which I honestly don't see myself training a Riolu to get those 2 moves. Meanwhile, Lucario learns Blaze Kick (Level 56) and Hi Jump Kick (Level 60).

At first I wasn't thrilled at the nature but, I found out that Lucario has a slightly higher Special Attack stat which I did not know about (always assumed its Attack was higher since physical Lucarios tend to be more common). As much as I find Lucario overrated, it's still a pretty solid Pokemon so, I'll be putting it in the "YES" box.

Relatively short update but, I will be concluding this update fairly early. In the next update, I'll be making more progress in the story by exploring the Lake of Rage and seeing what comes after (Idk why I'm pretending since we all know what comes after).

Rinkah

(Infernape) @ Choice Band
Level 39
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Fire Punch
- Brick Break
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide

Volke

(Arbok) @ Poison Barb
Level 39
Ability: Intimidate
Hasty Nature
- Poison Jab
- Crunch
- Strength
- Glare

Ewan (Rotom-Mow) @ Magnet
Level 39
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Leaf Storm
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Juno

(Miltank) @ Silk Scarf
Level 39
Ability: Scrappy
Impish Nature
- Body Slam
- Zen Headbutt
- Rollout
- Milk Drink

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Mystic Water
Level 39
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Zen Headbutt

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 38
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot
- Hypnosis

HotFuzzBall · Dec 19, 2018

And it's time to proceed with Update #15! In the last update, I made it to Mahogany Town and did some backtracking in areas (Slowpoke Well and Union Cave) that needed Strength to explore onwards.

Time to progress through the story and make our way to the Lake of Rage!

Before that, I can get my Route 43 encounter, being this Kirlia! I believe this is the first time I did it but, I named a mon after a protagonist in the Fire Emblem series. I chose Micaiah, a light mage who is the leader of the Dawn Brigade from FE10.

All 3 members of the evolutionary received movepool additions, while Ralts and Kirlia were the only 2 to receive stat buffs. All 3 Pokemon learn Extrasensory at Level 19, in addition Gardevoir learns Aura Sphere at Level 73. Both Ralts and Kirlia received Special Attack boosts (45 -> 65 for Ralts and 65 -> 95 for Kirlia), which should make them slightly easier to train if you caught a Ralts early on (and we all know how fun it is to train Ralts early on).

As much as I enjoy using Gardevoir, I can't really deny how overrated it is (due to how annoying it is to train Ralts and Kirlia). However, considering this Kirlia is ready to evolve, and it comes with Psychic, Calm Mind, and a decent nature, I'll be putting it in the YES box.

I always forget that these Team Rocket Grunts charge you an entrance fee if you want to use the gate within Route 43. Annoyingly enough, I fell for the same trick a few times since I would always unconsciously choose the gate over walking through the grass (and I'm sure most people would too anyways).

And time to move forward!

For whatever reason, a lot of Pokemon have Explosion or Selfdestruct in this update. In this battle specifically, I led with Arbok while the opponent led with Graveler, which forced me to switch out to Blastoise. God bless Intimidate honestly, I would've been quite salty if this is how Blastoise went.

With that, I have arrived at the scene of the crime.

Well, you must be lucky, shiny Pokemon don't just randomly appear ya'know.

Will this guy give me a new fishing rod?

Nope, all I got was a history lesson.

Well I mean, lively isn't a word I'd use to describe Magikarp in my opinion (more like annoying, considering I played Gen 7 with their infinite spawn of Magikarp).

Let's try to calm this Gyarados down, good thing I didn't run into any random encounters (there are wild Magikarps above Level 40, so repels won't work on them).

And with that, I now have a way to bypass the high encounter rate of Magikarps with the blessing of species clause. I named this Gyarados Miledy after a wyvern rider who turns her back on her country with the Princess (she is also known to have many different variations of her name, this happens to be my favorite name to spell).

Both Magikarp and Gyarados received movepool additions (moreso Magikarp so it'll be slightly easier to train it early on I assume). Magikarp is able to learn Bubble, Reversal, and Tackle at Level 1, Flail at Level 15, and Bounce at Level 30 (which was an exclusive PokeWalker skill for Magikarp). On the other hand, Gyarados learns Crunch at Level 50 and Outrage at Level 53.

The nature on Gyarados is quite unfortunate, since that's really the only reason I'm putting it in the MAYBE box (but it's not that much of a big deal since Gyarados hits pretty hard regardless, and will learn Dragon Dance soon enough). Also, I want to wait until I get access to Waterfall before I start using it too.

After catching and calming down the rampaging Gyarados, it dropped a Red Scale just for us! A very important item in this game.

Bless species clause \o/

Oh just casually swooping by after I did your job.

Well, everyone doesn't seem to care but, I shall help you solve the mystery of the radio waves (and why radio waves anyways?)

Yeah the souvenir shop owners did a terrible job hiding their secrets, they literally tell you that the experiment was a success which allowed them to make profits off of the forcefully-evolved Magikarps.

Well before I go and help Lance out, I can pick up an encounter at the Lake of Rage by fishing. Due to species clause, there's like 1 Pokemon we can catch being Feebas! Named Syrene after a calm but, well-respected commander of Frelia's pegasus knights from FE8.

Feebas and Milotic received a handful of changes, regarding their movepool and their abilities. Feebas has Adaptability as a potential ability (in addition to Swift Swim), while Milotic has Cute Charm as a potential ability (in addition to Marvel Scale). Feebas also now has access to Water Pulse at Level 20, and Hypnosis at Level 25. On the other hand, Milotic now learns Mirror Coat at Level 53.

I have a bad habit of overrating certain Pokemon, and Feebas (along with Ralts, Treecko, and most of the Gen 3 mons), so just excuse that factor. I really like using Milotic, therefore I'll be putting it in the YES box even though there's like better options for Water-types.

There's also new trainers that suddenly appeared now that the Gyarados is gone, I'll also be doing some exploring of the area while the rain is up (I'll be back here again during Wednesday, aka when the rain stopped).

To start, I'll be surfing on the east side of the lake to pick up the Choice Specs.

Then making my way all the way to the west side of the lake to pick up a few more items.

Secret Power isn't too useful, especially this far in the game. But, it could be handy in the future I guess?

Then there's this random house in the middle of the "lake". What a prime location to start building (granted the rampaging Gyaradoses happened after the house was built, I assume).

This nice man also gives us the Hidden Power TM! Not really sure whether I'll be using it but, it's nice to have the option in my back pocket.

Now that that's all done, it's time to return to Mahogany Town.

Before I continue on with the story, it's time to put that Red Scale to use. With that, I returned to Cherrygrove City, specifically to make another visit to Mr. Pokemon's house.

Well, it depends on what you have to offer (though I guess it is pretty valuable after all).

Done deal! Since we got the Exp. Share in Violet City (since Mr. Pokemon gives you the Exp. Share for the Red Scale in HG/SS), Mr. Pokemon offers us the Lucky Egg instead.

Anyways, back to the story, it's time to enter the souvenir shop to see what is up.

Well we got the champion of the Johto league attacking someone, that's pretty cool.

Soo forceful, though the suspicious tree with the antenna sticking out of it didn't exactly help this store out from preventing Lance from figuring out the true intent of the store.

I mean, according to the protagonist, you could clearly hear wind blowing from somewhere despite being in a closed space sooo... maybe try covering the entrance with something else?

Tfw there's an entire Team Rocket base below a souvenir shop, that no one noticed (granted, there's not many people living in Mahogany Town).

Looks like I triggered the alarm system but, the exp I get is pretty solid sooooo, I'll be triggering the rest of the alarms.

Never really thought about it but, I can actually pick up 1 of 2 possible encounters in this hideout.

Looks like I landed on an encounter when I stepped on the yellow tile. Basically, I just need to hope this Voltorb doesn't blow up on me (luckily, it didn't). I named it Arthur after an edgy (but sensitive on the inside) mage from FE4 (not the unlucky axe-wielding, royal retainer from FE14 because fk that character).

Voltorb and Electrode received some, fairly interesting changes (moreso with Electrode). Both Pokemon received Aftermath as a potential ability, which replaces Soundproof (which wasn't that bad of an ability honestly), and they both also learn Signal Beam at Level 50 and Level 62 respectively. In regards to Electrode, it now has TM/HM compatibility with TM53 Energy Ball (guess this kind of makes sense) and HM05 Whirlpool (literally can't think of a reason why Electrode could learn Whirlpool), and it learns Ice Ball at Level 1 (not even sure how an Electrode could generate ice, but ok).

Voltorb is honestly a very mediocre Electric-type in general, while it is fast af, it doesn't hit very hard and isn't very bulky either (which are usually not the best qualities for a Nuzlocke). Though, it is still kind of use since it has a decent movepool and nature so, with that in mind it'll go to the MAYBE NO/NOT box.

Also triggered all the alarms off to get the most experience possible (since I would rather not grind up regularly), and went to quickly heal up the team at Mahogany Town.

Well I wished I knew that Lance would heal my team... Would've saved me the trouble.

Alrighty then, I do kind of have to give my best to my mons since it is a Nuzlocke.

Seems like an important room, will come back here later.

Look it's Lance again.

That's a lot of important information, how'd you even get it from the time I met you to the time I came down the stairs...?

That's easier said than done .-.

Well that explains a lot, looks like in the Pokemon universe you can get any bit of information as long as you win the battle.

And it's time to explore! Need to find those 2 grunts that have access to the password to Petrel.

Also found these 2 items, Dubious Disc is cool but, I'm not ready to invest in a Porygon just yet.

And we got the 2 passwords, sound pretty dumb if you ask me.

Well, time to go up these stairs and go find Petrel again.

Wait... I thought I was supposed to find Petrel (also s/o to the Murkrow that got booted for a Chatot).

Great find honestly, though I quite like Sucker Punch on Spiritomb so I'll save this for another Pokemon.

So why is Silver down here again? Also, I was lowkey forced to mess with Team Rocket ok...

I mean, if you can't beat someone you call bad, don't think you'll be defeating Lance anytime soon honestly.

Well, he isn't the first bleeding heart you've lost to, but go off.

Ok then... that was sort of random.

Honestly, I hope they change the passwords in the future (and actually tell them to like grunts that know how to battle).

Majestic still isn't a word I'd use to describe Giovanni but, I thought it was Petrel that was supposed to be hanging out here?

The protagonist in HG/SS clearly doesn't give a fk (since he also gave some attitude to Chuck).

Well, didn't have much of a choice since Lance got lost I assume?

Hail Giovanni, classic

Aren't you sneaky... Let's just project the password next to a mon who's known to mimic other people's voices. Anyways, it's time to battle!

Vs. Petrel

Raticate - Lvl 41 - Super Fang | Double-Edge | Crunch | Quick Attack
Crobat - Lvl 41 - U-Turn | Sludge Bomb | Attract | Aerial Ace
Suntank - Lvl 41 - Poison Jab | Flamethrower | Dig | Protect
Toxicroak - Lvl 41 - Cross Chop | Sucker Punch | X-Scissor | Stone Edge
Weezing - Lvl 43 - Sludge Bomb | Fire Blast | Thunder | Dark Pulse

For whatever reason, I've always struggled with Petrel (mainly Raticate, Weezing, and Crobat give me so much trouble) and this 2nd battle is no exception. His Pokemon still hit pretty hard and that Weezing is still annoying to beat (I keep thinking it has Explosion but, I don't think it'll ever have Explosion). Just keep in mind that Crobat has Attract, I did not expect that during this battle so, it did cause me some trouble.

To start off, Petrel leads with Skuntank while I lead with Arbok to get off the Intimidate (I thought he would've led with Raticate like the previous battle).

Arbok uses Glare onto Skuntank, paralyzing it and causing it to not be able to attack.

Since Arbok had no moves to touch Skuntank with (didn't think Strength would do that much), I switched out to Blastoise as Skuntank burrows underground with Dig.

Blastoises misses Surf (obviously), and Skuntank tickles Blastoise during its ascension from Dig.

Blastoise deals quite a bit of damage with Surf, and Skuntank retaliates with a Poison Jab.

Due to paralysis, Skuntank is unable to use Protect (As mentioned before, I don't know the movesets of boss trainers very well so at the time I thought it was Sucker Punch), and another Surf takes it out.

Next up, Petrel sends in his ace Weezing while I switch out to Spiritomb (I anticipated Explosion but, Weezing doesn't have it).

Weezing attacks with Fire Blast while luckily, Spiritomb lands its Hypnosis.

While Weezing was asleep, Spiritomb boosts its Special Attack with Nasty Plot.

Unfortunately, Weezing wakes up fairly early and fires off a Fire Blast, while Spiritomb retaliates with a Shadow Ball.

I decide to heal up Spiritomb, while Weezing goes for another Fire Blast.

Weezing decides to switch things up and attack with Thunder, getting the paralysis chance in the process. However, Spiritomb is able to take out Weezing with another Shadow Ball (originally I wanted to use Sucker Punch but, I didn't want to risk losing Spiritomb if Sucker Punch doesn't KO).

Petrel then sends in his Toxicroak, while I chose to send in Infernape.

Fire Punch deals moderate damage, while Toxicroak manages to land its Cross Chop. On the next turn, a second Fire Punch takes down Toxicroak.

Now here comes the fun part of the battle, Petrel brings in his Crobat while I bring in Rotom.

Since that was a dumb move and I somehow forgot that Rotom was part Grass, I switch out to Miltank who tanks Crobat's Sludge Bomb but, gets poisoned by it.

Flashbacks to Whitney, anyways, Crobat uses Attract onto Miltank (this seems like karma for using Miltank), which prevents Miltank from attacking this turn.

I decide to switch out to Arbok to get an Intimidate off on Crobat, and because Arbok will be able to take a Sludge Bomb very well.

And then this happened... Crobat manages to snag a lucky critical hit with Aerial Ace, which causes Arbok to faint.

With Arbok gone, I send in Blastoise in its place.

Blastoise is able to tank Crobat's Sludge Bomb decently well, and it fires off an Ice Beam.

As I heal up Blastoise, Crobat attacks with U-Turn and switches out to Raticate.

Raticate attacks with Super Fang, and Blastoise goes for a Surf.

Once again, I'm forced to heal up Blastoise since Raticate hits surprisingly hard due to high BP moves + Hustle, luckily Raticate misses its Double-Edge due to Hustle.

Unfortunately, Raticate misses its Super Fang due to Hustle, and Blastoise knocks it out with another Surf.

Petrel then sends in his Crobat once again, while remarking my talents for battling.

Crobat sends off a Sludge Bomb, while Blastoise attacks with Surf, anticipating it will knock it out. At this point, I realized that I had the Choice Specs and I regret not giving it to Blastoise, since it probably would've made this battle easier.

Since Crobat barely lives on, it is able to fire off another Sludge Bomb but, a final Ice Beam takes Crobat out.

And we won after a grueling battle!

I mean, there could be multiple reasons why Giovanni could be missing (such as evading the cops maybe?)

Like the coward he is, Petrel then scurries off thinking he won the war by not helping us unlock the Radio Transmitter Room.

I mean, leaving this Chatot unattended here was sort of a bad mistake but, it works out for me.

Since there was a ton of dialogue, I wasn't able to post the aftermath earlier but, here it is. Unfortunately, Arbok did faint this battle even when it was starting to get good since it had Strength + Poison Jab at its disposal. It also saved me numerous times (especially in this update's Explosion/Self-Destruct spam) with Intimidate. Sucks that it had to go like that because of a lousy crit.

Side note, Petrel has been able to take out 2 of my party members so far, hope he doesn't claim another in the next encounter with him.

We arrive here at the room after chasing this Chatot all the way here (looks like it was smart enough to navigate the base by itself)

To think that Team Rocket's plans were foiled because of 1 bird.

Before I proceed onwards, it's time for me to heal and to find a replacement for Arbok. Also, I remembered to give Blastoise the much needed Choice Specs as well.

Wasn't really sure who I'd pick at first. I narrowed it down to Kirlia, Aerodactyl, and Treecko as potential substitutes. I ultimately decided that Aerodactyl is still pretty fast despite the -Spe nature and, I'll have access to a much needed flier which I really like.

Next update, expect Aerodactyl to be all trained up and ready to go. I'll also be finishing up the Team Rocket HQ boss fights, and challenging the Mahogany Town Gym!

Rinkah

(Infernape) @ Choice Band
Level 42
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Fire Punch
- Brick Break
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide

Haar

(Aerodactyl)
Level 20
Ability: Pressure
Quiet Nature
- Bite
- Agility
- Roar
- Scary Face

Ewan (Rotom-Mow) @ Magnet
Level 42
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Leaf Storm
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Juno

(Miltank) @ Silk Scarf
Level 41
Ability: Scrappy
Impish Nature
- Body Slam
- Zen Headbutt
- Strength
- Milk Drink

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Choice Specs
Level 42
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Zen Headbutt

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 42
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot
- Hypnosis

HotFuzzBall · Dec 22, 2018

And it's time to wrap up the Team Rocket HQ segment!

I got Aerodactyl on par with the rest of the team over the break, and I also updated its moveset. There was actually a really easy TM I missed that could've been gotten way early on, being TM40 Aerial Ace (right outside Goldenrod City) which I used on Aerodactyl as well. As mentioned before, Strength is now a Rock-type move so, Aerodactyl will have a reliable-stab move.

With that out of the way, it's time to shut down the generator but... I get stopped by Ariana.

Well, double battles are one of my favorite kinds of battles (main reason why I like the Orre series), so this shouldn't be too difficult.

Where did Lance even go? Like the hideout isn't even that big... but, at least he showed up when it counts.

Where is YOUR sense of dignity? Why am I getting read for having an accomplice when you wanted to 1v2 smh.

Vs. Ariana + Rocket Grunt (Multi Battle)

Arbok - Lvl 42 - Earthquake | Fire Fang | Crunch | Thunder Fang...............................Hypno - Lvl 41 - Meditate | Psybeam | Psych Up | Headbutt
Vileplume - Lvl 42 - Giga Drain | Growth | Sleep Powder | Sludge Bomb...............Muk - Lvl 41 - Fling | Screech | Sludge Bomb | Shadow Punch
Honchkrow - Lvl 43 - Brave Bird | Thunder Wave | Dark Pulse | Night Shade.......Magnezone - Lvl 41 - Lock-on | Magnet Bomb | Screech | Discharge

Dragonair - Lvl 44 - Fire Blast | Dragon Pulse | Thunder | Hyper Beam
Aerodactyl - Lvl 44 - Stone Edge | Crunch | Fire Fang | Ice Fang

Oddly enough, Lance doesn't have a Dragonite on his team. The trainer editor said he only had 2 Pokemon and, I made sure to check some other walkthroughs and Lance doesn't send in any other Pokemon once Aerodactyl faints. Thought that was a bit weird...

Anyways, this battle shouldn't be too difficult. The grunt is a complete joke (the previous Rocket Grunt in the double battle with Archer actually had mons with Intimidate) while Ariana's team isn't too threatening (still has issues of being slow), and having Lance on your side just makes this battle even easier.

To start the battle off, Lance and I lead with Dragonair and Miltank, while Ariana and the Rocket Grunt lead with Hypno and Arbok. Obviously like most Arboks in the game, it lowers our Attack with Intimidate.

Miltank attacks Arbok with a Zen Headbutt, while Arbok aims for Dragonair and uses Crunch.

Dragonair fires off a Dragon Pulse at Arbok, while Hypno uses Psybeam onto Miltank.

On the next turn, another Zen Headbutt takes out Arbok.

Dragonair proceeds to attack Hypno with Dragon Pulse, while Hypno uses Psybeam onto Miltank again, unfortunately landing a critical hit.

Ariana then sends in her next Pokemon, Vileplume.

Since I didn't want to waste a healing item (plus Miltank's Attack was lowered due to Intimidate), I decide to send in Spiritomb.

Dragonair snags the OHKO with a critical hit Fire Blast onto Vileplume.

Hypno randomly decides to boost its Attack with Headbutt as well (I guess it wants to spam Headbutt later on?)

Lastly, Ariana sends in her ace, Honchkrow.

Honchkrow is able to take out Dragonair with Brave Bird.

Hypno continues to boost its Attack with Meditate, while Spiritomb nearly takes out Hypno with Shadow Ball.

Lance then sends in his final Pokemon, Aerodactyl.

Aerodactyl's Stone Edge easily takes out Honchkrow.

Once again, Hypno keeps trying to boost its Attack with Meditate but, all those boosts are futile as another Shadow Ball takes it out.

The Rocket Grunt then sends in his next Pokemon, Muk.

Aerodactyl and Spiritomb tag-team Muk with Stone Edge and Shadow Ball respectively, while Muk decides to lower Spiritomb's Defense with Screech.

On the next turn, Aerodactyl's Crunch picks up the KO onto Muk.

And to conclude this battle, the Rocket Grunt sends in his Magnezone.

Aerodactyl attacks with Fire Fang, while Magnezone retaliates with Magnet Bomb onto Magnezone. Unfortunately, Spiritomb misses its Hypnosis.

Next turn is still similar to the last turn, Aerodactyl attacks with Fire Fang while Magnezone goes for Magnet Bomb. However, Spiritomb manages to chunk Magnezone slightly with Shadow Ball.

Spiritomb's Sucker Punch misses because Magnezone randomly decides not to attack (I mean that was weird considering Aerodactyl was so low), and a final Fire Fang takes it down.

And we won!

Sounds sinister though, I wonder what will happen to this hideout (it'd be a waste to let it become some sort of ruins).

I mean, Lance picked up all the KOs and tanked most of the hits so I can't really accept all the credit.

We could just destroy the machine, I mean your Dragonite didn't hesitate with blasting the souvenir salesman with a Hyper Beam.

Looks like I'm dragged into Lance's euthanasia journey (even though we aren't killing anything per say, side note Pokemon faint... not die)

Aftermath of the battle, besides that 1 Psybeam Miltank tanked, both Ariana and the Rocket Grunt seemed to always attack Lance's Pokemon. So it was a very easy battle overall.

Let's start, I wished I caught one of these Electrodes (instead of the Voltorbs in the previous update), would've saved me the time since Voltorb isn't exactly the most fun mon to train.

Good we saved Mahogany Town and we get HM05 Whirlpool! Which can be taught to Electrode funnily enough (considering we just took 6 of em' out)

I mean that's the whole reason why I went on this journey right? Not just another kid slave for a professor ya'know.

Now with all that out of the way, we can return to Mahogany Town!

But before that, I actually want to switch Rotom-Cut into Rotom-Frost since it'll have a better matchup during the next gym battle.

Now that I'm back, it's time to do the same old routine of clearing out the Gym trainers and then grind if I have to.

Needed to grind just a handful of levels for 2/3's of my team to Level 43, didn't really take too long.

Before I challenge Pryce, I did some adjustments to the team as well. I gave Rotom the Choice Specs and gave Blastoise the Mystic Water instead because, I decided to teach Blastoise Rain Dance using the TM we got from the basement of Slowpoke Well (so I guess it wasn't a waste of a trip after all).

I mean knowing any Ice/Fire/Water/Rock/Ground Gym Leader in any hacked game from Gen 3 forwards, there's going to be some sort of auto-weather setter leading the team.

Weren't you the main villain of the whole Johto arc in Pokemon Adventures?

Well let's hope this battle will be more of a challenge than the previous Gym battle.

Vs. Pryce

Alright so, Pryce shouldn't be too difficult overall. There are some things you should be cautioned about such as RestTalk Dewgong, PerishTrap Lapras, and Spikes (though Glalie tends to be one of the last Pokemon Pryce sends in oddly enough). Mamoswine can be a bit of a problem if you aren't able to OHKO it just because it hits extremely hard and, has Ice Shard to pick off weakened Pokemon. Like most trainers that specialize in Ice-types, anticipate Blizzard spam if the Hail is up so, try and get rid of it ASAP.

To start us off, Pryce leads with his Abomasnow to summon the Hail with Snow Warning, while I lead with Infernape.

Very easy turn 1, Fire Punch knocks out Abomasnow in a single hit.

Next up, Pryce sends in his Dewgong while I switch out to Blastoise, mainly just to set up Rain Dance to cancel out the Hail.

Blastoise uses Rain Dance to get rid of the Hail, while Dewgong attacks with Surf.

Now at this point, I kind of realized that I fked up because I don't want to risk any of my mons to a rain-boosted Surf (especially if it manages to crit). So I had Blastoise stay in until the rain went away. So for this turn and the next 2 turns, both Blastoise and Dewgong attack each other with Surf.

Both of us decided to heal up our Pokemon as well, the rain also ended during this turn.

Since the rain disappeared, I decided to send in Rotom which tanks a Surf fairly well.

Rotom's Thunderbolt easily KOs Dewgong.

Pryce then sends in his ace, Mamoswine, while I switch back to Blastoise.

Truthfully, I was a bit surprised but, Blastoise manages to OHKO Mamoswine with Surf (I thought Mamoswine would have barely held on though, I'm not complaining since that's big threat down).

Moving on, Pryce sends in his Froslass and I switch out to Spiritomb instead.

Fortunately, Froslass does miss its Blizzard while Spiritomb is able to do great damage with Shadow Ball.

Sucker Punch easily takes out Froslass.

Pryce decides to send in his Lapras and, I send in Rotom once again.

Thunderbolt deals a great deal of damage and, manages to inflict the paralysis onto Lapras. Lapras is also able to recover some of the damage off with its Sitrus Berry (not that it'll matter).

During the same turn, Lapras also uses Perish Song.

Didn't matter in the end, another Thunderbolt easily takes down Lapras.

And lastly, Pryce sends in his hazard setter, Glalie (maybe this should've been one of the earlier mons you send in? Not that it'd matter since it'd probably get OHKO-ed).

Side note, Glalie also received a type-change in this game. Instead of being pure Ice, it is now an Ice/Rock-type.

Now since Glalie has a 4x weakness to Fighting moves now, Close Combat easily OHKOs Glalie.

That's a wrap! Wasn't too difficult of a battle overall.

Well, it's not the first time I've played this game, ohohoho

All the spoils of the battle, also why doesn't Pryce just give me Ice Beam... Instead he gives you TM07 Hail because he's a cheapskate.

Aftermath of the battle, as you can tell, the battle was quite easy since not many of my mons sustained a lot of damage (granted I did use a Hyper Potion). MVP would probably go to both Blastoise and Rotom (Infernape probably coming in 3rd but, I could've just sent in Blastoise against Glalie). Blastoise cleared out the hail, and stalled Dewgong while taking out Mamoswine. On the other hand, Rotom dealt with 2 potentially annoying threats fairly swiftly. Overall, I think both of them deserve the MVP status since they both put in an equal amount of work.

Well, that is the end of Update #16. On the next update, I'll be exploring the Lake of Rage (when it's not raining) and dealing with more Team Rocket shenanigans at Goldenrod City! o/

Rinkah

(Infernape) @ Choice Band
Level 43
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Fire Punch
- Brick Break
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide

Haar

(Aerodactyl) @ Hard Stone
Level 43
Ability: Pressure
Quiet Nature
- Strength
- Aerial Ace
- Fly
- Crunch

Ewan (Rotom-Frost) @ Choice Specs
Level 43
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Blizzard
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Juno

(Miltank) @ Silk Scarf
Level 41
Ability: Scrappy
Impish Nature
- Body Slam
- Zen Headbutt
- Strength
- Milk Drink

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Mystic Water
Level 43
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Rain Dance

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 44
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot
- Hypnosis

Author_Pendragon · Dec 22, 2018

And now we've got another Dray hack out! I need to play through this one first though.

PS: I'd love to see Bellsprout added to the team if something dies!

HotFuzzBall · Dec 27, 2018

Alright time to start Update #17

As soon as we exit the gym, I immediately received a call from Elm regarding mysterious radio broadcasts. Conveniently right after we stopped the radio waves around Mahogany Town.

I mean... Do people just not notice the handful of Rocket Grunts scattered around Goldenrod City (there's literally a few out in plain sight, in front of some pretty big important landmarks such as the Game Corner and Radio Tower).

Well before I go deal with that... Since it's Wednesday (at the time I played), it's time to explore the Lake of Rage when it's not raining!

Also, with the Team Rocket guards gone, the actual guard gives us TM36 Sludge Bomb, apparently the thought of spewing toxic waste at your opponent makes him uncomfortable.

And it's time to begin exploring, starting with the east side of the lake.

The search proved to be futile, only got a single Full Heal from this side.

Onto the west side! I know we can pick up an item that I guess I could sort of use?

Goodness, more mazes.

This is said item I mentioned a few screenshots ago, we get the Black Belt from Wesley of the week siblings. So far, I've met 6/7 of the siblings, the last on is at Blackthorn City so, that won't be done for a while.

You don't really gain much from the Lake of Rage when it's not raining, anyways, time to see what is going on at Goldenrod City.

Well, I guess people noticed the Team Rocket takeover when it was a bit too late...

Sounds suspicious but, I'm still going to gonna explore.

Wow, Team Rocket really do have a tight grasp around the tower. Unfortunately, battling this guy so he could move out of the way wasn't an option.

If I remember correctly, there is a way to get a secret stash of Team Rocket costumes. Also, the underground is so empty now that Team Rocket has taken over.

Yeah sureee I'm a newcomer I guess? Well, it's a good thing I remember this place because when I first played HG/SS, I was stuck around this point and had no idea where to go.

Wow I'm like an actual Team Rocket grunt! Well, if you ignore the way I styled the hat but, it looks good. All I'm missing is either a Ratatta or Zubat as my partner Pokemon.

Phew, I guess the guard isn't so smart after all (considering there are slight modifications to the uniform).

Well, now you show up at the most inconvenient time .-.

I like how the MC faces the wall during this event, thought it was a nice touch since I probably would've done the same (I guess?). Silver also has no qualms about stripping me in front of the guy to reveal my true identity.

Thanks Silver... Veeeeery convenient of you to ruin an almost perfectly executed plan to sneak in.

... I have no words, I mean call me meek when you win a battle (or at least take out one of my mons).

Well if you say so, I'll be waiting (not like I have a say in the matter).

With that out of the way, it's time to scale the radio tower and try to take out all the Rocket Grunts in the way. Side note, when I first played HG/SS, I was really into Buena's Password but, the rewards are ok but, the amount of effort to get them is kind of troublesome.

Wow, for someone who is distressed, you sure show a lot of attitude.

I believe this is the 3rd floor? Not really sure, but one of the Rocket Grunts did give me some trouble.

That's why I'm here, though I'm surprised Team Rocket would still allow me to roam around rather than call for reinforcements or something.

4th floor, almost to the director's office.

I've always thought Meowth looks so weird on all 4's as opposed to standing on 2 legs.

And I made it! Also look at Ariana over there guarding the elevator.

That's weird, did someone threaten the director to say those things? I mean what's stopping him from just sending out an SOS through the radio broadcasts.

Oh that explains a lot... It must be Petrel I assume.

Yep it's Petrel, though I highly doubt people would support Team Rocket (I bet they'd just go on strike and try to get the director to resign). Anyways, it's time to battle Petrel for the last time (or is it?).

Vs. Petrel

Raticate - Lvl 44 - Double-Edge | Flame Wheel | Crunch | Toxic
Suntank - Lvl 44 - Toxic | Explosion | Crunch | Protect
Tangrowth - Lvl 44 - Toxic | Protect | Power Whip | Earthquake
Toxicroak - Lvl 44 - Cross Chop | Toxic | Protect | Stone Edge
Hypno - Lvl 44 - Disable | Toxic | Protect | Psychic
Weezing @ Sitrus Berry - Lvl 45 - Sludge Bomb | Protect | Destiny Bond | Toxic

As you can tell by the movesets, Petrel's strategy in this battle is to Toxic stall your Pokemon and to generally annoy you with moves such as Explosion, Disable, and Destiny Bond as well.. 5/6 of his team employ the Toxic + Protect strategy (Raticate really has it for bulkier foes since it doesn't have Super Fang anymore). Honestly, this battle could go either way (considering set-up sweepers get screwed over) since his Pokemon still hit pretty hard, while also being pretty bulky as well. If you have hard-hitting Pokemon, then it shouldn't be too difficult but if you don't, you might be in for an obnoxious battle.

Anyways to start the battle off, Petrel leads with his Raticate while I send in Blastoise.

This did surprise initially honestly, Raticate goes and poisons Blastoise with Toxic while Blastoise attacks it with Surf.

Raticate retaliates with an extremely hard-hitting Double-Edge (Hustle-boosted fyi, I also found out that opposing Pokemon always use the 1st ability in gen 4) and Blastoise takes down Raticate with another Surf. Blastoise does barely survive the poison as well which was what I was most worried about.

Next up, Petrel sends in his Tangrowth while I opt for Infernape.

Infernape attacks with Fire Punch, while Tangrowth goes for the Toxic.

This will be a reoccurring theme but, Tangrowth uses Protect to block the incoming Fire Punch. During the next turn, another Fire Punch does manage to KO Tangrowth.

Up next, Petrel sends in his Hypno while I decide to switch out to Spiritomb.

Fortunately for me, Hypno missed its Toxic, allowing Spiritomb to freely fire off a Shadow Ball.

Though Hypno does land its 2nd Toxic but, another Shadow Ball takes it out.

And then Petrel sends in his Toxicroak, while I switch to Aerodactyl.

Aerodactyl takes to the skies with Fly, allowing it to avoid the incoming Toxic.

The descent from Fly nearly takes out Toxicroak (should've given Aerodactyl the Sharp Beak honestly), and Toxicroak is able to land its Toxic this time.

Petrel decides to heal up Toxicroak, while Aerodactyl attacks with an Aerial Ace.

On the next turn, another Aerial Ace takes down Toxicroak.

Petrel then sends in Skuntank, while I switch to Rotom.

Once again, Skuntank poisons Rotom with Toxic while Rotom attacks with Thunderbolt.

And again, Skuntank uses Protect to block the next attack. On the next turn, Skuntank attacks with Crunch but, another Thunderbolt takes out Skuntank.

Lastly, Petrel sends in the equivalent to Whitney's Miltank, his ace Weezing while I (funnily enough), send in my own Miltank.

For whatever reason, Weezing decides to use Protect (even though it didn't even use Toxic yet).

Miltank attacks with a Zen Headbutt, doing moderate damage, while Weezing manages to land a Toxic onto it.

I decide to cure the poison with an Antidote, and Weezing fails its Protect since I didn't attack it.

Luckily for me, Miltank's Body Slam manages to paralyze Weezing, causing it to eat its Sitrus Berry. On the same turn, Weezing misses its Toxic as well.

Miltank attacks with another Body Slam but, Weezing does manage to land another Toxic this time.

During this turn, Weezing gets fully paralyzed which prevents it from using Protect, which allows Miltank to get in another Body Slam.

Though Petrel heals up Weezing to full, while Miltank goes for yet another Body Slam.

I decided to cure Miltank with another Antidote, and Weezing gets fully paralyzed again.

This was honestly carelessness on my part. Anticipating Weezing to use Toxic again (since it would usually go for Toxic on any non-poisoned targets), I had Miltank use Body Slam instead. Though, Weezing decides to randomly switch it up and fire off a Sludge Bomb which spelt the end for Miltank... I really should've played it safe and healed up Miltank honestly.

I then send in Spiritomb to wrap up the battle.

Weezing attempts to stall with Protect but during the following turn, Shadow Ball takes down Weezing.

And with that, we have beaten Petrel! Hopefully, this is the end of obnoxious Weezings (fk Weezing honestly).

Right... apparently even Rocket Executives have loose lips when beaten by some kid.

Alright, if you say so (spilling a lot of important information just by losing, I mean you could've just ran away).

This is the aftermath of the battle, I had no Antidotes (I did not expect this battle to be a Toxic Stall War) so I didn't stock up, so I had to heal up my party to full before leaving. Anyways, unfortunately I lost Miltank due to carelessness (in all honesty, I was so done with the battle at that point and just wanted it to be over). The battle was definitely harder than when Petrel had his Pokemon with predominantly attacking moves but, that was just based on my team set up.

Also decided to heal up my team here since some of the members were close to fainting. I also decided to replace Miltank with Kirlia (it was either between Kirlia or Girafarig but, I wanted to go for a "safer" pick this time around). Also, I noticed in this game that Kirlia uses the BW sprite, instead of the HGSS sprite.

That concludes Update #17! In the next update, I'll be continuing with the whole Goldenrod City, Team Rocket takeover arc!

Rinkah

(Infernape) @ Choice Band
Level 45
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Fire Punch
- Brick Break
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide

Haar

(Aerodactyl) @ Hard Stone
Level 44
Ability: Pressure
Quiet Nature
- Strength
- Aerial Ace
- Fly
- Crunch

Ewan (Rotom-Frost) @ Magnet
Level 45
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Blizzard
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Micaiah

(Kirlia)
Level 35
Ability: Synchronize
Naive Nature
- Psychic
- Extrasensory
- Magical Leaf
- Calm Mind

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Choice Specs
Level 44
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Rain Dance

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 44
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot
- Hypnosis

Author_Pendragon - Bellsprout is probably a mon I'll pick up and use in Kanto since I don't think it'll be too useful in Johto (seems like Johto isn't very kind to Grass-types). Also yeah I saw Renegade Platinum too! I'll probably wait for a bit since I have quite a few games I would like to finish atm!

HotFuzzBall · Dec 30, 2018

Time for a new update! In this update, I'll be covering the majority of the Rocket Invasion.

Unfortunately during the last update, I lost Miltank (Petrel literally took out 1 team member during each battle). Over the break, I trained up Kirlia until it evolved into a Gardevoir. I also taught it Thunderbolt as well (I thought it would've been better than Magical Leaf, though I wished I still has Shadow Ball) and let it hold the Twisted Spoon.

With that aside, the team is all ready and it's time to save the director.

Look it's another one of the kimono sisters (though not sure what she's doing here).

Wait, you aren't going to help me defeat Team Rocket? I mean they are still here after all .-.

No matter, I knew I was gonna be stuck cleaning up this mess.

What perfect timing, also I only met Lance like once, so why would he tail me at this point.

Pretty sure I missed a screenshot here, I'm think Silver said I will repay it forward or something but, either way he wants to battle and allegedly claims that he will win this time.

Vs. Silver

Honchkrow - Lvl 45 - Drill Peck | Toxic | Protect | Roost
Magmar - Lvl 44 - Flamethrower | Will-O-Wisp | Psychic | Focus Blast
Electabuzz - Lvl 44 - Thunderbolt | Thunder Wave | Psychic | Focus Blast
Gengar - Lvl 45 - Shadow Ball | Giga Drain | Thunder | Hypnosis
Alakazam - Lvl 45 - Psychic | Shock Wave | Energy Ball | Thunder Wave
Feraligatr - Lvl 46 - Waterfall | Swords Dance | Crunch | Ice Fang

It has been a long time since we last battled Silver, the last battle was during Update #8 iirc. Anyways, Silver is actually not a pushover compared to the last few battles since he actually uses TMs/HMs instead of relying on level-up sets. His team shouldn't be too difficult during this battle, though Silver loves to use status conditions (each of his Pokemon bar the starter have status-inducing moves), which can be annoying.

Anyways, Silver leads with his Honchkrow while I chose to lead with Aerodactyl.

Honchkrow decides to stall a bit by using Protect, which causes Strength to be blocked.

During the next turn, Aerodactyl attacks with Strength which nearly takes out Honchkrow, while it retaliates with Drill Peck.

Another Strength eventually takes out Honchkrow.

Next up, Silver sends in Electabuzz and I switch out to Gardevoir.

Electabuzz paralyzes Gardevoir with Thunder Wave but, Synchronize also causes Electabuzz to be paralyzed as well. On the same turn, Gardevoir deals heavy damage with Psychic.

Electabuzz fires off a Thunderbolt which doesn't do too much and Gardevoir is able to KO Electabuzz with another Psychic.

Silver then sends in his Gengar, while I decide to send in Spiritomb.

Fortunately for me, Gengar ends up missing Hypnosis, allowing Spiritomb to fire off a free Shadow Ball.

Once again, these inaccurate moves are doing me favors. Gengar misses its Thunder, and Spiritomb takes out Gengar with another Shadow Ball.

Magmar gets sent in next, and I swap out to Blastoise.

Surf actually gets a critical hit onto Magmar (not that it mattered), and takes it out in a single hit.

Silver then chooses his Alakazam, and I opt for Spiritomb once again.

Alakazam fires off an Energy Ball, while Spiritomb retaliates with a hard-hitting Shadow Ball.

Sucker Punch is able to clean up Alakazam on the following turn (one day I'll get the actual "punch" on screenshot).

And lastly, Silver sends in his ace, Feraligatr, while I send in Rotom. Also, the only one serious here is you.

Rotom's Thunderbolt nearly takes out Feraligatr, and also gets the paralysis chance as well. Feraligatr also decides to boost its Attack with Swords Dance, even though it will be useless.

One last Thunderbolt takes down Feraligatr.

That's another victory for me! Silver should really try to improve next time.

Well, that's what literally everyone has been saying but, yes that is the reason.

So are you going to hel-.... alright guess I'm still going to halt this invasion solo ._.

Aftermath of the battle, even though Silver stepped up his game, it still was kind of easy (not as easy as Jasmine/Pryce) but, I wished there was a bit more of a challenge considering he is all talk.

Then it's time to maneuver through this puzzle, also you can find the Smoke Ball here I guess?

Now it's time to finish off the last of the Rocket Grunts and save the director! Also, you get Sleep Talk here which could be useful since I believe I have access to Rest since I delivered the guard's Spearow a while back.

I'm more or less here for the card key but, since I'm here I might as well save you. Oh and the Radio Tower is more like the Rocket Tower at this point.

That was the plan, though will I be able to keep it?

That is a scary thought, considering what went down at Mahogany Town. Though, it seems like they are trying to garner the support of the public at this stage and, that's also a lot of pressure for some kid...

Now that that's done, it's time to leave. You can also get the Amulet Coin here as well, it's unchanged from the base game fyi.

The workers here don't seem to mind that I'm here but, it's time to continue my own plan to halt Team Rocket's Radio Tower takeover.

I'm guessing the admins should be the next few battles now that I have access to this part of the tower, considering I saw them across the walls.

Yup, first up its Proton, a face we haven't seen for a while since he wasn't invited during the Safari Zone takeover.

I mean, I'm doing this because no one else wants to help me...

Alright alright, I'm sure you want revenge after getting humiliated.

Vs. Proton

Electrode - Lvl 45 - Rain Dance | Thunder | Explosion | Protect
Weezing - Lvl 45 - Thunder | Sludge Bomb | Psybeam | Will-O-Wisp
Cacturne - Lvl 45 - Needle Arm | Sucker Punch | Focus Blast | Thunder Punch
Tauros - Lvl 45 - Take Down | Zen Headbutt | Earthquake | Payback
Camerupt - Lvl 45 - Earth Power | Fire Blast | Protect | Stone Edge
Crobat @ Sitrus Berry - Lvl 46 - Cross Poison | Brave Bird | Heat Wave | X-Scissor

Proton really has changed his team quite a bit since we last fought him. If Petrel is the more stall-like defensive Admin, then Proton employs a very offensive team. All of his Pokemon have hard-hitting moves such as Thunder and Brave Bird, which you should watch out for. Unfortunately, his team shouldn't be too difficult (once you take out Crobat and Tauros, it really should be a cake walk), since the rest of his team either isn't bulky, isn't fast or both (sorry Camerupt and Cacturne).

To start us off, we have Proton's Electrode vs. my own Infernape.

Electrode decides to summon the rain with Rain Dance but, it gets immediately taken down by Infernape's Close Combat. Though, Electrode still manages to chip Infernape with Aftermath.

Next up, Proton sends in his ace, Crobat and I switch out to Rotom.

Crobat attacks with Cross Poison (luckily it doesn't crit, since it does have a high crit chance), and Thunderbolt OHKOs it.

Then Proton sends in Camerupt, and I opt for Blastoise.

Not really much to say since the outcome was obvious, Surf easily OHKOs Camerupt.

Next up, we have Proton's Cacturne and I send in Aerodactyl.

Sucker Punch does a great deal to Aerodactyl, and it retaliates with Aerial Ace which nearly takes out Cacturne.

I immediately switch out Aerodactyl for Infernape but, Proton decides to heal up Cacturne with a Hyper Potion.

Though it doesn't matter since Infernape's Close Combat easily takes down Cacturne.

Then we have my favorite Pokemon to go against, Weezing, and I switch out to Spiritomb (I'm not sure why I'm always paranoid of Explosion, Gardevoir could've easily made Weezing a joke).

Weezing burns Spiritomb with a Will-O-Wisp, however, Spiritomb unfortunately missed its Hypnosis.

Thunder deals pretty decent damage to Spiritomb, Spiritomb also boosts its Special Attack with Nasty Plot.

I decided to heal up Spiritomb since I wasn't sure if it would live another Thunder + burn damage, and Weezing also attacks with another Thunder.

Once again, Weezing fires off another Thunder, and Spiritomb retaliates with its own Shadow Ball which Weezing barely survives. Luckily, Spiritomb barely survives the damage from burn.

I decided to send in Gardevoir, who tanks Weezing's Sludge Bomb very well.

Gardevoir's Extrasensory finishes off Weezing.

Lastly, Proton sends in his Tauros (another one of my favorite Pokemon to battle against /s) and I send in Blastoise.

Tauros attacks with Take Down (was there no budget for Double Edge?) while Blastoise fires off a Surf.

Same turn except Proton calls me a "what" as opposed to "who"... Take Down nearly takes out Blastoise but unfortunately, one last Surf takes out Tauros.

That's 2 admins down, we won!

Well, I'm sure I'll be back to suppress whatever new plans you'll have in the future with ease.

Aftermath of the battle, it was trickier than I anticipated but, I still managed to have all team members standing (despite some really close calls against Weezing and Tauros).

Annoying thing about the Rocket Takeover is how long it takes to heal up (since I have to go all the way to the 1st floor to heal using the PC) but, I have returned to the 4th floor to face Ariana!

It's not going to be easy for sure, though I doubt things would've changed even if Lance didn't show up honestly.

Vs. Ariana

Anyways, Ariana leads with her Jynx while I lead with Aerodactyl.

Aerodactyl's Strength easily OHKOs Jynx, great start to the battle. (Keep in mind, Strength is a Rock-type move in this game).

Next up, Ariana sends in her Milotic and I switch out to Rotom.

Somehow, Milotic does outspeed Rotom and attacks with Surf. Luckily, Rotom's Thunderbolt manages to crit and takes out Milotic.

Ariana sends in Vileplume, and I switch out to Infernape.

Like the 1st battle with Ariana, Fire Punch OHKOs Vileplume.

Then we have Ariana's ace, Honchkrow, and I send in Aerodactyl once again.

Like before, Strength easily takes down Honchkrow in a single hit.

Up next, Ariana decides to send in her Arbok (which gets off an Intimidate), and I send in Blastoise.

Blastoise deals quite a bit of damage with Surf, and luckily for me, Arbok does miss its Gunk Shot.

And another Surf takes down Arbok.

This is probably where I could've done better honestly (also wished I taught Spiritomb Dark Pulse at this point), Ariana sends in her Purugly and I swap out to Spiritomb.

Anticipating Purugly to attack, Spiritomb uses Sucker Punch but it fails since Purugly ends up using Hypnosis.

Since this was going to go nowhere, I decide to switch out to Infernape, Purugly also attempts to use Protect but it failed.

And this is when things get very annoying since this Purugly has a really weird strategy. Purugly puts Infernape to sleep with Hypnosis and on the next turn, it uses Protect.

Purugly decides to use Protect again and luckily, Infernape wakes up but, it can't attack since Purugly uses Protect.

And then Infernape goes back to sleep since Purugly uses Hypnosis again. As mentioned before, Purugly loves to use Hypnosis to put your mons to sleep, and then spam Protect, which is a really weird strategy honestly.

More Protect spam coming from Purugly.

Purugly decides to switch it up and attack with Body Slam while Infernape is still asleep.

More Protect spam, again...

This turn, Purugly probably ran out of Protects (I definitely missed a few screenshots, since I also did heal up Infernape at some point as seen with the random increase in HP) and attacks with Body Slam a few times.

Eventually, Infernape wakes up and is able to OHKO Purugly with a Close Combat.

That's 3 admins down, 1 more to go! We won again!

Interesting how someone from Team Rocket still has some dignity in them.

Another screenshot of the aftermath, this battle was pretty easy until the whole weird stalling shenanigans with Purugly. I missed quite a few screenshots since all I wanted was the battle to be over but, it would've been boring putting the same screenshots over and over again.

With that, this concludes Update #18. In the next update, I'll be concluding the Rocket Takeover and see where I'll go from there!

Rinkah

(Infernape) @ Choice Band
Level 46
Ability: Blaze
Relaxed Nature
- Fire Punch
- Brick Break
- Close Combat
- Rock Slide

Haar

(Aerodactyl) @ Hard Stone
Level 46
Ability: Pressure
Quiet Nature
- Strength
- Aerial Ace
- Fly
- Crunch

Ewan (Rotom-Frost) @ Magnet
Level 46
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Blizzard
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Micaiah

(Gardevoir) @ Twisted Spoon
Level 45
Ability: Synchronize
Naive Nature
- Psychic
- Extrasensory
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Choice Specs
Level 46
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Rain Dance

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 45
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot
- Hypnosis

King Feraligatr · Jan 2, 2019

Actually, Trainers in HGSS can use other Abilities other than their slot 1 Ability. It's just the Gen 4 Trainer editors (that I've seen) don't support Ability changing and one of them defaults all Abilities to slot 1 anyways when you edit Trainers, so yeah. It'd have to be something you'd hex edit onto the Trainers' Pokemon (don't ask me how to do that).

HotFuzzBall · Jan 3, 2019

Alright, time to wrap this takeover up and continue with my Pokemon master journey (or something like that)! Last time, I took out Silver, Proton, and Ariana and it's time to face the final boss of Team Rocket.

Here I go, to the top of the tower.

Oh so that's the whole reason? Kind of underwhelming honestly since I expected a much bigger, more dramatic reason.

Alright, let's see how it goes, time to battle Archer again!

Vs. Archer

Zangoose - Lvl 46 - Close Combat | Disable | Shadow Claw | Crush Claw
Gyarados - Lvl 46 - Waterfall | Bounce | Ice Fang | Earthquake
Drapion @ Sitrus Berry - Lvl 46 - Earthquake | Crunch | Cross Poison | Aqua Tail
Scizor - Lvl 46 - X-Scissor | Swords Dance | Bullet Punch | Superpower
Machamp - Lvl 46 - Cross Chop | Earthquake | Stone Edge | Payback
Houndoom @ Focus Sash - Lvl 48 - Fire Blast | Dark Pulse | Sunny Day | Solarbeam

On the surface, Archer's team seems threatening since all his Pokemon hit quite hard and they have a ton of coverage options to choose from. However, Archer shouldn't be too difficult honestly. His Pokemon tend aren't bulky (or have exploitable weaknesses, in regards to Gyarados and Scizor) and they either have a low or mediocre speed stat (bar Houndoom). As long as your Pokemon can OHKO or 2HKO all of his mons, you should be fine.

With that all aside, Archer leads with Zangoose and I chose to lead with Infernape.

Easy turn 1, Close Combat OHKOs Zangoose.

Next up, Archer sends in his Gyarados (which also gets off an Intimidate, not that it matters), and I send in Rotom.

Once again, Thunderbolt secures a very easy KO onto Gyarados.

Up next, Archer sends in his Machamp and I switch out to Gardevoir.

Not much else to say, Psychic picks up yet another easy KO.

This is where things get slightly "harder". Archer sends in his Drapion, while I decide to send in Blastoise.

Crunch deals a decent chunk to Blastoise, and Blastoise retaliates with Surf which activates Drapion's Sitrus Berry.

Drapion attacks with another Crunch but, another Surf takes it down.

Archer then sends in his ace, Houndoom, and I send in Infernape once again.

Unfortunately, Houndoom's Fire Blast nearly takes out Infernape since it was a critical hit (this did frighten me at the time, since I was like why is this Fire Blast doing so much damage). Infernape retaliates with a Close Combat which would've OHKOed Houndoom had it not been for its Focus Sash.

I immediately swap out Infernape for Aerodactyl, while Archer chose to heal up Houndoom back to full HP.

Doesn't really matter that Houndoom got healed, Aerodactyl's Strength easily takes it down.

Lastly, Archer sends in his Scizor and I switch back out to Infernape. The word "resurgence" also got cut off but, you can probably tell what the word is regardless.

I decide to quickly heal up Infernape, anticipating some sort of priority move from Scizor, which did happen since Scizor attacks with Bullet Punch.

Infernape's Fire Punch takes out Scizor with ease.

Quite an easy battle overall, we won pretty easily.

Well don't be so hard on yourself, I'm sure you did alright for a Team Rocket boss (I guess?).

And look who decided to show up, it's Giovanni! See your work hasn't totally been all for naught (this is another one of the "special events" exclusive to SG/SS).

Giovanni surely has no chill but, he is the OG boss after all.

So were you involved with Archer's plan or not? I'm a bit confused here since you sound like you were. Anyways, it's time to prepare for another battle!

Vs. Giovanni

Persian - Lvl 48 - Hypnosis | Fake Out | Slash | Night Slash
Kangaskhan - Lvl 48 - Double-Edge | Low Kick | Sucker Punch | Earthquake
Tauros - Lvl 48 - Earthquake | Double-Edge | Stone Edge | Payback
Nidoqueen - Lvl 49 - Earth Power | Toxic | Ice Beam | Protect
Nidoking - Lvl 50 - Earthquake | Ice Beam | Thunderbolt | Superpower
Rhyperior @ Sitrus Berry - Lvl 50 - Earthquake | Megahorn | Stone Edge | Hammer Arm

The good thing about this is that your party will be fully healed before the battle, the bad thing is you won't be able to make any changes to your party (swapping items, rearranging the order, etc.). Overall, Giovanni is probably the 2nd hardest boss trainer in this whole game. The main reason being is that his Pokemon are higher leveled and most people don't expect this battle during their 1st run in the game (I nearly got wiped out during my first run).

The main Pokemon that will give you the most trouble, would be all 3 of his Normal-types. Persian is fast and has Fake Out/Hypnosis, while both Kangaskhan and Tauros have pretty decent bulk while they are able to hit really hard and have ample coverage. Nidoking and Nidoqueen can also be troublesome (moreso Nidoking) but, they don't have Sheer Force (yay for gen 5) and any Water-type should dispatch them with ease (and there are a lot of great Water-types in the game).

To start us off, Giovanni leads with his iconic Persian while I lead with Infernape.

Persian attacks with Fake Out, which causes Infernape to flinch.

Next turn, Persian gets a critical hit with Slash (flashbacks to Gen 1 crit mechanics) which unfortunately takes out Infernape... Off to a fantastic start so far.

I decide to send in Aerodactyl in Infernape's stead.

Persian attacks with Night Slash, while Aerodactyl attacks with Strength.

Giovanni decides to swap out Persian for Nidoking, which takes Aerodactyl's Strength very well. Unfortunately, Nidoking's Poison Point ends up poisoning Aerodactyl in the process.

I swap out Aerodactyl for Blastoise, which easily tanks Nidoking's Ice Beam.

Blastoise outspeeds and OHKOs Nidoking with Surf.

Next up, Giovanni sends in his Kangaskhan and I send in Spiritomb.

At this point, I really wished I taught Spiritomb Dark Pulse. Anyways, Spiritomb does a decent-ish chunk with Sucker Punch while Kangaskhan goes for the Earthquake.

Repeat of the previous turn, Spiritomb goes for Sucker Punch while Kangaskhan goes for Earthquake.

Since I wanted to conserve Sucker Punch's PP (just in case), I switch out to Rotom which is immune to the upcoming Earthquake.

Kangaskhan attacks with Sucker Punch and luckily for me, Rotom gets a critical hit with Thunderbolt which takes out Kangaskhan (not sure if the crit mattered).

Giovanni then sends in his ace, Rhyperior, while I send in Blastoise once again.

Blastoise's Surf easily OHKOs Rhyperior.

Up next, Giovanni sends in Tauros which gets off a useless Intimidate and I stay in with Blastoise.

Really wish that I had Torrent on Blastoise right now. Tauros' Double-Edge nearly takes down Blastoise, and Surf also almost takes out Tauros as well.

A bit of a risky play but, I switch out Blastoise for Spiritomb and Giovanni heals Tauros back to full.

I also decide to heal Spiritomb back up while Tauros attacks with Stone Edge.

Tauros attacks with Earthquake which dealt quite a bit to Spiritomb and Spiritomb puts it to sleep with Hypnosis.

Another very risky play on my part, I then switch out Spiritomb for Gardevoir (which would have been KOed by any of Tauros' moves).

Tauros manages to stay asleep and Gardevoir deals over half with Psychic.

Very lucky that Tauros stays asleep during the 3rd turn, and another Psychic takes out Tauros.

Honestly thought I took out Persian at the time, but I didn't. Anyways, Giovanni sends in his Persian again and I switch out to Rotom.

Rotom tanks the incoming Fake Out fairly well.

I then proceed to send in Aerodactyl, which led to some annoying outcomes. The one-time I did not want Persian to land a crit, it ends up landing a critical hit onto Aerodactyl. Combined with the damage from poison (s/o to Nidoking's Poison Point), Aerodactyl ends up falling.

Then I send in Spiritomb as the replacement.

I decide to heal up Spiritomb once again and fortunately, Persian misses its Hypnosis.

Though, Persian does land its second Hypnosis. For the next 2 turns, Persian attacks with Night Slash.

On the 3rd turn, Spiritomb wakes up and puts Persian to sleep with Hypnosis.

I take this opportunity to switch to Gardevoir while Persian is sleeping.

Unfortunately, Persian gets the 2nd turn wake up (as if Giovanni needed more help), but somehow Gardevoir manages to survive the Night Slash and takes out Persian with Psychic. Not even sure how that happened since Gardevoir's physical bulk is non-existent but, I'm not complaining.

Well since you used inexperienced and strong in the same sentence... my strength comes from experience you dingus. Oh and Giovanni sends in his final Pokemon, Nidoqueen and I send in Rotom.

I honestly should've healed this turn since I should've expected like Superpower or something like that but, Nidoqueen ends up going for the Protect instead.

Rotom lands its Blizzard while Nidoqueen attacks with Ice Beam.

Yeah what was that? You decide to attack with Ice Beam when you have access to Toxic??? Anyways, Nidoqueen manages to get off a double Protect annoyingly enough.

To wrap this battle up, Rotom lands an unnecessary critical-hit-boosted Ominous Wind which takes down Nidoqueen.

And we finally won this battle.

Probably, I mean to be fair, every evil organization has been taken down by some children (or a group of children).

No pressure at all...

At least I do get something quite nice afterwards (if I was doing a normal playthrough).

That's good to know, though the Bell Tower is not a fun tower to climb last time I played this game.

Hmmm well I'll keep that in mind, you should really return to your office this time though. I'm sure everyone wants to know what the real director thinks about Team Rocket.

Team Rocket is officially disbanded (until Gen 7 rolls around)! The aftermath of the battle with Giovanni was rough, unfortunately I lost 2 members to that god-forsaken Persian and its hacks. Wasn't really attached to Aerodactyl honestly but, I really did like Infernape quite a bit since it helped in so many major boss fights such as Jasmine and Pryce.

With that we can now leave the tower.

Before that, I can pick up a few items from the people we saved. Specifically TM11 Sunny Day and a Bright Powder.

Time to heal up and find some good replacements for Aerodactyl and Infernape.

Took a bit to decide on the 2nd replacement. I chose Spearow right away since I'm pretty much biased towards Flying-types (or any Pokemon that learns Fly) right away as mentioned before. As for the 2nd replacement, initially I was deciding between Gyarados, Bronzor, and Riolu, but I realized that I wanted to try something new so I ended up choosing Anorith in the end.

That concludes Update #18! In the next update, I'll be making my way to Blackthorn City and hopefully, be able to face off against Clair.

Subaki

(Spearow)
Level 7
Ability: Keen Eye
Hardy Nature
- Pursuit
- Peck
- Growl
- Leer

Rutger

(Anorith)
Level 20
Ability: Swift Swim
Serious Nature
- Harden
- Mud Sport
- Water Gun
- Metal Claw

Ewan (Rotom-Frost) @ Magnet
Level 47
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Blizzard
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Micaiah

(Gardevoir) @ Twisted Spoon
Level 46
Ability: Synchronize
Naive Nature
- Psychic
- Extrasensory
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Choice Specs
Level 47
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Rain Dance

Tharja

(Spiritomb)
Level 46
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot
- Hypnosis

King Feraligatr - Oh that probably explains a lot, I was wondering why I couldn't see the abilities of boss trainers when I go and find the movesets for boss trainers. Hex edit is a whole other can of worms that I'm going to not open, it seems complicated for me to wrap my head around.

Author_Pendragon · Jan 3, 2019

Oh dang. Those crits definitely hurt. :/

HotFuzzBall · Jan 7, 2019

Alright I'm back for Update #20!

Usually I would train up any new members between updates but, training Anorith was honestly a chore and was stressful due to how slow it is + lack of power + evolving pretty late. Another annoying thing was that Anorith can't learn Strength (Armaldo can however), so I had to settle for Rock Tomb as one of its "reliable" STAB moves (I also taught it X-Scissor but, the grinding spot in Route 37 has not many mons weak to Bug).

So with all of that in mind, I decided to just keep going with my journey and just hope Anorith gains enough exp with the Exp. Share.

Anyways rant aside, the souvenir shop that once wrecked havoc to the Magikarp population has been replaced!

That's a bit shady but, also quite fitting since she clearly doesn't mind the Team Rocket structure right below her shop.

The shop has been updated in SG/SS as well, it now holds all 4 weather TMs as well as Skill Swap and Trick Room.

Now it's time to progress! Also now that annoying guy won't prevent us from leaving since we explored Johto pretty thoroughly at this point.

Also in order to get the encounter I want, I had to use a Repel here so I don't accidentally get a water encounter, then I proceeded to run around this little island until the effects wore off.

After a few minutes, I finally got my encounter. Honestly, I didn't think I could find Altaria in this Route since I was expecting a fully-evolved Bug (Butterfree, Beedrill, etc.). I named it Clair after yet another pegasus knight with a love for her brother from FE2/15.

Interestingly enough, Dray is pushing Altaria to be a special attacker instead of a mixed attacker like in the normal games. Anyways, both Swablu and Altaria received buffs to their movepool, ability pool, and stat buffs (exclusively on Altaria). Swablu now learns Pluck (instead of Peck) at Level 1, giving it a stronger move to work with during its early levels. In regards to Altaria, it now learns Outrage at Level 78 and received boosts to its Defense (90 -> 100) and Special Attack (70 -> 90). Both of these mons also have Cloud Nine added to their potential abilities, in addition to the already existing Natural Cure.

I mean, Altaria is just an ok Pokemon overall. While it does have useful resistances and bulk, its offensive potential tends to be lacking and that's usually the biggest selling point of a Pokemon any in-game run. With that said, it does learn Dragon Dance and it can hit harder on the special side so I can see it being useful. I also do value having Pokemon that can tank hits and dish out decent damage in a Nuzlocke so with all the in mind, Altaria will be going into the MAYBE box.

You can also find the Electirizer here as well, though it is pretty easy to miss since it's tucked into this little grove.

Originally, I was going to just slap an Exp. Share onto Anorith and call it a day but, I ended up deciding against it and proceeded to train both Spearow and Anorith. Spearow was easier to train, though I will say that Armaldo was far easier to train than Fearow once I reached that point.

Also yay for evolutions! Spearow didn't take too long to evolve since I did give it the Exp. Share to hold onto before I started training it. The moveset is slightly inaccurate since Fearow did learn better moves down the road.

As mentioned before, Anorith was a pain to train since it doesn't learn Strength, so I had to settle with Rock Tomb which it missed so many times (and I had to resort to using an Exp. Share on it until it was close to evolution). I also taught it X-Scissor since it learns it pretty late, and I wasn't going to train Anorith without a reliable STAB move.

Though I've never used Armaldo before so it should be interesting, the moveset is inaccurate since I ended up changing it after the grinding session.

I also decided to switch up Rotom forms as well. It really feels weird not having a Fire-type on my team, so I decided to choose Rotom's Oven form (even though Rotom-Frost would've been great to use against Clair).

With all that grinding and updating aside, it's time to proceed onwards to the Ice Path (I always call it the Ice Caves for some reason, it feels more like a cave than a path).

Really like the BGM in this dungeon/area, it's a bit relaxing and definitely has that icy/sinister feel to it.

Picked up these 2 great items as well, Magmarizer is literally out there in the open and we also pick up a very important HM as well. I also taught Waterfall to Blastoise during this time.

I assumed this guy was Cameron the Photographer but, at least he was nice enough to give us the HM he dropped (since I definitely need it).

Not my favorite part of the Ice Path honestly, first time I played this game I wasn't sure what to do (I assumed that you just have to fall down the right hole, instead of physically pushing the boulders into them) so I was stuck for quite a while.

Took a few tries to finish since I accidentally ran into the holes (I have the running shoes on all the time, and I don't want to turn it off). Eventually, I managed to complete the puzzle and was able to move on.

Another nice item I picked up after breaking the rocks, I feel like I have the majority of the type-boosting items bar the Spell Tag and Soft Sand (I believe).

They really want you to be prepared for Clair, you get quite a few (by few I mean 2) Ice TMs in this area, TM72 Avalanche being the first one.

I also decided to get my 1st route/area encounter here since I can't be bothered training up any Pokemon and I would prefer to get a mon that's already evolved or at a higher level. This floor also has the best encounters imo of the Ice Path. Anyways, I got Piloswine and I named it Tauroneo after one of the four ex-riders of Daein from FE9/10.

All 3 members of the evolutionary line received pretty much the same changes. Swinub now learns Ice Shard at Level 52, while Piloswine and Mamoswine learn the move at Level 73. All of them also now have Thick Fat as a possible ability, which replaced Oblivious.

Initially, I was excited to see Piloswine as my encounter but, Relaxed nature causes it to have -Spd and Mamoswine is honestly one of those Pokemon who needs all the Speed it can get since it doesn't have the greatest bulk and is stuck in a mediocre Speed tier. Though I mean, I can see myself using it in the future so it will go into the MAYBE NO box for now.

I believe this is the 2nd floor since we are working our way up the path, you can also find TM13 Ice Beam over here if you don't want to drop 30k at the Game Corner.

Now I'm close to the exit and we find another familiar face.

Well I'm surprised you decided to go skating... in sandals... in an area where not many people pass by (probably) but, that's your call.

I feel like your sisters will probably start laughing before they decide to help you but, I guess I can help you since you are blocking the way out by just standing there.

Then after doing the puzzle again, this Kimono Girl is able to make it out safely.

Took a while to pick up that item hidden in the bottom left corner (it was a Nugget I believe) and it's time to leave and make it into Blackthorn City!

I already have a Dragon Scale (since I was able to get a free one from the wild Horsea I caught a while back) but, I guess I could use another one to sell?

Also in the Pokemart, you are able to buy the brand new Gen 4 evolutionary stones as well.

In Blackthorn City, the house that used to have the move reminder and deleter (they have been moved to Cianwood City in this game), now houses Grandma Wilma (Draco Meteor lady) and that one guy that teaches your starters the elemental "Hyper Beams".

Another item that is also very important to pick up, being this Super Rod which means no more Magikarps (except in the Lake of Rage)!

Speaking of elemental items, I finally encountered the last of the week siblings and I received the Soft Sand! Now I don't have to worry about this sidequest any more thankfully.

With all that exploration of the city aside (you do get quite a bit from Blackthorn City now that I think about it) it's time to explore Route 45 and also to get another encounter.

Honestly, the encounters in Route 45 are kinda meh bar a few (Vibrava and Gligar come to mind) but, I guess Graveler isn't the worst thing out there. I named it Sully after a headstrong cavalier from FE13.

All members of the evolutionary line received a few movepool additions overall. Geodude learns Hammer Arm at Level 43, while Graveler and Golem learn it at Level 54. In addition to Hammer Arm, Golem is able to learn the 3 elemental punches at Level 1 as well.

Overall, I can't say I'm too big of a fan of slow Rock-types (especially ones with exploitable weaknesses) so I don't really see myself using Graveler in the future. However, it is still quite usable so I'll be putting it in the MAYBE NO box.

Decided to halt my exploration of Route 45 to explore the Blackthorn side of the Dark Cave. Since I already caught my encounter here during Update #1, I'll just be focusing on exploring.

Picked more important items from the cave. Since I do have a Duskull, the Reaper Cloth will be super handy. False Swipe will also be very useful during the Epilogue but for now, it probably won't be used.

I also received another elemental item (I guess I was missing the Black Glasses after all) and now Spiritomb finally has an item it can utilize (I wished I equipped with the Amulet Coin honestly, I didn't think about it until it was too late).

Probably won't be returning to the Dark Cave anytime soon though, I do need to finish exploring Route 45 (as in just defeating all the trainers over here).

Had a few close calls but, everyone is still standing in the end. Now it's time to challenge the final Gym in the Johto region though before that, I have to clear out the gym and then grind if I need to.

After clearing out the Gym, I decided that I did need to grind. Route 45 and Route 44 have really good spots for training mons so I went to those 2 areas to grind my team to Level 50.

Fast forward to the "present" (at the time). Though I already can tell someone is lying because there's obviously someone who is known as the Champion who also uses Dragon-types soooooo yeaaah...

Well holding your own doesn't necessarily mean you beat them, it could mean that you just put up a good fight. Anyways, it is time to challenge the last Gym Leader of the Johto region!

Vs. Clair

Previously in the update with my gym battle against Bugsy, I did say that Clair is the 3rd hardest Gym Leader in the Johto region. Well, it really is by default since I would consider her slightly more difficult than the rest of the Gym Leaders bar Bugsy and Whitney. Anyways, Clair would probably be more threatening if her Salamence was physical but since it isn't, it won't be as big of a threat to your team. The main Pokemon to watch out for is obviously that Kingdra, it doesn't have Smokescreen to annoy you but, Swagger can be just as annoying if it lands. Though the rest of her team bar Salamence, Kingdra, and maybe Gyarados (if you don't have a fast Electric-type but, the game literally hands you 2 really great Electric-types) will be pretty easy to handle.

To start us off, Clair leads with one of her Dragonairs (the specially offensive one) while I lead with Gardevoir.

Well I honestly made this battle harder than it should've been. Anyways, Gardevoir nearly takes out Dragonair with Psychic but, Dragonair paralyzes Gardevoir with Thunder Wave though due to Synchronize, Dragonair also gets paralyzed as well.

Gardevoir is unable to attack this turn, which gives Clair a free opportunity to heal up Dragonair.

Once again, Gardevoir gets paralyzed and Dragonair is able to freely attack with Dragon Pulse. Dragonair's Shed Skin also activates this turn as well.

Dragonair fires off another Dragon Pulse and once again, Gardevoir gets fully paralyzed (gotta love Thunder Wave and paralysis pre-gen 7).

I decided to heal up Gardevoir since I wasn't sure if it could tank another Dragon Pulse and, Dragonair attacks with another Dragon Pulse.

Dragonair once again, attacks with Dragon Pulse and luckily, Gardevoir breaks free of the paralysis and attacks with Psychic.

Since I wasn't going to deal with paralysis, I send Spiritomb to tank the obvious incoming Dragon Pulse.

Sucker Punch finishes off Dragonair in a battle that I (though I partially blame RNG) made more difficult than it needed to be.

Clair then sends in her Gyarados which gets off a useless Intimidate, while I switch out to Rotom.

Like most Gyaradoses in the game, Rotom finishes it off quickly with Thunderbolt.

Next up, Clair sends in her ace, Kingdra, and I switch back out to Spiritomb.

Kingdra's Hydro Pump deals quite a bit of damage, while Spiritomb slightly chunks it with Shadow Ball.

I decided to switch out Spiritomb for Blastoise, which is able to tank the incoming Dragon Pulse really well.

Blastoise fires off an Ice Beam which activates Kingdra's Sitrus Berry fortunately, Kingdra ends up missing its Swagger.

Once again, Blastoise attacks with Ice Beam while Kingdra retaliates with Dragon Pulse.

One last Ice Beam seals the deal and takes down Kingdra.

Up next, Clair sends in her Salamence while I send in Armaldo which unfortunately gets Intimidated.

Literally had my life flash before my eyes (I mention this a lot but, I don't know the movesets of any boss trainer) when Salamence uses Hydro Pump. Though luckily Armaldo barely hangs on and is almost able to take out Salamence with Strength (that Intimidate really helped it).

Not even sure what I was thinking off at the time, I think maybe I assumed I still had Rotom-Frost or something? Anyways, Salamence attacks with another Hydro Pump which Rotom is able to barely tank.

I decided to switch out to Fearow who is able to take Salamence's Fire Blast fairly well but, it gets burned in the process.

Burn or no burn, Fearow is still able to finish off Salamence with Drill Peck.

Now that I'm able to breathe easily, Clair sends in her Altaria while I send in Blastoise once again.

Not really sure if this was needed but, it's better to be safe than sorry. I decided to heal up Blastoise, while Altaria fires off a Dragon Pulse.

Blastoise is able to outspeed (wasn't sure if Altaria was faster and I didn't feel like checking) and knock out Altaria with a single Ice Beam.

Well not sure how much of a "real battle" you will be getting. Anyways, Clair sends in her physically offensive Dragonair while I stay in with Blastoise.

Another Ice Beam is able to secure the KO onto Dragonair.

With that, Clair is stunned that she is lost and we won!

I mean aren't you breaking like all the rules of a Gym Leader? Like you lost therefore I should be getting a badge and none of this attitude and bitterness.

Lazy ideals? Well I'll have you know I spend quite a bit of time training up my Pokemon...

This is the aftermath of the battle. While it looks like I barely won, a lot of it could've been prevented by making better decisions (against Salamence and Kingdra mainly). MVP easily goes to Blastoise, which could've solo-ed the entire Gym battle once Rotom took down Gyarados. Choice Specs Ice Beam was able to put in so much work during this battle.

That about wraps up this update. Next time, I'll be taking the dragon master's challenge and see what comes from that!

Subaki

(Fearow) @ Sharp Beak
Level 50
Ability: Keen Eye
Hardy Nature
- Drill Peck
- Fly
- Fury Attack
- Assurance

Rutger

(Armaldo) @ Choice Band
Level 50
Ability: Swift Swim
Serious Nature
- X-Scissor
- Strength
- Rock Smash
- Slash

Ewan (Rotom-Heat) @ Magnet
Level 50
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Overheat
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Micaiah

(Gardevoir) @ Twisted Spoon
Level 50
Ability: Synchronize
Naive Nature
- Psychic
- Extrasensory
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Choice Specs
Level 50
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Watefall

Tharja

(Spiritomb) @ Black Glasses
Level 50
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Dark Pulse
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot

Author_Pendragon - Yep, the most frustrating part of the nuzlocke is all of these random crits (pretty sure I've lost maybe 3/10 Pokemon due to dumb mistakes, rest all fell to random crits). Funnily enough, Persian is known for being a crit monster back in Gen 1 due to critical hits being based on Speed, and Persian being one of the faster Kanto mons out there.

MoonlightRose · Jan 11, 2019

Would you call Spiritomb, Blastoise or something else your ace? Seems like you always go into one of them two when you don't have a type advantage. Also, you went straight from 18 to 20.

HotFuzzBall · Jan 16, 2019

Alright, it's been a while but Update #21 is up! Last time I beat Clair and didn't get the badge so... I'm trying to appeal to her superiors for said badge.

Right so it's time to head to the Dragon's Den.

Dragon's Den probably has one of my favorite tracks in the game overall, it really is dramatic but also majestic at the same time.

Just a few trainers scattered throughout the area, though none of them pose too much of a threat (considering none of them have any tier 3 Dragon-types).

Kind of annoying they put the entrance on the other side, it really misleads any visitors that come to the place.

Also they decided to have a random whirlpool in the midst of the water area (I guess it'd be some sort of lake?). I guess the Gyarados or w/e in that area is really not having it and just caused that whirlpool.

Picked up another type-boosting item, I believe I have all of them except the Spell Tag which you can get in Kanto (funnily enough, I'd assume Dray would've moved it earlier in Johto, unless I somehow missed it).

Well I guess news does travel around quickly (or this isn't the first time where Clair refused to give out the badge when she lost).

The questions are pretty much the same, you just have to answer as if you aren't an ass (though you don't get penalized too heavily if you do).

That's great but, I still kind of need that badge. I mean the gate keeper probably won't count this as an official 8th badge.

Why do you sound so surprised...?

That explains a lot actually, but maybe you should focus your attention on getting better.

Not sure how Lance would intervene, though at least it works on Clair to have her cough up the badge.

Now that that's done, it's time to leave! Though unfortunate that I didn't get the complete set of spoils from a gym battle.

The elder clearly has no chill and keeps drilling Clair lol...

Speaking of the Whirl Islands, I forgot that that place actually existed. Though I'll probably visit the area after I acquire the wing + bell.

And there it is, all 8 Johto Badges!

Oh I guess it didn't take long for her to reflect on her actions but, at least we got her number and TM59 Dragon Pulse.

Sweet, it's time to visit New Bark Town after quite a long time ago (I believe last time I visited there was to catch Rotom).

Though before I leave, I needed to actually pick up my reward for passing the test, being this Dragonair (it was a Dratini in HG/SS)!

So since I gave compassionate answers, this Dragonair will learn ExtremeSpeed as a special move. Anyways, I named it Lucia after a swordmaster who has very close sibling-bond (despite not being blood related) with the queen.

Overall, the entire evolutionary line received one change, being that Marvel Scale is now part of their ability pool (in addition to Shed Skin/Inner Focus depending on the evolution).

As you can see, this Dragonair is already pretty close to perfect. It is decently close to evolution and has a movepool that I can work with, as well as having a decent nature. Solid mon that I plan to use if I do need to replace a team member (hopefully I won't have to), with that Dragonair will be going into the YES box.

Doesn't take a genius to figure out that Dragon-types symbolize your clan, but I'm glad you trust me with one (even though I could just as easily catch one in the wild).

One of the reasons to pick up this Dragonair is to obtain the Draco Plate, more on that during the epilogue.

Surprisingly enough, there is a lot to cover in Blackthorn City even though it is quite small. Anyways, it's time to wrap up my time here.

Home sweet home, back to where it all began.

Did you collect all 8 badges by any chance?

That's nice to know, though have you actually left the lab since I left?

And with that, I've obtained the Master Ball! It is a pretty generous thank you give but, I'll take it.

Time to see what the is all about, not surprised people are talking about me since I did save Johto from being taken over by Team Rocket.

Anyways, I've arrived to Ecruteak and it's time to visit the theater.

Oh look another familiar face, though you probably shouldn't have underestimated them... rookie mistake.

Did you say 7? We only met 5 during our entire journey...?

I know I can defeat them since I actually care about my mons enough to not make reckless mistakes (most of the time).

Vs. The Kimono Girls

Decided to just put all the dialogue and the battles together. Anyways, there's a lot of text that has been cut off, Zuki meant that they needed someone with the "right bond with Pokemon".

Also the Kimono sisters are probably the hardest boss trainers in SG/SS (even in HG/SS too imo) mainly due to the fact that they have tailored movesets and also you don't have a break to heal or rearrange your party. So anticipate a very hard set of battles coming up.

The words that were cut off were "promise" in the left screenshot, and "you" to the right screenshot. Basically detailing the journey of the Pokemon egg that has been passed around like the plague.

With that it's time to challenge the 7 (not 5) Kimono sisters without a break in between.

Umbreon - Lvl 50 - Toxic | Confuse Ray | Protect | Dark Pulse

First of all, I like the opening animation of the battle. Anyways, Zuki has an Umbreon which can be annoying if your team is slow, since it will outspeed and try to stall your team out with Toxic + Confusion + Protect/Dark Pulse flinches. Umbreon can be tricky but, as long as you have something to outspeed and a bit of luck (if it goes for Confuse Ray), you'll be fine.

Didn't follow my own advice but, I led with Armaldo while Zuki obviously has her Umbreon.

Umbreon outspeeds and poisons Armaldo with Toxic, Armaldo then nearly OHKOs Umbreon with X-Scissor.

Decided to cure the poison with a Full Heal, and Umbreon failed its Protect.

Umbreon then goes for another Protect on the next turn.

Umbreon fires off a Dark Pulse which doesn't flinch luckily enough, then Armaldo is able to take it down with another X-Scissor.

That is one down!

Alright time for the next battle, we apparently helped this girl in Ilex Forest (well Leafeon did way back way, sucks that it didn't make it all the way here :[ )

Oh so instead of helping me, you just kinda observed from a distance? Good to know >.>

Espeon - Lvl 50 - Morning Sun | Psychic | Shadow Ball | Grass Knot

Alright so Espeon is one of the harder ones to beat just because it is fast and has some pretty solid coverage options. Though it is not too bulky so it shouldn't be too easy to take down, though just hope that whoever you choose can take more than one hit.

Anyways, I switch out Armaldo for Spiritomb since I wanted to keep Armaldo as healthy as possible, Espeon then attacks with Psychic which has no effect on Spiritomb.

Espeon attacks with Grass Knot which deals a decent chunk, and Shadow Ball nearly takes out Espeon (I accidentally clicked Shadow Ball due to habit, should've went for the Dark Pulse since Spiritomb has the Black Glasses).

Up next, Spiritomb's Sucker Punch finishes off Espeon.

That's another one down, so far team is still pretty healthy.

Yeah so the 2 additional Kimono sisters will use the Sinnoh Eeveelutions respectively, but they don't have any story significance unfortunately.

Leafeon - Lvl 50 - Leaf Blade | X-Scissor | Swords Dance | Synthesis

Leafeon shouldn't be too challenging if it doesn't set up, if it does then you should be a bit worried. However, Leafeon's coverage is pretty bland so it shouldn't be too difficult to find the right switch-in for it.

I still stayed in with Armaldo, at first I thought I was lucky that Leafeon decided to use Swords Dance to boost up while I thought X-Scissor would've OHKOed Leafeon.

Yeah Leafeon barely hangs on, and now I have a +2 Leafeon to deal with. Anyways, I switch out to Fearow who tanks the +2 Leaf Blade pretty well.

Drill Peck finishes off what Armaldo started.

No dialogue for her since she was a scripted character but, I won!

The second of the new Kimono sisters, you should know which one she uses.

Glaceon - Lvl 50 - Blizzard | Shadow Ball | Ice Shard | Water Pulse

Yep surprise it's Glaceon. I found Glaceon one of the harder ones to beat since I've always been surprised by its coverage options (mainly Water Pulse which does a pretty good amount to Fire/Rock-types even though it isn't STAB and has low BP at this point in the game). Though Glaceon is still slow and isn't too bulky (in regards to its typing) and shouldn't be too difficult to beat unless you're me since this battle was laced with hacks.

Once again, I wanted Armaldo to be as healthy as possible so I switch out to Rotom, which is able to tank Glaceon's Blizzard but gets frozen in the process.

I thought using a Fire-type would've thawed Rotom but that's never been a mechanic (it has to be damaged by a Fire-type move), and Glaceon's Water Pulse nearly takes out Rotom (didn't expect the Water Pulse at the time).

I decide to swap out Rotom for Blastoise, who tanks the incoming Shadow Ball pretty well.

Blastoise fires off a Surf, and for whatever reason Glaceon attacks with another Water Pulse.

Anyways, another Surf takes down Glaceon.

Well that's 4 down, now it's time to face the OG Eeveelutions.

At first I didn't know what she meant but, it was the Rocket Grunt harassing her in the theater back when we first arrived in Ecruteak City but, if you were a trainer you should've defended yourself lol...

Well that makes sense, "she who knows the most speaks the least!"... words to live by.

Flareon - Lvl 50 - Sunny Day | Fire Blast | Quick Attack | Bite

Unfortunately for Miki, she is definitely the easiest Kimono Girl to beat. Just by looking at the moveset and Flareon's reputation as one of the "not-so-good" Eeveelutions you can probably tell it would be easy. Sunny Day + Fire Blast would be a scary combo, if like Flareon had a higher Special Attack stat and Flareon's coverage options are terrible. Anyways, you should take this opportunity to heal up your team (which is what I should've done but didn't think about at the time).

Flareon decides to summon the sun with Sunny Day, but unfortunately Armaldo's Strength takes down Flareon in a hit.

And we won, really easy battle. Though really wished I healed up my team .-.

That sounds really dangerous, especially skating in an area which probably didn't have many people passing by (thanks to that guy who forced everyone to go sight see).

Wow they let you into the Dragon's Den? Though I guess they probably knew about your status.

Jolteon - Lvl 50 - Thunder | Shadow Ball | Double Team | Thunder Wave

Sayo is hands down, the hardest Kimono Girl to beat in my opinion (right up there with Espeon and Umbreon). Jolteon is really fast and also hits pretty hard with Thunder. The annoying thing about this Jolteon is Thunder Wave and Double Team, 2 off the biggest abominations in Pokemon history (during gen 4 imo). Just hope you are lucky in this battle that your attacks hit, and it misses its Thunder often.

Speaking of Thunder, Jolteon does not miss the first one, it actually nearly takes out Armaldo and gets the paralysis onto it. Unfortunately, Armaldo breaks past the paralysis and nearly takes out Jolteon with X-Scissor (what's with all these almost OHKOs jeez...)

Anyways, I decided to swap out Armaldo for Spiritomb which also barely tanks a Thunder somehow (pretty sure this is just min damage, which is a great thing for me).

Spiritomb's Sucker Punch snags an unnecessary critical hit and takes down Jolteon.

Yes you really did almost had me since your Jolteon would've swept my team lol... Anyways, time to face off against the final Kimono Girl.

These girls have some fairly interesting side hobbies when they aren't performing/rehearsing in the theater.

I would've much appreciated some help during that Team Rocket invasion but it's ok, everyone is busy except me apparently >.>

Vaporeon - Lvl 50 - Hydro Pump | Ice Beam | Quick Attack | Acid Armor

Last battle against Kuni! Anyways, Vaporeon can be difficult to take down since it is pretty bulky and it has access to Acid Armor as well but overall, Vaporeon shouldn't pose too much of difficulty unless your team has been soften up by the other 6 sisters.

Yeah I knew I was going to swap out Armaldo for Gardevoir before the battle started. Anyways, Vaporeon fires off an Ice Beam which Gardevoir takes really well.

Gardevoir attacks with Thunderbolt, while Vaporeon retaliates with Hydro Pump (love the animation of Gen 4 Hydro Pump over the other animations of it).

I quickly heal up Gardevoir with a Hyper Potion (surprised I didn't heal that much during these battles), while Vaporeon attacks with Hydro Pump.

Gardevoir boosts up with Calm Mind, while Vaporeon fires off yet another Hydro Pump.

Anyways, I used Calm Mind to ensure Gardevoir will be able to tank the Hydro Pump, and be able to take out Vaporeon with the next Thunderbolt, but it gets an unnecessary critical hit and takes down Vaporeon.

Finally! That's concludes the trial by the Kimono Sisters.

So with that we received the Clear Bell, which the director of the Radio Tower hinted at after he gave us the rainbow wing (which brings me to the point, how did he receive the wing in the first place, unless he just randomly found it).

That's the cue to make our way to the Bell Tower.

Alright it's time to move out! Though isn't the summoning dance performed by only 5 sisters...? So we are we all leaving the theater?

Aftermath of the battles, as you can tell, I barely survived this one. Honestly thought I would be spamming healing items a lot more but, somehow I didn't need to. Luckily no casualties (there probably would've been a few had it not been for low rolls) so, I'm pretty fortunate in that regard.

Time to make my way to the Bell Tower station.

Well I guess it didn't feel any of you guys are worthy (or most of yall just don't care about Pokemon as much as I do, allegedly).

Did not know we could've got access to this area much earlier on but, it wouldn't have mattered since we needed the wing and the bell to pass through.

We arrived at Bellchime Trail, probably one of the most aesthetically pleasing areas in HG/SS (or SG/SS in this case). Though it is unfortunate that you don't stay in this area for very long.

Also you pick up another great TM in the corner over here, though you have access to these in the Game Corner as well.

Well at least they didn't have to work too hard on this map since it is pretty much identical to Sprout Tower (minus the Bellsprout statues) but, the BGM here is pretty great.

All of that out of the way, I can finally climb the Bell Tower since I should have everything I need to call Ho-Oh back.

Literally the most annoying part of the tower (funnily enough, this does get worse for me). Granted, there aren't many puzzles in the Johto region (look at like half the gyms) so I guess some of the bigger dungeons have the puzzles in them.

Yeah this just got worse, we now have those jumping panels and teleportation panels soooo... I'll be skipping through all of that and come back again when I reach the final area.

And I made it after a lot of stress (not the word I'd use but, can't think of a better one). I also wanted to get all the items in the tower so it took much longer than it should've but, I did come out with a lot of top tier healing items to use/sell (Max Revives, Max Elixirs, Full Restores, etc.)

Since I was at the top, that means I can get the best/highest-level encounters in the tower so I chose to get my encounter here. Picked up this Haunter which was a pretty nice find (took a while because of species clause). Nicknamed Raigh after a one of the mage twins from FE6 with a more cynical personality.

All 3 Pokemon received additions to their movepools. These moves include Night Shade (Level 1, replacing Lick), Ominous Wind (Level 15), Icy Wind (Level 43 for Gastly, Level 55 for Haunter and Gengar), and Nightmare (Level 47 for Gastly, Level 60 for Haunter and Gengar). In addition, Gengar learns Aura Sphere at Level 65.

Overall, Haunter is a pretty great Pokemon. The nature is great, the starting movepool is really good (it already has Shadow Ball) and I can evolve it right away as well. With that all said, Haunter will be going into the YES box.

Alas, I made it to the top and this is where we welcome Ho-Oh.

Alright so I guess I'm kind of just here to watch, which is cool.

Anyways, this is probably one of my favorite scenes from the game, and probably one of my favorite ways of summoning/calling the box legendary in any of the Pokemon games. I know I bring up a lot of my favorites during this update but, this is really one of my favorite scenes in the game.

Oh look all the powers combined called Ho-Oh out from its hiding spot.

Didn't know Ho-Oh was the guardian of the sky actually, though it makes sense since Lugia is known as the guardian of the sea (or something like that).

So instead of freedom, Ho-Oh just decides it wanted to be like domesticated... that's cool with me (not that I'm going to use Ho-Oh since I banned all legendary Pokemon in this run).

Well that was easy, Master Ball so OP. Kind of anti-climatic considering all the build up for a dramatic, long-lasting battle.

Guess the guardian of the skies will be trapped in a PC box for the rest of this run, whoopsies.

Anyways, that about wraps up Update #21. Next update I'll probably be doing a bit of backtracking and making my way to the Pokemon League/Indigo Plateau!

Subaki

(Fearow) @ Sharp Beak
Level 50
Ability: Keen Eye
Hardy Nature
- Drill Peck
- Fly
- Fury Attack
- Tailwind

Rutger

(Armaldo) @ Choice Band
Level 52
Ability: Swift Swim
Serious Nature
- X-Scissor
- Strength
- Rock Smash
- Slash

Ewan (Rotom-Heat) @ Magnet
Level 50
Ability: Levitate
Serious Nature
- Thunderbolt
- Overheat
- Ominous Wind
- Confuse Ray

Micaiah

(Gardevoir) @ Twisted Spoon
Level 50
Ability: Synchronize
Naive Nature
- Psychic
- Extrasensory
- Thunderbolt
- Calm Mind

Dart

(Blastoise) @ Choice Specs
Level 50
Ability: Rain Dish
Hasty Nature
- Surf
- Water Pulse
- Ice Beam
- Watefall

Tharja

(Spiritomb) @ Black Glasses
Level 50
Ability: Pressure
Serious Nature
- Shadow Ball
- Dark Pulse
- Sucker Punch
- Nasty Plot

MoonlightRose - I'd say my favorite mon to use so far is probably Blastoise. Spiritomb can switch in and take hits but, its damage output is much lower than Blastoise overall. Blastoise is pretty great since it can tank hits and can dish out damage with Choice Specs Surf (which is also pretty spammable). Update #19 has actually been up for a while lol, it's just 2 posts above Update #20.

King Feraligatr · Jan 20, 2019

Yeah, I was not expecting the Kimono Girls to be as hard as they where when I was playing StormSilver. They really gave me a run for my money. Especially because of my edits (giving them held items and healing items).

Let's Play! Wuzzy Journeys Through Sacred Gold... the Nuzlocke kind of Journey (Update #21)

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