UPDATE 18: Ruin My Day.
Welcome back! We’ve got a bit of a longer update today.
Here we see a group of Psyduck in their natural habitat: Misery.
In my mind’s eye I still see spraying them with a fire extinguisher.
And now that the haze of migraine clears from their minds, their BLOODLUST comes roaring back to the forefront!
Or they remembered it’s board game night tonight, who knows.
Cynthia comes walking up like she didn’t just watch Spamigo spend three minutes fiddling with how to get the fire extinguisher to spray.
It’s weird that Psyduck’s most known for its psychic powers and yet it’s never been a Psychic type. Like you see a Charmander and Game Freak is going, “no it’s normal type even with the fire on its tail.”
This looks like trying to find any justification to make Spamigo run this errand for her, but actually there is a pretty uncommon encounter on the next route, so she’s not lying!
… too easy.
And after a little more cajoling she leaves, because even Cynthia doesn’t want to have to deal with…
The Fog Route.
Alright, so I was not taking screenshots of every single thing that happened while playing during the route, and at the end of it, I was kicking myself, as it turned out to be a pretty good dsiplay of the challenges of the Random Team Run. Granted, I had both Birdon and Scarfy in my team, neither of which I want to let into battle, because I overestimated the amount of HM usage I’d need. Perhaps it was a self-fulfilling prophecy that by bringing Birdon along to Fly back home and heal up, I guaranteed I would have to use Fly because I was down a battler. But regardless:
There’s stretch of Route 210 that’s clogged with Ace Trainers and a few Veterans, who were constant pains in my side. It turns out with an easily exploitable type weakness that I can see coming, balanced teams can just be a problem! Shoutouts to the Ace Trainer pair with a Gyarados and a Raichu. Mina declined to trivialize THAT fight with Quick Claw.
Game Freak usually does a pretty decent job making sure that whatever is coming up, the player has seen Pokemon that can overcome it. Even going back to Roark, you could possibly have had a Roselia and definitely a Machop. And here I am, thumbing my nose at all of that and saying that I need six Pokemon and six Pokemon alone to get through the game. And while Pokemon games usually aren’t objectively hard, sometimes doing this you run into the one Trainer that you have no good answers for that is an absolute nightmare.
But at any rate, here’s Spamigo in a tiny town full of bossy old people.
Here’s Spamigo shocked into silence that someone would ask where he’s from.
Spamigo bit his tongue just this once that the legend of the lake Pokemon was just a legend.
Din, Naryu, and Faore; got it.
Spamigo thought about saying it was just a noisemaker, but decided against it.
The old lady turned back to glare at the spaceman, but with nothing happening her mood worsened. She cleared her throat loudly, and started to repeat herself with greater emphasis: “If only I were YOUNGER, and had my POKEMON…”
At that point Spamigo rushed in.
Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeahno gonna have to ask that you maybe don’t.
Pictured in this battle: Anomalo coming into his own.
Step 1: Double his Attack.
Step 2: attack.
The little shrimp that could!
All are forced to admit how powerful Anomalo is!
Now let’s swap NPCs.
And just like that she doesn’t seem to remember trying to guilt-trip Spamigo into fighting.
A whole bunch of text boxes about how yes, the person Cynthia said was her grandmother is in fact her grandmother and the Old Charm is special and you should go see inside the ruins.
So let’s!
Wonder who made this. As in, in-universe.
Oh right Gen IV added this wonderful nugget the fanon.
Who would interrupt a history lesson?
Wait the guy I’ve been saying isn’t a part of the plot? What are you doing here making me a liar?
There’s not a whole lot to say when people start trying to talk about the cosmic balance and the need to destroy the world to remake it. One of those conversations that you want to keep away from.
And yet Spamigo feels himself compelled to step in and stop someone threatening the town and its history.
So there’s some weird interactions in the type chart that I’ll remember, and some that I just never committed.
I spend turns trying to get this Sneasel to eat a Toxic because I don’t remember that Bug is supereffective against Dark!
There was no reason to let it Ice Punch as much!
Friggin’ ow. And if it does that much to Sid I’m afraid about sending anyone else into a Drill Peck, so…
Sorry Sid.
Let’s just do the right thing this time.
Nuh-uh game you already taught me that lesson about trying to be cute. I’m staying the course in the face of this Golbat.
And I’m rewarded for it!
And on that cryptic note Cyrus skulks away. Of course we’re not telling the InterPol agent investigating Team Galactic that their leader was threatening to unmake reality.
“Leave a room for that ungrateful girl for FIVE YEARS but does she come home to visit her poor grandmother? Of course the life of a big shot means she has to sacrifice time with her family.”
“So then this…”
“If you’re not happy I’ll let you go through the rest before I donate it to the resale store.”
YES!
Oh we have a detour to make now.
Excuse me Cynthia there’s a TM I need to find.
“Harmless…?”
Cynthia shrugged. “Well, some theft here and there. But they’re barely more competent than deliquents. And the whole passing off a noisemaker as a bomb thing, you know? I just sort of assumed they were crazy and morons.”
“And now?”
“Well they might not all be morons and that’s worrying.”
Right, go to the town with the next Gym.
Alright are people done talking to me? GOOD.
Join me next time as we make a very very critically important no we cannot skip this detour before we go to Canalave City!
NEXT TIME: I’ve been planning this since I rolled my team.