UPDATE 35: At Long Last
Welcome back one and welcome back all to this, the final update.
Spamigo hesitate for a moment before stepping off of the platform. He had his team out to make sure everyone was healed up, and brought them together into a huddle. “We can win this,” he told them. “We will win this.”
Cynthia was sitting back relaxed on the exit platform, tossing treats one at a time for her Togetic to snatch out of the air. As Spamigo stepped into the room she hopped up onto her feet with a welcoming smile. “Spamigo! I was almost afraid you weren’t going to make it. Seems like Lucian weeds a lot of the challengers before they can get here.”
He tried to put on a calm face, but Spamigo’s heart was starting to pound with how close he was to becoming the Champion. “I made it, though.”
“That you did,” she replied. “I guess it bears repeating: Thank you. For everything you’ve done about Team Galactic, the Distortion World, Giratina… Thank you.”
“Probably doesn’t mean I get to just walk on through, huh?” Spamigo asked, already reaching for the first Pokeball on his belt.
Cynthia just laughed at that. “Oh no. If you think I haven’t been looking forward to this you’re incredibly mistaken. If you want to become the Champion you’re going to have to go through me!”
You can, of course, start playing Cynthia’s battle theme here. But if you’ll permit me to suggest one last suggestion here, at the final battle, I would suggest Oath of Enma from the Yakuza 0 soundtrack.
Spritomb! This was back before they had the Fairy type, so Sableye and Spiritomb were (in)famous for having no weaknesses. I suppose that sends a pretty strong message after four type specialists you send something out with no weaknesses to exploit.
Cynthia’s team is ten gallons of beating in a five gallon hat. This is the battle I was trying to match the level of.
It doesn’t resist Bug though, and although you can’t tackle a Ghost or Punch a ghost, you can use your claws to rip a ghost up. Totally scientific, I saw it on Ghost Adventures.
Milotic, of course, is like Gyrados if it was a wall. A Special Defense wall, which… is a bit of an issue but hey, Mina.
That’s a lot of HP!
…Ah.
Mirror Coat deals double the Special damage you just took.
It just took a lot of Special damage from that Thunderbolt.
So, pain ensues.
But ol’ Granpappy Spammy always said to send a snake to fight a snake.
Although he always seemed to say that before his court dates.
I know that her Garchomp was a major hurdle when I first played through the game years ago. It’s kind of a lot.
If Reina didn’t have those two extra levels she probably gets knocked out here and we have a heck of a harder time with this battle.
But since she lived we get to hit it right in the 4x weakness and take it out instead.
We… oh boy.
Hope you can take a hit, Dogu!
Well that was scary.
But we’re out of those weeds.
Wait is that sliver of red in it’s HP bar.
Getting pretty tired of this happening.
Well that was predictable. So should this.
Let’s just make sure we’re not in danger for the rest of this fight.
I mean, this Roserade isn’t really capable of harming Castellia.
It manages to get a crit in while Light Screen is down, but…
Alright now I feel better about this battle.
I never knew where her biting mouthparts were, but she does, and that’s all that matters.
Surprisingly not a Serene Grace Togekiss, although pretty annoying all the same.
It takes Castellia down before she can do more than put it on the Toxic clock.
Two very good pieces of information! #1: Sid is faster. #2: It didn’t go into the Full Restore threshold.
We are finally, almost, finally there!
Of course she has a Lucario too. They’ve got to push it somehow!
Well. Sid’s defenses are not the best.
If nothing else I feel vindicated about training up to 62 for Dogu to learn Earth Power instead of stopping at 60. If I’d stopped at 60 this battle would be like pulling teeth.
Dogu’s come a long way from the days he couldn’t take a Physical hit at all.
almostalmostalmostalmost
YES!
We did it.
At the same time, both Trainers let out the breath they didn’t know they’d been holding. Even then the silence hung in the arena for a few more second before it all sunk in to Spamigo, and he launched from a shocked stillness into uncontrollable laughter with his team piling onto him in a victorious huddle. “We did it!”
Cynthia stepped over and offered a hand to Spamigo to help him up. “You and your team did it. I knew everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve done, wasn’t an accident. You are the Champion now.”
Spamigo got back to his feet unsteadily, from the weight of everything that had just happened. “So… what happens now?”
“Now? We just need to enter you into the Hall of Fame. Lift’s right here.”
“Hello again, Professor Rowan.” Cynthia and Spamigo nearly spoke in unison.
“I almost thought you weren’t going to make it,” Cythia continued, her relaxed warmth at odds with Spamigo barely restraining himself from bouncing.
“And miss the crowning achievement of another research assistant of mine? Not for the world!” Even when he was proud, Rowan’s tone was not far off from a harrumph.
“Another…?” Spamigo looked back at the former Champion, for the first time seeing her embarrassed.
She glanced away and rolled her shoulders. “That was a long time ago, Professor. Besides, you have me those six eggs and barely wanted to hear about the Pokemon that came out!”
“But I wasn’t wrong about your potential then, and I still am not wrong today!” Despite his tone, the professor was grinning behind his mustache.
“Uhm, thank you, Professor,” Spamigo began. It was almost more difficult to find the words for his gratitude than to have become the Champion. “I mean… For giving Mina and all the others. And for helping me to keep going…”
“Hmph!” The professor cut him off. “All I did was point out the path. You walked this road all on your own, and I will not take credit for it!”
“Well, Spamigo, Rowan? If you’d follow me?” Cynthia waved them along, into Hall of Fame, a dustless room with a mirrorlike floor.
And so Spamigo sets his Pokeballs on the machine.
Remember how long Anomalo couldn’t do anything because his level-up moves were so terrible?
Remember when we had to rely on Castellia learning Selfdestruct to get through a Gym?
Remember Mina losing the first rival battle?
Remmeber when Reina was just a fragile Bubble machine?
Remember when Sid’s boosted stats were the only thing getting us through major battles?
Remember when Dogu could just never take a hit?
Well…
Look at them now.
And that’s Pokemon Platinum.
It feels strange to finally be putting this challenge run and this project to rest after so long. I won’t be getting into the postgame. Beating the Elite Four and getting to the credits was always the end goal for me. And I’m typically not one for postgames anyway.
I know that this is probably retreading familiar ground for most of you, my style was inconsistent, and my schedule was not nearly as ironclad as I would’ve liked.
But to everyone who read along: Thank you. I hope you enjoyed it.
What’s next? Well, for me it’s a break. I’ve got a backlog of games at this point that I’d like to get through before I start tackling another major project. But now that I’ve got deSmuME running and figure out batch cropping and editing, there’s some more options out there. I never got HeartGold/SoulSilver back in the day, and I’d always planned to do a Random Team Run of one someday. Although my plans were always to tie it together with my FireRed run, and that’s pretty much lost to the aether now, so that’d just be a lot of referencing things no one would know about. If you’ve read this far you know I’m self-indulgent but I don’t know if I’m that self-indulgent.
But there’s still some other RPGs on the DS that I remember fondly that I don’t believe have been covered, namely Magical Starsign and Infinite Space. It’s been a long time since I’ve played either but they both go some interesting places. Or I could go wild with a dream project and do something from a franchise with the initials S, R, and W.
I’ll be honest I just like that galaxy in the middle. Also Magnezone is cool.
As for this game though, maybe Barry and Spamigo will keep building each other up.
Maybe Rowan continues with his research, and finding the next kid with potential.
Maybe Dawn learns life’s not going to be like her romance stories.
Maybe Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn do something constructive now that they’re not working for someone trying to erase the universe.
Maybe Looker solves a case for once.
Just maybe, Cyrus finds peace.
But that’s in the future.
For now, Spamigo returns home to rest.
Thank you all for reading.