Tuesday, November 29, 2016

4. Mecha mothra vs King Ghidorah

Spoilers: this post goes up until just before the 3rd island's second trial
   Before leaving Island 2 I peruse my box to see if there‘s anyone I’d like to add to the team to fill in for Macho. I ultimately decide to leave his spot open for now in case Island 3 gives me anything I’m really excited about. Plus, I’m starting to think a big part of the reason I’m struggling is I’m too reactionary. Every time I train a new teammate up the rest of my party stagnates and lets the opposing trainers’ teams catch up. I’m going to focus on 5 for now and make them rock solid. Another reason to do so is I have 3 pokemon (Dartrix, Sloan and Murphey) who are close to evolving. I need to take special care to avoid another Macho debacle.
   Prior to reaching Island 3 we take a brief detour to the Aether Paradise. A shiny white metal floating island made by the Aether Corporation and their headquarters for the quest for pokemon conservation. The sterile, professional structure is a stark contrast to the gangsta buffoonery of team Skull, the lovable antagonists of the story thus far. I meet the CEO or whatever and she gushes about how much she wants to save pokemon while at the same time throwing out some seriously creepy vibes. If she ends up being a bad guy it will be the most subtle villain introduction of any pokemon game to date. That's not saying much but fingers crossed. While there we encounter our first Ultra Beast, which are pokemon from another dimension or something? It goes down quickly but we’re expecting to see more of them soon and there’s some fairly ominous dialogue about the Aether corp’s intentions.
Ultra Beast #1
    Moving on to Island 3. My first catches of note are Remy the Grimer and Brisbane the Skarmory. Both respectable but I decide to wait and see before I commit to training one. I add Brisbane to the party as an emergency distraction but leave him underleveled. As I make my way up to the electric gym both Murphey and Sloan evolve and I catch ??? the minior. So named because I have no idea what to make of this thing.
"What happened to Murphey???" - Lizzy
??? the Minior





[I'm still not posting a picture of Salazzle]





     The electric trial is filled with Grubbin and Charjabug, projecting the totem pokemon will be the sweet jet fighter that Candycorn could have been had I been more careful (RIP). Sure enough, the Totem poke is a Vikavolt and my heart aches for the awesome Vikavolt vs. Vikavolt Top Gun style dog fight that could have been were Candycorn still with us. While less dramatic I did have a very practical solution to this totem battle. Enter Murphey the Mudsdale. Murphey hasn’t had any exercise since evolving and is rearing to leave hoof prints in some fools. Every totem poke has gotten a boost to a specific stat at the start of the battle, attack, defense, speed, etc. Vikavolt was the first the get a boost to ALL of its stats. I found out quickly that vikavolt has also levitate as its ability, so this wouldn’t be a 2 turn sweep like I’d hoped. Murphey had recently learned a move called High Horsepower, which is hilarious, that had thus never never failed to drop an electric type in one hit but that wasn't going to solve this fight unfortunately. Had it been a 1v1, the vikavolt may have given Murphey a run for its money despite not being able to use its electric attacks. Initially its bug bites did a decent amount of damage (why isnt bug super effective against ground again?) but it was hosed by its own partner, charjabug. Charjabug’s piddly damage only served to boost Murphey’s defense even quicker, to the point where after three rounds you needed a magnifying glass to determine how much the Vikavolt was doing to Murphey. This left Murphey free to do a merry riverdance of stomps on his opponents’ heads until they both expired. Man I love that horse.

I think I remember this
episode of magic school bus

Maverick! Your ego is writing
checks your body can't cash!
After the trial I run into the boss of Team Skull, Guzma, for the first time. Up until this point my main reaction to the grunts has been “haha, gang symbols”. I was excited to meet their leader, hoping that he to would be just as un-self serious and entertaining. Unfortunately our meeting was not as positive as I’d hoped. He leads off with Golisopod, a definitely Japanese monster I have not seen yet. Its probably… Bug type? Could be poison? Maybe even dragon? Casper is at the head and does meager damage with draining kiss. Golisopod leads off with a swords dance and my hackles start to raise. I don’t know what this is but it scares me and Godzilla is nowhere in sight to fight it off. Casper attacks again and it responds with Razor Shell. Ohhhh… its a WATER type. Even though I was expecting it to be bad I had a mild stroke when Casper’s health tanked until stopping aburptly at 1 HP. His affection saved him from death (thanks cheesey mechanic). Welp, that was almost a disaster. I quickly switch out Casper for Dartrix as he’s the only member of my team who resists water but he is still dropped to right around half health. OK, we’ll try someone beefier. I send out Gooby and pray his tankiness will see him through but I am totally let down. A critical hit razor shell slices through him and Gooby, my second catch, has been wipe from existence
RIP Gooby
This is the point in the battle where panic begins to set in and I need to slow down and think. Gooby is dead, Dartrix and Casper seriously injured, and Sloan and Murphey have type disadvantage. Any one of them would be one shot by this thing. My only option is sending out the untrained Brisbane and heal up Dartrix. I silently thank Brisbane for his brave sacrifice and heal up Dartrix. I watch sadly as the razor shell connects and Brisbane’s health begins to plummet. Suddenly, for the second time this match, my pokemon’s HP bar freezes at 1. This time not because of abusable game mechanics, but because Brisbane’s ability was sturdy, something I hadn’t even bothered to check. This was followed quickly by another miracle. Since I now had an extra turn I wasn’t expecting, I opt to put a little more damage onto him before Brisbane bites it. We outspeed the Power Rangers villain reject and hit it with an air cutter. Brisbane is pretty wimpy but the attack is super effective (so it is water/bug) and it's brought to just under half health. This triggers Golisopod’s ability that I was until now completely unaware of, which automatically switches him out.This means he loses his sword dance bonus and I have a second to breath. I had just blindly stumbled my way out of this awful match. Golisopod is replaced by an ariados. Brisbane has the look of someone snatched from the jaws of death as its swapped out for Sloan, who promptly toasts the spider. When Golisopod returns I’m barely able to put it down with a full health Dartrix thanks to type advantage it's lost attack boost. Another disaster barely averted at great sacrifice.
brb, destroying Tokyo

                   


        On the plus side, afterwards I caught a torkoal and named it Vapelife, so thats cool?






Deaths:8

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