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

Monday, November 28, 2016

Ula'ula Island Is A Stupid Island


As soon as we set foot on Ula'ula Island, my rival challenged me to a battle. He picked the grass starter, the stupid thing Joe has, so he's been a total pushover so far. This time his Dartrix was still a pushover, being thoroughly pushed over by Struan, but boy was I unprepared for his new Raichu.

What had been a silly Pikachu in previous battles was now a speedy, hard-hitting force. Electric is weak against Grass, so I let Snusan take a stab at him with her grassy ways. But he didn't just know Electric moves, no. He busted out a whopping Psychic that took Snusan down into yellow health. I knew he was too fast for Snusan and another hit would take her out, so I super potioned up. He used psychic again. Repeat and repeat and repeat. This was going nowhere, and I was running out of super potions. I didn't want to be stuck without healing items for the rest of the fight, so I bit the bullet and let Snusan take another hit. She was no more.

The rest of the fight was fine because his Raichu was fairly squishy and Dartrix is a pushover.

I flew back to the second island to hatch the fossil I'd been given there to fill out the gaping wound in my lineup. This became Gord the Shieldon, a stocky Rock/Steel tank from Gen IV. He was a good kid.

While training him up against random trainers, I faced off against a Black Belt with a Hariyama. I knew the thing would hit hard, and Gord would be wrecked, so I switched out. The safest choice would have been Kagimarp, to get that type resistance and the leadoff Intimidate, but I was not making good choices this day. I had it in my head that Bouncee would resist Fighting, maybe from the abundance of Grass/Poison types throughout the years who most definitely did have the resistance. Well, Grass is not resistant to Fighting. In one move, one Vital Throw, the Hariyama ripped Bouncee out of the ground and chucked her into a stupid grave.

Was Bouncee my Waifu? No, not quite, but she was a great Pokemon, hard hitting and reliable, a brilliant example of her type. Maybe if we'd had more time together. Sigh.

Image result for butterfree ash crying
Pour one out for Bouncee yall



And so the perennial pinch hitter, the eternal backup, the leader of the B team, Delbert the Makuhita joined the party once more. But the death toll wasn't done climbing yet.

There's an ability called Magnet Pull that stops Steel Pokemon from retreating. Just Steel types. Normally this doesn't matter at all. It's kind of a worthless ability because it's so rarely useful. It had never occurred to me to worry about it when training Gord in the tall grass. I should have.

A wild Magnemite appeared. Gord, with Rock Tomb and Take Down as his only offensive moves, wasn't the right guy to fight it, so I opted to switch... but it failed. Gord wasn't going anywhere. As the Magnemite cut right through Gord's defenses with Sonic Boom and summoned a second Magnemite to the battle, my heart sank. This wasn't an issue of being conservative with my healing items like with Snusan (in hindsight, she was worth far more than I gave her credit for). This was just a straight up hopeless situation. I could buy a little time with Protect, but against double Sonic Booms, and with Gord doing almost zero damage with his attacks, it was over before it began. So long, Gord. I barely knew yee.

My luck turned around when I caught my first new wild Pokemon in a while. Or did it? I've been using Slamuel the Komala for a couple days now, and I still have no idea if he's good or not. Let me explain. He's a little Normal-type Koala who's just napping against a little log. He doesn't seem to evolve. His gimmick lies in his ability, Comatose. Basically, Komala is perpetually sleeping. Like, it never wakes up. Not in battle, not out of it. It is literally in a coma.

He still fights somehow. Comatose doesn't show up as the Sleeping status effect, rather he's somehow immune to all other status effects and fights normally. I think? I think that's all there is to it. And that's all good - I haven't found a drawback at all, except maybe that he can't use Rest, and who cares. As a fighter, Slamuel is pretty well rounded, with a surprisingly hard-hitting STAB Slam and lots of good utility moves - I caught him with Yawn and Rapid Spin, and he's since learned Sucker Punch and U-Turn. So far he's come through every time I've needed him.

With Slamuel and Delbert filling in the gaps left by Bouncee and Snusan, I pushed onward, fighting some Team Skull goons and training against a number of wild Pokes and trainers... until we got to the Electric captain.

Another bossy trainer greets you at the door, using Steel Pokemon and giving you a Steelium Z crystal after the fight. He was a pleasure to battle, and Struan wiped the floor with him hardily.

Oh, I should also mention that at this point Joe, the sweet boy whose Nuz runs parallel to mine on this blog, traded with me to evolve Macho into a Machamp. I HAVE A MACHAMP NOW.

So I encountered Sophocles, the endlessly entertaining chubby shut-in engineer buddy who summoned the Electric Totem Pokemon. This time it's a gigantic Vikavolt with all his stats boosted, summoning Charjabugs for backup - both Electric/Bug types.

Two of my most reliable sluggers, Kagimarp and Aoife, who recently evolved into Toucannon, were weak to Electricity, so I started out with Slamuel - good for initial status attacks, ready to U-turn out at the first sign of danger. We landed a Yawn right out the gate that kept the Vivavolt sleeping for several turns. Slamuel tried a Slam, decided it wasn't doing enough, and U-Turned, and out came Delbert with the Fake Out and Bulldoze. He probably should have used Fake Out on the Charjabug, not the sleeping Vikavolt. But I was a fool, and then Delbert was Thunder-Wave paralyzed. He missed the next turn due to paralysis, the Vikavolt finally woke up, using Spark. We healed, and the Vivavolt used Charge to boost its next Electric attack. We tried Bulldoze again. That's when I learned the hard way that Vivavolt's ability is Levitate. Bulldoze killed the Charjabug, but another immediately took its place. And Vivavolt's charged Spark was not forgiving.

Delbert, you gave it your all just to please me. Even though I never let you be on the A team, constantly choosing Macho over you as my Fighting-type buddy, you never stopped loving me and doing your best. Now that you're gone, there's so much I wish I'd said to you, so much I wish I could say now. Maybe you can read this from my graveyard box in my PC. I hope you are.

The Vikavolt didn't go down easy. Struan softened it up a lot, but once he was paralyzed I U-Turned him out of there. The Vikavolt was in the red health now. I just needed someone fast who could land the final blow. It was then that I made what could have been my stupidest move yet: sending out Kagimarp, he of 4x Electric weakness, to seal the deal. Yeah, he would probably be fast enough. Yeah, the Charjibug on the side probably wouldn't kill him. But I was going out in faith alone. I was so lucky that it worked.


We won, and I've been taking it slow and coasting off of that intensity. After the battle Struan evolved into a Digimon, or maybe a '90s Disney movie villain. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but Struan the Fire/Dark Incineroar is psyched af about his new bipedalness, humungous pecs, and giant hammy forepaws. But with Delbert gone, on top of all the other deaths, it's a bittersweet victory for my weary party of five.



RIP: Snusan :( Gord :( Bouncee :( Delbert :(
Image result for shiinoticImage result for epic shieldonImage result for sad steeneeImage result for epic hariyama


THE PARTY





Image result for incineroar
Struan the Incineroar
-Signature move: Darkest Lariat, a hilariously dramatic pro wrestling move
-Now has the combo of Flame Charge and Swords Dance, making him a really legit sweeper

Image result for toucannon
Aoife Toucannon
-Her facial expression makes me laugh constantly. She's always giving the side-eye, with her giant beak and judgmentally furrowed brow. Sometimes, because of our deep-ass bond, my avatar says things to her during battle, and her look in the camera's direction is so deadpan, like "dude, can't you see I'm fighting a battle here"
-Her signature move is Beak Blast, which charges up at the beginning of the round but attacks at the end of it -two parts, but one turn. If she's hit directly while charging, the foe is burned. I love this move so much.

Image result for sexy machamp
Macho the Machamp
-Still has no guard. Can't wait to learn weird moves that take advantage of that
-Evolved af

Image result for sexy gyarados
Kagimarp the Gyarados
-Finally learned Aqua Tail, so this dude can wreck

Image result for komala
Slamuel the Komala
-Sleeping. Not sure if he knows who I am.

Image result for herdier
Small Doggo the Herdier
-C-Team, he's here in case I need a sacrifice.
-He's got Baby-Doll eyes, which takes priority to lower attack, so he'll be able to make a slight difference even though he's underleveled
-Also Thunder Wave, if he can manage to sneak it out.

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