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Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Part 2: Catch-a-thon 2004

Route 102



Man the music is still so good and we've only listened to five tracks! Uh, anyway, hi, let's head towards the next city. But since it's a new route, there's some cool Pokemon to find, one in particular is very important.





Lotad is like having all three starters at once if you chose Torchic, but it has a rough start, as its best move for a while will be Bullet Seed. But once you save its rear end with TMs, evolve it all the way (which won't happen for a long time, big warning), then it's pretty good. Until then, it's poo poo, wait until later.

Swift Swim doubles your Speed when it's raining, which is amazing, if inconsistent. Rain Dish will recover a Pokemon's HP by 1/16th each turn if it's raining. Also inconsistent, if not all that great. Why recover HP when you can just outspeed them? Better used on a stalling Pokemon, like Tentacruel.



Our first Gen 3 move! It's poo poo. Astonish is a Ghost move with 30BP, 15PP and 100% accuracy that has a 30% chance to flinch. Aw yeah, another really bad Ghost move (whyyyyy???). In Gen 3 only, Astonish's damage is doubled if the opponent used Minimize last. Note that you still need to hit the drat thing and they keep switching how this works between gens. Last gen it was the base power doubling, this gen it's the damage being doubled, next gen it's back to base power being doubled and then Gen 5 is when it finally settled on damage being doubled.



Neat. What's next?





The only place you can find these things and it starts with Growl. It learns Confusion quickly enough, but that'll have to do you for 20 levels until you learn Psychic. At least it's early, but the only other special move you can learn is... Shock Wave, if you want something else getting Thunderbolt (which I do), so it'll hit hard with Psychic and, uh, that's about it.

Trace is a tricky ability, copying the opponent's ability when you send it out. Could be good, could be useless, could be detrimental. Synchronize will inflict the opponent with Burn, Paralysis or Poison when the user is inflicted with that status. This will pop up a few times, but it might not affect the opponent depending on what it is. When a Pokemon with Synchronize is in the lead, there is a 50% chance wild Pokemon will have the same Nature. This does not apply to stationary Pokemon or roamers or Fossils.



We'll be using our Premier Ball since this Ralts is gonna be our second team member. It's gonna need a bit of babying, but Mudkip has no problems with the early game, so it can take a few hits until Ralts can stand on its feet. Its nickname will be given inbetween this part and the next.



Hmm, Careful... that's +Sp Def and -Sp Atk... poo poo. Oh well, it'll be fine, Trace should be pretty entertaining if nothing else and I wouldn't want to pass this nature onto anything else.



We'll be using Pokemon Centers a lot while we train Ralts up, but Mudkip is pretty defensive, so we can switch Ralts out so it gets exp.



You can't say no to my challenge!

Trainer Battle




Oh god this music. Alright Ralts, cheers for the useful info, time to get out of there.



Ooh, another new move. Howl is a Normal status move with 40PP that raises Attack by 1 stage. Could get out of control if we let it.



It didn't. On to the next trainer! One down... hundreds to go...



Like before, I'll only be showing battles if something interesting happens in them.



Like that! Wait... how did Nobunaga level up before Ralts? Oh boy, this'll be annoying.



Looking at people's eyes are just good manners, cause they're usually very pretty.



Free items, let's go. I am going to forget about this many times throughout the LP. Zigzagoon will be sticking around for a while, so hey, let's nickname... *squints* him.



A good battle, but Ralts ain't useful just yet!





Taillow is a good birb, if nothing special. It gets early Wing Attack, which will be very useful and... that's it. That's the strongest Flying move it gets. No, Fly doesn't count. You can then get Return and Steel Wing and there we go, that's your bird. Yeah, just cause we're over 10 years into this franchise doesn't mean Pokemon will have good movepools!

Guts boosts a Pokemon's Attack by 50% when it's afflicted with a status condition, except for Freeze (even if it uses a thawing move), so that's pretty cool, makes it a status absorber that relies on the enemy being nice and triggering it for you. It's a nasty surprise if nothing else.



Aw yeah, I love Tackle.



drat, I feel super bad for you, if there's anything I could do- ooh what's that up there?




Berries, gently caress yeah! Like a lot of things, Berries were improved and standardized in this gen, so the original 10 berries from last gen are still around, but have cool names and are part of a much bigger bunch of different Berries. You can also plant them again and grow them! I won't be bothering with that, but I will be showing all the cool Berries in this game, cause there's a lot. The Oran Berry restores 10HP in battle when a Pokemon's HP goes under 50%, while the Pecha Berry recovers Poison. Use in the field or hold in battle for when you need it. Very, very useful.






A good shroom that won't really be using its Grass moves as time goes on. There aren't that many good Grass moves in this game, so thankfully when it evolves, it gets some other good STAB. You still don't get that many strong moves until you level it more, or get TMs much later down the line. So watch out, the best you get is Headbutt for a while and it won't become a special attacker like you expect.

Effect Spore is awful and I hate fighting against it. When you have it, it hardly activates, but anyway, it has a 9% chance for Poison, a 10% chance for Paralysis and an 11% chance for Sleep when you're hit by a contact move, totalling a 30% chance, which is kinda nasty. If you're lucky, it'll be Poison, if you're not, it'll be the other two much worse ones. Ugh.




I was super lucky to not have it activate there, but I didn't have much of a choice. Wish Ralts would level up more.

Route 102



Can't wait to catch all the poo poo in this game.



Quick stop in Petalburg City to heal, we're not done with Route 102 just yet. Also, it's cool the routes are back to 1 again, really gets that distance across.



Sheesh, now Ralts is able to contribute in battles. See you next update, Nobunaga, we've got a shy boy to level. Let's see what's in the grass.





Another rubbish mon, but it's fine cause it's stupidly rare. It doesn't learn any consistent moves until level 31 since Nature Power is, uh, interesting. Obviously it gets saved by the Bullet Seed TM, but still, it's only common in Ruby, you can get it much easier slightly further down the road (catch a Ralts, btw). You do get its stone a lot earlier than Lotad, but it'll be a rough journey until then. Unfortunately its best STAB moves are 60BP.

Early Bird wakes a Pokemon from Sleep quicker. The amount of turns will always be preset, so 6 turns become 3, 3 becomes 1 and 1 becomes 0, instantly waking the Pokemon up on the same turn it fell asleep. It also applies to Rest, waking up after 1 turn. Chlorophyll, meanwhile, doubles a Pokemon's Speed if it's sunny. Pretty cool, but again, not particularly consistent right now.



The trick with Bide is to attack before it, or never attack. Anyway, this Pokemon has a 1% chance of appearing and is a version exclusive in Ruby, with Lotad in Sapphire. There aren't too many Pokemon that don't appear in Emerald, thankfully, but Seedot might as well be exclusive cause of how rare it is.



Easy enough. Well, don't actually try and find one. You can just trade for one later, but I forgot!





Considering how stupidly, ridiculously rare this Pokemon is, it's a shame it's rubbish, especially with that neat typing. Low stats all around, using the worse Attack stat when you evolve into a STAB physical attacker and not getting any good moves. It's tough being so bad. So if you somehow stumble upon one, congrats, it's 1% no matter where you look.



You might be surprised to hear, but since Surskit cannot be found in Emerald at all (with one exception that I can't make use of), I'm hacking it in to make my life easier. I know, perish the thought. This is why Seedot is 1% no matter what, since it replaced Surskit, which was 1% no matter what. It's dumb, I dunno how I found it when I was younger, but it definitely wasn't through a swarm. Anyway, into the box it goes.



Oh yeah, if you press Select, your hand turns yellow. This lets you pick up Pokemon without confirmation boxes, letting you move stuff about really quickly. If you hold A while your hand is yellow, you can scroll over and select multiple Pokemon at a time, letting you move entire boxes in one go. Why yes that is amazing.



Neat. Alright, let's explore Petalburg.

Petalburg City


Petalburg City: Where people mingle with nature.
Touka City: The city where people mingle with nature.
From petal and the placename suffix burg, and touka, orange blossom, or flower head.



I have a hobby--collecting the profiles of POKEMON TRAINERS. So, how about it? May I see your profile? Yes! Thank you! So, let's see it, then.



Aah, the easy chat system, make together a bunch of preset phrases and you can say and do all kinds of things. This is for what other trainers will see on your Trainer Card.



You can sort by categories or alphabetically. I prefer the latter, but I always do random poo poo anyway, so it doesn't matter.



Your profile, it's wonderful! It really says what you're about. Why, anyone hearing this profile would be captivated by you! Thank you!



There's a lot of dumb stuff you can do with the easy chat system and I love all of it. Now what's upstairs?



First, the room on the left. It's the UNION ROOM. Second, the room on the right is the DIRECT CORNER. I hope you enjoy the Wireless Communication System.



Before this LP I thought Teala was only in Gen 4. Anyway, the Wireless Adapter! Is something I used to have, but no more. It was pretty cool and it did a fair few things and it works today (it's the Gen 4 and 5 GTS that no longer works), but I'll talk about it later, sometime. Basically, the Union Room let's you see many people at once near you that are using the Wireless Adapter. The Direct Corner is when you want to specifically go and battle and trade with someone and how you communicate with Ruby and Sapphire, since they don't have Union Rooms.



Oho, what's this?



Early Repels are super nice, so there goes my cash. It'll be fine.



Good customer service.



That means you must know about the MYSTERY GIFT. From now on, you should be receiving MYSTERY GIFTS! Once you save your game, you can access the MYSTERY GIFT.

Something else I'll go into later is using the Wireless Adapter to receive event related stuff. In Ruby and Sapphire, you had Mystery Events, which were basically the same thing, but required you saying MYSTERY GIFT IS EXCITING to the guy who we showed our profile to. This then lets you get cool stuff from an e-Reader and OH BOY ARE THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS TO TALK ABOUT REGARDING THE E-READER THAT I'LL GET TO LATER.

"A man in pursuit of power!"

Anyway, enough going over old poo poo that I'll never show off legitimately, let's go to the only interesting thing in Petalburg: the Gym.

Pokemon Gym



Took long enough, but I finally have a DAD. I look forward to this not being a freakish one time occurence.



I'm surprised that you managed to get here by yourself. Oh, I see. You're with your POKEMON. Hm... then I guess you're going to become a TRAINER like me, YUKI. That's great news! I'll be looking forward to it!



Hm? You're... uh... oh, right. You're WALLY, right?

I'm going to go stay with my relatives in VERDANTURF TOWN. I thought I would be lonely by myself, so I wanted to take a POKEMON along. But I've never caught a POKEMON before. I don't know how...

Hm. I see. YUKI, you heard that, right? Go with WALLY and make sure that he safely catches a POKEMON. WALLY, here, I'll loan you my POKEMON.



Oh, wow! A POKEMON!

Hm, I'll give you a POKEBALL, too. Go for it!




Alright, another friend! I suppose I could learn how to do this capture business. I've just gotta make loads of circles, right?

"don't they?"

Please watch me and see if I can catch one properly... whoa!



Hax, hax! I call hax!



Hilariously, this battle can end super differently.




Uh, not quite how you do it, but an A for effort.



YUKI, thank you! Let's go back to the GYM!



YUKI, thank you for coming along with me. You two are why I was able to catch my POKEMON. I promise I'll take really good care of it. Oh! My mom's waiting for me, so I have to go! Bye, YUKI!



YUKI, if you want to become a strong TRAINER, here's my advice. Head for RUSTBORO CITY beyond this town. There, you should challenge the GYM LEADER, ROXANNE. After her, go on to other POKEMON GYMS and defeat their LEADERS. Collect BADGES from them, understood? Of course, I'm a GYM LEADER, too. We'll battle one day, YUKI. But that's only after you become stronger.

Hm? Aren't you going to the POKEMON GYM in RUSTBORO CITY? There's no challenge for me to battle a greenhorn TRAINER. YUKI, I want you to challenge me when you become a lot stronger. I'll battle you, YUKI, when you can show me four GYM BADGES, okay?

Petalburg City



We're done in this city for now, but how's Wally doing?



He's been frail and sickly ever since he was a baby. We've sent him to stay with my relatives in VERDANTURF TOWN for a while. The air is a lot cleaner there than it is here. What's that? Where's WALLY? He's already left, our WALLY. I wonder where he could have gotten by now?



I can't wait to beat him up later and take his money.



Let me guess, from the way you're dressed, are you a POKEMON TRAINER? ... Well, maybe not. Your clothes aren't all that dirty. You're either a rookie TRAINER, or maybe you're just an ordinary kid. I'm roaming the land in search of talented TRAINERS. I'm sorry to have taken your time.



What a mysterious guy.

Route 104



Mmm, this is the good stuff. Just before we head onto this route though...



Alright, cool. Guess I'll have to get Mystery Gifts another way.



Uh, what? That's the first time that's happened. Oh well, it's not a big deal.

It's fun making footprints in the sand!



I'm glad Ralts can handle himself now, so get used to seeing a lot of him for the rest of the update!

"disappear quickly..."


Ooh, what cool new Hoenn Pokemon does this guy have?



Ah. Hm.



It's definitely not a king.



Hidden items will be everywhere and the Itemfinder is still poo poo, so it'll be no help when we get it.



Empty unlocked house. Sure.



More Berries. I shall endeavour to never replace them.




Ralts is doing fine, but is getting a bit beat up.



There's still more to Berries that we haven't seen yet, but at the moment they're pretty useful healing items.



Nice and easy.



Marill can be found here in Emerald and it's pretty cool cause of its ability. Huge Power doubles the Pokemon's Attack stat. Note, it doesn't double the Pokemon's base Attack stat, but the final number, which is even better. A shame that Marill doesn't get to use it with STAB, but it makes the line much more interesting.



That's it for Route 104 (South), so let's go into the woods today.

Petalburg Woods



Petalburg Woods is pretty cool and there's a few new Pokemon to find, so we won't be breaking out the Repels just yet.





I was not expecting to go over the 5% encounter first, but Slakoth is really tough to use cause of its ability. When it evolves it becomes much better, but since it can only attack every other turn... yeahhhhhh. It's not gonna die immediately, but it is a hassle using it in battle, especially since it evolves pretty late compared to other 3 stage lines. All you'll have is Scratch for a while, but you get Slack Off pretty early, which ain't too bad.

Truant is the reason why Slakoth is so tough to evolve. Every second turn, you're unable to attack, meaning you can only attack every other turn, which is pretty rough. Still, if you can survive the spare turns then I guess you'll be alright, it's just frustrating and wastes time.



Trace has ruined me for the first time. Yawn is a Normal status move with 10PP that makes the opponent drowsy. At the end of the next turn, the Pokemon will fall asleep, though it'll be unaffected if it gets statused during that time, or it switches out.



Alright, now I don't have to hunt for that rare Pokemon.



Well that was a fun dungeon, back to Route 104.



Ah just kidding, back to the woods we go.




Pretty easy for Ralts. Once it starts attacking, it's pretty drat reliable and will only get better from here.



I can't wait to run out of balls one day from catching too many things.





You'll have it for 3 levels at most. It's poo poo, just evolve it.

Shed Skin has a 30% chance of healing a status condition at the end of the turn, even before you would take Burn or Poison damage. Very nice, but not particularly dependable. Just use an item.



I don't need to catch this.



I really love that POKEMON.

Team Aqua

"forever, didn't you?"

I got sick of waiting, so here I am! You! DEVON RESEARCHER! Hand over those papers!



Hunh? What do you think you're doing? What, you're going to protect him? No one who crosses TEAM AQUA gets any mercy, not even a kid! Come on and battle me!

VS Team Aqua Grunt



Since Poochyena is a Dark type, Ralts would be useless against it, so Nobunaga is here for his only battle in the woods.



I hate this Poochyena, it's super dangerous if you get unlucky.



I missed so much I went down to -6 accuracy. Good thing the AI barely attacked me!



I like how Nobunaga is in battle for five minutes and immediately levels up. Maybe one day Ralts will catch up. Nice to get some STAB at least.

Petalburg Woods



Come on and battle me again! I wish I could say that, but I'm out of POKEMON... and, hey, we of TEAM AQUA are also after something in RUSTBORO. I'll let you go today!



Thanks to you, he didn't rob me of these important papers. I know, I'll give you a GREAT BALL as my thanks!



Didn't that TEAM AQUA thug say they were after something in RUSTBORO, too? Uh-oh! It's a crisis! I can't be wasting time!



Farewell friend, hopefully I'll see him again in better circumstances.



Uh, okay. Not what I'm looking for.



3 of my 4 encounters in these woods have been 5% ones...






Nincada is interesting since it keeps the bad STAB type throughout evolution, instead of something it could use. The best Bug move it learns is Leech Life and the best Ground move it learns is Dig at level 45. Wow. So yeah, it'll evolve and still be poo poo, but it can eventually learn Aerial Ace, so that's a bit better. Aside from its gimmicky other evolution, the line isn't very impressive, especially with this movepool, yikes.

Compoundeyes raises a move's accuracy by 30% of its original value, which is pretty amazing. Any move higher than 80% accuracy will always hit and other, less accurate moves, like Hypnosis, become much more reliable. Also, if it's first in the party, Pokemon that can appear holding items are boosted by 50% from the original. So a Pokemon with a 50% chance of holding an item is now 100%, while 5% becomes 55%. This makes obtaining these items actually possible and not a ridiculous headache and absolutely something we will be making use of in future. This ability is just so great.



I don't think that's how school works.



Well that's all we can explore in here for the moment. So let's get the last two Pokemon in this place.



STOP



There we go, only a 15% encounter, I could understand why it took so long to find one.



Please. No more.





Silcoon is like Cascoon, except it's white. Seriously though, they have the same stats and typing and everything, it's kinda cool, I guess. Anyway, Beautifly is better since it has 90 Special Attack instead of 90 Special Defense like Dustox, even though Dustox has a much better movepool to start with. Such is life.



See, I'm being smart here and catching what the Wurmple we obtained won't evolve into. How do I know what Wurmple will evolve into? Uhhhhhhhhh...



Oh hey, we're out of the woods and back on Route 104. We'll continue our journey next time.



Though before we end, since I headed back to Petalburg to heal (getting a bit low on PP), let's hack in loads of Rare Candies and evolve Pokemon when we can to complete the Pokedex.





There we go, since I can see what Wurmple will evolve into by looking at its PID, I had no reason to catch a Cascoon. Like with previous LPs, I won't evolve Pokemon unless we'll never encounter them otherwise, or to a level past our team. Also maybe I'll space it out a bit more so I'm not doing 50 at the end of the LP.



Also a level up on the way back. Now we're done!

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Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Side Notes #02: Catching Stuff Maybe Less Glitchy This Time?

Alright, Gen 3 is when a lot of stuff got overhauled and improved, so let's see what they did to the capture formula. It was pretty easy to game in Gen 1, it was annoyingly broken in a few places in Gen 2, and in Gen 3? Well it works just fine and is used in Gen 4 too, so I can just copy this over if I do those games, haha! Anyway, what's the formula?



a is the modified catch rate, which is used after we've gone over the individual components. HP max is the number of hit points the Pokemon has at full health, while HP current is the current hit points the Pokemon has. Aren't you glad I detailed that for you?

rate is the catch rate of the Pokemon, between 3 and 255 and can only be modified in the Safari Zone, since the Apricorn Balls (or more specifically the Heavy Ball) don't exist in Gen 3. bonus ball is the Pokeball modifier, while bonus status is multiplier for status conditions, which work and are x1.5 for paralyze, poison and burn, and x2 for sleep and freeze.

Once that number is obtained, a is then put into a small formula to determine b, the shake probability.

b = 1048560 / sqrt(sqrt(16711680/a))

All divisions and square roots are rounded down to the nearest whole number. From there, the game generates a number between 0 and 65535 and compare it to b. If that number is greater than or equal to b, then the Pokemon will break out of the Pokeball. Four numbers are made and if all of them are lower than b, the Pokemon is caught. If not, it'll shake for however many checks were made. Also, if a is 255, the Pokemon is automatically caught and no checks are made.

Seems simple enough, so let's talk Pokeballs, since HP reduction and status are simple enough. All the OG Pokeballs are the same, so Pokeball, Great Ball, Ultra Ball, Master Ball and Safari Ball have a x1, x1.5, x2, x255 and x1.5 modifier as per usual. Since this modifies the catch rate, any Pokemon with a catch rate of 255 are unaffected by Pokeball modifiers.

Now we skip the Gen 2 balls and move straight to the Gen 3 ones. The Premier Ball is x1, the same as a Pokeball and only obtained after buying 10 standard Pokeballs at once. That's it. The Repeat Ball is x3 if the Pokemon has already been registered in the Pokedex, x1 otherwise. The Timer Ball is calculated at ((number of turns passed in battle + 10) ÷ 10), with a maximum of x4, at 30 turns. It's the best Pokeball in the game, but it takes SO LONG to reach 30 turns. You might catch it before then with other, stronger Pokeballs and if you get to that turn number, then the Pokemon could start running out of PP. Still, it's the strongest Pokeball aside from the Master Ball, so I guess it's worth it if you remember to turn count, though it is equal or better than the Dive Ball past 25 turns and equal or better to the Nest Ball on a level 2 Pokemon past 28 turns.

The Nest Ball is calculated at ((40 - Pokémon's level) ÷ 10), with a minimum of x1. For a level 2 Pokemon, it gives a x3.8 rate, but a lot of those Pokemon have high catch rates anyway and are thus unaffected by this ball. Still, for low levelled Pokemon with low catch rates, this is pretty drat helpful. The Net Ball has a x3 catch rate on Water or Bug type Pokemon, x1 otherwise, which is pretty handy, but doesn't stack for Surskit, sorry. The Dive Ball has a x3.5 catch rate when used underwater, x1 otherwise. There are some tricky underwater catches, so these are pretty nice. Finally, the Luxury Ball has a x1 rate, but every action that raises happiness raises it by an extra point as well, making it nice for the... ONE line you can use this on to fast-track evolution (Zubat or Golbat). It does make Return stronger that much quicker, though, so it's a nice ball to use for that if nothing else.

Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Feb 10, 2018

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

We're gonna need a nickname for Ralts, as well as Zigzagoon... as well as any other nicknames for the other things we've caught if I remember to change it.

Level Seven
Feb 14, 2013

Wubba dubba dubba
that blew.



Megamarm
Odlaw the Ralts because that nature you found is the opposite of good.

Fifty-two the Zigzagoon, maybe you'll remember to get that many items.

Awesome to see gen 3 start off. :toot:

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

Someone on staff clearly felt bad for &/or really loves Azumarill because they spent 4 generations giving it an assortment of buffs starting with Huge Power.

BlazeEmblem
Jun 8, 2013

Uh oh. Do I use Ariadne thread or Goho-M?

Crosspeice posted:

We're gonna need a nickname for Ralts, as well as Zigzagoon... as well as any other nicknames for the other things we've caught if I remember to change it.

Knowing what our male Raltz evolves into, lets go with Progress, because we don't have enough room to fit Progressive in this gen.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!
I like Infernape more than Blaziken. That said, both are good and neat.

Also, Oldale is the most boring town.

Haifisch
Nov 13, 2010

Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!



Taco Defender
Name Zigzagoon FreeSample(s), because that's clearly what all those items are, right? :downs:

Name Ralts after Ranmaru to continue the Conquest jokes.

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

rannum posted:

Someone on staff clearly felt bad for &/or really loves Azumarill because they spent 4 generations giving it an assortment of buffs starting with Huge Power.

No kidding. Azumarill went from totally worthless in Gen 2, to having a good ability but not much else in Gen 3, to actually being able to use that ability in Gen 4, to powerful enough to be OU in Gen 6.

Sadly, since Gen 7 didn't keep adding Megas, we didn't get the obvious next step. Maybe next gen.

Haifisch posted:

Name Zigzagoon FreeSample(s), because that's clearly what all those items are, right? :downs:

Name Ralts after Ranmaru to continue the Conquest jokes.

I second these choices and expect more Conquest naming for the rest of the party. Plus Ranmaru is just a perfect fit for a male Ralts.

Also time to gush a bit more about Hoenn! Namely, Grass types. Hoenn has the best Grass types. Sure, there are some pretty good Grass types in other places, but if I have to mono-Grass a region, it will be Hoenn, and indeed, that's exactly what I did when ORAS came out! Seeing how I had used Blaziken in Y and all, OR was a mono-Grass run and a very fun one too! Steel-types were a giant pain in the rear end though, but I still had a lot more fun than I would have with a normal run. With Pokemon as great as Mega Sceptile (not a fan of the normal one), Ludicolo, Shiftry, Breloom, Cradily and Roserade (okay, Gen 4, this was an OR run after all), and that's only the ones I used, Hoenn has a lot more choices! If you're into the weed, I can't think of a better place to be.

And you talked about the Wireless Adapter - I still have mine! Alongside a Link Cable too! Sure bring back memories, even if they're pointless now that consoles come with ways to connect without the need for more peripherals. Not like I ever got any use out of the Wireless Adapter anyways, what a weird gimmick. Still!

Carbon dioxide
Oct 9, 2012

Crosspeice posted:

Oh yeah, if you press Select, your hand turns yellow. This lets you pick up Pokemon without confirmation boxes, letting you move stuff about really quickly.
WHAT?

quote:

If you hold A while your hand is yellow, you can scroll over and select multiple Pokemon at a time, letting you move entire boxes in one go. Why yes that is amazing.
WHAT??? :catstare:

hopeandjoy
Nov 28, 2014



Haifisch posted:

Name Zigzagoon FreeSample(s), because that's clearly what all those items are, right? :downs:

Name Ralts after Ranmaru to continue the Conquest jokes.

These are good names.

It’s a shame what the internet has done to the Ralts line, because it’s one of my favorite ‘mons. This happens to all the Pokémon I like because they’re pretty. :(

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

I like Infernape more than Blaziken. That said, both are good and neat.

And then Emboar happened.

At least Delphox was cool and good,

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

I thought we might continue the Conquest theme and you guys would suggest Ranmaru. After this, you can't do any more Conquest names, or the whole party would be like that, you swines. Feel free to choose a different name and have another Conquest name down the line, but I've gotta draw the line somewhere.

Carbon dioxide posted:

WHAT?

WHAT??? :catstare:

It's alright, I only found out last year.

Verant
Oct 20, 2012

Go on an adventure ordained by fate?
-->Okay.
-->Eh.
Free Samples the Zigzagoon and P. Mantis for Ralts.

AradoBalanga
Jan 3, 2013

I'm going to echo the option for FreeSample on Zigzagoon. No preference on Ralts' name, since I like its Gen 4 updates a little bit more and never touched on the line in this game.

Taillow is probably one of the more disappointing bird lines, honestly. A shame though, since it's a nice but simple creature design that sadly gets the short end of the stick when placed amongst its peers. Not a whole lot to stand out from the other early birds in the franchise with regards to movepool (especially at this point in the series) and you could also snag a Wingull and have a bird + a water type all in one go, making Taillow almost pointless.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
Like ziggy, taillow seems to just be the Generic Starting Bird.

I don't care for Ralts, either. It's a perfectly fine psychic type that does nothing interesting with type, stats, or moves.

Solumin
Jan 11, 2013
Ralts is going to take longer to level up because of its XP curve. The Ralts line has the "slow" curve, while Mudkip's line is "medium slow" (same as all the other starters). The XP curve defines how much XP the Pokemon needs to reach the next level.

Ranmaru (which is a great name for Ralts) needs 339 XP to go from level 9 to level 10, while Nobunaga only needed 141.

I also like FreeSamples, but honestly Gumball would be a super cute name for Zigzagoon. :3:


Blaze Dragon posted:

No kidding. Azumarill went from totally worthless in Gen 2, to having a good ability but not much else in Gen 3, to actually being able to use that ability in Gen 4, to powerful enough to be OU in Gen 6.

Sadly, since Gen 7 didn't keep adding Megas, we didn't get the obvious next step. Maybe next gen.


I second these choices and expect more Conquest naming for the rest of the party. Plus Ranmaru is just a perfect fit for a male Ralts.

Also time to gush a bit more about Hoenn! Namely, Grass types. Hoenn has the best Grass types. Sure, there are some pretty good Grass types in other places, but if I have to mono-Grass a region, it will be Hoenn, and indeed, that's exactly what I did when ORAS came out! Seeing how I had used Blaziken in Y and all, OR was a mono-Grass run and a very fun one too! Steel-types were a giant pain in the rear end though, but I still had a lot more fun than I would have with a normal run. With Pokemon as great as Mega Sceptile (not a fan of the normal one), Ludicolo, Shiftry, Breloom, Cradily and Roserade (okay, Gen 4, this was an OR run after all), and that's only the ones I used, Hoenn has a lot more choices! If you're into the weed, I can't think of a better place to be.

And you talked about the Wireless Adapter - I still have mine! Alongside a Link Cable too! Sure bring back memories, even if they're pointless now that consoles come with ways to connect without the need for more peripherals. Not like I ever got any use out of the Wireless Adapter anyways, what a weird gimmick. Still!


Agreed, Hoenn's grass types are great. I think the next best would be Alola, but that's cheating, the entire Gen VII dex is amazing.

Leraika
Jun 14, 2015

Luckily, I *did* save your old avatar. Fucked around and found out indeed.
Ranmaru and Gumball, sure.

Kikas
Oct 30, 2012

Having a normal one

AGDQ 2018 Awful Block Survivor

Crosspeice posted:

It's alright, I only found out last year.

Yeah cause who even USES select ever? Aside from "dedicated bike button". It's a shame we're not gonna see Lotad for a while, cause Ludicolo is great and he really saved my rear end more then once in my X playthrough, where you can get him fairly early. Gets great coverage, can pick up Ice Beam and stuff like Focus Blast or Giga Impact. Love my dancing sombrero pineapple duck.

Ranmaru and Freesample let's go.

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Okay, I think we've got our winners. Voting closed!

Kikas posted:

Yeah cause who even USES select ever? Aside from "dedicated bike button". It's a shame we're not gonna see Lotad for a while, cause Ludicolo is great and he really saved my rear end more then once in my X playthrough, where you can get him fairly early. Gets great coverage, can pick up Ice Beam and stuff like Focus Blast or Giga Impact. Love my dancing sombrero pineapple duck.

Ranmaru and Freesample let's go.

Thankfully evolution stones for Pokedex filling is actually pretty good in this game (unlike the past two games I've LPed...), but some are a wee bit late.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
Oof. A Ralts in slothtown just sounds like a huge hassle.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.
Good to see this LP going, to be honest, I know I missed out on being able to contribute to GSC with that manga stuff (And was disappointed in myself, but life did not line up in such a way to allow it.) But I've got the itch to maybe belt out some posts regarding PokeSpe's best arc, Ruby and Sapphire.

Also yeah Ranmaru and Gumball

General Revil
Sep 30, 2014

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Too bad voting is already closed. I was hoping to convince enough people to go for the unsubtle choice of Trap for Ralts's name.

limeicebreakers
May 1, 2017

I'm glad I caught this thread right at the beginning! Emerald was my first video game ever, period. Clicking each music clip is like a burst of nostalgia.

Onmi posted:

But I've got the itch to maybe belt out some posts regarding PokeSpe's best arc, Ruby and Sapphire.

:3: I'm looking forward to it.

limeicebreakers fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Feb 12, 2018

Rigged Death Trap
Feb 13, 2012

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP

General Revil posted:

Too bad voting is already closed. I was hoping to convince enough people to go for the unsubtle choice of Trap for Ralts's name.

How bout no

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.
PokeSpe Entry - Fighting Girl meets Boy.

So previously in the Pokemon Yellow lets play, I talked about how wonderful the Pokemon Special/Pokemon Adventures manga was, especially on how it interpreted the characters and scenarios of the Generation 1 games, the introduction of Yellow herself, and their take on the Elite 4. Unfortunately, due to many issues, I missed the GSC LP and never got a chance to talk about that manga, which was a pity because it's good in its own right. However, as GSC hit volume 10, the artist assisting on the PokeSpe manga Mato became ill, and weakness in her hand left her unable to draw anymore. Her replacement was Satoshi Yamamoto and to sum up the differences.



Mato's images had a sort of deformed style to them which made them feel very much like they could have been from the video game itself. Yamamoto, on the other hand, had images more in line with the characters official arts and designs. On the whole, I like them both, for various reasons.

Anyway, while GSC continued once more upon the growing world of Red, Green, and Blue along with the newer cast, all the gym leaders and... frankly felt very connected to the RGB arc, much like the game itself, RS felt like a split from that story to a whole new one. Our story opens up, as the game does, with Ruby, our first protagonist, arriving in Littleroot Town, so, what's Ruby like?



So... Ruby and Sapphire introduced the contests to the game mechanics, and, the anime put those in May's ballpark, but Pokemon Special decided instead to make them Ruby's game, despite being the protagonist (Son of Norman, arriving from Johto into Hoenn) he has no interests in battle or anything that isn't beautiful, he simply wants to make his Pokemon stand-out and win contests. He's everything that Red and Gold are not, he has a narcissistic streak and a rather negative attitude overall but deep down, he's a good heart.



But Ruby is only one half of our star cast, after all, if his focus is on contests, and he hates battle, then what does that leave Sapphire?



Sapphire is everything Ruby isn't, he's obsessed with fashion and beauty, she wears literal leaves and shoves her nose up pokemon's asses to tell how sick they are, she's a wild girl, she's obsessed with strength and being the best in battle. You know how Birch is the professor most likely to actually be out in the field doing things? Sapphire takes that to maximum levels. She finds Ruby to be a prat, stuck up and acting pathetic, while he finds her to be nothing more than a brute, rude, crass and dirty.



Our two protagonists are completely opposite of one another, and that ultimately leads to their main conflict for this manga,




Thus begins a tale of two heroes, Ruby, and his travel to become a contest master, and the conflicts that lead him to fight Team Magma, and Sapphire and her goal to become the greatest battler, which pits her against Team Aqua.

The best part about Ruby and Sapphire, beyond the obvious twist on what their 'expected' portrayals should be, is that RS really does treat them as equals, there are many chapters that focus on one or the other, their characters start out simple, but develop a lot of depth and nuance, and their conflicts are some of the greatest in PokeSpe, if not the greatest to a lot of people.

But uh... Ruby's kind of... ran away from home since his father doesn't accept what he wants to do with himself (Not knowing that Norman has decided to accept Ruby's ambition to master contests.)




And Normans pursuit of his son is intense as hell. Well, I know this is shorter than normal, but we have just started out. I hope you've all enjoyed reading.

Onmi fucked around with this message at 23:22 on Feb 12, 2018

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!
Sapphire ends up in conflict with Team Aqua, as I recall.

Also, the GSC manga arc is really good, involving things like Misty catching and training Suicune. The main character, Gold, has his plot centered around retrieving the Totodile that his rival, Silver, stole in order to combat the Johto faction of Team Rocket led by a mysterious guy in a mask (whose identity is so glaringly obvious that Gold figures it out in advance). Later, the female character Crystal is introduced (she also replaces Lyra for the HG/SS arc, getting her outfit instead) as a capture expert who fills the Pokedex since the other two aren't really doing the traditional journey.

It's the only arc in PokeSpe where you don't have the main characters focused on winning badges. We also won't get another male character focused on earning badges until Unova.

Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 17:17 on Feb 12, 2018

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Excellent stuff! :D Added to the OP.

I do love me the manga and it is something everyone should read at one point or another. My favourite is the DP arc, though the SM arc is shaping up pretty nicely.

Also if you feel like writing about the GSC arcs, I can have baldurk add it to the Crystal LP.

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

It's the only arc in PokeSpe where you don't have the main characters focused on winning badges. We also won't get another male character focused on earning badges until Unova.

If you count an arc as a whole Pokemon generation, maybe. From what the manga itself considers arcs, you still have Emerald, FRLG, HGSS, ORAS and B2W2 as arcs where no one cares about gaining badges.

SM too, but well, obviously, and Sun is sort of going through the Island Trials, though they are not his main goal because getting cash is far more important.

I can never disagree with characters whose main goal is just getting money,. It's the most relatable motivation.

Crosspeice posted:

I do love me the manga and it is something everyone should read at one point or another. My favourite is the DP arc, though the SM arc is shaping up pretty nicely.

The DP arc is very good but I'm partial to RS, followed by XY. I read the whole of XY only a few days ago and it surprised me how the manga took the mediocrity that was the XY plot and made something really good out of it. I mean, I know the writer can spin gold out of dirt considering...every previous arc, and the lack of plot in Pokemon in general, but it still surprised me how interesting XY was under him.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!
Pokemon Generations made Lysandre more interesting by turning him into Lex Luthor for the five minutes his episode lasted.

Also, the Sinnoh stuff for PokeSpe is great and made Cyrus better than I found him to be in-game. Especially with how Team Galactic turns out in Platinum. :3:

Blaze Dragon posted:

Emerald, HGSS

They have close enough replacements, but fair enough on the others.

Haifisch
Nov 13, 2010

Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!



Taco Defender

Crosspeice posted:

I do love me the manga and it is something everyone should read at one point or another. My favourite is the DP arc, though the SM arc is shaping up pretty nicely.
:yeah:

Some of the later gen arcs suffered a bit from losing magazine space(where they're originally published before going off to volumes), causing a few rushed storylines and BW2 to still be going two gens after the games came out. But SM seems like it's hit a good stride.

limeicebreakers
May 1, 2017

Thanks for the great writeup, Onmi! RS arc is my favourite, and I'm fond of DPPt too. I really should get around to reading BW and XY...

BrightWing
Apr 27, 2012

Yes, he is quite mad.
I should read the Pokemon manga.

Solumin
Jan 11, 2013

BrightWing posted:

I should read the Pokemon manga.

Same. I read the first generation, I think? I remember GSC got weird and then I couldn't find the rest of it to read.

Kemix
Dec 1, 2013

Because change
Since the Zigzagoon is gonna not be used, call it Packers and name Ralts...iduno. Frieza because I'm running off a lot of DBZ right now.

Onmi
Jul 12, 2013

If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Solumin posted:

Same. I read the first generation, I think? I remember GSC got weird and then I couldn't find the rest of it to read.

Well you can buy them from Viz here https://www.viz.com/read/manga/pokemon-adventures/all (support the official release)

Or you can read some average quality scans here.

http://jb2448.info/

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Reading manga is always quick, until you get sucked in and read an entire arc over a few hours and oh hey is that a sunrise?

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Anyway, my updates come in 3 posts (main meat, side notes, additional voting thing whatever), so I need to bump, or it'll be an unintentional page snipe for me (since 40 posts per page are what I assume most people still use)

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Should be some good poo poo, I'm liking how this is all turning out

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Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

I'm also looking forward to what you guys create this time around, should be some quick fun.

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