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Rosalie_A
Oct 30, 2011

magikid posted:

I think Pokemon makes a really good case for not even having HP and just going off of defense, with a percentage lifebar or something. I mean what is even the point of this?

Pokemon actually does a decent job of justifying the multiple defensive stats.

Mainly through the damage formula. There's quite a few things in it, but the relevant part here is Move Power times (Attack / Defense). How does this affect things? Let's consider a very abstracted case:
-Attackachu, with 100 Attack and Special Attack
-Defenderbirb, with 100 Defense and 50 Special Defense
-Speciafish, with 50 Defense and 100 Special Defense.

Attackerchu uses Tackle with 50 power against both of those. He'll do 50 damage to Defenderbirb and 100 to Speciafish. Similarly, when Attackerchu uses Shiny Tackle, a Special move with 50 power, it'll be 100 and 50 damage respectively.

But wait! Defenderbirb is supposed to be more fragile than Speciafish in every way. You get Defenderbirb in the first route of the game, while Speciafish is obtained in the midgame and is meant to be able to carry you to endgame. Alternatively, Defenderbirb is just a flying roasted chicken in concept while Speciafish is actually a reference to an immortal fish god. To fit with these design plan, you have to make Speciafish more durable somehow. Now, you could boost its defenses, so it has 70 Defense now. It's more durable than Defenderbirb in every way!

Except now Attackerchu does 71 damage to Speciafish with Tackle, and you just balanced an entire dungeon around Attackerchu doing 100 damage. Speciafish is meant to be an immortal fish god, but not that immortal! By only taking 71 damage, Speciafish can now be healed for almost all of its damage taken with a single Lemonade! Now it can just sit there and stall in a fight against an AI Attackerchu until Attackerchu misses or runs out of PP or uses Shiny Tackle. Not only does this trivialize the fight, it's boring and unfun to play.

And all of that came about because of one little change to fit with a design concept.

Alternatively, if there's a Generalized Defensive Stat that applies to all attacks, one can just adjust that and be a lot more confident in how it affects matters. Speciafish having a Generalized Defensive Stat 20% higher than Defenderbirb means that you can immediately know the gameplay effects of making Speciafish more durable than Defenderbirb even with similar stat spreads. This makes your testing life easier, and also provides a clean way for players to understand when something is more or less tanky than another mon.

This Generalized Defensive Stat is, of course, HP. HP has the advantage of being a stat on the other side of the equation in that damage formula. If you want to balance something, you have a dial on both sides. You can make something more or less defensive in a much easier to comprehend way (both for you, and for the players).

Additionally, as alluded to above, fixed HP effects exist. In competitive, this is limited to Night Shade/Seismic Toss type moves. For a normal player, though, fixed HP effects are far more prevalent. You have Sonic Boom and Dragon Rage, and you also have Potions. Something that takes very little damage absolutely has a different play feel than something that takes a lot more damage from a larger health bar. Onix may be a fragile thing despite its high defenses, but it feels like a giant rock snake because a single Super Potion can heal up a dozen fights of damage. On the other hand, Lapras feels like a giant lumbering wall due to its deep HP pool, despite its merely okay defenses. That you could have a Lapras which can eat enough damage to need a Hyper Potion and still not be full after makes it feel like it's an incredibly large sea monster. In addition, thanks to those fixed damage moves, a Pokemon with higher HP feels a lot tougher than it actually might be.

In short, having a third universal defense attribute gives another way to make different Pokemon play and feel differently while also being a much more intuitive way to balance general durability between those Pokemon.

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Explopyro
Mar 18, 2018

Crosspeice posted:

It's cool, relax, there's a lot of small details and interesting tidbits I wouldn't have known about if you hadn't mentioned them. I don't think I'll put them in the LP, otherwise I'll just be shoving in small trivia just for the sake of it and it would feel too disjointed. Feel free to chat about Pokemon as much as you want, it's cool, this is the Pokemon chat-o-rama place.

Duly noted, thanks. I'm well aware I can be rather verbose and don't want to irritate anyone. (And yeah, I'm not really expecting you to incorporate most of the stuff I've mentioned in the LP. Trivia is trivia.)

Crosspeice posted:

I also forgot to mention that every nature has a unique animation the Pokemon does when you're about to feed it a Pokeblock, it's very cool.

I love those, they're really cute and help give the Pokemon a bit of personality. It's one of the few things that irks me about Pokeblocks being permanent, that once they get filled up I can't keep giving my Pokemon treats to enjoy. Makes it harder to roleplay being a good trainer, honestly...

Glazius posted:

They definitely wanted to make contests feel like as much of a thing as battles, but do you actually need to clear any contests to win the game?

Despite how intricate they can be, Contests have only ever been a quirky sidequest really (I think the anime does a better job of convincingly portraying them as a separate career path from battling; that said, the anime's really not my thing and I've barely watched any of it so my saying this is based on summaries and Bulbapedia pages...). There's a completion star in RSE (for getting the 5 paintings) and DPPt (for winning one Master level contest), if you consider those to matter for "winning the game", otherwise they just tend to be for cosmetic rewards. For better or worse, we've already seen all the rewards from them in this game. The ORAS Lucarionite, as others have already mentioned, is probably the most significant reward they've ever had.

ETA: Trasson, that's a really good explanation and I like it. (Also really tempted to use Attackerchu and Speciafish as nicknames at some point now.)

Explopyro fucked around with this message at 06:56 on Apr 19, 2018

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

Anime Contests weren't too bad. They were definitely treated as just as important as gym battles were for ash, complete with training episodes and such. May spends a long time perfecting her pokeblocks, for example.

Changed the formatting a little to better suit an action show, though. The show off category is merged with the appeal-to-judge round and was presented as doing a full gymnastics routine basically. Lots of jumping around and firing off multiple moves and such. Then that's graded by 3 judges (that town's Nurse Joy, the pokemon fan club president and the contest leader (Remarkable!)) based on how well the routine emphasized the Pokemon & Trainer. Top 16 or so trainers move on to the next round
The follow up round is now a timed battle, but instead of battling to a KO you do a timed battle to lower the opponent's points. Often they'll end with both sides still going. The judges are presumably the ones making the points call here and it goes off similar rules to the appeal round: more extravagant, successful manuevers the better. Ash participates for fun sometimes and usually loses here because he gets so focused on playing it like a normal battle that he barely knocks any points off the other person despite landing a ton of moves. Artful dodges also count. It's actually kind of a nice way to adapt the whole jamming/appeal mechanic in the contests proper, I think.

Sinnoh's contests didn't change much, other than now the contestants & their pokemon can dress up and they use the pokeball seals.

if there was one big sticking point its that May's contests were kind of weak for a long time since they were still finding their footing and they really leaned on "extravagant ice sculptures" and "do a water move, now freeze it/explode it" throughout. But you could track May, Dawn and even Jessie's development through their sagas which was nice. Jessie started out not even getting a proper judging but by the end is putting together routines and battles that put the others on the ropes.

Despite Pokemon Musicals being a thing, they were only in one or two episodes of the unova anime. And they basically presented it as pokemon contests sans battles, with very elaborate appeals. Iris & Cilan didnt actually perform, it was some filler dude with 3 maractus.

XY's anime took the Trainer PR shtick and made it an entire Not-Contest side quest for Serena to do. Round 1 is now a Themed Performance where contestants do different things with their pokemon in each performance. One has them dress & accessorize their pokemon, then do a quick skit to show them off. It's more interesting than it sounds and Jessie's Pumpkaboo was ROBBED. Another was doing a group bake off with their pokemon. Another was herding rhyhorn. Another was a quiz show!
Then after the judging, they move to the freestyle round which is basically what the appeal round in the previous seasons were, but they could have more pokemon out and about. Significantly more flashy, basically an idol performance at times.
The Master Performance is actually pretty similar to how it works here: 3 performers do their performances at the same time to the audience (the judges for this) and they're encouraged to interact with and mess each other up so long as it improves their own performance.

They squeeze significantly more drama out of losing a contest than they do Ash losing a battle, too. The looming deadline to get the needed ribbons (keys, for serena) before the Masters happened was played up more than the theoretical deadline for the pokemon league ever is so you had things like Dawn losing a bunch of contests in a row and falling into a rut, Serena having to find her resolve (complete with dramatic hair cut), things like that.

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Part 25: Awaken My Masters



Greetings. Before we head off to Ever Grande City, there's a fair few things we can do with all the various tools we obtained out on the water.

"back and forth for us."

I'm not lonesome, even though we're far apart.



Now, did I forget that this was here the first time we arrived at Mossdeep, or was it all meticulously planned and I wanted to do this sidequest after doing the whole chunk of ocean? You decide.



Got plenty of new Pokemon to obtain with the Super Rod. God I hate fishing in this gen. Have I mentioned that before? I think I've mentioned it before.



At least we finally find this drat mon. Lilycove will be a little bit darker tonight.




Okay now we've got all the Pokemon in the Safari Zone. ...yup.



Well at least there's a happy ending to this mess.




See you in the multiverse.



Ehhhhhhhh, I'll forgive them eventually.



Have you the time to hear the new legend of HOENN? It happened long, long ago... the world was wracked by a ferocious clash between the POKEMON of the land and the POKEMON of the sea... The POKEMON of the land raised mountains and created continents... The POKEMON of the sea raised huge waves and carved out oceans... their fierce duel raged without end. The world was engulfed in massive infernos and vicious storms. It was then that the POKEMON of the sky descended from a storm. The POKEMON, shining a vivid green, becalmed the two enraged POKEMON. Then, it's duty done, the green POKEMON flew off into the wild blue yonder...



Huh? What is this? What is it holding? A MENTAL HERB? It must have picked it up somewhere. But I'm not a TRAINER, so you can have it.



Mental Herbs cure infatuation, which isn't very common, so this item isn't very common.

Abandoned Ship



Alright, our first proper stop on our whirlwind tour is the depths of the Abandoned Ship. Uh, after fishing, of course. Can't forget it!



Much better than a 1% surfing encounter.



What's on this side of the ship?



Alright, good start.




We've got a puzzle here. The keys we need to find will glitter on the floor, so I hope you've got good memory.



Bit trickier.



There's some good stuff down here.



The other sparkles are trash. Hey, you never know if it'll be a Piece of Nugget. Eh, probably not.



Dunno how we saw that sparkling from the bin from there, but whatever.



Hmm, nothing sparkling in this room, but we've obtained the only Luxury Ball you can get aside from contests. Weird how they'd make this ball so rare, but maybe that's the point?



Only by entering room 5 can we see where the sparkles are. No that doesn't make any sense, but hey, what's in the final room.



Alright, now we can start chaining wild Pokemon in the gra- oh wait, this is something else. Wasn't someone looking for this?



Listen, can I get you to deliver that to CAPT. STERN? I want to investigate this ship a little more.



YUKI, would you trade your SCANNER for something? Like, say, a DEEPSEATOOTH or a DEEPSEASCALE that I have?



Now these are interesting items. Clamperl can evolve into two different Pokemon when you trade it holding these items, but they also have another effect: the Deepseatooth doubles Clamperl's Special Attack and the Deepseascale doubles Clamperl's Special Defense. You can probably guess which is the better item to equip. It's at least something, but Clamperl isn't too amazing to make use of these great items right now.



Oh would you look at that, ANOTHER physical Water type? With the double SpAtk from the DeepSeaTooth, Huntail just isn't very impressive compared to Clamperl, especially since it doesn't learn a single physical move through level up. Seems a little bit suspect. Still, it works alright as a special attacker, but then what's Gorebyss for? So you should use its Attack... except the only physical moves it gets are the standard Normal ones and Rock Tomb! That's seriously it. So mixed set it is, with Return, Hydro Pump, Crunch and Ice Beam. Seriously, I don't know what they were thinking with this mon. At least it keeps Clamperl's excellent Defense, but drat, Shell Smash was a real blessing for this poor fish.



While Clamperl prefers the DeepSeaTooth to the DeepSeaScale, Gorebyss at least gets the moves to make use of its stats, even if Attack is pretty much useless for it, as we just saw. However, unless you want to use some cool Psychic moves, there's not a huge reason to use Gorebyss over Clamperl, aside from getting around Species Clause? At least it can dish out some real damage, but it's too slow to really sweep, so this entire line needs Shell Smash then, huh? It even gets Shadow Ball, just to screw over Huntail even more, it's so baffling. It's gonna be a while until I'm gonna catch these two, so, uh, try not to forget about them.




Rejoice RS players, you now no longer need to use Dive ever again. Emerald suckers still have one more use for the lovely HM, but for now, Nobunaga will be climbing up waterfalls.



This will also be the last time we'll be seeing the Acro Bike. It's... in this game. I guess.



Aside from some rad Secret Base locations, what else is there?



Cool. Let's never use the Acro Bike again.



Before we head off to more waterfalls, it's time to make our Secret Base! We had a few ideas suggested by various people, so we'll be going with Jade Rider's suggestion of this cave.



I do quite like this design, lots of room and all easily accessible.



There's a nice checklist of all the various decorations you can get, but I only got a few things that were suggested, like some cool mats that Nondevor chose.



Our cool statue we got for filling the art gallery will fit in just fine.



We also need lots and lots of dolls, so hopeandjoy, Leraika and rannum have the right idea here. There's also an E note block from Kikas, cause hell yeah music. To wrap it up, there's a Big Plant from Hobgoblin2099



Alright, that's looking pretty good, though obviously there's some cool stuff we can get a bit later that I'll put in here too. Overall, our Goon Cave is looking good!



There aren't many waterfalls in the game, but we've yet to get to the good stuff.

Meteor Falls



As you'd expect of the name, Meteor Falls has a lot more to it at the top of the falls.



Good move, awful accuracy. One member having it is enough.



We've confidence in ourselves.

We've been married for fifty years. The bond we share as a couple could never be broken.



Young TRAINER, if the chance arises, will you battle with us again? We've been married for fifty years. Come to think of it, I've yet to beat my dear wife in a battle.

Oh, dear. We've lost, my dear husband. Fifty years of marriage... if we ever argued, we always settled it with a POKEMON battle...



The CHAMPION even visits. Now do you see how special it is here?




Your dragons are no match for my dragon and kaiju combo.



The road ahead remains long and harsh. When will my POKEMON and I become the best?



With that brief trainer interlude, let's head to the water.



Ooh, a back room.



That's a relief, Nimbus really needs that boost to her STAB, though it's a shame how late it is.



Oh hey it's that dragon thing. Let's get one.



Well we actually need two.



We can also get a catfish. It can also be found in Victory Road, so it's not a unique monster to here, alas.



And there we go, we are seriously running out of places to complete.



It's sort of like a HORSEA, and yet it's subtly different. Thank you! I know I could go looking for one on my own, but... but I really wanted to get a BAGON that another TRAINER caught...



The trend of giving lovely trade Pokemon lovely mail instead of a useful item is thankfully contained to this gen for the most part.

Trick House



You know what time it is. Since I decided to stick to the ocean instead of coming here after Mossdeep and totally not forgetting about this, we've got two Trick House challenges to get through.




Oh baby, turntable puzzles.



This area is pretty open, so here I am going to the door without a scroll. Look, it's been a little while since I played these puzzles.



Gwaaah! I blew it! Ehehehe... I guess I lost because I was trying to cheat.




It's a challenge I've found worth repeating!



While they're a bit trickier than the Gym puzzle, they're still not too difficult.





Now who would expect this spooky scarecrow to have such excellent attacking stats. Well it's to the detriment of all its other stats, but it means its STAB is perfectly usable and, as it is written, if you have special STAB, you have physical coverage and vice versa, because gently caress you. So I hope you like Return, cause that's all you got. Okay, if you trade to FRLG you can get Revenge from the Move Reminder (after you've grinded to get some lovely mushrooms) and then go with Faint Attack and Needle Arm as your best options. What, just because you have good stats doesn't mean you actually get moves to use them with. Get outta here, preferably with a strong Fighting, Flying, Poison, Bug, Fire or Ice move. Huh. That's a lot of weaknesses.



Pokemon protagonists seem particularly resilient to spinning.



Let's get the heck out of here.



Was the previous one "TRICK MASTER is my love" and I didn't notice?



Meh reward. Next one!



Since the Mossdeep changed in Emerald, so too did the challenge associated with it. It looks all too familiar.




Aiyeeeh! You're much too strong! How do you do it? I wish I could appear and disappear as if I were smoke, too.

Defeated! It's a bad sign... I've circled the same spot over ten times now... it's ill fortune...



Let's get outta here before she blames that on us. There's a fair few coloured switches around and thankfully they each affect one thing.



Alright, we've moved all that we have to. I will move the top two trainers so I can actually get past and not have to backtrack.



Behind warp number one is the scroll. Neat. What about number two?




Gah! Oh hey, it's that wind chime thing. Now you can see it's at Mt. Pyre and wonder where the hell it is.



I was hoping to switch places with you when I beat you, but...

Humph! I'm not upset! Not me!



Well that's everything, so it's exit time.




Well, anyway, we both picked a weird place to get acquainted. As one weirdo to another, let's do our best!



Oh! Well, go ahead, then! You're solving all the puzzles in the TRICK HOUSE. That's the feeling I get.



...you're not wrong.



Wow. Now we've got two of the drat things.



Last thing on our list is exploring these ruins that opened up. Of course, there's more Braille to puzzle out. Don't think you can use your RS strategy, it's different now!

LEFT, LEFT,
DOWN, DOWN.
THEN, USE
ROCK SMASH.



Simple enough, right? You could work that out without Braille, surely. In RS you had to go right twice, down twice, then use Strength.



This statue is beeping at me...

Regi Battle





The first of its trio and the master of rock. Its Defense stat is very impressive, but its typing does let it down by making it weak to a fair few things, as well as its alright HP stat. Still, it has a good Attack stat and the moves to take advantage of it, such as the excellent Superpower, Ancientpower (hey, at least it's not Rock Tomb) and Earthquake. All the Regis can learn Explosion though the Move Reminder, so that's an excellent option for a last ditch attempt. So yeah, it learns some good stuff, can dish out the damage and even take it, even when it's weak to it, especially if you use Iron Defense or even Curse. Still gotta tutor Rock Slide onto it though.



It's the first legendary of the game and definitely not the last. Let's get it nice and weak with Superpower's stat drops.



And then chuck some balls. With this current setup, we have a 4.3% chance of capture with an Ultra Ball. Hmm, that doesn't seem very good.



Past turn 10, Timer Balls become more and more stronger than Ultra Balls, so after 21 turns, we have a 7% chance of capture. Still pretty eh, but if we get to the mythical 40 turn limit, then it's a 9.2% chance! That's actually somewhat decent. Though with low PP on a fair few moves, Regirock will probably start using Struggle by that point.



Around turn 21 is when we caught it. Alright, onto the next one.



STAY CLOSE
TO THE WALL.
RUN AROUND
ONE LAP.



Much better than the RS version which had you just waiting for 2 minutes. Yawn.



Does ice usually... beep?





This chilly billy is the opposite of Regirock, focusing on the special side, though still having an awful typing. A lot of the shared moveset between the Regis is mostly physical, which Regice really can't make use of, as well as Icy Wind and Zap Cannon. So Ice Beam and Thunderbolt it is. Unfortunately that's it, aside from exploding, so get a good Hidden Power, or Toxic stall. Against a fair few special threats, especially when you factor in Amnesia, you're pretty much untouchable. Against physical threats? Well, it's good, but it's definitely the weaker side, especially since the HP lets you down. Also, as you can see in the romanization, it's pronounced Regi-ice. Checkmate, atheists.



Regice isn't as immediately threatening like Regirock was, but it's a bit trickier to whittle down since it's weaker on the physical side.



Ball chuck plan go.



Oh. Well okay, let's just do that then.



THOSE WHO
INHERIT OUR
WILL, SHINE
IN THE MIDDLE.



Pretty simple, just use Flash in the centre of the room. Or Fly in RS. Now this hunk of metal I expect to beep at me!





As you'd expect, this mechanical marvel is the best of both worlds. Not only are both of its defenses excellent (though HP still tries to drag it down), it has a great typing with lots of resistances and a nice movepool to be nice and defensive with. It sure as hell shouldn't attack, since its best STAB option is Metal Claw and, while it has good physical and special options, it's better to whittle opponents down with Toxic and Seismic Toss (move tutor annoyingly). You could go with the Curse route if you want to stall and then explode for massive damage, but Iron Defense or Amnesia are also fine options. You've got good tools to wall, so it's probably a good idea to use them.



Fire Blast will be perfect to get it down.



After plenty of tedious ball throwing later, we get it! Thankfully none of the Regis gave me huge trouble catching them with my sweet ball strats, but trying to shove 3 catch rate Pokemon into Timer Balls is still a bit rough and there's plenty more to go, of course.



Regardless, we are finished with the entire region for now. Next stop... is Ever Grande.

Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 03:22 on May 29, 2018

BlackPersona
Oct 21, 2012


The beeping is either funny or really weird, but it does show how different these things are from other 'mons pretty well.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!
Oh boy, Ever Grande "City".

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

Abandoned Ship is so cool, and i really liked what they did with it in the remakes.

The regi theme is also very cool, it's so different and kind of intense. The remake's remix is fun because it incorporates parts of the original sound font in it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiDgi4BN7aE

Regice was at the start of gen 3 the best special wall available since almost half of all pokemon were unavailable, bolstered by usable special attack with the coveted boltbeam coverage.
Then Blissey came back in FRLG and did its job better thanks to not needing to rely on Rest.

The idea of a metagame completely forming due to lack of other games and backwards compatibility is really fascinating to me. The closest we get to that now is official tournaments in their first year usually limiting to the regional dex but that's not quite the same thing. Even if it did give us the wonderful Follow Me Pachirisu.

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

Oh boy, Ever Grande "City".
Not featured: being grande, a city

Solumin
Jan 11, 2013

BlackPersona posted:

The beeping is either funny or really weird, but it does show how different these things are from other 'mons pretty well.

I love these goofy, beepy golem boys.

Regigigas's beeping is really over-the-top too, right?

Hobgoblin2099 posted:

Oh boy, Ever Grande "City".

I assume Ever Grande is the name of the waterfall.

"City" is still inexcusable though.

BlackPersona
Oct 21, 2012


Solumin posted:

Regigigas's beeping is really over-the-top too, right?

Turn on CC, someone had fun writing them in :v:

Kikas
Oct 30, 2012

Having a normal one

AGDQ 2018 Awful Block Survivor

Just noticed that the overworld sprite for Registeel doesn't have the correct dot pattern. Huh.

Solumin
Jan 11, 2013

BlackPersona posted:

Turn on CC, someone had fun writing them in :v:

:allears: I love it.

dungeon cousin
Nov 26, 2012

woop woop
loop loop
I'm guessing changing the conditions for Regice's door might be a reaction to Ruby and Sapphire's problems with time based events?

Toyotasomi no Miko
Oct 23, 2016

dungeon cousin posted:

I'm guessing changing the conditions for Regice's door might be a reaction to Ruby and Sapphire's problems with time based events?

Even RGBY could have probably done something like this, since it's just a 120 second check, which could use the total play time for if the timer began after the last input, and reset if something was input. Probably.

...I'm not an expert programmer, though. I know for a fact RS could have done it.

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

The "Berry Glitch" was specific to counting off days, so the 2 minute wait time wouldn't have mattered.
from bulbapedia

quote:

The game cartridge contains a real-time clock (RTC) which keeps track of the year, month, day, hour, minute, second, and day of the week. When the RTC is first turned on, its date is set to January 1, 2000. Because the game has no need for an actual calendar system, it converts the RTC's year, month, and day data into a single "day number". The conversion function has a flaw, however: it will only count years (adding 365 or 366 days for each year or leap year) starting from 2001. So, while the RTC clock is reporting the year as 2000 or 2001, in both cases, the conversion equates this to "add 0 days to the day number". This means that, for the first 366 days the RTC runs (starting from January 1, 2000), the game's day number will count from 1 to 366 normally, but when the RTC clock reports January 1, 2001, the game's day number will start from 1 again.

If, for example, a Sitrus Berry was planted on December 31, 2000 according to the RTC, which the game interprets as day 366, it will be scheduled to be fully grown on day 367. Due to the glitch, "day 367" will not happen until the RTC reaches January 2, 2002. The result is that the growth of the Berry appears to be frozen for 366 days. Other effects of this glitch include:

Random events which are calculated once per day, including Energy Guru and Lilycove Dept. Store sales, service days at the Mauville Game Corner, the random number for Mirage Island, and weather conditions on Route 119 and Route 123, will be frozen until 366 days after the game was last played before the glitch took effect.
Drawings at the Pokémon Lottery Corner, NPCs who offer free Berries daily, and the man in Pacifidlog Town who gives TM27 (Return) or TM21 (Frustration) weekly, will be frozen until 366 days after these events were last used.
The number of successful rocket launches at the Mossdeep Space Center will be reset to 1.
The glitch does not affect the evolution of Eevee into Espeon or Umbreon, or the tides in Shoal Cave, because these events are based only on the current time, not the day number.

I think they changed it just because they changed everything else. I guess the idea is they didn't want you to just use the braille translations from the last game, which is also why they swapped wailord & relicanth.

FractalSandwich
Apr 25, 2010
a real-time-dependent bug that can't possibly manifest until a year after you launch :shepface:

Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
To their credit they did a lot to try and fix it. If you connected your copy of R/S to Emerald, FRLG, or any of the gamecube games it automatically patched it.

MissileWaster
Jul 2, 2007

Remember that one time you totally botched that snap?

Kurieg posted:

To their credit they did a lot to try and fix it. If you connected your copy of R/S to Emerald, FRLG, or any of the gamecube games it automatically patched it.

Of course, the best way to get the patch was with the shiny Zigzagoon.


I used a shiny Cacturne in Alpha Sapphire. It was a solid number 2 on my team, definitely put in its share of the work. And shiny hunting with chains in ORAS isn't that painful, so it was easily possible to get it the first trip to the desert.

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

MissileWaster posted:

I used a shiny Cacturne in Alpha Sapphire. It was a solid number 2 on my team, definitely put in its share of the work. And shiny hunting with chains in ORAS isn't that painful, so it was easily possible to get it the first trip to the desert.

Finding a shiny Cacturne in my mono-Grass OR run would've definitely gotten me to use one too. Sadly, I did not find one, so I did not use Cacturne in that team. Shiftry was already Grass/Dark after all and Hoenn has so many good Grass types, yet only six Pokemon slots.

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

FRLG Part 3: Access All Areas

Five Island Town



Welcome to Five Island. There's nothing here.



Known for her logical, calculated and cool battling style, LORELEI has a surprising secret!

I suppose here's something vaguely interesting: now there's a bunch of gossip magazines dotted in Pokemon Centers, perfect for the Fame Checker.

Surfing



The north part of the island is optional, so we'll have a look around before seeing this Rocket business.



That sure was a labyrinth. Land ho!



Let me take a look. ... Oh, impressive. You treat your POKEMON right. I think you can be entrusted with this. Please, I'd like you to have this.



I'm glad I met someone like you.

What's in the egg? Well, we'll find out in a minute, but there's more to explore first.




You know, I think you have the talent to be a good BREEDER.

Now that we're facing normal trainers in the postgame, you can see their levels are actually pretty good and they're using Johto Pokemon! It's pretty neat.



New areas mean new fishing encounters too.



It's another version exclusive. Seriously, there's tons of those in this game. In LG it's Remoraid, so yet again those players get a slightly better Pokedex deal.




As you've probably figured out, since Johto continues Kanto's route numbers, Sevii has no real routes of its own, just differently named areas. Also, here's a Smeargle.



The sky and the sea... they are so fickle. Their changing expressions make them difficult to capture.



Neat, it's the second ever Nest Ball.




We should be seeing a new Pokemon every two or so trainers. There's a fair few Kanto Pokemon mixed in, but don't expect to see fully evolved Pokemon, unless it has two stages and the trainer is already using the first stage.



I find it pleasurable to battle in the gentle sea breeze.

"Please keep out of my sight!"


Smeargle are great to fight cause you never know what they'll have!



There! That's the look I want!




Do sheep like swimming? I guess they might...



Sheep only exist on foggy hills, so I dunno if they'd like that either.



There's a lot of hidden items that have a chance of appearing, which means I spend a few minutes searching the beaches for washed up stuff.



The shame of this... I'm red-faced... Uh-oh, my paint tubes scattered everywhere!



Oops! I rushed things! When I run with the wind, it feels like I could fly!




A very lucrative time. Everyone's getting up there in levels!



He mad.

Lost Cave



And the end of all that, we've got this Lost Cave. Sounds like fun. Lost Cave.




Aiyeeeeeh! Mercy! I'm trying to get out of here, but I always end up at the same spot. Maybe the number of boulders is a hint...



As you'd expect from the name, there's a few paths you can go down in this cave, otherwise you get sent right back to the entrance. Let's get this ite-



Cool. It seems I didn't catch anything in this area, but there's only one new version exclusive encounter that's a lot more common in item rooms. Murkrow in FR, Misdreavus in LG. Since we can catch Wobbuffet later, this incense lets us get Wynaut, the only Hoenn Pokemon we can get in this game (since Marill is LG).



So yeah, if you don't go the right way, you'll end up back here. The puzzle is a weird one to get, but it's pretty cool.




All seeing birb



Great advice, let's go item hunting.



The second incense is obtained by going Right, Up, Down, Up from the starting room. Also the only way to get Azurill in these games, making those babies the only Hoenn Pokemon you can get.



The Max Revive is from going Right, Up, Down, Down, Right, Right, while the Rare Candy is Right, Up, Down, Down, Right, Left, Down, Left. Simple, right?




Where have we heard this name before?



I grew rather bored of walking, and I am feeling fatigued. May I ask you to take me home from here?



...no reward? Bit rude.



I am exquisitely bored. Please, hear my wish. I wish to see a POKEMON. A darling SEAKING. I want to see one right away. Please, make my wish come true.

Okay we need to do a bit more for her. Selphy will want to see a random Pokemon that you've seen in the Pokedex. If you can get it to her within 250 steps, then she'll reward you with some items you can sell for a high price, Nugget, Stardust, Pearl, etc, as well as Rare Candy and Luxury Balls, which is only place in Gen 3 that can net you them at a consistent rate. It's kinda worth it, but that step limit is a bit rough if you don't own the Pokemon.



If we return to where Selphy was, so by going Right, Up, Down, Down, Right, Left, Down, Right, Up, we can get a neat item. So did you solve the puzzle? I would be surprised if you did. The Ruin Maniac was right that the number of rocks in each room is the key. There can be 3, 6, 9 or 12 rocks in a room and that correlates to which direction to go. 3 is right, 6 is down, 9 is left and 12 is up, like on a clock face. On every other room starting with the second, if you go the opposite direction you're supposed to, you'll get an item. Cool, right? What's also nuts is you can find Haunter at level 52 in this place.



Let's see what we get. There's no good place to really hatch eggs in this game and you want to stay close to the Day Care, so going back and forth on the island will have to do.



Who could've seen that coming? I'm not gonna be filling out the Pokedex in this coverage, so I'll only be obtaining all the new Pokemon you can obtain easily enough in the postgame, but I won't be evolving anything, cba.




Now that we've hatched an Egg, we can get another sticker.



Let's never talk to this guy again. To get the 4th Egg sticker, you need to hatch 300 of the drat things. That's a tall order, ESPECIALLY in a game where breeding is slow and awkward. Like hell I'm getting the Multibattle sticker either, let alone winning 100 of them to get the best sticker. Cool idea, but GF are pretty poo poo at achievements.

Five Isle Meadow



Alright, let's go south, since Five Island is pretty darn big.



You don't have any business here! Go home!



It's the seed cat thing. You can also find them while surfing, which is a cool detail.



That's all the new Pokemon on Five Island, alas, but the last two islands are pretty drat packed.



You won't be able to get in without the passwords anyway.



You're wanting to know what's inside this WAREHOUSE? It's better you didn't know. For your own sake, I mean.



... Another password is needed to open the door...



Guess we've got some more exploring to do. Maybe the password is just down here and makes my life easier.




You can fly to FOUR ISLAND from here.



Still finding berries, still no use for them aside powder.



I think you can see a theme here.



There was a really somber guy over that way.



Reading these names just makes me hungry, if anything.




Ah, finally something new. I was getting worried there for a second.



It fills me with happiness when bird POKEMON beg playfully...



Hello... your POKEMON look healthy... This is where I buried my ONIX... it was named TECTONIX...




Th-thank you... That was my TECTONIX's favorite drink... I don't even know you, but your kindness... it's uplifted me a little. Can you please take this as my thanks?



...TECTONIX...



Some good items here, including the Facade TM. We've got an evolution item, but we still need another one to complete the dex. What are the chances of finding another one?

Six Island Town



We're done with Five Island for now, so on to the next island.



It looks like it's impossible to get all the POKEMON by hanging around just these parts. Maybe there are POKEMON we don't know about somewhere far away... Well, if I can't do it, there's no way for you to get it done. I'm not going to get all desperate over this. I'll keep collecting POKEMON at my own pace while I train them. That's what I'll do. So there's no point staying here. I may as well leave for home. That's that, then! Smell ya later!

Water Path



Seems Green is realising National Dexes are bullshit. There's nothing in Six Island Town, so off we go to explore.



Six Island is the largest island and Seven Island is completely optional, so we'll be finishing the gem quest first.




As a performer, I don't want people to know about the effort I put in.



Never before has so many of these been hidden so often.



I lost my way while I was busy battling! Aren't there any mountains around these parts?



Hey hold this for a second, Aquamemnon.



Cheers, Aquamemnon. TM10 can only be obtained from Pickup, so might as well grab this. And hey, let's use a fuckin Kingdra for once!




Ruin Valley is a pretty big square that kinda looks like a valley. Strength puzzles too, how wonderful.



You don't need to be so pushy. I'll be happy to tell you. The door to the ruins... it has these strange patterns engraved on the outside. I don't know what they mean, though.



There's even more Pokemon to catch here and no version exclusives!




Now we can get a Wynaut.




Oh, the heartbreak of losing so easily to you! Experience the joy of climbing!



Around and around in circles.



Hmm... I suggest that you, too, give a thought to the secrets and mysteries of our world once a day.



Ah finally. We never see Golem in the original games, so here's the first time we can see one if you're not completing the dex like I am.



The majority of them date back a long way.




Oh, interesting. Those ruins over there... I haven't had any luck in finding how I can get inside.



Can you solve the puzzle?

Dotted Hole



Yep, as easy as that.



Can you solve the puzzle???




Holey




Moley. There's the gem.



Fufu... fufufufu... I guessed right. I was right in tailing you!



...d-don't glare at me like that! If you want it back, why don't you go get it after I sell it? I'll even tell you one of the passwords to TEAM ROCKET's WAREHOUSE. The WAREHOUSE password I know is "Yes, nah, CHANSEY." I'm done. Don't think badly of me!



Well that was a bit rude, we should do something about that.

LET THE TWO GLITTERING STONES
ONE IN RED
ONE IN BLUE
CONNECT THE PAST.
TWO FRIENDS SHARING POWER OPEN A WINDOW TO A NEW WORLD THAT GLOWS.
THE NEXT WORLD WAITS FOR YOU.



The area easily wraps around...



So we can pick up a neat stone and then head back to Five Island.




Next time, we've got a gem to pick up.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!
Are you going to use the HG/SS portraits for Arianna and Archer's lines?

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Like they deserve that much effort.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!
Fair enough. :v:

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

That braille door angered me so much. I had no idea what to do for a long while. I ended up getting the "puzzle" right completely by accident and rage.

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.
Been sick and busy with my Masters, so I haven't been able to really do a Manga post, but lets try to get these in before the LP wraps.

Team Aqua and Team Magma

If you ask people the reason why they love the RS manga so much a good portion will list the villains as part of the reason. Pokemon Special has always had effective villains always found a way to interweve them with the ongoing plot and let the reader feel invested in their defeat. But of course, Ruby and Sapphire have two sets of villain teams, depending on your version, and to be honest... they're boring as poo poo, not that Team Rocket is so interesting, but they're pretty bland and above it all, Pokemon Special has DONE eco-terrorists as villains, how do you not tread new ground?

To start with, understand that Ruby primarily fought against Team Magma and Sapphire against Team Aqua, and sort of like in Emerald, the teams are in contention, but not necessarily in the way you'd suspect.

I'm only really going to make note of Courtney of the Admin's though they are are rather interesting to varying degrees, and hell, the games also introduce a new Admin for each team, Magma introduces Blaise, who uses Slugma to create heat illusions and mess with his foes. Team Aqua in turn got Gorebyss who produces damaging ripples in the water, neither have paritcularly interesting designs but it is neat they exist




So like in Emerald, Aqua attacks Sapphire, Gabby and Ty at Rustboro in an attempt to kidnap Mr. Stone, which they fail at, but manage to get the Devon Parts Meanwhile Ruby is attacked in the abandoned ship by Magma, who successfully manage to get the Scanner. Magma is presented as the weaker force in the manga, with Archie being the head of Hoenn TV and essentially using his position as propaganda to smear Magma and brush over Aqua's actions. In fact, Magma is presented so much as the underdog that, despite the volcano plan most making sense for them, it is in fact Aqua who enact the plan to turn it dormant and affect Hoenn's climate, and even succeed. In fact, Flannery teams up with Tabitha in an attempt to ignite the Volcano again.

Also Tabitha is a beefcake



The Gym Leaders even discuss which team they should be siding with (Though ultimately decide not to side with either in the coming conflict.) which is an interesting way of portraying them.

But I've mentioned her a few times, let's talk about Courtney.



Courtney was a contest star who was good friends with Green's sister, Daisy. She used a special lighter that could transmit and record images through the flames, and her gloves secreted various berry juices she used for various affects like blinding or adhesives. Very early on, Courtney confronts Ruby and determines that he's very similar to her, and takes an immediate liking to him, she has a dark reflection of his love of 'beauty' and attempts to sway him to Team Magma's side. She often seems to have her own agenda and that she's with Magma more because... well it's a place to be, she gives up searching for the Red Orb to focus on Ruby and even though she returns to fight the Gym Leaders, she willingly double crosses Magma to side with Ruby at the Sootopolis confrontation. Perhaps the reason she stands out more than the others is because of her turning to ally with the protagonists... and also her death.

The Sootopolis battle is a brutal affair in RS, not only does Steven die from the strain of controlling the Regis, Norman dies getting Rayquaza over there and the country has been destroyed by roaring tidal waves and searing heat followed by earthquakes. It finally looks like they've managed to put Groudon and Kyogre down for the count... and then Tentacruel comes out of nowhere, grabs Courtney by the leg, drags her into the cave of origin and collapses it upon her. Courtney uses her last moments to use her lighter to pass Ruby a message, before passing away.



And that sets the tone of our two Admins, Archie and Maxie. Archie and Maxie are so brutal, so mad and destructive that it makes previous villains like Giovanni, Pryce and Lance seem rather tame. They don't have redeemable qualities, they don't attempt to frame their actions as noble, they kill and torture various characters we've grown to actually like, they have Houndoom set Norman's corpse on fire basically to mock Ruby in his moment of grief. They don't care that clashing the Nature titans against each other has basically hosed Hoenn beyond recognition.



They are truly unrepentant, powerful, and dangerous, their underlings, even their original goals, all fall before addictive power that Kyogre and Groundon presented them with. Even when Wallace takes up the Champion's cape to face them, they grab Winoa, who Wallace had a relationship with (In a mirror to Ruby's relationship with Sapphire) and threaten her to have him stand down, and then viciously beat on him while talking about how satisfying it is. There is no length they wont go to.

In the end, Ruby can only defeat Archie and Maxie by unleashing the power of Celebi who he's been carrying since the start of the Manga, using Celebi's power he forcefully rewrites the timeline and ERASES ARCHIE AND MAXIE FROM EXISTENCE and even THAT isn't enough to put them down.

In the Emerald saga, Archie returns wearing a suit of armor under the name Guile. During his non-existence, he was approached by Sird, one of the Rocket admin's from FRLG, and a mysterious villain who we don't know the full scope behind. Well, she presented them with a suit of armor that would allow them to manifest in the real world again.



And had them fight to the death over it. And then Archie murdered Maxie. Except the armor Archie was wearing in that moment wasn't the armor made to protect him, it was the fake armor that Gold had been wearing to make a "Dramatic Entrance" and he wound up being cast into oblivion once more.

They both reappear in ORAS... sort of. So their conciousness made it to the distortion world and sort of just became one, and then something, some primordial God, basically asked them if they wanted to Live, because it had purpose for them. They responded positively and wound up in Johto, looking like their ORAS selves and knowing that they had to learn Mega Evolution, reacquire the Red and Blue Orbs and protect the planet from the Meteorite that was coming. After their tasks were finished they once more disappeared into dust.

I've skipped over a lot, and RS is truly a beast of a manga to cover, but Aqua and Magma are some truly intense villains, getting the better of gym leaders, becoming so successful that they basically completely destroy Hoenn in their competition. If you were to rank Pokemon Specials villains, they'd hit pretty high up there.

Onmi fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Jun 3, 2018

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

I hated the climax of the RS arc so much. The sheer melodrama with all the deaths and destruction followed by the equally ridiculous Celebi cop out just ruined the whole thing. Melodrama is fine, but RS was just really guys. The Emerald Saga was also pretty lame start to finish, for other reasons.

But my least favorite part about it had to do with Ruby & Sapphire at the climax. So the 2 fight Archie & Maxie but get trounced due to lack of teamwork, then the 2 went through some team up training with Liza, Tate & Juan on Mirage Island because Special is slavishly devoted to bringing in every single thing from the games no matter what they would be the best ones to teach the 2 to act in sync so they could do battle properly against the villains.
So they finish their training, Sapphire gets her Mind & Rain badges because we dont have time for her to do her quest but by god we'll complete it, I think put on some new clothes, and head to the final battle at which point Ruby instantly locks her away (in what I think was a Manaphy movie reference??) to protect her and teams up with Courtney instead. Great???
And obviously that goes poorly, though not teaming up with Sapphire isn't really the reason why. So Ruby pulls out the Celebi but it just rewrites the timeline and they pop out at a proper ending with everyone alive and such.

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!
In a battle to the death, Maxie really got hosed over by that 4x type disadvantage.

rannum posted:

at which point Ruby instantly locks her away (in what I think was a Manaphy movie reference??) to protect her and teams up with Courtney instead

Oh yeah, that did happen, didn't it?

Blueberry Pancakes fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Apr 25, 2018

Kikas
Oct 30, 2012

Having a normal one

AGDQ 2018 Awful Block Survivor

I mean the cruelty of Archie and Maxie isn't much compared to a what Cyrus was planning, plus Cyrus is a loving LUNATIC in the DPPt arc, but that's a discussion for the next LP.

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Kikas posted:

but that's a discussion for the next LP.

Haha, uh, yep, I seem to be getting a bit predictable. OR AM I?

We've still got a bit left of this LP, I'm thinking ten more updates or so, so post your stuff whenever Onmi, it's always a cool read. I've read every Special arc and it's been a while since RS. But I remember the ending being crazy and dumb. The arc was a lot of fun, but due to how separate everything is and Ruby being Ruby, I don't rank it too highly. DP was great fun to read, so that's why it's my favourite.

Crosspeice fucked around with this message at 19:07 on Apr 25, 2018

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

Crosspeice posted:

Haha, uh, yep, I seem to be getting a bit predictable. OR AM I?

We've still got a bit left of this LP, I'm thinking ten more updates or so, so post your stuff whenever Onmi, it's always a cool read. I've read every Special arc and it's been a while since RS. But I remember the ending being crazy and dumb. The arc was a lot of fun, but due to how separate everything is and Ruby being Ruby, I don't rank it too highly. DP was great fun to read, so that's why it's my favourite.

DP was a fun arc, on the whole it felt more reigned in though, again, in the back half kind of got dumb in spots. But at no point did a Celebi undo everything so points there.

The Platinum arc less so and the HGSS arc was such a giant load of nothing. I never got around to reading the BW1 arc but I think it still has plot points not wrapped up because also the BW2 arc is STILL GOING since it had a few hiatuses. As is the XY arc. And the SM arc.
Reading Special/Adventures these days sounds like a lesson in pain.

Blaze Dragon
Aug 28, 2013
LOWTAX'S SPINE FUND

rannum posted:

DP was a fun arc, on the whole it felt more reigned in though, again, in the back half kind of got dumb in spots. But at no point did a Celebi undo everything so points there.

The Platinum arc less so and the HGSS arc was such a giant load of nothing. I never got around to reading the BW1 arc but I think it still has plot points not wrapped up because also the BW2 arc is STILL GOING since it had a few hiatuses. As is the XY arc. And the SM arc.
Reading Special/Adventures these days sounds like a lesson in pain.

XY is fully finished and also very good, it actually fixes a lot of what XY did wrong and writes a very good story with it. That said, it's closer to RS than DP in terms of consistent mood, though not quite as kill-happy, and the ending breaks game rules but in a badass way.

B2W2 is still going and will likely never end. Even without that it's kind of a bland arc overall. SM is okay, but also ongoing, I feel it could be really good once it's finished though, if it ever is.

General Revil
Sep 30, 2014

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Crosspeice posted:

Haha, uh, yep, I seem to be getting a bit predictable. OR AM I?

I actually wouldn't be surprised if you went with another side-game between this and Platinum. If I had to bet, my money would be on Pokemon Ranger so you can get the Manaphy egg and transfer it over to Platinum.

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Man I wish I could do the Ranger games, but playing them on an emulator is miserable and I don't have 3DS capture, otherwise I would've done ORAS instead of Emerald.

Maybe I could get an emulator onto a touchscreen phone and record that...? Something to think about for later, perhaps.

Epicmissingno
Jul 1, 2017

Thank gooness we all get along so well!
There's always Mystery Dungeon, the best Pokemon spinoffs/crossovers (or that seems to be the general consensus, at least). Especially since the touch screen controls are basically just worse than the buttons, compared to Ranger where the only controls are the touch screen.

General Revil
Sep 30, 2014

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Crosspeice posted:

Man I wish I could do the Ranger games, but playing them on an emulator is miserable and I don't have 3DS capture, otherwise I would've done ORAS instead of Emerald.

Maybe I could get an emulator onto a touchscreen phone and record that...? Something to think about for later, perhaps.

The LPs of Ranger that I've watched had the player using a drawing tablet in order to be able to use the touchscreen in a reasonable manner.

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

the real answer is clear: Pokemon Colosseum

Crosspeice
Aug 9, 2013

Part 26: Victory Times the Charm

Ever Grande City



It's time for our final destination: the Pokemon League. Let's see what the city it's in has for us.


Ever Grande City/Saiyū City: The paradise of flowers, the sea, and Pokemon.
That name is a bit obvious, and from saiyū (best) and sai colour.



As you can see, this "city" only has two buildings. There's a reason you don't call it a city and instead a plateau, or something. At least they rectify this in future games by just calling this area the Pokemon League. And hey, this is the first area in the series that has two Fly points. Woaaaaaaaah!



YUKI, if you were to become the POKEMON LEAGUE CHAMPION... I'll get in touch with you then. Okay, YUKI. Go for greatness!



Before we can even think about the Pokemon League, we've got Victory Road to go through. Don't think that empty cave in Gen 2 was a one off, Victory Roads are some of my favourite dungeons in the franchise. Before we enter, though, we've got the last mass evolution before the end of the game! Here.

Hoenn Victory Road



Mmm that's a real good track. This dungeon is pretty sprawling, has a lot of trainers in it and a fair few side paths, I really like it!



But first...

WALLY?



I bet you're surprised to see me here! I made it all the way here, and it's all thanks to you! YUKI, losing to you that time made me stronger! But I'm not going to lose anymore! I'm going to win! For the POKEMON who gave me courage and strength! Okay... here I come!








So this is why the rival disappears after Lilycove, because Wally is our true rival and we fight him immediately upon entering Victory Road, as opposed to right at the end like in RS. I appreciate that. You might think that this would go into a video, but, uh, because we've fought every trainer in the game up until this point, the battle is pretty quick and I didn't really feel the need.



So I'm gonna act like Wally is just another trainer that I'll get exp from. I mean, have you seen his team? It's got a slight Silver problem.




By which I mean it's a bit poo poo. But hey, that applies to every trainer ever before Gen 4 fixes stuff and makes things difficult for once.



Like, I'm really happy that Wally is here. But c'mon man, there's a lot of different Pokemon you could've used.




It's at least able to survive one more Dragon Claw.



What you gonna pull from this?



Well wasn't that cool.



Okay, onto the actual dangerous member of his team.




It would be a lot more dangerous if it used its STAB move instead of Future Sight which, well, doesn't get STAB.




Overall, Wally is pretty cool, but he's got a better showing in the remakes, like everyone else.

Hoenn Victory Road

"catch up to you!"

Every time we defeat the Elite Four we'll be able to rematch Wally, though only the levels of his team change, which is always a shame when that happens. Looking at you Platinum's Elite Four.



Let's get back onto the road.




There's a lot of Cooltrainers in this place and they've got some sweet Pokemon we haven't seen before. And Full Restores. Can't forget those.



I lost here... that means I lack the qualifications to become the CHAMPION...



The tricky part of this place is figuring out which way is the way forward... and then going down every other path to get sweet loot.



Neat




You seem to have potential for becoming the CHAMPION.



Oh poo poo it's time for Flash. It has been a WHILE since we last needed it in Granite Cave. Sure we needed it to get Registeel, but that was Emerald only, while needing it in the Cave of Origin was RS only.



I hope you have two lovely HM moves on your endgame team, else you're screwed.



There's two paths to go, so we'll head on the upper one first.

"POKEMON."


Yay!



Aww...



There is a lot of bridges in this place.



There aren't too many items in this place, but what there is is good.



The top path lets you hop down to the end of the bottom path, so hey here's a trainer.




The POKEMON LEAGUE became distant again... what a letdown...



Oh good, another floor of darkness. It makes my SSLP much easier to follow like this, totally...



I'm moving to make that no longer the case.




Gaze on your collected BADGES and remember the TRAINERS you've faced.



Here's two more HMs to add to the pile. However, you don't need Waterfall, since there's another path to the right that lets us skip it.



Let's see what we've got.



That's a cool move. No one on our team aside from Calbrena can learn it, so sure, it's better than Faint Attack.




There's a couple new Pokemon to obtain in this place, including our final version exclusive. Now I don't have to bother with them anymore.




The rumors I heard, that tough little kid is from PETALBURG CITY.



You might have noticed at quite a few times the dialogue remains unchanged from RS, which, uh, doesn't make sense in some cases.




Oh hey a double battle. I thought we might go one update without seeing one. That would be crazy.



I can't help getting all tense knowing that I'm nearing the POKEMON LEAGUE. It's all I can do is feign calm.

You do have guts! I like that! Keep it going!



Bridges!!!



No signs of tiring at all! VICTORY ROAD and the POKEMON LEAGUE are long and gruelling challenges. Beware of fatigue!



Here we are on top of the waterfalls, since we don't need the HM to go down them.

"I'm not losing to anyone!"


A whole family of battlers? Hmm. I've faced so many trainers in this game that they just blur together, so I'm not sure what he means.



I love Wargreymon so much.



I've lost my confidence... maybe I'll go home...



If I did battle the family, I probably destroyed them and crushed their dreams like the uncaring monster I am.



There's a ladder here.



But there's also another ladder here.




Hahah! Oh wait, Hi Jump Kick recoil is only half the damage the move would've done had it hit. Never mind then...



Well, they are running out of PP, but this is the only time in the games when I ever bother with PP restoring items.



Sigh... always run into double battle encounters, since one trainer will always turn in the frame you walk towards them.




Even outside of battle, I sense incredible power emanating from you and your POKEMON.



Whoa! Wonderful! Sure, this is VICTORY ROAD. But it's not all that different from the path you've taken so far. Try to enjoy things the rest of the way!

So the other ladder by the waterfall has us end up here. So what was the point of it? Does it let you skip some trainers? Well, yes, but in RS, the bottom ladder was blocked by a ledge so you had to go up the top ladder first and then hop down. I don't get it either, so I'm glad they changed it.



Ah finally, full images again.



My dream ends here again... You've made it this far. Keep the momentum going and become the CHAMPION! If anyone can, it's you!






So this mummy might not hit hard, but boy can it tank. I would say that more confidently without its godawful HP stat, but its higher defenses try and make up for the difference. With only Ghost to worry about when it comes to supereffective damage, Dusclops has all the tools it needs to tank for a while. A-Aside from Eviolite, but whatever. With Night Shade, Will-o-wisp, Toxic and even Curse, since you could survive a hit even at half health, makes it very difficult to deal with. Its typing does mean it takes a lot of neutral damage, but when given the chance, it can wall a fair amount of damage and slowly whittle down foes. Its offenses aren't great, despite a wide movepool, so while it could smack things around a bit, it's obviously not where its strengths like. But it can only really focus on one defensive side, making it easy pray for the other, especially with its HP letting it down. It'll get some better tools later down the line.



Begone.



Getting through here safely--that's the final test for any TRAINER aiming to become the POKEMON CHAMPION. That's why it's called VICTORY ROAD.

Humph, go right on ahead. See if I care.

Ever Grande City



A bit tough, but we've made it.



It'll soon be time for the Elite Four.



We've got the entire region to stock up on, so better make use of it.

"are permitted to enter."


And we'll be heading into the depths... next time.



Let's have our final team check! Nobunaga has been excellent, very dependable with a great typing and contributed to all kinds of stuff this entire game. While he got a bit saddled with HMs towards the end, just having Earthquake and Surf was enough, so he's a great mon to use. Such a good typing.



Ranmaru has been pretty one note since we caught him, but drat has that note been good. He's just been wrecking fools left, right and center, even if he can't touch the Baltoy family. Good utility in Calm Mind and Flash for the more trickier fights and then just nuking anything that doesn't resist Psychic. It's all I needed him to do.



While Wargreymon has spent most of this LP unevolved, as a physical tank and heavy hitter, he can't be beat. Sure, his moveset is inaccurate to the point that Rock Tomb might be my least favourite move ever, but when he hit, OH BABY. Being able to take 11 damage from Explosion is also hilarious, as well as being a great HM user.



Nimbus doesn't dish out a lot of damage, but she's very dependable, able to take a few hits and often strike first with her great Speed. It's also just nice being able to use a Dragon for once, along with some cool move options. Sing was weirdly accurate all game, so she was a perfect catcher. Jeremiah and Ikue would be proud.



I hope Calbrena knows how much I love her, cause she's able to hit super hard in ways Wargreymon and Nobunaga aren't able to. Curse is super clutch and making excellent use of physical Shadow Ball is just a treat. Hell, she's able to hit pretty hard with her special coverage move, which is pretty nice. My Mega Banette plush is pleased.



While Cold Gregg hasn't been with us long, she's been a great jack of all trades, which works quite nicely in single player. Having a great starting movepool definitely helped and being able to deal lots of damage on all sides makes her super useful, even when all she can do is go boom. And I love going boom.

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

Oh good we finally got Wally's underwhelming last stand so now I can talk about the ridiculousless that is ORAS Wally
The fight is now in a field of flowers as the sun shines down upon you and an amaaaaazing rock theme blares

It is all so wonderfully over the top for this goober you've met twice before as you beat up on his tiny flower person and cloud bird
Take it in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpophTmjELM&t=38s

Course the nice thing about the Remakes is you get to see him in the post game and if you meet the right criteria you can fight him with a new team.


it's

it's a step up, so to speak

Blueberry Pancakes
Aug 18, 2012

Jack in!! MegaMan, Execute!
Wally became a Smogonite.

Nissin Cup Nudist
Sep 3, 2011

Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land




rannum posted:

the real answer is clear: Pokemon Colosseum

I'm down with this

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FoolyCharged
Oct 11, 2012

Cheating at a raffle? I sentence you to 1 year in jail! No! Two years! Three! Four! Five years! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!
Somebody call for an ant?

rannum posted:

Oh good we finally got Wally's underwhelming last stand so now I can talk about the ridiculousless that is ORAS Wally
The fight is now in a field of flowers as the sun shines down upon you and an amaaaaazing rock theme blares

It is all so wonderfully over the top for this goober you've met twice before as you beat up on his tiny flower person and cloud bird
Take it in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpophTmjELM&t=38s

I'm pretty sure someone on staff had just played mgs3 during development.

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