Sword_of_Dusk fucked around with this message at 03:53 on Nov 16, 2020

Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Nov 16, 2020

Where the gently caress did you come from?

Language, please.

If you want to know more, look me up. I understand you’re good at that. I’m keeping an eye on you, child. I know you’re not putting everything you have into this Challenge.

Look, is this REALLY the right time? I’m going through some shite right now, I’d appreciate if –

Oh, but it IS the right time. You only learn how truly skilled someone is when they’re at the end of their rope. I’m expecting great things of you, child. Show me how well you can cope.

She walks away.

You know what? I think I’m going to set up camp and call it early. Bruce, you’re on fire duty; Tiddles, can you source the water? Dietrich, come over here and I’ll let you stir the pot. Let’s have a meal so mummy can sit back and digest everything.



Route 6 is a bit of an oddball, in that its geography doesn’t really match up with anything in Britain (as far as I’m aware). There MIGHT be a stretch of rocky desert somewhere, but I’ve never heard of it. Nice ruins, though. I’ll take this time to discuss something else. I believe I mentioned that I’ve been developing a theory, and I believe I’m on to something.



You see this Clefable? This monster nearly took out two of my Pokémon. It wasn’t even that powerful, it just had so much health it tanks everything I tossed at it. It was the very first trainer Pokémon I faced on this route. That difficulty spike I mentioned earlier is back, bringing with it the grinding difficulty I remember hating back in Ultra Moon. As I’ve said, I’m not actually very good at this game, and my type advantages are probably all over the map, I haven’t optimized anybody, etc., whatever. But! I haven’t been training much, as I discussed, and through various Dynamax fights I’ve built up a whopping 60 small exp candies and 28 medium ones. I decided that 10 small candies would be TOO much, right ?













The answer is absolutely not ! All of a sudden my Pokémon were dramatically overlevelled. Like, I seriously considered reverting the next day because I’d broken the difficulty curve before I realized I’d saved for the night just after stuffing them down their throats . Welp. I ended up having to go with a team cobbled together from randos that I caught during Dynamax Raids I found lying around in my box. They are still substantially stronger than everything around here.

And yet, even before I exchanged my team, when my Pokémon were more than half a dozen levels past most of our opponents, they still just barely put up enough of the fight that I didn’t feel too guilty. I mean, look at this:



This is with Tiddles breaking out his most potent moves (without type advantages, granted). So my theory goes like this. At some point during development, possibly up till very late, those Dynamax Dens were multiplayer ONLY, as fits Nintendo’s traditional obsession with forcing nerds to engage in social activity. However, at some point somebody convinced the developers hiding one of the game’s signature features behind requirements players may not be able to fill was a terrible idea, and they quickly patched in that generic trainer option that basically everyone uses now. Unfortunately, they did not finish rebalancing experience from battles. The previous level curve assumed exp candies would be a rare treat, possibly just enough to level whatever Pokémon you just caught, but now the developers realized they’d have to completely rehaul experience gain rates at the last minute. The team either didn’t bother changing them at all or at some point threw up their hands and went with what they had, which was bad enough. They also forgot that Dens give you very powerful Pokémon and scale with the player as they collect Badges – and every time you beat one, you get a whole host of benefits ranging from exp candies to rare TRs. End result? Players are actively incentivized to go into the Wild Area, catch powerful Pokémon, douse them in exp candies, and throw them against Pokémon too weak to stand up to them. It was probably a pretty easy game to begin with, but this just shattered the difficulty curve entirely. Oh well!

I really like this town, despite how out of place it looks. It’s so pretty!



It also has a lot of secrets, especially considering its relatively small size. As such, there’s only so long you can go without…



Hop! It’s… It’s been like a day since we last talked. You sure you’re all right, mate?

Come on, Gloria. It wasn’t the end of the world. I’m still a little offkilter but I’m ready to go again. I’ve been doing some thinking. I’m just not as naturally talented as Lee is. And that isn’t a bad thing, necessarily, just a natural thing, yeah? But that doesn’t mean I can’t surpass him. So. Till now I’ve been just indulging my Pokémon and letting them fight how they wanted. Now,

Wait, isn’t that the Pokémon that spits up a fish? Yep. It looks really, really weird. But then, it’s a Pokémon. Fish fly, birds swim, Pokémon have stupid designs. It’s tough as heck though; it almost outlasts Mr. Blobby.



It’s John Bonham! And he goes down in one hit! His Silicobra lasts only a bit longer. He also found a Toxel somewhere. Unfortunately, it sucks, too; I didn’t post a screenshot of the last two because, well, they just went down. These Pokémon are all about at the same level as the wild Pokémon in the previous route, if not a little below; even with my B-team I didn’t have any trouble flattening him. It legitimately feels like he just caught most of these Pokémon and decided to throw them against me, and as far as I can tell from reading up on him his team doesn’t have any tricks up its sleeve he just failed to bring out in time either.

Hop?

Yeah, mate?

Have you been using experience candies?

What candies?

You know that tablet-looking stuff that gathers around Dens after you beat the tar out of whatever’s hiding in them?

Isn’t that stuff poisonous?

To humans. To Pokémon, it stimulates mental and physical growth – it’s like training them up for free.

GodDAMMIT, how did I NOT know that?

I’ve been working on connecting with my Pokémon, but I’ve been cramming a lot of experience candy down them too. Part of why they always just seem a little stronger pound for pound. My advice? Go try that out.

Thanks, Gloria, you’re a lifesaver!

And you aren’t doing him any favors, you know.



You are only putting off the inevitable. As useful as experience candy can be, it’s merely a shortcut, the first of many. He won’t be able to beat you with shortcuts, Gloria. You’re an ace, after all, and you’ll go far in this challenge. You showed as much in your fight.

Look, I REALLY don’t appreciate you popping in over my shoulder and telling my future and poo poo every time I try to help my friend!

Oh, don’t get me wrong, your friend will be fine enough in the long term. But the most important part of the Gym Challenge is developing as a Trainer and a person along the way, not winning the Championship, and that’s something for you to consider as well.

…I’m going to take Woolooloo out of the box, set him down, and scream into his side until I calm down.

Our next stop along the way is the Ghost Gym. Well, okay, since Gloria is Gloria, our next stop on the way is ACTUALLY the mural we see mentioned from time to time as one of the town’s biggest attractions…





You know, I’d HEARD they’d botched the restoration job, but I almost think they should’ve just let it fade away in the wind rather than this. gently caress me, it’s miserable.



You and me both.



Anyway, our next stop is the Ghost Gym. Or, in one of the biggest differences between Sword and Shield versions, what would in Sword be the Fighting Gym, complete with a different layout and Leader. The game has two of these, the other coming up much later. But speaking of Gyms!

Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Nov 17, 2020

Allister’s Gym is a bit… odd. But I have something I’ve been waiting to talk about for like a week, and I’m going to take advantage of our most recent conversation with everyone’s favorite gender-neutral mascot to bring the narrative to a screeching halt and ramble about it anyway. Let’s talk Beauty Nova.



Beauty Nova first showed up in Pokémon X/Y as a member of the exclusively female Beauty Trainer class whose English quote specifically mentions having been a Black Belt (an exclusively male Trainer class) half a year ago. She first came to the Internet’s attention a few years later to some controversy, largely because a mixture of skeptics and the usual suspects barking about sociological communism or whatever tried to debunk it. Turns out: nope! Maybe she was just referring to the class, not the gender? No, the class she refers to is limited to males and has a female equivalent with an entirely different name in both English and Japanese. Maybe it’s a mistranslation? Nope, it’s even more explicit in the Japanese. Maybe it’s just a shift in presentation or something and is talking about something unrelated? Nuh-uh, by “more explicit” I mean the Japanese text has her specifically enthusing about how wonderful it is that modern medical science helped her transition. Who would’ve thought that the Pokémon franchise, of all things, would be one of the first to have a trans character so open about it that it’s literally the first thing she mentions when meeting strangers?

But enough sociological communism. Let’s go beat up a 10-year-old.

Ghost is one of the odder Pokémon types, mechanically and thematically. Mechanically, Normal (the first Type most players run into in large numbers and which sets the baseline for most people’s Pokémon experience) and Ghost are mutually immune to each other’s attacks, and when combined with its one-way strengths and weaknesses and weakness to itself (one of only two types to suffer from that, the other being Dragon), it makes Ghost-types of head-scratcher to take down. Combine that with the type’s access to several odd moves that impose unique status effects (like dooming Pokémon to die) and you end up with something that stands out even among all of Pokémon’s strange types as uncanny and hard to deal with.

Thematically, it’s associated with Lavender Town in the first game, the home of one of the eeriest tracks in the entire franchise and the Pokémon Tower, a literal Pokémon graveyard. The game made you climb up the tower, fighting Trainers explicitly mourning their Pokémon, until you made it to the top and fought a ghost Pokémon – not a Ghost-type, but the literal ghost of the Pokémon you needed special equipment just to hit. While Gen 1 wasn’t always completely lighthearted – you did have a crime syndicate and an abandoned lab harrowed by the constructed Pokémon it accidentally unleashed – Lavender Town stuck out as the darkest thing in the game and wedged its way into the fandom’s cultural consciousness. It even gave birth to one of the Internet’s first breakout creepypastas, which alleged in the early version of the town theme caused dozens of suicides in Japan before they switched it out before the English release.





Allister’s Gym ignored all that and turned itself into a giant pachinko machine. And honestly, it’s kind of amazing. You spin your little theme park cup up right with one of the control sticks to go right and vice versa to go left, simple enough. You can also get yourself wedged down dead ends if you’re not careful, but all of them have those hand bumper things to push you out. Can’t let the kids get frustrated. Or adults, honestly. It does eventually get harder as you have to navigate through various obstacles, but it never actually gets difficult.



You also have to fight your way through Trainers at various rest points along the way, and unlike the trainers and basically every other Gym to this point, they actually pose something equivalent to a threat. Well, threat is the wrong word: they still go down easy. They do, however, do enough damage to your troops that, if you didn’t have easy access to who knows how many healing items, they might significantly weaken your team before you reach the Leader.



I bought a bunch of Super Potions.





He waves his hands around a little while he talks.

Four Pokémon now. We’re in the big leagues! I’m a big fan of this move:



While it does slow down battle a little bit (given the one turn you spend not doing damage), it’s strong, it can’t be blocked, and it hits this Yamask like a freight train. It hits his next Pokémon, his Cursola, even harder.



Oh hey, it’s in the abomination Pokémon! As his second to last, I deem this the appropriate time to break out Dynamax and start really nailing his troops. I have plenty of other options aside from Mr. Blobby if he falls, but I’d really rather he didn’t.





I’d completely forgotten that Drifblim ends up looking down at its target .









The Ghost-type Max move throws a bunch of phantom furniture at a target in a massive wave . Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that Mimikyu had an Ability that let it absorb a bunch of damage once, leaving Mr. Blobby with only one turn of Dynamax left.













At this point I’m genuinely a little worried; I don’t think I’ll actually LOSE, but this Gengar is potent enough right now to wreck Mr. Blobby and probably the next Pokémon out. And, since I doubt he has enough power to take him down in one hit, this Gengar is probably going to wreck his –







You know, I honestly thought it was impossible for super effective moves to crit. Guess not. Way to go, Mr. Blobby! I wasn’t actually expecting you to solo this Gym, but here we are. Turns out, you and your namesake are both terrifying!

We do get back control for a moment, but I just run up the stairs.

Bede's Theme - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST



The Pokémon roars. The game implies he’s been having it slam away at the mural, though we never see or hear anything of the sort beyond one slam.

You

What, come to try and steal my thunder again?

No! I’m trying to figure out why you’re defacing priceless work of art. What the gently caress is WRONG with you?

I am trying to save Galar. You are a self-absorbed prick who does nothing except try to tear me down at every opportunity.

Is this about the mines? You know what? You’re right! You may have started it, but I went after you as hard as I could. I should’ve been the bigger woman! But none of that matters because you hurt my best friend.

What, Hop? Oh, I didn’t hurt him. I never had to lay a hand on him. All I had to do was walk him through just how inadequate he is as a Trainer, step-by-step. If he can’t take the fact that he’s a pathetic failure who will never catch up to his older brother or be anything else, well, that’s his problem, not mine.

Oh, Bede, I’ve done some research on you. You poor orphan, taken across the sea five years after your parents died because nobody else would adopt you, only to get shoved into a boarding school filled with people who hated you for your origins and connections. The closest thing you had to a father was distant and barely acknowledged you, and your closest friends at school wouldn’t even deign to tag you in their pictures. No wonder you grew up into such an unmitigated arsehole. Even he can tell how awful you are, you know; it’s why he never listens when you have your little public conversations and dismisses you so fast.

_{Holy poo poo, Gloria.}

We’re getting personal, then? Good to hear, because I’ve done some research, too! And what an exciting story I found – a young mother bringing her child far, far away, leaving her life behind to care for some ungrateful brat, spending who knows how much money on therapists and specialists and conscripting an entire community just to keep her in line! You spent your whole life a huge burden on everyone around you and you would’ve made their lives easier if you’d finished what you’d started six years ago!

_{HOLY poo poo}

… I don’t know where you found all that out, but you’d best throw out your Pokémon RIGHT NOW before I actually attack you.

Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Dec 13, 2020

Black Robe fucked around with this message at 09:09 on Nov 18, 2020

Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Nov 18, 2020

Well, this is a thing. I completely forgot you actually face him down here. I’m not prepared and I’m still using that B-team, but I think it will be enough. Despite his Rock/Ground typing, almost all of this Pupitar’s moves are Dark, which Bede’s Psychic-types are weak to. His first Pokémon goes down like a brick.





I’m sure you do, buddy. Next up comes none other than Morgan, his signature Pokémon. Bizarrely, both it and the previous Pokémon got super effective’d AND critted, too; I guess they picked up on the fact that Gloria wasn’t in the mood for mercy. The pattern breaks with his Gothorita, but he downs her in two hits and the following Ponyta in one.

So, that was a very short fight. I think my overwhelming victory here comes out my move choice. Practically the only move I used in this fight was Crunch, a powerful physical Dark-type move. Psychic-types, on the other hand, almost always lean towards special moves and defenses; by leveraging Pupitar’s high Attack against their weak Defense, combined with the type advantage and extreme luck with all those crits, Bede went down like a sack of bricks. On the third, mutant hand, a lot of Bede's Psychic Types are tricked out with countermeasure moves for Types Psychic is weak to, but Pupitar there lacks any type weaknesses to those; they had no options they could readily use. I mean, I could have chosen a less cheesy monster to show this fight off better. But, nah.

Funny thing? That Copperajah back there is Rose’s Pokémon, and he’s canonically a Champion finalist; it should be enough to wipe my team by its lonesome. But I guess Bede wasn’t willing to go that far.

No, you convinced yourself you were. Unfortunately, no, as it turns out you –

Bede! What are you doing!?

… It seems I really haven’t taught you anything. Do you really think you know better than me?



Oleana, take his Wishing Stars.

Sir, are you certain…

I always am. Oleana.

Of course, sir.

But – I – I

I’m afraid I must take my leave. I have much to clean up.

… Gloria? You know what he said was all a load of bollocks, right?

Like all good lies, it had a seed of truth. I’ll be fine, but… I have no idea how he even found all that out. Probably just good detective work, but I hope he broke into some database somewhere so they can slap him with criminal charges.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen that angry at someone. Are you –

Look, can we talk about something else? Like the mural?

Fair enough. At least we got here in time. Look, it’s a bit scuffed up but still intact –

Destruction of the Mural - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST













Stow-on-Side - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST

That’s… That’s them. That’s the Brother Kings.

No.

… What?

Oh, sorry. The art style’s a lot older – look at those strong lines. And that round shield shape. Well, not round, but, you know. That’s Alfredine design.

… You know, normally, you love to gab about all this, but you’re practically monosyllabic. How you feeling?



That bad, huh?



Call a rain check on this conversation, yeah?

_{… I have plenty to say, but just… Not now. Meet you back in Hammerlocke after I beat Ballonlea?}

Take a break. You’re halfway through, you earned it.

…

Gloria, welcome –





What’s wrong, love?

… Very long day. Someone brought up a lot of bad memories.

Oh, I’m sorry, hun –

He did it on purpose.

Oh.

I’m pretty sure he’s going to jail, though.

… And I think there’s a story here. Why don’t I put a kettle on the stove and dig out some of your chai for you?

No, no, I’ll do it, give me something to keep my mind on while I’m talking…

…



…

_{I know you’re dillydallying in there, call her!}

Mum!



Rotom, mobile phone mode, please.

…

Marnie! Hey, have you reached Ballonlea yet?

…

Then, can I ask you to hang around for a little bit after you beat the Gym? I really need someone’s shoulder to lean on… I mean –

…

Yeah, it is pretty serious. Not like… World-ending serious, but… I could really use a neutral party to talk to, you know?

…

You have no idea how much I appreciate this.

…

I would drop everything to do the same for you, you know.

_{Oh, how romantic~}



…

Glimwood Tangle - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST



Welcome to one of the strangest and most beautiful environments in the game: the Glimwood Tangle. According to that tourism pamphlet I referenced earlier earlier, it’s based on Sherwood Forest – as in, the Robin Hood forest. Check me if I’m wrong, Britgoons, but I don’t think Sherwood has quite as many giant glowing mushrooms. While other areas’ Pokémon have either no theme or really obvious themes (water routes contain water Pokémon ), the Tangle is staffed by a mixture of Psychic and Fairy Pokémon.



It also houses possibly my least favorite Pokémon in this game. I mean, it’s not that bad, all told, but its name is… IMPIDIMP. Good Lord. I kill it on principle.



Not that this place is has many Pokémon that makes sense, mind. But it DOES house Pokémon that can take me on. This the first time in the game that my Pokémon start regularly dropping into the yellow. Part of it is that my current party loadout has a very few solid counters to the Pokémon you find here, but part of it is that the Pokémon here are legitimately challenging. On the other hand. Well. I didn’t really see it last time because I put away most of the Pokémon I’d been grinding Affection for, but with my original team restored, I’m seeing them dodge hits and score extra criticals all over the place, it’s nuts. It makes what otherwise might have been a bit of a slog into something genuinely entertaining. But this place does have a little secret. Something very, very important to me, in fact. One that my first time through I spent a solid 20 minutes just finding one in the tall grass



FINALLY. Unlike almost every other area in the game, all of the Tangle’s Pokémon hide in the tall grass and force you to come in after them, so it’s really hard to track where Pokémon could be. So finding this after just a few minutes of searching has me like . I originally chose Shield over Sword because Shield has Galarian Ponyta, so you’d better bet it’s going to end up in my party in SOME capacity.

Uh, hey, Britgoons. Is this based on a real place? Asking for a friend.



Man, I love this town. It’s one of the prettiest places in Galar, in my opinion. And it has an appropriately mystical side quest!





Frank:

Hm.



Not to mention a literal Otherkin over here. He wants us to put on some clothes that will inspire a fiery spirit, whatever that means. I’m assuming he wants me to put on a Fire Gym uniform or something. I’ll consider it, but I have something else I need done first.



Marnie! Oh, you’re a sight for sore eyes.

You wanna to find somewhere t’sit down? I have a feelin’ this is gonna get hairy and I wanna make sure you’re good 'n' comfortable before you begin.

Yeah, you're probably right. Thank you


So, bookkeeping. What I should name my Galarian Ponyta and who it should replace in my party? The current roster is:

• Bruce the Scorbunny
• Tiddles the Seismitoad
• Mr. Blobby the Drifblim
• Chairman the Roselia
• Dietrich the Toxtricity
• L337 the Axew

We have a couple updates before I go back to combat in earnest, which gives me enough time to ask.

Also, second question: how familiar is everyone in this thread with the Pokémon franchise? Are we all long time veterans, do we have any duties first checking in, what? I enjoy rambling about the contrast between earlier Gens and this one, but I can’t tell how much of an impact it’s making on the thread and whether I should start cutting down on its influence.

Falconier111 fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Nov 20, 2020