Part 8: The Walk South

Update 07: The Walk South

Route 32



: It must be from the training you gave them around VIOLET CITY. The training at the GYM must have been especially helpful. As a souvenir of VIOLET CITY, take this. It increases the power of grass-type moves.



Aw neat, an item that boosts Grass moves by 10%. Like the rest of the boosting items, it's not amazing, but what are your options, really? Might give the slight kick you need, but don't count on it.

: Your experiences in VIOLET CITY should be useful for your journey.



Sure, sure. The training at Sprout Tower was pretty good. The Gym... eh. In any case, we're heading to our next destination in Azalea Town. Should be a lot of fun.



Well I think I be, you never know until you try.



Evidently.

"with my favorites."

: I'm not using the same tough POKéMON as everyone else.

Hmmmm... where have I heard something like that before...?



: Pardon? Battle? I'm on the phone. Oh, all right. But make it fast.




HP: 55 | ATK: 47 | DEF: 52 | SP.ATK: 40 | SP.DEF:40 | SPD: 41 | TOTAL: 275
#095: Nidoran F



Not much to see, though. And a very good level up as we'll soon see.



Oh boy oh boy

Pokémon Evolves




Our first evolution befitting of our starter. Cyndaquil evolves the earliest out of all starters, along with Chimchar, at level 14. We'll evolve the other starters when it gets to their level and it's beneficial to do so.

Route 32



: Oh? You're on a big journey to see the sights? Neat! Let's be friends! Can I have your phone number? I want to hear about everything you've seen!

This is a trainer that has no profitable benefit from having her number, but might as well.

"interesting."

But who cares about that, let's have a look at our freshly evolved starter.




HP: 58 | ATK: 64 | DEF: 58 | SP.ATK: 80 | SP.DEF:65 | SPD: 80 | TOTAL: 275
#005: Quilava



Our team is shaping up quite well I think. Now it's time for another catching spree!




HP: 35 | ATK: 60 | DEF: 44 | SP.ATK: 40 | SP.DEF:54 | SPD: 55 | TOTAL: 288
#050: Ekans



Nice catch!



That'll be nice to use when we've caught everything here. Including...




HP: 55 | ATK: 40 | DEF: 40 | SP.ATK: 65 | SP.DEF:45 | SPD: 35 | TOTAL: 280
#053: Mareep



Yes, it's the return of the catch any Pokemon cheat codes, cause how else am I supposed to catch all these damn things? It seems to work a lot better than the Yellow codes.



M-More or less...



Now we switch to night-time, cause there's one more Pokemon to find.




HP: 55 | ATK: 45 | DEF: 45 | SP.ATK: 25 | SP.DEF:25 | SPD: 15 | TOTAL: 210
#056: Wooper



Man I wish I could've used this on my team... oh well!



Now let's continue on, there's still quite a bit of the route to go.



Battle time.




HP: 46 | ATK: 57 | DEF: 40 | SP.ATK: 40 | SP.DEF:40 | SPD: 50 | TOTAL: 273
#098: Nidoran M



So I don't believe we've seen Jeremiah's new move. Water Gun (Mizu Deppō) is a very standard Water move with 40BP, 25PP and 100% accuracy. Poliwag doesn't have great Special Attack, but it's the best we got for now.

"avoid eye contact."

But I need all the experience!



One hidden item down. Let's see what's happening over here.



Delicious.



No, now is not the time for that.



Stat experience, mother fucker.



Oh, my bad.




HP: 20 | ATK: 10 | DEF: 55 | SP.ATK: 15 | SP.DEF:20 | SPD: 80 | TOTAL: 200
#076: Magikarp



Oh wow, that's pretty high leveled. Too bad it won't do anything.



Oh, uh, one sec.



: I found a useful item shopping, so I bought it with your money. Sorry! It's in your PC. You'll like it!



Neat. When the amount of money stored with our mom reaches a certain threshold, she'll get an item for us. This means we have over 600 saved. She also bought us a Repel when we got to 200, but I think that happened inbetween recordings.



Mmm, fascinating.

"POKéMON."

: I'm not about to lose to any kid!




HP: 45 | ATK: 67 | DEF: 60 | SP.ATK: 35 | SP.DEF: 50 | SPD: 63 | TOTAL: 320
#078: Goldeen



Oh goddammit. Supersonic (Chōonpa: Ultrasound) is a Normal status move with 20PP and 55% accuracy that causes confusion. It's definitely not the best application of that status, but we'll be seeing it fairly often on some Pokemon.



This is going well.



Now if only Poliwag could evolve...



: Don't young people fish anymore? I've seen rare POKéMON while I've been fishing. You young people like that, right? Want to trade phone numbers?



Sounds good. Ralph will tell us if a specific Pokemon start swarming. Usually they have a 1% chance of appearing normally, so it's best to increase those odds for your sanity.



Alright, I'll be waiting.

"grass!"

: I think they'll do for me!



There is a good selection of stuff on this route, so I can agree.



That's mainly cause you've got comfy and easy to wear shorts, so you notice those things.



Whoops, no repel up.




Sure, I could go for one of those.

"were loaded..."

Well maybe I don't want it!



Bah, asshole.

Pokémon Center



Pick up this one hidden item and we've made it to the Pokemon Center. Phew, we could use a bit of a break, that was a lot of trainers we faced.



: You saw people fishing? How about you?



That would be nice, yes.



Unlike the previous generation, the Old Rod is actually pretty useful. We'll be getting into that in just a little bit.



: If there's water, be it the sea or stream, try out your ROD.



Here's what our mother got us. Very useful, since our Pokemon are getting to the point where normal Potions aren't cutting the mustard anymore, ya dig?



Oh god, here we go.

: It's me, WADE. Were you awake? I found all kinds of BERRIES. If you want, I'll share some with you. I'll be waiting on ROUTE 31.



We could do that, if we had an easy way to head back, but we don't. We'll visit him later.

Route 32



: I'm FRIEDA of FRIDAY! Nice to meet you! Here's a POISON BARB for you!



: Give it to a POKéMON that has poison-type moves. Oh! It's wicked! You'll be shocked how good it makes poison moves!

: Hiya! What day do you like? I love Friday. No doubt about it! Don't you think it's great too?



Riiiiight. Well the Poison Barb boosts those moves by 10%, which, unfortunately, might gives those poor saps with Poison Sting as their only worthwhile move the slight kick they need. Poison still isn't a great type with that increase, but for some it might be worth it.



COOL THING: we can now register a key item and use it any time we press Select. It's an amazing feature that won't be improved on for about 15 years, as is the norm.



Ho hum.



Fishing is very simple. Just cast it out and hope you get lucky. No timing involved.

"attacked!"

Unsurprisingly, you can catch Magikarp here. Which is fine, cause we do need one anyway.



Pretty simple and pretty useless.



Buuuuuuuuuut




HP: 40 | ATK: 40 | DEF: 35 | SP.ATK: 50 | SP.DEF: 100 | SPD: 70 | TOTAL: 335
#162: Tentacool



Unlike in Gen 1, where the only Pokemon fished up by the Old Rod was Magikarp, there's now a nice assortment of Pokemon we can fish up in different locations. While Magikarp is still the Pokemon we can find the most, we have a 15% chance of finding something else and it varies quite nicely depending on the location.



Alright, now let's move onwards.



Man, don't put a trainer after the place where we've just healed...



Electric? Ice? Rock?

"in VIOLET CITY."

Containment is useful, yes.



But hey, we've now arrived at Union Cave. In we go.

Union Cave



Welcome to a cave we can see in, here's an item we'll never use.



You're like, right next to the entrance. Are you sure about that?



Oh hey it's one of these things.




Nice and easy experience for our water type.

"TAIL."

: I feel sorry for the poor POKéMON."



: Let my POKéMON see if you are good enough to battle.



Yeah, seems about right.



: I'm not leaving until my POKéMON get tougher!



Man, this place is kinda big.

"my POKéMON."

: I'm seriously upset about that!




HP: 40 | ATK: 65 | DEF: 95 | SP.ATK: 60 | SP.DEF: 45 | SPD: 35 | TOTAL: 340
#114: Koffing



Feel the Bern



Good thing it's Friday then!



Ooh, some nice pick ups. Even with our slight money problems, it's good there's so many spare balls lying around. Means we can actually catch new Pokemon as we get to new areas.



Onwards!

Trainer Challenge #5

"POKéMON."

: Are you searching for POKéMON too? Then you're my collecting rival!




HP: 90 | ATK: 65 | DEF: 65 | SP.ATK: 40 | SP.DEF: 40 | SPD: 15 | TOTAL: 310
#080: Slowpoke



Noice.



And that's even better. We are getting up in levels, which is good, since we'll need them in a little while.



It'll realize that it fainted like next Monday or something, it's cool.

Union Cave



But that's today! Well, is Friday part of the weekend? The last six hours of it is, at least.



Let's see what we find down here.



Not a bad haul. Swift (Supīdo Sutā: Speed Star) is a Normal move with 60BP, 20PP and never misses. Unlike the last gen, you can't always hit the opponent no matter what, such as during the turns of Fly and Dig.



We can fish up some Goldeen here.



This is a really good change, means we don't have to wait too far into the game to actually use these Pokemon, unlike the last time around, where you just found them too little, too late.



Moving on to one last item.

"scary."

And one last trainer.




HP: 38 | ATK: 41 | DEF: 40 | SP.ATK: 50 | SP.DEF: 65 | SPD: 65 | TOTAL: 299
#125: Vulpix



Ah, what a nostalgic move for us. Quick Attack (Denkō Sekka: Lightning Speed) is a Normal move with 40BP, 30PP and 100% accuracy along with +1 priority. So, it'll go first unless the opponent is also using a move of the same, or higher priority bracket.



Surprise surprise, we leveled up from that.

"up this cave."

Oh yeah? Your Vulpix can use Flash? Well, uh, I don't think it can even learn such a move. So methinks you're trying to steal credit.



But just before we leave. One more thing to find.




HP: 50 | ATK: 75 | DEF: 85 | SP.ATK: 20 | SP.DEF: 30 | SPD: 40 | TOTAL: 300
#048: Sandshrew



Dawww, just trying to imagine it. Defense Curl (Marukunaru: Curl Up) is a Normal status move with 40PP that raises Defense by one stage. Meh.



And that's the only thing to really capture. But as some have alluded to, we'll be back later.

Route 33



Aaah, we're out. We've nearly made it to Azalea Town!



: I finally got through that cave. It was much bigger than I'd expected. I got too tired to explore the whole thing so I came outside.



Nice, free Antidote.



Okay, one last trainer.




HP: 70 | ATK: 80 | DEF: 50 | SP.ATK: 35 | SP.DEF: 35 | SPD: 35 | TOTAL: 305
#140: Machop



Uh, ow, I think? Low Kick (Ketaguri: Kick Down) is a Fighting move with 50BP, 20PP and 90% accuracy, along with a 30% chance to flinch. It's still an okay source of STAB, but some Fighting types might not have better options.

"mountains."

: By the way, I'm a HIKER, so I often go to mountains and caves. I occasionally see rare POKéMON. I could call you the next time I see one.



That sounds pretty good. Always up for more swarms.

"POKéMON for you!

I'll definitely take you up on that, when we have the opportunity.



But huzzah. We've made it. And we'll explore the new town next time.