Part 9: Sub Under
Part 9: Sub Under
The Under
Here's the spoils of war, it's a TM we'll never use, woo!
With all the ways you can purify Shadow Pokemon, we can use that info to make more powerful Shadow Pokemon. Somehow. ~SCIENCE~
We're gonna chase down Venus, who will take forever to reach her destination since she's only as fast as we are to get to specific points.
In a weird twist, here's an unlockable two way door! Why couldn't the Pyrite Building door be this??? Still, it lets us go back to the Under Colosseum and heal up and prep for what's coming next. It's not over.
Venus can take the quick way down, but I suppose we can be healthy and take the stairs.
Trainer Battle
We've got a fair few trainers to fight, so hey, here's the cool music! Like I really need an excuse.
After the tough Venus fight this is a bit of a breather, but we've still got more to snag. All we need to do is wea-
Alrighty then. Shadow Pokemon Resets:
Still, least I can show that trainers can switch up their Pokemon when we reset, with Gligar coming out second instead of fourth. It can throw you for a loop!
Gligar, 60 catch rate (50%, low health, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Slash, Leer, Hypnosis, Shadow Rush/Faint Attack
GLIGAR CAN LEARN EARTHQUAKE SO IT'S USABLE!!! We're not that far off from getting it either, so if you want a big ol' face hugger, then it's not a bad pick. It won't have the utility of Quagsire, nor is it able to learn any Flying move since Aerial Ace is missing, but with Slash and Steel Wing it'll have some coverage. Sludge Bomb and Iron Tail aren't particularly close, so it won't have many options and it could be an alright recipient of the coveted Return, but it's not gonna be a huge amount of damage. Also it's really weak to Surf and Blizzard, which is not a good thing. Still, it gets fucking Earthquake.
Noooooooooo
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Oh thank god, nearly knocked SystemLogoff out of the running there, that was close.
What? No, don't do that.
Okay sure
Carbuncle is really starting to like me, since he nearly one shots this Kirlia. That's my boy.
Oh god this thing.
Since I know what this mon does and that it'll go for Dhalsim, since why wouldn't you, I'll stop it from taking a load of recoil.
Shit. Good thing it didn't matter then.
Stantler, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Take Down, Leer, Hypnosis, Shadow Rush/Astonish
When you finally stop this thing from suiciding into you with hard hitting Take Downs, Stantler is a pretty alright Normal mon if Furret didn't take your fancy, though the king of Normal types is still to come. You should go for Return instead of Take Down, but Intimidate shoots your survivability up by quite a bit so you can deal some damage with Earthquake, Shadow Ball and Iron Tail, as well as go for a special set with Calm Mind... wait, really? Oh, it has 10 less SpAtk than Attack. I mean, sure, a mixed set might not be too bad, we have all the good TMs for special attackers available if you want to drop Thunder or Solarbeam with weather support. This isn't even mentioning Hypnosis, so if you need a good catcher that lowers Shadow Rush's damage, then this is the best you're gonna get. Well it's still kinda fragile even with a great ability and it won't give the punch you might want it, but hey, it's also alright I guess.
Ooh treasure. Nothing too special though.
Oh hey it's a big gun that what I got.
Weirdly enough (or maybe not), that Ice Beam came from Dunsparce. Why can't I get that move? I hate Blizzard...
Magnolia taking names with his DEATH LASER
It's another Johto thing! Man, when am I getting the final team member? Not yet, that's for sure.
Piloswine, 75 catch rate (62%, low health, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Blizzard, Dig, Odor Sleuth, Shadow Rush/Endure
This mixed up menace is back again with a split typing that doesn't help it much and not much in the way of moves, since Rock Tomb isn't in the game to give it that little bit of coverage (it's a shit move anyway). It'll love Earthquake, but until then its Dig will deal a lot of damage and it'll dodge some attacks since it's slow, but otherwise it's not that interesting, Ice does nothing for it, though coming with a free Blizzard is cool (heh) and it won't learn any other good moves, so give it Return, or Hyper Beam, or whatever, you'll be spamming powerful Earthquakes anyway. Uh, yeah, that's it, avoid Surf I guess.
Body Slam paralysis is pretty cool but it doesn't happen often since I am frugal in attacking these guys (most of the time).
We, uh, could've used these earlier, but hey, we're at the bottom, so let's continue the chase.
Swagger and Confuse Ray onto the same Pokemon? Next level strategy here to get rid of my Lum Berry...?
Like Carbuncle gives a shit.
I am getting lucky with the Pokemon being sent out, so we'll deal with them and then go for Sneasel.
Doesn't mean Sneasel should be ignored, it's got a strong physical move after all.
Sneasel, 60 catch rate (62%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Icy Wind, Fury Swipes, Screech, Shadow Rush/Faint Attack
For a couple of Pokemon, it could be argued that they stay as a Shadow Pokemon. Sneasel is one of them, having great attack and terrible STAB options, so having a nice move in Shadow Rush is great! Okay, you at least get some cool moves in Brick Break, Shadow Ball and Iron Tail, but no STAB, since you have terrible SpAtk, so it's perfectly usable, but it won't have that same ooomph to it that it'll have next gen. Oh man I can't wait for that. But anyway, Sneasel is pretty good, but it's really fragile and the game isn't gonna get any easier. Still this is one of the best times to use one before Platinum, so take it or leave it.
The Under
Phew, that was a nice chunk of Shadow Pokemon, last time we had that was Pyrite Cave.
...tch. This isn't good. I can't lead them to the LAB...
Before we board, there's something neat here.
Umbreoff will appreciate this for his Mt. Battle climb. Will I remember to give it him? Haha, what do you think?
That's weird... they got on the train... but they're not on the train???
You didn't think I would really let you take our train? Beh! Bye-bye, and this time I mean it! Don't you dare forget about me!
Aw man, she's really gone this time, I think we're pretty damn screwed. It's not like the people of Orre just leave important keys lying around, right?
Cipher really loves dropping stuff, oh they do.
Choo choo motherfuckers.
You're THOMAS and ANCA! How did you get down here?! Argh! This won't do! We can't let these two get into the SHADOW POKEMON LAB!
We're doing a lot of chasing today. Should be easy enough to battle them and head into the la-
JESUS CHRIST
Uh... it's too late now... come on, let's skedaddle!
Neat, we've got our way into the lab. We'll be saving it for next update, cause hoo boy that place is kinda big.
Before we head back to the Under Colosseum, we should definitely pick this up.
And now that the Colosseum is open with Venus gone, let's enter and get some sweet TMs, they're really good!
I love the look of this place, big 3D battle environments are my jam.
15 levels higher than us, you say? Well, like with the Pyrite Colosseum, we'll be challenging this place later. But, like with every Colosseum, it's definitely in your best interest to challenge them.
So instead let's use our new UFO key.
It leads to the second Time Flute! If you want the final Time Flute, then you'll need to do a shitty gruelling challenge that'll take you to the postgame.
Alright, we've got a bit of time in this update, so let's do a couple of neat things. Not too many, mind you, this game does not have much to it, we're two thirds of the way through now.
How's the l33t cr3vv doing?
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THOMAS, you're going to go out to the LAB, aren't you? For sure, the LAB will have important data on SHADOW POKEMON. It doesn't matter what it is; if you find any sort of data, please be sure to bring it back here.
I think we're done with The Under for a bit, so I think it's time to enter the Pyrite Colosseum, I think our Pokemon are strong enough. I feel like I'm forgetting something though... OH SHIT SILVA
Alright cool, we'll go up the quick way and enter our second Colosseum challenge!
Colosseum Battle
Oh good. Dig strategies. How swell.
This is why Umbreon gets Protect. We'll be facing a few evolved Pokemon here and there, but the Pyrite Colosseum isn't particularly tough. I think this is the best time to try it, but you can definitely go for earlier.
I feel like we face a lot of Linoone and Furret in this game, is that just me?
Overall, not too bad. I'm not gonna sift through 30 minutes of footage for something potentially interesting, this is all we need until the tougher battles.
This could be fun, Dhalsim has a spare moveslot anyway since Rock Tomb isn't here. Oh yeah, only Phenac Colosseum cares about you using Shadow Pokemon (well, Rui does), all the other ones are fine.
Oh whoops, I didn't want to use these two again as a lead, guess they're getting some extra exp!
Nature Power and Secret Power can do all kinds of crazy stuff in these games, but I don't believe anyone's actually catalogued it. I wouldn't.
If Blizzard has perfect accuracy in Hail, then it would be more useful. Otherwise, eh.
Baltoy goes boom, but it's only a little boom, so even Dhalsim survives from full.
Ah shit a Gligar with Aerial Ace. It's actually weirdly good against our team, only Mawuh can take a couple hits, since we're nearly 15 levels weaker than it.
Mawuh please.
Roar. Why is this in the game and moves like Aerial Ace and Water Pulse aren't???
The fourth and final round starts off strong. Our team is fine against Surf and the like, so I don't fancy giving our team Light Screen. Reflect is super useful, but I feel like special moves aren't as dangerous. Especially in this game.
Oh hey a Protect, did the AI predict me going for Hi Jump Kick or somethi-
OH GOD DAMMIT
This last fight is actually super duper tough cause of all the evolved Pokemon hanging around and Lunatone getting lucky with the Psywave rolls.
Thankfully it rolled low this time, so Umbreon can deal some more chip. At least Ampharos can't take down ours very easily.
I already told you no!
Despite landing a couple of Dynamicpunches (which is bullshit), we squeak out a win!
And finally, finally, we get Brick Break. Dhalsim does not need another Fighting move and no one else on our team can use it, so Umbreon gets it so he can do SOMETHING against Ground types. Sure, it might not be a lot, but in doubles, chip damage can be super useful when you're taking down a Pokemon.
We'll be purifying another six Pokemon: Hitmontop, Suicune, Ledian, Piloswine, Gligar and Stantler, leaving Sudowoodo (wanna see how low I can get it just walking) and Sneasel (next batch).
Alright, to end the update, we'll be going through the first two areas of Mt. Battle, using Pokemon chosen by yooooooooooooou! Future trips to Mt. Battle will be in their own, smaller, updates, similar to the Pokemon Contest update from Emerald. There's a few other times I'll be putting a chunk of content in a small update if they're not large enough for their own full on update.
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I hope you do well on your knockout challenge!
THOMAS! Go for it! Mt. Battle
If I used the main team for this 100 battle slugfest, I would die of boredom, since this, uh, legit Gamecube console doesn't have speedup, so I need to use some interesting mons. Plusle is Duking's Pokemon that he "traded" to us, so we can't nickname her, but that's what cheats are for. Cheers to Solumin for the nickname.
Pikachu? has got quite the mountain to climb, as she doesn't learn a STAB move until level 19, so it'll be a slog until then. Thankfully we have some cool Pokemon to help with that, such as Umbreoff, who will be our main companion up this mountain.
One down. NINETY NINE TO GO.
If you want to give up your challenge midway, you can go back to the most recent checkpoint, so at least you don't have to backtrack.
Mt. Battle isn't too bad to get through, you're healed inbetween each battle and you can use items as much as you want and the Pokemon start off pretty weak, so you're free to use whatever you want. But it is a big time investment, so be prepared if you wanna climb it. I never bothered doing so in my previous playthroughs, since I knew I would be showing it for the LP, so this is brand new content for me! I obviously know everything about this place, I'm the LPer after all, bitch!
Since we know what Umbreoff can do, let's switch it up. I'll be using one main Pokemon for the challenge (Pikachu? this time, Umbreoff for the rest) and then five Shadow Pokemon that get four battles to strut their stuff. Should be a fun time! Leraika offered (yet another) nickname.
Strutting their stuff usually means using their attacking moves to take out the weak opponents. What can I say, I'm a hyper offense kinda guy, screw status moves (though they are very good in this game).
Pikachu? will continue doing her thing and Medea is pretty standard. Not enough battles to show off the wonky AI though, sorry!
I don't like Fly, but I like all the birds chilling there.
Got some nice levels, but we're only halfway to Spark. We're also at the tenth battle, let's go.
Vander is gonna go all out! Which considering he's the first Area Leader we face... doesn't mean much.
Maybe this area starts a bit too weak.
Area Leaders have five Pokemon of a certain type, so they're the closest this region has to Gym Leaders. We'll see if any of them get as tricky.
Nice pull.
Now, go on. Someone will give you POKECOUPONS in the BREAK ROOM. Mt. Battle Break Room
Woo, we're now 1/35th of the way towards a reasonable TM. So yeah, the reward isn't great, but once you clear an area, you can head back to it at any time to get the reward again by just facing the same ten trainers. It's a bit of a grind, but hey, it's something.
Otherwise, there's a PC and you can resume your challenge from the entrance whenever you want. It's pretty good! Shame it'll take like five hours to finish this place...
Area 2! It's not much tougher.
This certainly isn't quick, I'll tell you that much.
But starting with battle 12, let's try out Milkweed! Nickname by... L-Leraika. It's n-not like I like them or anything!!!
When you need Grass STAB, then Skiploom is your pick, but he'll just never have the stats to deal decent damage. I say, using an underlevelled Plusle with no STAB.
Oh thank god
Now we can sweep through the last four battles, since our last choice is Flareon and it's, well, an Entei. Nickname by Blaze Dragon.
Alright, will the next Area Leader offer a challenge?
Noooooooooooooooooope
Pikachu? just knocked out a Pokemon in one hit. She's a monster now.
I haven't battled this hard for a long time. Oh, it was fun, all right! Go get your POKECOUPONS in the BREAK ROOM.
Pikachu? got 8 levels in that venture, and while it would be kinda cool seeing how strong she'd get from climbing the whole mountain, we already have Umbreon for all our Electric attacking needs, so Umbreoff will offer more variety.
We're nowhere near finished with Mt. Battle, but the story must continue and next time, it's into a large complex. I'm gonna go stock up!