Part 15: Up and Down Battling

Part 15: Up and Down Battling

The Under



You ready for lots of battling? Of course you are, it's Colosseum after all.



Now I'm incredibly interested in whatever is down there.



Before we see what's behind those big doors, there's something very important to do.



Hrrumph! POKEMON PIKACHU picked a peck of POKEBALLS! Ah, no more air leakage! Ah, I can finally talk normally again. You're a savior. I thank you for your kindness. It's perhaps not much of a thanks, but I'd like you to have this.



Hmm... am I imagining this? My mouth feels gritty.



With the final disk, we can FINALLY reach this item over here.



...thanks game. The earlier you get this item, the better it is, but putting it as one of the very last things to do in the game is not great. Seriously, we are nearly done with the postgame, uh, despite there being a few things to do. Nothing that gives out prize money anyway.



Anyway, here's the final colosseum of the game. It can be pretty tough, but it also isn't because our team is also pretty tough.



That is a big ass fan.

Colosseum Round 1



Since we won't be hearing the Colosseum battle themes again, might as well put them in as we fight some tough battles.



Uh, kinda. Colosseum's foils will still pop up, but hey, it's all good exp.



Mawuh's starting to lose his sight here in his early 50s. I won't blame him.



Since the game is still deathly allergic to evolved Pokemon and good movesets for regular trainers, there's not much to show here. Also because we're going over 100 battles in today's update, I do want to get through them kinda quick.

Miror B.'s Theme





Especially since the fourth battle in this colosseum is against the Cipher Admins! Their teams are fairly similar to when we faced them in Realgam Tower, but some have a fair few differences to show. This is your last opportunity to snag their respective Shadow Pokemon, since going through the colosseum to fight them again takes forever as you'll soon see.



His strategy of Swift Swim remains pure and true, but I just can't believe the developers didn't make the AI check if they were gonna use the same weather move in a turn.



Oh hey look another Ludicolo, WHAT ARE THE ODDS?



All of our postgame opponents are gonna use items, so it can make some fights tricky.



Because while I might be slightly clowning him, Ludicolo in the rain is not an opponent to sleep on.



Let's stop these shenanigans.



Ah no don't do that.



And that's it for Miror B. in this game. May we see this wonderful, beautiful man again.



Before you ask, no, that's not the Amulet Coin, it doesn't work on colosseums. Also, yes, there are still more TMs to get, quite frightening really, hope none of them are good. This one is Taunt, so it isn't.



There are too many emails in this postgame.

Colosseum Round 2



Onto the second set, what dastardly strategies will our opponents use?



Helping Hand... Fake Out? Well okay.



Here's the main attraction.





GUESS WHAT HIS STRATEGY IS




Well that's a lot of damage being thrown around.



Maybe I should get a few of those...




Relatively simple fight, so we're halfway done with this place!



Oh goody, Skill Swap. At least give me a Shadow Slakoth!!!



Thanks for the info, Nett.

Colosseum Semi-Final




Wahey, that's one way to screw up a strategy completely unintentionally.



Couldn't prevent that though.



Oh stop





Venus remains the same, annoyingly, but she does use different Pokemon more or less everytime. Cause everything can learn fuckin Attract.




Yet again, pairing Mawuh with Garchump is not the best idea. And I do it anyway.



Man that's satisfying. At least Venus won't be dealing loads of damage to you any time soon.



What also helped was not being immobilized, which is also a good time. Seriously fuck Attract, thankfully it's pretty uncommon.



Rest! Only one TM left, what are the chances it's a really good one that a team member really could've used?



Honestly, spoilers! But that's not a good sign, as well as another meh Shadow Pokemon to add to the pile.

Cipher Admin Final Round



This never gets old.



Some weird Dig choices reveal themselves when we have Umbreon out. Anyway, here's the final Admin, since Nascour and Evice can be rematched if you return to Realgam Colosseum, though there's no reward for it aside from their Shadow Pokemon.





Pretty similar to last time, except now it's really hard to not use Electric moves. Thankfully Lightningrod doesn't nullify Electric moves just yet, so it's not a big deal.




Well that could've gone better.



I'm so glad I have Umbreon (and Revival Herbs!), Gyarados is no joke and I even survive the Earthquake that it of course has.



That's the trickiest part of his team down, his Crobat ain't doing much by itself.



Alright, that's all four sets. We're done here, right?



Oh yeah, here's Dragon Claw. Garchump could've used this MUCH earlier, but Dragonbreath's paralysis was actually kinda nice so I don't mind. Still sucks how late this TM is.



jk, we're still not done just yet, there's a fifth set to the Deep Colosseum, so we can finally face off the Deep King.



The Pokemon we fight are really weak, so I dunno why they bothered. Should've just had the Deep King challenge us after Ein, that would've been more interesting.

VS Deep King Agnol







Been a while since we had a good ol' fight. Agnol has some high levels, the highest in the main game, in fact, so he might be a nasty surprise. Still, our team is at full health and raring to go. Shedinja is as notable as always, since you should always have a Shedinja answer.



Depending on your team comp, the sheer level difference might be enough, but his Pokemon aren't exactly stat champions, so you should be alright.



Cheeky bit of back and forth.



Love this little gem gremlin, but man they're annoying to fight.




I completely forgot about the Light Screen, anyway here's a strong Pokemon and a Shadow Pokemon.



It can be nasty to fight, so we're gonna go after it. Mawuh learned Ice Beam at level 53, but there's a lot of footage I half-heartedly trawled through, so I didn't catch it. Oh well!



I used Thunder Wave a lot less in this game than I thought I would. Good.



Net Balls are great.



Shuckle, 190 catch rate (100%, full health, paralyzed, Net Ball), starting moves: Bide, Rest, Encore, Shadow Rush/Safeguard

Alright, this is your last chance to actually use a cool Shadow Pokemon, it's the last usable one. Shuckle has basically zero offensive presence, but it can very easily stay out on the field forever and not die with its amazing defenses. That's not hugely effective in Doubles, admittedly, but you can make it work in the postgame modes that offer single battles. It can't Toxic stall Poison and Steel types though, so its options are very limited against them since it can't set up Spikes. It gets a few attacking moves, but they're practically useless on it, so no point using them. It does the stall thing well, but its low HP kinda sucks, so it doesn't do it brilliantly. Least it won't faint immediately.



With that, another Shadow Pokemon is ours. Seriously now, what else is there to do?



There's a few more Shadow Pokemon to purify, so we can then challenge...

Mt. Battle



This place.



This game is a bit slow due to animations always being on and 3D models doing their thing, but it's fine, since it looks cool and fun to see all these critters in the next dimension. Mt. Battle makes all of this very boring, since even when I use Pokemon around the level of the opponents, none of them were that interesting, until you get to the last 7 or so fights. Seriously, I can't remember anything that really went down in this place, which is a shame, since it took me EIGHT HOURS.



Battles did get a little tricky since I used a Shadow Pokemon for 4 battles regardless if it had a good match up or not, with Umbreoff always being in the first slot. But I never really felt like I was in much trouble and didn't even use any items until I was 90 battles in.



So I'm gonna be slightly focusing on the Area Leaders and nothing more, otherwise I'll die of boredom trying to take these screenshots. However, Mt. Battle has some positives compared to other battle facilities, meaning it's not part of the worst aspect of this franchise (mostly).



The rewards are incredibly pitiful, but grindable, so it's something.



Unlike most other battle facilities, it really feels like you're climbing a volcano! Sure, it's not realistic, but who cares, a change of scenery does wonders when you're making the player fight weak and uninteresting battles again and again.



I suppose that is one positive, you're not constrained to level, you can use items, and you can use all six Pokemon. So it does make this place super easy, but it also means I'm not stressing about being kicked back to start. The checkpoints are really nice also.



Oh yeah, that's some damage I'm doing with Hayato Jin. (There's too many nicknames in too short a time for me to credit everyone individually, since I thought I'd be featuring the Pokemon a lot more, sorry!)




Cool. I forget SmellingSalt is a move sometimes.



Alright, another 20 battles down, so onto the next batch. As you can see with the utter shit I'm using, this place isn't hard to get through.



Don't you just love Comet Punch? Oof that damage.



The flinch chance of Bite was way more useful than the perfect accuracy of Faint Attack. Confuse Ray will also be incredibly useful when the fights get so difficult the only way I win is when the opponent hits themselves. Sometimes multiple times! Good fun.



Oh, we're halway there.




I am liking the Pokemon I'm using, but due to them being Shadow Pokemon they usually have one or two moves to begin with and like hell I'm using TMs on them. So it does make fights pretty samey.



Though maybe the facility should change its backgrounds a bit more often.



The levels of the opponents are slowly crawling up, but it means we can use some doggies no problem. It's fun using a lot of different stuff and facing some crazy creatures we don't see much.




When you have a Suicune, there's not really much else to do but sweep.



Next five. I don't think we can even afford the Psychic TM yet, which is some bullshit.



Now it really feels like we're getting somewhere. This is a cool place to do battling. Unfortunately it's the last background until the end of the facility, so while it's cool now, it gets really samey after 39 battles.



Still, Umbreoff is doing fine, he's getting good experience and EVs from this.



Towards the end, the Area Leaders drop their single type and expand to a theme of, uh, something.



Hey, I don't want any of that shit here.



There really hasn't been much to go over. I have yet to use any items, or have lost in any way. I don't even think Umbreoff has fainted yet.



The levels are getting pretty good, so let's face another Area Leader.



You know what, I don't fancy dealing with Sand Veil, can I just give up now?



A tricky trainer, but not too bad. Area Leaders always have 5 Pokemon, though regular trainers start at 2 and currently have 4 each, which makes battles a lot longer. Each Area now takes me around an hour each to finish, whereas I did Area 1-2 in the same amount of time (animations yo).



The final five is a strong bunch. We're gonna need that. And yes, we're still up in the clouds. It's wearing a bit thin. But don't worry, I did Mt. Battle over the course of the game, I'm not doing it all at once, I'm not that crazy.



Let's see how our team hold up.



That describes them perfectly.



Here's the final Area Leader. What kind of crazy team does he have?




Ah, a Gen 5 theme, an interesting idea.



Area 10 is when shit actually gets real. There might've been a couple of tricky fights here and there, but this is where the big stuff is.



Such as Johto and Hoenn starters. This facility caps at level 60, so all the Pokemon we'll face are gonna be that strong from here out. They're all evolved and have nasty movesets, so it was a hell of a time to get through there. I guess I could show you, but if an update goes past 300 images then your crappy internet won't like it. It's what you get for living in America.



Starting at battle 95, you'll be facing 5 Pokemon each, so these battles get LONG. It's a test of endurance more than anything.



But it goes fairly well, which means...



We've reached the summit for battle 100.



Here's the main reason to actually do this facility in the story: the third and final Time Flute. ...you, uh, don't get anything else, so this will have to do.



Only one fight left, how hard could it be?

VS Mt.BtlMaster Somek









It's gonna be one of those battles, huh? Usually not a problem, but uh, pray tell, dear viewer, who on my team is able to take two Earthquakes? The answer is only Umbreoff and Mootwo, which puts me in quite a hazardous position.



That doesn't help, but at least Claydol is down.



Eh, you know what, let's try this again.




You see, as easy as that. Dunno why you would find this fight hard.



That's just a beautiful bonus.



The Crobat isn't an issue, but man this Gligar is a bitch. I think it would've been easy enough to handle, Earthquake spam notwithstanding, buuuuuut...



Now Flygon comes out. I think you know what happens next.



Okay, who can survive two STAB Earthquakes?



Not Heracles, since Gligar stops using Earthquake to use Aerial Ace.



Oh hey, Mootwo does. Enoby doesn't survive any hit, so he won't be used in this fight, though he was useful earlier (honest!)



Flygon needed to go down since it was the biggest problem, but that just meant another even bigger problem could take its place. Great.



So what's my plan to win against these two Pokemon?



If you answered stall the Gligar out of Earthquake PP and make Gyarados hit itself, then you'd be right. I can't do anything else, since all they're doing is using Earthquake and nothing else. Ain't fighting against that strategy great?



Oh hey my plan worked just before I ran out of revives. Phew.



...as easy as... oh never mind.



Congratulations! But don't be content with this. Don't neglect your training! Would you like to have our ABRA TELEPORT you back to the registration counter? Okay, you got it!



Well that was fun. What can we do with all our Pokecoupons? Uh, well, we can buy a TM. I don't need any of these TMs, so I think I'll just leave the amount as is. Next time, it's the last few things we can do in this game, it's really not a lot, so maybe I need to think of something else to pad it out...