Part 6: Nerds and Calligraphy

Update 06: Nerds and Calligraphy

Violet City



: My assistant is at the POKéMON CENTER in VIOLET CITY. Could you talk to him?



Well okay then.

Pokémon Center



: PROF.ELM asked me to find you. He has another favor to ask.



You will give me an egg!



: It also has to be with other active POKéMON to hatch. MARINA, you're the only person we can rely on. Please call PROF.ELM when that EGG hatches!



Well, if I'm in the area, sure.



Eggs! Pokemon can hatch from them after a certain number of steps depending on the species. Some Pokemon can only be obtained this way and there's no real way to speed it up using abilities cause they don't exist yet. Yaaaaaaaay. We'll just continue on our journey for now, cause this sucker might take a while.



Let's spend all our hard earned cash on Pokeballs and an Escape Rope. Yay, we're poor again.

Route 36



: I was going to snap that tree with my straight-arm punch. But I couldn't! I'm a failure!



Cooooooool. Anyway, let's run around in the grass.




HP: 55 | ATK: 70 | DEF: 45 | SP.ATK: 70 | SP.DEF:50 | SPD: 60 | TOTAL: 350
#127: Growlithe



I wish I could've shown that you can catch doggy woggy here earlier, before the first gym and Sprout Tower, but I just ran out of money for Pokeballs. This is what happens when you catch literally everything as you come across them. Anyway, quick time skip and we're back in this route.



: I'm ARTHUR of Thursday. Here. You can have this.



: A POKéMON that uses rock-type moves should hold on to that. It pumps up rock-type attacks.

: I'm ARTHUR of Thursday. I'm the second son out of seven children.

So now that we've gotten our first badge, across Johto, if it's the right day, we can find the Week Siblings in various locations, who give us some cool new hold items. Well, they're not amazing. The Hard Stone boosts Rock moves by 10%. Which is a mediocre boost, but some Rock types could use it, since while terrible defensively, it's a good offensive type.



Indeed. Uh, what are we talking about?

Ruins of Alph



Ohhhhhh, this location, the location specified at the top of the post, the location we're visiting at this time in the LP, LP's location. What about it?



Might as well have an explore.

"to it."

: It feels sort of ethereal even.

Hmm, doesn't seem to be much here.

"nothing here."

Yeah, that.

"kings."

: Like the pyramids, for instance.

I thought those were built by Beheeyem.



Well there really is nothing here, so let's see if some nerds have anything to say about it.

"old."

: But it's not know why they were built--or by whom.



: They must be the keys for unraveling the mystery of the RUINS.

Hmm, all very interesting, so there's definitely more to explore here. So let's go and-



Uggggggh

: Yo, MARINA! How're you doing? This is JOEY, got a minute? How are your POKéMON doing? My RATTATA's raring to go, just like always. It's the only one I have. I'm going to become a great trainer with it!

:Oh yeah, I saw a wild PIDGEY! I thought about going for it, but I decided to work with my one-and-only right to the extreme end. All right. Later!



Ahem, right. Got a mysterious machine here. Might see what it does later. Anyway, let's head out to the one place I've glossed over.



: There are sliding panels that depict a POKéMON drawn by the ancients. Slide the panels around to form the picture. To the right is a description of the POKéMON. Scientists in the back are examining some newly found patterns.



Who's that Pokemon?

"have appeared."

: It's odd. They weren't here a little while ago. You should take a look at the walls.



Man, we've got a lot of mysteries ahead of us. I can't figure this one out, so let's get started with this sliding block puzzle, I can do those!



So these can be pretty tricky if you don't know what the Pokemon actually is, but at least they start us off easy.



First, find the corner pieces.



Then go round the outside, which is easy enough due to this being a circle, more or less.



And there we go. Simple enough.



Ruins of Alph (Inside)



Hmmmmmmm, let's have a look.




HP: 48 | ATK: 72 | DEF: 48 | SP.ATK: 72 | SP.DEF:48 | SPD: 48 | TOTAL: 336
#061: Unown



Mate, I don't have many Pokeballs, don't do this to me.



So, the "unique" aspect of Unown is, aside from its 26 forms in this game, it can only use Hidden Power (Mezameru Pawā: Awakening Power), which is a Normal move of varying power (between 31 and 70) and varying damaging type, both determined through the Pokemon's DVs, with only the HP DV not being used in calculations. It has 15PP and 100% accuracy.



Eventually the damn thing stays in.



Oh boy do they. One down.



Let's catch a few more.



That's two.



And that's three. As well as the last of my Pokeballs, so out we go.

Ruins of Alph

"May I see it?"

Well. Okay. I don't show it to just anyone, ya know.

: There are so many kinds of POKéMON. Hm? What's this? What is this POKéMON? It looks like the strange writing on the walls of the RUINS. If those drawings are really POKéMON, there should be many more. I know! Let me upgrade your POKéDEX. Follow me.



Loads of beeps and boops that you couldn't possibly comprehend through mere screenshots.



: I modified your POKéDEX. I added an optional POKéDEX to store UNOWN data. It records them in the sequence that they were caught.



Yay, slightly useless upgrades.

"recorded."

: Check to see how many kinds exist.



We now have a new option in our Pokedex, cause that space was gonna be used for something. This lists how many Unown we've caught in the order we caught them.



We need to catch three different kinds to unlock this upgrade, so it worked out well, despite two failed balls. There are 10 different kinds we can get right now, A-J, but I'm way too poor for that, so we'll come back later.



This puzzle is simple enough, but damn, spending that money on an Escape Rope is pretty bad this early on. Oh well, we won't have money problems for all too long.



It does teleport us out the chamber, but once we come back we find...



Neat. As an aside, this was added in Crystal and just adds one more layer of puzzles to this area, otherwise, nothing too amazing.







Ehhhhh, it is still early game.



But these are a bit better. New to this gen are bitter medicine, cheap items with powerful effects at the cost of decreasing your Pokemon's happiness. Since I don't give a shit about that, I'll definitely be using them. Energypowder restores 50HP, while Heal Powder restores any status. I'll just sell these to fuel my Pokeball addiction.



Going dowwwwwwwwn



Hmm, interesting. There's definitely a lot to this place, but we'll have to come back later to figure out the rest of it.



We're dumped back in the cave, so let's get outta here.



And continue on with our adventures next time.