Part 2: Catch-a-thon 2004
Part 2: Catch-a-thon 2004
Route 102
Man the music is still so good and we've only listened to five tracks! Uh, anyway, hi, let's head towards the next city. But since it's a new route, there's some cool Pokemon to find, one in particular is very important.
Lotad is like having all three starters at once if you chose Torchic, but it has a rough start, as its best move for a while will be Bullet Seed. But once you save its ass with TMs, evolve it all the way (which won't happen for a long time, big warning), then it's pretty good. Until then, it's shit, wait until later.
Swift Swim doubles your Speed when it's raining, which is amazing, if inconsistent. Rain Dish will recover a Pokemon's HP by 1/16th each turn if it's raining. Also inconsistent, if not all that great. Why recover HP when you can just outspeed them? Better used on a stalling Pokemon, like Tentacruel.
Our first Gen 3 move! It's shit. Astonish is a Ghost move with 30BP, 15PP and 100% accuracy that has a 30% chance to flinch. Aw yeah, another really bad Ghost move (whyyyyy???). In Gen 3 only, Astonish's damage is doubled if the opponent used Minimize last. Note that you still need to hit the damn thing and they keep switching how this works between gens. Last gen it was the base power doubling, this gen it's the damage being doubled, next gen it's back to base power being doubled and then Gen 5 is when it finally settled on damage being doubled.
Neat. What's next?
The only place you can find these things and it starts with Growl. It learns Confusion quickly enough, but that'll have to do you for 20 levels until you learn Psychic. At least it's early, but the only other special move you can learn is... Shock Wave, if you want something else getting Thunderbolt (which I do), so it'll hit hard with Psychic and, uh, that's about it.
Trace is a tricky ability, copying the opponent's ability when you send it out. Could be good, could be useless, could be detrimental. Synchronize will inflict the opponent with Burn, Paralysis or Poison when the user is inflicted with that status. This will pop up a few times, but it might not affect the opponent depending on what it is. When a Pokemon with Synchronize is in the lead, there is a 50% chance wild Pokemon will have the same Nature. This does not apply to stationary Pokemon or roamers or Fossils.
We'll be using our Premier Ball since this Ralts is gonna be our second team member. It's gonna need a bit of babying, but Mudkip has no problems with the early game, so it can take a few hits until Ralts can stand on its feet. Its nickname will be given inbetween this part and the next.
Hmm, Careful... that's +Sp Def and -Sp Atk... SHIT. Oh well, it'll be fine, Trace should be pretty entertaining if nothing else and I wouldn't want to pass this nature onto anything else.
We'll be using Pokemon Centers a lot while we train Ralts up, but Mudkip is pretty defensive, so we can switch Ralts out so it gets exp.
You can't say no to my challenge! Trainer Battle
Oh god this music. Alright Ralts, cheers for the useful info, time to get out of there.
Ooh, another new move. Howl is a Normal status move with 40PP that raises Attack by 1 stage. Could get out of control if we let it.
It didn't. On to the next trainer! One down... hundreds to go...
Like before, I'll only be showing battles if something interesting happens in them.
Like that! Wait... how did Nobunaga level up before Ralts? Oh boy, this'll be annoying.
Looking at people's eyes are just good manners, cause they're usually very pretty.
Free items, let's go. I am going to forget about this many times throughout the LP. Zigzagoon will be sticking around for a while, so hey, let's nickname... *squints* him.
A good battle, but Ralts ain't useful just yet!
Taillow is a good birb, if nothing special. It gets early Wing Attack, which will be very useful and... that's it. That's the strongest Flying move it gets. No, Fly doesn't count. You can then get Return and Steel Wing and there we go, that's your bird. Yeah, just cause we're over 10 years into this franchise doesn't mean Pokemon will have good movepools!
Guts boosts a Pokemon's Attack by 50% when it's afflicted with a status condition, except for Freeze (even if it uses a thawing move), so that's pretty cool, makes it a status absorber that relies on the enemy being nice and triggering it for you. It's a nasty surprise if nothing else.
Aw yeah, I love Tackle.
Damn, I feel super bad for you, if there's anything I could do- ooh what's that up there?
Berries, fuck yeah! Like a lot of things, Berries were improved and standardized in this gen, so the original 10 berries from last gen are still around, but have cool names and are part of a much bigger bunch of different Berries. You can also plant them again and grow them! I won't be bothering with that, but I will be showing all the cool Berries in this game, cause there's a lot. The Oran Berry restores 10HP in battle when a Pokemon's HP goes under 50%, while the Pecha Berry recovers Poison. Use in the field or hold in battle for when you need it. Very, very useful.
A good shroom that won't really be using its Grass moves as time goes on. There aren't that many good Grass moves in this game, so thankfully when it evolves, it gets some other good STAB. You still don't get that many strong moves until you level it more, or get TMs much later down the line. So watch out, the best you get is Headbutt for a while and it won't become a special attacker like you expect.
Effect Spore is awful and I hate fighting against it. When you have it, it hardly activates, but anyway, it has a 9% chance for Poison, a 10% chance for Paralysis and an 11% chance for Sleep when you're hit by a contact move, totalling a 30% chance, which is kinda nasty. If you're lucky, it'll be Poison, if you're not, it'll be the other two much worse ones. Ugh.
I was super lucky to not have it activate there, but I didn't have much of a choice. Wish Ralts would level up more.
Route 102
Can't wait to catch all the shit in this game.
Quick stop in Petalburg City to heal, we're not done with Route 102 just yet. Also, it's cool the routes are back to 1 again, really gets that distance across.
Sheesh, now Ralts is able to contribute in battles. See you next update, Nobunaga, we've got a shy boy to level. Let's see what's in the grass.
Another rubbish mon, but it's fine cause it's stupidly rare. It doesn't learn any consistent moves until level 31 since Nature Power is, uh, interesting. Obviously it gets saved by the Bullet Seed TM, but still, it's only common in Ruby, you can get it much easier slightly further down the road (catch a Ralts, btw). You do get its stone a lot earlier than Lotad, but it'll be a rough journey until then. Unfortunately its best STAB moves are 60BP.
Early Bird wakes a Pokemon from Sleep quicker. The amount of turns will always be preset, so 6 turns become 3, 3 becomes 1 and 1 becomes 0, instantly waking the Pokemon up on the same turn it fell asleep. It also applies to Rest, waking up after 1 turn. Chlorophyll, meanwhile, doubles a Pokemon's Speed if it's sunny. Pretty cool, but again, not particularly consistent right now.
The trick with Bide is to attack before it, or never attack. Anyway, this Pokemon has a 1% chance of appearing and is a version exclusive in Ruby, with Lotad in Sapphire. There aren't too many Pokemon that don't appear in Emerald, thankfully, but Seedot might as well be exclusive cause of how rare it is.
Easy enough. Well, don't actually try and find one. You can just trade for one later, but I forgot!
Considering how stupidly, ridiculously rare this Pokemon is, it's a shame it's rubbish, especially with that neat typing. Low stats all around, using the worse Attack stat when you evolve into a STAB physical attacker and not getting any good moves. It's tough being so bad. So if you somehow stumble upon one, congrats, it's 1% no matter where you look.
You might be surprised to hear, but since Surskit cannot be found in Emerald at all (with one exception that I can't make use of), I'm hacking it in to make my life easier. I know, perish the thought. This is why Seedot is 1% no matter what, since it replaced Surskit, which was 1% no matter what. It's dumb, I dunno how I found it when I was younger, but it definitely wasn't through a swarm. Anyway, into the box it goes.
Oh yeah, if you press Select, your hand turns yellow. This lets you pick up Pokemon without confirmation boxes, letting you move stuff about really quickly. If you hold A while your hand is yellow, you can scroll over and select multiple Pokemon at a time, letting you move entire boxes in one go. Why yes that is amazing.
Neat. Alright, let's explore Petalburg.
Petalburg City
Petalburg City: Where people mingle with nature.
Touka City: The city where people mingle with nature.
From petal and the placename suffix burg, and touka, orange blossom, or flower head.
I have a hobby--collecting the profiles of POKEMON TRAINERS. So, how about it? May I see your profile? Yes! Thank you! So, let's see it, then.
Aah, the easy chat system, make together a bunch of preset phrases and you can say and do all kinds of things. This is for what other trainers will see on your Trainer Card.
You can sort by categories or alphabetically. I prefer the latter, but I always do random shit anyway, so it doesn't matter.
Your profile, it's wonderful! It really says what you're about. Why, anyone hearing this profile would be captivated by you! Thank you!
There's a lot of dumb stuff you can do with the easy chat system and I love all of it. Now what's upstairs?
First, the room on the left. It's the UNION ROOM. Second, the room on the right is the DIRECT CORNER. I hope you enjoy the Wireless Communication System.
Before this LP I thought Teala was only in Gen 4. Anyway, the Wireless Adapter! Is something I used to have, but no more. It was pretty cool and it did a fair few things and it works today (it's the Gen 4 and 5 GTS that no longer works), but I'll talk about it later, sometime. Basically, the Union Room let's you see many people at once near you that are using the Wireless Adapter. The Direct Corner is when you want to specifically go and battle and trade with someone and how you communicate with Ruby and Sapphire, since they don't have Union Rooms.
Oho, what's this?
Early Repels are super nice, so there goes my cash. It'll be fine.
Good customer service.
That means you must know about the MYSTERY GIFT. From now on, you should be receiving MYSTERY GIFTS! Once you save your game, you can access the MYSTERY GIFT.Something else I'll go into later is using the Wireless Adapter to receive event related stuff. In Ruby and Sapphire, you had Mystery Events, which were basically the same thing, but required you saying MYSTERY GIFT IS EXCITING to the guy who we showed our profile to. This then lets you get cool stuff from an e-Reader and OH BOY ARE THERE ARE A LOT OF THINGS TO TALK ABOUT REGARDING THE E-READER THAT I'LL GET TO LATER.
"A man in pursuit of power!"Anyway, enough going over old shit that I'll never show off legitimately, let's go to the only interesting thing in Petalburg: the Gym.
Pokemon Gym
Took long enough, but I finally have a DAD. I look forward to this not being a freakish one time occurence.
I'm surprised that you managed to get here by yourself. Oh, I see. You're with your POKEMON. Hm... then I guess you're going to become a TRAINER like me, YUKI. That's great news! I'll be looking forward to it!
Hm? You're... uh... oh, right. You're WALLY, right?
I'm going to go stay with my relatives in VERDANTURF TOWN. I thought I would be lonely by myself, so I wanted to take a POKEMON along. But I've never caught a POKEMON before. I don't know how... Hm. I see. YUKI, you heard that, right? Go with WALLY and make sure that he safely catches a POKEMON. WALLY, here, I'll loan you my POKEMON.
Oh, wow! A POKEMON! Hm, I'll give you a POKEBALL, too. Go for it!
Alright, another friend! I suppose I could learn how to do this capture business. I've just gotta make loads of circles, right?
"don't they?" Please watch me and see if I can catch one properly... whoa!
Hax, hax! I call hax!
Hilariously, this battle can end super differently.
Uh, not quite how you do it, but an A for effort.
YUKI, thank you! Let's go back to the GYM!
YUKI, thank you for coming along with me. You two are why I was able to catch my POKEMON. I promise I'll take really good care of it. Oh! My mom's waiting for me, so I have to go! Bye, YUKI!
YUKI, if you want to become a strong TRAINER, here's my advice. Head for RUSTBORO CITY beyond this town. There, you should challenge the GYM LEADER, ROXANNE. After her, go on to other POKEMON GYMS and defeat their LEADERS. Collect BADGES from them, understood? Of course, I'm a GYM LEADER, too. We'll battle one day, YUKI. But that's only after you become stronger. Hm? Aren't you going to the POKEMON GYM in RUSTBORO CITY? There's no challenge for me to battle a greenhorn TRAINER. YUKI, I want you to challenge me when you become a lot stronger. I'll battle you, YUKI, when you can show me four GYM BADGES, okay? Petalburg City
We're done in this city for now, but how's Wally doing?
He's been frail and sickly ever since he was a baby. We've sent him to stay with my relatives in VERDANTURF TOWN for a while. The air is a lot cleaner there than it is here. What's that? Where's WALLY? He's already left, our WALLY. I wonder where he could have gotten by now?
I can't wait to beat him up later and take his money.
Let me guess, from the way you're dressed, are you a POKEMON TRAINER? ... Well, maybe not. Your clothes aren't all that dirty. You're either a rookie TRAINER, or maybe you're just an ordinary kid. I'm roaming the land in search of talented TRAINERS. I'm sorry to have taken your time.
What a mysterious guy.
Route 104
Mmm, this is the good stuff. Just before we head onto this route though...
Alright, cool. Guess I'll have to get Mystery Gifts another way.
Uh, what? That's the first time that's happened. Oh well, it's not a big deal.
It's fun making footprints in the sand!
I'm glad Ralts can handle himself now, so get used to seeing a lot of him for the rest of the update!
"disappear quickly..."
Ooh, what cool new Hoenn Pokemon does this guy have?
Ah. Hm.
It's definitely not a king.
Hidden items will be everywhere and the Itemfinder is still shit, so it'll be no help when we get it.
Empty unlocked house. Sure.
More Berries. I shall endeavour to never replace them.
Ralts is doing fine, but is getting a bit beat up.
There's still more to Berries that we haven't seen yet, but at the moment they're pretty useful healing items.
Nice and easy.
Marill can be found here in Emerald and it's pretty cool cause of its ability. Huge Power doubles the Pokemon's Attack stat. Note, it doesn't double the Pokemon's base Attack stat, but the final number, which is even better. A shame that Marill doesn't get to use it with STAB, but it makes the line much more interesting.
That's it for Route 104 (South), so let's go into the woods today.
Petalburg Woods
Petalburg Woods is pretty cool and there's a few new Pokemon to find, so we won't be breaking out the Repels just yet.
I was not expecting to go over the 5% encounter first, but Slakoth is really tough to use cause of its ability. When it evolves it becomes much better, but since it can only attack every other turn... yeahhhhhh. It's not gonna die immediately, but it is a hassle using it in battle, especially since it evolves pretty late compared to other 3 stage lines. All you'll have is Scratch for a while, but you get Slack Off pretty early, which ain't too bad.
Truant is the reason why Slakoth is so tough to evolve. Every second turn, you're unable to attack, meaning you can only attack every other turn, which is pretty rough. Still, if you can survive the spare turns then I guess you'll be alright, it's just frustrating and wastes time.
Trace has ruined me for the first time. Yawn is a Normal status move with 10PP that makes the opponent drowsy. At the end of the next turn, the Pokemon will fall asleep, though it'll be unaffected if it gets statused during that time, or it switches out.
Alright, now I don't have to hunt for that rare Pokemon.
Well that was a fun dungeon, back to Route 104.
Ah just kidding, back to the woods we go.
Pretty easy for Ralts. Once it starts attacking, it's pretty damn reliable and will only get better from here.
I can't wait to run out of balls one day from catching too many things.
You'll have it for 3 levels at most. It's shit, just evolve it.
Shed Skin has a 30% chance of healing a status condition at the end of the turn, even before you would take Burn or Poison damage. Very nice, but not particularly dependable. Just use an item.
I don't need to catch this.
I really love that POKEMON. Team Aqua
"forever, didn't you?"
I got sick of waiting, so here I am! You! DEVON RESEARCHER! Hand over those papers!
Hunh? What do you think you're doing? What, you're going to protect him? No one who crosses TEAM AQUA gets any mercy, not even a kid! Come on and battle me! VS Team Aqua Grunt
Since Poochyena is a Dark type, Ralts would be useless against it, so Nobunaga is here for his only battle in the woods.
I hate this Poochyena, it's super dangerous if you get unlucky.
I missed so much I went down to -6 accuracy. Good thing the AI barely attacked me!
I like how Nobunaga is in battle for five minutes and immediately levels up. Maybe one day Ralts will catch up. Nice to get some STAB at least.
Petalburg Woods
Come on and battle me again! I wish I could say that, but I'm out of POKEMON... and, hey, we of TEAM AQUA are also after something in RUSTBORO. I'll let you go today!
Thanks to you, he didn't rob me of these important papers. I know, I'll give you a GREAT BALL as my thanks!
Didn't that TEAM AQUA thug say they were after something in RUSTBORO, too? Uh-oh! It's a crisis! I can't be wasting time!
Farewell friend, hopefully I'll see him again in better circumstances.
Uh, okay. Not what I'm looking for.
3 of my 4 encounters in these woods have been 5% ones...
Nincada is interesting since it keeps the bad STAB type throughout evolution, instead of something it could use. The best Bug move it learns is Leech Life and the best Ground move it learns is Dig at level 45. Wow. So yeah, it'll evolve and still be shit, but it can eventually learn Aerial Ace, so that's a bit better. Aside from its gimmicky other evolution, the line isn't very impressive, especially with this movepool, yikes.
Compoundeyes raises a move's accuracy by 30% of its original value, which is pretty amazing. Any move higher than 80% accuracy will always hit and other, less accurate moves, like Hypnosis, become much more reliable. Also, if it's first in the party, Pokemon that can appear holding items are boosted by 50% from the original. So a Pokemon with a 50% chance of holding an item is now 100%, while 5% becomes 55%. This makes obtaining these items actually possible and not a ridiculous headache and absolutely something we will be making use of in future. This ability is just so great.
I don't think that's how school works.
Well that's all we can explore in here for the moment. So let's get the last two Pokemon in this place.
STOP
There we go, only a 15% encounter, I could understand why it took so long to find one.
Please. No more.
Silcoon is like Cascoon, except it's white. Seriously though, they have the same stats and typing and everything, it's kinda cool, I guess. Anyway, Beautifly is better since it has 90 Special Attack instead of 90 Special Defense like Dustox, even though Dustox has a much better movepool to start with. Such is life.
See, I'm being smart here and catching what the Wurmple we obtained won't evolve into. How do I know what Wurmple will evolve into? Uhhhhhhhhh...
Oh hey, we're out of the woods and back on Route 104. We'll continue our journey next time.
Though before we end, since I headed back to Petalburg to heal (getting a bit low on PP), let's hack in loads of Rare Candies and evolve Pokemon when we can to complete the Pokedex.
There we go, since I can see what Wurmple will evolve into by looking at its PID, I had no reason to catch a Cascoon. Like with previous LPs, I won't evolve Pokemon unless we'll never encounter them otherwise, or to a level past our team. Also maybe I'll space it out a bit more so I'm not doing 50 at the end of the LP.
Also a level up on the way back. Now we're done!