Pokemon Emerald Part #8 - Training to Wahahahah!

Part 8: Training to Wahahahah!

Part 8: Training to Wahahahah!

Greetings friends, today we'll be exploring the routes around Mauville so we're perfectly prepared for the Gym. There's gonna be a lot of battling.

Ummmmm... hmmmmm... it's not that good. This is solely because of its movepool, since its stats are alright, but Grass types just have so little to work with, as the best move it'll have for a while is Magical Leaf or Giga Drain. Then it'll get Petal Dance at 49. Woo. It'll also need the Sludge Bomb TM since it'll know Poison Sting otherwise. Aside from Shadow Ball and Return, it doesn't learn anything else good, so, uh, its high Special Attack ain't gonna help it much. Otherwise, yeah, it really needed that evolution next gen.

Natural Cure heals the user of status conditions when they're swapped out of battle, even if it's been copied, but not if its been suppressed. In this gen, ending a battle does not trigger it. Poison Point is another frustrating contact ability that has a 30% chance of Poisoning the opponent. So yeah, try not to use too many contact moves against some Grass types.

Now, admittedly, with Nobunaga we could very easily smash through Mauville's Gym, but hey, we've got all these trainers around and it would be nice to use our other team members too.

Sniff... that odor--it's a POKENAV! We must register each other! Flowers, POKEMON... I love whatever smells nice. Stinky things... I'll pass.

Isn't it cool that I have a POKEMON battle team? You can copy me--I don't mind!

Lot of trainers on this small beach. I mean, that applies to the entire game, but whatever.

Ranmaru can now hit even harder! Though it is still just Confusion...

When I compose better melodies, you have to come listen, okay? An electric guitar doesn't always have to be noisy... it can be strummed to squeeze out this heart-stirring melody...

But for TRAINERS, the key ingredients are POKEMON and heart, of course!

Come to think of it, fishing is a battle between a FISHERMAN and a POKEMON.

Well that was fun, but there's still another dead end we can head to. North to Route 111!

Route 111

Spoilers, lots of trainers.

Ugh. Lots of status.

My pulse is still racing. You're one fabulous TRAINER.

When having a battle, I get a kick out of showing off my POKEMON. I bet everyone feels that way when they enter a battle!

Man, they're really pushing these Multi Battles.

Sup, you're a bit slow and a bit weak to Water and Ground, which is never nice. But since it has high mixed attacking stats, it can use both of its STABs pretty well. Ugh, if it actually got moves to use. For a while, you'll be stuck with Ember and Magnitude, which is definitely meh. Thankfully that changes when you evolve, getting Rock Slide immediately and then Earthquake shortly after. However, unless you get the Flamethrower TM, you'll be using Overheat, which isn't too bad, or waiting a while for Eruption. Otherwise, yeah, you're not doing much and being super weak to Water is a real bad idea in this game.

My stomach is grumbling! Maybe I can grill some BERRIES...

This road here... you have quite a ways to travel.

Okay that was kinda worth it.

Now we're gonna see what this house is about in a minute, but first...

What the heck is this place?

Trainer Hill

Has a Center and a Mart which is pretty neat, if not particularly useful right now.

"TRAINERS."

But yeah, there's not much here until later. Much later.

Route 111

I just wanted to tell you that my uncle bought me a POKENAV! Now I can get in touch with you anytime, YUKI!

Neat.

How's this? What do you say to taking on our family of four in a series of POKEMON battles?

Oh go on then.

It's gonna be a Winstrate royale.

All of them will have Oran Berries and hey, Ranmaru can become a set up sweeper! Eh, I don't use those moves often in single player.

You must be quite the TRAINER to beat my husband, though. It's my turn to battle now!

But I'm strong, too! Really! Honestly!

This stinks... ...snivel... Grandma!

Jesus, that's some power behind it. Pure, you would say.

It does come with consequences however.

Not too bad, but good practise for later.

But, I should tell you--my son is stronger than you. He even took the POKEMON LEAGUE challenge, I'll have you know.

Mommy is stronger than Daddy. I'm stronger than Mommy. And Grandma's stronger than me! But my big brother is even stronger than Grandma.

We use this MACHO BRACE to more effectively strengthen our POKEMON in training. Since you've beaten all of us here, I don't know if you need it, but we would like you to have our MACHO BRACE.

It's no question that you're strong. But, if you were battle to grandson, you'd end up crying in frustration. He's much stronger than any TRAINER our family know. He must be challenging the POKEMON LEAGUE CHAMPION by now. Knowing my grandson, he could be the CHAMPION already!

Man, wouldn't a Winstrate being the Champion be pretty crazy? I think the Champion is more fabulous than that though. Oh yeah, the Macho Brace doubles the EVs you get from battle, which also stacks with Pokerus, letting you get 4x the normal EVs, letting you get competitive Pokemon pretty quick if you know what you're doing. It does however halve your Speed, but is pretty nice.

Route 110

Our final destination before the Gym is the Cycling Road. It's gonna suck though.

I'll collide with as many people as I want if it means I can take their money.

Levitating would mean not having a bike and would be a lot more fun!

How about learning Rock Slide? No? Okay then...

You managed to win only because it was a wonder! Yes, a wonder! Don't think you can win all the time!

Wheeeeeeeeeee

You know, I like you! Let's have a rematch on CYCLING ROAD. I'm exhausted, so I need a break. It's important to get proper rest.

So here's a little reason why the Cycling Road sucks: in this game, the only Pokemon you'll fight are Level 16 Magnemite, Level 14 Magnemite and Level 6 Voltorb. Yeah, I don't get it, but it gets pretty boring pretty quick. Still, good practise for the Gym.

Even Steel types fall if you hit them with Confusion enough times.

Neat!

I'll keep chugging on without stressing. Give me a shout if you're up to it. There's no need to panic or stress. Take it easy. There's plenty of time.

Pretty cool that GF just put me into a game.

Hopefully we're getting to the end here.

Flat tires and brake problems can cause serious injury! Inspect your BIKE for problems!

Phew, made it. Took a while, but at least we're not being graded on it.

My word... your cycling skills border on terrifying. Most certainly, you need much more practise riding.

Well shit. When you ride the Cycling Road on the Mach Bike from Mauville to Slateport, you get graded on how many times you bumped into someone and how long you took. If you go flawlessly from one side to the other... well you can't, you need to slow down before the first moving trainer since you'll get right in his way if you go full speed. So either wait a few seconds before you go, or slow down. You don't get anything for it, but getting under ten seconds with no collisions can be a lot of fun. Anyway, Gym time!

Pokemon Gym

WATTSON, the LEADER of MAUVILLE GYM, uses ELECTRIC-type POKEMON. If you challenge him with WATER-type POKEMON, he'll zap them! Bzzt! And, he's put in switch-controlled doors all over his GYM! Eccentric! Hey, go for it!

Thankfully this Gym is not like the first Electric Gym in the series, it's actually ruthlessly simple.

POKEMON and rock, it's all about heart, woah-yeah!

I've heard that MAUVILLE was founded by WATTSON. He was a TRAINER long before we became TRAINERS. He must know all sorts of things!

Pressing the switches, uh, switches the electricity from blue to purple and to get through this Gym, you only need to press a single switch.

Alright, we can have Nobunaga take the back seat for the moment.

Well I know what's gonna happen next.

Drat. Oh well, I see another switch just ahead. But you can see the path you can take through the middle to reach this switch and head straight to the leader.

Another duo that's pretty rubbish, but it can at least do more than the cute mice things. While it only learns a Bug move through breeding (surprise, surprise) and will have to use Quick Attack forever, it has a stupidly big special movepool that has basically every move you can think of. So is it the best recipient of these TMs? Haha, no. But it's still fun to discover. Anyway, it's bad, don't use it, but you knew that already.

There's a Zigzagoon and Meditite in this Gym that know Electric moves and we really need more of that in the series. Just makes the Gyms more interesting, ESPECIALLY when the region doesn't offer much in that type. So yeah, Shock Wave has 60BP, 20PP and always bypasses accuracy checks.

Ah yet another Pokemon that doesn't even learn its STAB though level u- WHAAAAAAAA, it learns Signal Beam at level 25??? And what's that move it learns just before that, Tail Glow? Oh, it apparently boosts its Special Attack by 2 stages. That's, uh, really good. Well now it can use its alright special movepool... after a boost or two, you still need to take hits while you do that. So Thunderbolt, Water Pulse, Signal Beam and Tail Glow? Well it's something alright.

Illuminate does, uh, nothing in battle, but when first in the party, it increases the encounter rate by 100%, which is a lot. Swarm boosts Bug moves' base power by 50% when the Pokemon goes under 33% health. It also boosts the encounter rate by 100% as well as the frequency of Pokemon cries in the field.

WATTSON, our GYM LEADER, has been around for a long, long time. He was battling even before your daddy was born, that tough coot.

MAUVILLE GYM's WATTSON has a shiny forehead. It makes me happy!

We need to find that out for ourselves.

Oh? Now, what are you doing here? What's that? You say you've gotten past all my rigged doors? Wahahahah! Now, that is amusing! Then, I, WATTSON, the LEADER of MAUVILLE GYM, shall electrify you!

VS Gym Leader

VS Leader Wattson

Wattson/Tessen: The cheerfully electrifying man!
From watt, a unit of power. How elementary. Also from tessen, the clematis flower, which also means steel wire.

So Wattson's party is so much better in Emerald, being the only leader to have their ace Pokemon changed between the versions. And, you know, actually give him Pokemon from Hoenn. Why ORAS used the first team, I'll never know. Anyway, I think it'll be close, But Wargreymon will pull this out.

Beautiful.

Ow. But also not a huge deal?

This is a bit annoying, but Ranmaru can clean up easily enough.

We will be using Nobunaga to get rid of Magneton, otherwise we'll have to plink away at it with Rock Smash and that's not fun.

Alright, final Pokemon!

Super sparky dog really just goes fast, hits hard and, uh, gets hit by an Earthquake and falls over. Ah well, it's gonna outspeed a huge amount of the game and Electric STAB will be super, super helpful past the midpoint. It will need the Thunderbolt TM, since it's gonna have Spark for quite a while and, uh, its only other special move will be Bite. So not too amazing, but its Attack isn't so completely dreadful that you can't use it. But come on, whenever you can't use your best stats to their greatest potential, then it really sucks. Looking at you, Carvanha. Anyway, it's a good boy that will do you well, if completely limited in what it does.

I think there's a bit of a power disparity here.

Thankfully the only thing Manectric can do against Ground types is boost its Attack and use Quick Attack, so get those Geodude primed.

I wasn't worried about this Gym in the slightest. No, the worries are still to come.

Pokemon Gym

And, it will make your POKEMON a little bit faster, too. Hmm... you should take this, too!

It's a trustworthy move that never misses! You can count on it! I swell with optimism, seeing a promising young TRAINER like you!

Alright, very nice, finally Ranmaru has a second move to use. How crazy. Anyway, we've still got one more route left to explore and there's only one direction left.

Route 117

Oh hey, it's the thing.

We've got some things to breed in this playthrough, but since Ditto isn't in the Hoenn Dex, we'll have to get a bit creative. However, we don't have anything to breed just yet, but we will soon.

POKEMON have to be strong, too? I'd like you to train me! I may have blown it... I might have dropped to last during that battle...

Wepear Berries! They do nothing...

(ANNA) I'm with my pretty junior student partner. I have to do good!

(ANNA) I'm with my pretty junior student partner! Let me win!

Oh yeah, for double battle trainers, only one of them will offer the Pokenav register, so I'm not missing dialogue! Perish the thought.

(ANNA) I'd say you're second only to us!

Ugh, breeders.

I'm going to redouble my training. Would you come look in on us? POKEMON isn't all about power. Polishing a unique aspect of one's character is another way of enjoying POKEMON.

Battling a 6 Pokemon trainer is boring and I'm glad there are less of them as the games go on, so let's do something exciting by finding Pokemon!

Annoyingly only have one page for the Pokedex does mean it's no longer a neat four image square and instead three images that gets moved down. It's just too small a space to work with, gah! Or maybe I should just get a wider screen...

Volbeat is a 2% encounter on this route for whatever reason. I wish instead of copying one game's percentages, they instead mixed it and made it more even.

Neat, that's everything! Roselia cannot be found in Emerald, so I had to hack it in, what a surprise.

Training is meaningful only if you keep it up regularly. Okay! I'll resume my training! Tomorrow!

Man, so many trainers. However, unlike Gen 1's level curve inflation of stuffing 20 trainers in a small space, Emerald does try and make it more natural. It kinda works.

We'll pick these two.

It feels wonderful to go for a jog while looking at flowers.

I think if you worry about losing, you're more likely to lose.

Oh yeah?

I think I've got a pretty good Psychic type.

Good, we still need more of these since they refuse to be sold in shops for some reason. Seriously, fainting is such an inconvenience before Revives.

Usable movepool! Awful attacking stats! SHIT. With Confusion when it evolves, Psybeam later, then Silver Wind(!) at level 34, you could actually say it's something good. It even learns Sludge Bomb through TM, hot damn! With mixed attacking stats, it can get Shadow Ball and Psychic and actually be a threat... if they were above 50. However, they're not, so it can take some special moves (not Fire or Psychic) and that's about it. What a shame. Now fuck off.

A pretty cool Special Attack with, uh, no special STAB. And the strongest special move it learns is Mega Drain until level 38... then it's Giga Drain. SHIT. Thankfully, it has a usable Attack (ugh) and still learns Silver Wind, as well as similar TMs to Dustox, so Psychic and Shadow Ball are usable. It can at least learn Aerial Ace, which is a nice surprise for the early bug. But yeaaaaaaaaah, it's got a lot of weaknesses and is pretty fragile, so it'll hit hard... eventually, but boy is it a time getting it there.