Part 14: Glittering Waves

Part 14: Glittering Waves

Route 115



Welcome back. Fishing still sucks, but there's more to catch with it.



Like smiley whale.



Did you know there's a secret area on Route 115?



Lots of trainers, of course. I think we can get a double battle if we line this up right...



SHIT. I headed down too late, but oh well.



Ranmaru's got a much needed power boost. But you know what he needs?



Another power boost! Crazy how Ranmaru has become fully evolved while Wargreymon has yet to evolve once.






Your psychic nuke dancer has fully evolved and yeah, that is one hell of a Sp.Atk. Shame it only has two moves to really use it on. Seriously, Ranmaru has his moveset finished until literally the end of the game, since I didn't bother with Kirlia's Magical Leaf. If you don't give it Thunderbolt, it'll be completely useless against Dark types, so thankfully the Sandile line doesn't exist yet. Also thankfully it learned Psychic earlier, instead of being at level 60 like Dream Eater is. That would've been super rough. So yeah, Gardevoir only does like two things, taking and dishing special damage, but it does those two things REALLY WELL.




If you insist mate.



So long as they seek power, I will grow strong with them!

That wasn't a Machop mate.



Ew, herbal medicine. I'll only bother with Revival Herbs, since the other medicines are just worse versions of the regular items. Sure, they're cheaper, but no need to lower happiness unless I have to.

"Let me keep you company!"

Let's have a nice single battle with this old man.



NANI?





Isn't it weird this Pokemon's cry is literally "Hariyama" when that's not its Japanese name? Well anyway, Vital Throw is gonna hit really hard with that Attack cause the move it learns on evolution is, uh, Smellingsalt. Yeah, I forget that's a move too. Brick Break is still a while off, so pick the best physical moves and go from there. Don't get cocky with that high HP though, its defenses really drag them down, it just means it takes longer for the HP bar to go down. Also give it Rock Tomb so it can hit levitating Ghosts. the Baltoy line fucks you up though.



lolling at my physical wall getting OHKOed by a Fighting move.



Hmm... a loss this thorough has been a distant memory. If you would allow it, I wish for another opportunity to do battle. There is no such thing as a born genius. It all depends on effort! That is what I believe...

But my POKEMON were ultra, weren't they?



Is the way to the grass blocked off?



Nah, there's a gap on the left there, see?




Calm down you two.



Oh, well. I think I will TELEPORT home.

I rarely meet anyone who's better than me... I get it now! You're a GYM LEADER, aren't you?



Ooh, good shit. Kelpsy Berries do nothing... in RS! In Emerald a few berries got changed and can lower a Pokemon's EVs of a certain stat by 10 while increasing a Pokemon's friendship. In the Kelpsy's case, it lowers the Attack EV.



Mach Bike is love, Mach Bike is life. Now please stop dying easily, Wargreymon.



This is the first time we've encountered grass on this route. For a good reason, there's some unique Pokemon here!



In RS you got no indication at all that the Jigglypuff line was in the Hoenn Dex, since, unlike in Emerald, no trainers used Wigglytuff.



There is also a birb.



Well now that we have both recipients of the Moon Stone, what are we gonna use it on?



The Hoenn denizen of course. And there we go. Since Lunatone is Sapphire only, we cannot get anymore Moon Stones for the rest of the game. Today's Side Notes are all about held items and it's a fun one, like always.



Hey, while I'm thinking about it, there's some Pokemon we should evolve, specifically ones we won't be encountering either for a long time or, well, ever. Linky thing here, including the writeups of the new stuff!



I did forget what level Spoink evolved at, so we'll wait on it for now and do Abra instead. I didn't notice it was holding this, I don't check every Pokemon I catch. Very useful, since we can't get this item otherwise, but more details in the Side Notes (what a coincidence!)



We will, however, go over Shedinja in a Mini Notes, since it's a special case.



Oh yeah, I hacked in another Moon Stone, so we don't need to think about that item for the rest of the LP! Yay! But what about Igglybuff? Well, Ditto isn't in the Hoenn Dex, so it looks like we'll need to do breeding the old-fashioned way, as much as I don't want to. However, if you remember the big breeding write up I did last LP *cough cough*, then I either need to get another Pokemon of the same species with a different gender (nah), or a Pokemon of the opposite gender but same Egg group. The second one is more likely, but, uh, requires the Pokemon I want to breed to be female.



So now that Wigglytuff is female, let's get breeding. We'll check in next update.



Alright, let's finally head to Route 105, we've done everything that we can for now.



Though hey, since the encounter rate of this area is pretty high, we can get a Pelipper at a 5% rate on the water, so why not go for it. Saves me evolving it later.



Nope, that's a Wingull.



That is also a Wingull. C'mon, how rare is a 5% encounter? Shouldn't be that hard to find one.
















ARE YOU KIDDING ME???



So yeah, that was a shiny. See, I use the emulator speedup when I don't see the silhouette I want, so it wasn't until it sparkled that I saw I had a fuckin shiny Wingull. Now I hope you don't think this is all an act, sure I can hack in shinies whenever I damn please, but because I can do that and manipulate the game to my will, I don't feel like I need to feign surprise when I come across an honest to god actual random shiny. And of course it had to be the poster child of Hoenn.



So yeah, we'll get a Pelipper this way. He's gonna be a Contest star, but we'll figure out the details when we get to that point.



Some people hate this line for being everywhere, but they shouldn't, cause it's pretty great. It can spam Surf all day, which is very appreciated in this game, as well as getting a good Flying move in Wing Attack. As in good for Flying, obviously it's a crap move, but whatever. Add in Ice Beam and... wait this line can learn Shock Wave? How have I just noticed it, that's amazing. Anyway, it'll be good for HMs and it can dish out some damage, so overall it's a good birb. Also, with Protect and Toxic is laughs in Slaking's face, but it won't do much aside from that.



Okay I think this is the last mon we need to fish for this update. Oh god Feebas is next.





Hey, hey! Why the hell are there TWO physical Water/Dark types in this gen? I think GF are fucking idiots. Anyway, like Carvanha, Corphish will get an alright Sp.Atk to work with instead of its amazing Attack, but hey what else is new? Also its move levels got changed ever so slightly in FRLG for... some reason? ANYWAY, early Bubblebeam is pretty nice and then you get... Knock Off. Not even Bite, but you will learn Crunch... at level 43. For fucks sake. Okay, it can learn a fair few TMs to at least abuse its Attack, Sludge Bomb, Aerial Ace, Rock Tomb, all the good stuff. It even learns Swords Dance so you can pretend you've got better STAB without using it. Just another mixed messaging mon, the split seriously cannot come soon enough.

Surfing

"It's so peaceful..."

At least this track is good, cause we're gonna be hearing it A LOT. Also Swimmers. So many Swimmers.




Now here's the dealio, there's a lot of water routes in this game. There's also a lot of Swimmers and various trainers with Water Pokemon. Now I could show you every single trainer as we go from one to the other with LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE HAPPENING. But that's not too interesting for me, or you. So guess what, we're gonna be skipping over a fair few of them. Thankfully, there are some interesting things along the way which we'll go over in full.



Like sandy islands. We'll take it. The trainers are still uninteresting though, but we will be seeing a couple of new Pokemon here and there. Just a couple.



Begone, Tackle.



There are also some really obvious Emerald trainers around that I might go over, depends how I'm feeling.




I lost because I battled at sea. Yeah, for me, the sky is a much better match than the sea.

Yes... I am no good at battling... Huh? I'm so weak, but you're willing to register me in your POKENAV? I'm sure there are many secrets to be discovered in the world's seas. I mean to find them all!



Neat, sea booty.



You see why I got the Thunderbolt TM? It's SO GOOD.



Second giant rock, as interesting as the first.



I'm never skipping over important advice. Stay safe, kids.



You had your turn and you missed it.



We're back on Dewford Island, which has some super important stuff for us.

Granite Cave



Let's explore up here.



Smooth as silk.



Did you guys want a second hidden Everstone? No? Okay then.



What other exciting things has this cave got for us?



Oh yeah, rock smashing.



It allows me to finally get a Geodude. Seriously, I couldn't find one when I first got here and then every rock I smashed didn't give one either. Well whatever, got one now.



We can also find Nosepass here at a 30% rate. This is terrible because you have to go up and down ladders to refresh them. I'm surprised I found one so quickly, since I wasn't looking forward to this.



To the town hall!



Hunh? You're telling me that you don't know about SLUDGE BOMB? That's outright pitiful. I'll give you one.



But POKEMON with the move "ALONE GROUP" are in, too.

Sludge Bomb is a fantastic physical attack that, uh, none of our team can learn. Nice. The saying changed too, I like it.

Surfing



Back to it on Route 107.



Hmm, have I forgotten to show something off? Well the answer is always yes, somehow.



Oh yeah, now that we've beaten daddy, trainers with a symbol by their name are ready to be rematched. I won't bother, since there's PLENTY of exp to go around. I wish my next team member wasn't so far away, as we're gonna get overlevelled, which is never fun.



(LISA) We challenge you as a sister and brother!



(LISA) Awesome. You're in a different class of tough. Do you have any friends who would go to the beach with you?

(RAY) My sister gave me my POKEMON. I raised it, and now it's my important partner!



Nobunaga needed Take Down, but Nimbus doesn't, since Secret Power is fine for now.



Hey guys there's a lot of Swimmers in this game.




Sounds spooky, let's go!

Abandoned Ship



How is every music track so good? It boggles the mind. Let's explore all that's here, a lot of cabins, a lot of items and a lot of trainers.




Not just curious, but also strong... You're such a tough TRAINER! Let me register you as a memento! The man next door... he says he's just sightseeing, but I don't know about that.

Oh, you're not my mom. I'm in trouble with my mom, so I ran. Keep it a secret where I am!




Down into the deck! Or whatever it is, I don't really know ship areas.



We need to get in here asap.

"How about a quick battle?"




Hello there wonderful ball child. While those are not stats you want to be lugging around until level 32, you'll at least have the moves for it. Ice Ball can get wildly out of control (though Defense Curl is FRLG for... some reason) and Aurora Beam is not far away. Basically, any Ice move that's not Ice Beam is in Spheal's moveset, which is pretty rad. Only Water Gun for the other STAB, but, uh, Surf. And that's it, no other special moves aside from STAB, but you can learn Iron Tail and Earthquake, even now, so that's pretty cool. Stats will become more impressive later on, but it's setting up for something pretty cool here. The fair few weaknesses aren't great, but that's some good STAB.



The ship's bottom has sunk into the depths. If a POKEMON knew how to go underwater, we might make some progress...




Ugh, diving. Dive Balls are pretty neat, giving a 3.5x boost to Pokemon found underwater. Gonna be a while before we can use it though.



Whoa, you overwhelmed me! It's not easy throwing POKE BALLS while hanging on to an inner tube!




These ambushes are pretty mean. Oh well, exp.



Walking around barefoot in this ship is kinda gross.

In a cabin somewhere on board, I saw something sparkle.

"But we discovered a TRAINER instead!"

(DAN) While searching for treasures, we discovered a TRAINER!



Oh hey it's that good move. Tail Glow has 20PP and raises Special Attack by 2 stages, which is amazing. While Illumise was supposed to be the special attacker of the two, this single move makes Volbeat better than her in every way.



(KIRA) Where could the treasures be? I've already decided what I'm buying when we find the treasures!

(DAN) We couldn't win even though we worked together... We can't find any treasures... I wonder if someone got them already?



Alright, what else is there?



Hmm, bummer dude.



Yoink!



Yessssssssssssssss



Now Nobunaga is much better, which is great, cause this is another item GF put postgame in ORAS. Yuck.

Surfing



Back to the water.




Here we go, level 32 for Wargreymon.



Ugh.






I love quadruped dinos, so Lairon is my 3rd favourite Pokemon. That stat boost is real nice, becoming a defensive monster and really being able to smack things around. Shame its movepool sucks, but we have all the important stuff for it already. The only move it'll learn before it evolves again is Protect, which is eh, so just keep hitting things with Rock Tomb and Iron Tail, it's the best you got for now. Otherwise, uh, yeah, just keep being awesome and stay away from like every Water, Fighting and Ground move ever.



Shouting is good for me! It uplifts me!

Since I'm at sea like this, I wouldn't mind putting on a pink, frilly swimsuit...



Alright, our team is shaping up, so let's get going.



Nearly finished with this surfing adventure. In the Abandoned Ship, we could've found a Tentacruel in the water with a 1% chance. Fuck that.



I'm cool even in defeat, hey? For a guy as macho as me, a port is the perfect setting! I guess I'll head for SLATEPORT.

This dude just lost one... This dude thinks you're a big one. No, you're a big-one-to-be!



Last bit of item hoovering.



Same. We're back on the mainland now and there's just a couple more things to do next time before we finally head to east Hoenn.