Part 16: Tree Flight

Part 16: Tree Flight

Fortree City



It's the city of Fortree, where the houses are trees and the people are probably trees too.


Fortree City/Hiwamaki City: The treetop city that frolics with nature.
From fort and tree, or fortress, and hiwa (light yellow-green) and maki (yew plum pine).



I'm glad we're finally in good item territory, always good to stock up for the various roads ahead.



Treeeeeeeeeeehouses!!!

"I'll do anything for it!"

...Uh... did you hear that? My shout from the bottom of my heart? Having heard that, you will trade your VOLBEAT for my PLUSLE, won't you?



Eh, I guess. If you lucked out and found a 2% Volbeat, you can save having to catch a 2% Plusle. I don't really care about such things, so now I have two Plusle.



I'm going to make VOLBEAT super strong from this moment on! I hope you do the same with PLUSLE!



We don't even get an item for it, just some shitty Mail. Oh well, such is life.



Let this old woman see if your hidden power has awoken... I hold a coin in my hand. Now, tell me, have I palmed it in my right hand? Or in the left?

Right, right, left.




Hidden Power is alright if you get the right IVs for coverage. Since I'm running with random Pokemon, the best I've got is 61BP Fire for Nobunaga. I'll pass.



I can teach your POKEMON how to SLEEP TALK instead. Interested? Oh, fine, fine. You want to stay awake with HIDDEN POWER, too...

One day we'll reach the good move tutors. One day...




Can't enter the Gym just yet, but there's still one more hut of interest.



Want some tables and chairs? Even more stuff for our eventual Secret Base.

Route 120



That's all we can do for the moment, so let's see what we can do otherwise. Oh, by the way, click that music link. Do it. NOW.




Ah, finally.






It's a Dragon, we haven't had one of those before (since I never used Kingdra) and it's not too amazing compared to all the other strong Dragons in the game. It has pretty mediocre attacking stats and is instead a relatively speedy tank. Well, it's Sp.Def doesn't protect it from a 4x weakness to Ice and the best Flying move it learns is Aerial Ace. Not too great there. However, it can learn a lot of different special moves, like Fire Blast and Ice Beam, as well as Earthquake and even Dragon Dance, if you wanna sweep somehow. It'll do, but there are others that absolutely blow it away.

"So I shield them with my parasol."

At least Wargreymon evolved when we had Nimbus, but he still needs to evolve once more.



Also since Nimbus doesn't have, or need, Secret Power anyway, she can have the Amulet Coin, while Ranmaru gets the Twistedspoon.



I should've talked to Ty instead, since we've seen what Gabby says when we fight them again.

(TY) Hey, lookie here! I remember you! I'll get this battle all on this here camera!



(TY) You're a natural! Got some prime footage right here!



Uh sure, whatever.



Your POKEMON were stronger... You can be counted on to get better. I'd like to register you in my POKENAV! A POKEMON that grows steadily is one you can count on.



Oh hey it's that stoned guy, whatever his name was.



Now, if I were to use this device on the invisible obstacle... No, no. Rather than describing it, I should just show you. That would be more fun. YUKI, are your POKEMON ready for battle? YUKI, show me your true power as a TRAINER!




What a surprise, the invisible blocks around here were Kecleon. Well hey, might as well catch it.



I wonder how many more of these are around?



I'd like you to have this DEVON SCOPE. Who knows, there may be other concealed POKEMON.



I enjoy seeing POKEMON and TRAINERS who strive together. I think you're doing great. Well, let's meet again somewhere.



Farewell for now, probable Batman.



Now we can get to the delicious items down here.



Thankfully we don't need to fight them and, uh, this whole mechanic is kinda pointless. There's only a few hidden Kecleon around here and only one more, the one in front of the Gym, actually have a point to them. The rest of them are just in random places, so I wonder why we needed to waste the Key Item slot.



Ooh, a secret cave.



Well that was kinda neat, but why is there a random cave here? Well, in regards to the region this, uh, region is based on, this cave is based on the Ama-no-Iwato, where the sun god Amaterasu was forced to by Susano'o, the god of storms. How interesting!



Sup? Let's catch some Pokemon.



We can finally catch dark doggo.



...Kecleon could've been encountered as early as Route 118, but it's only a 1% encounter. I'm kinda scared how randomly lucky I'm getting.



I wonder what Absol is doing in this area to warn us about? Is the Gym Leader evil?



Thankfully we don't have to fight every Kecleon we uncover, but I think only two or so actually flee.



...there's really nothing here? The fuck?



Well that was fun, off to the Gym!

Pokemon Gym




She's waiting at the back of this GYM, behind the rotating doors. She's waiting for new challengers who are trying to take wing! Okay, go for it!



Turntable puzzles are this Gym's deal. Shouldn't be too bad.




You'd better watch it! Don't get distracted staring at WINONA or you'll go crashing down in a heap!




Since we've found a lot of Flying types so far, the Gym won't really have anything new for us, unfortunately. But that doesn't mean nothing new is gonna happen.






Now with Leaf Blade, this line became much easier to use and it only gets slightly better from here. Before you start thinking of all the cool special moves you'll get to use with that Sp.Atk, it'll only be Dragon Claw. Hey, that's not too bad, but you'll have to go physical the rest of the way. So Earthquake, Brick Break and Aerial Ace seem like the best choices. You won't be learning anything interesting anymore, so stock up with TMs and you'll do just fine. This region has a shit ton of Water routes, after all.



FIRE/FIGHTING. With Blaze Kick to actually give you a good Fire move and Slash not far ahead, this chicken will do just fine. However, if you're thinking Sky Uppercut would be useful here, it's not until level 59, so Brick Break will have to do and that's still a bit away. Earthquake and Aerial Ace to close it out and, uh, that's your lot. I know I keep using the same moves over and over again, but you really don't have other options and those are stats you can't ignore, they're great! It does have quite a few weaknesses though, but it's not like there's a load of water areas coming up, right? Hahaha.



Another physically strong starter, with STAB Earthquake to (eventually) abuse and plenty of Water HMs to teach it! Oh yeah that's right, even though it doesn't have the greatest Sp.Atk, it'll be your Surf, Waterfall and Dive user, no room for Earthquake AND Ice Beam on this set, gotta use those HMs! Not that it really needs anything else, its exclusive move of Muddy Water is just a less accurate Surf, big deal. I guess you can give it Iron Tail or Brick Break, but you don't wanna have to lug around a Water Pokemon, right? You'll also find the Earthquake TM well before you actually learn the move itself.

"Do you have the smarts to get to our LEADER?"

You wait a fair while for evolutions and then two come at once. As if we weren't overpowered already...



Pretty easy puzzle to solve, but there's one left.

"I'm plenty good enough for you!"


Plenty of bird brains around. Uh, here in the bird brain Gym. What a surprise.



WINONA, I... I lost! WINONA is cute and she's strong. She's the ultimate LEADER! Blush...

It was too much of a load for me to bear... The world is huge, and there are countless tough TRAINERS. I'm going to keep training and make myself even stronger.




Sure, you beat me all right. But you'd better watch it! Our LEADER WINONA's POKEMON are all business.



Can you solve the puzzle?



Uh yeah, they're not difficult in the slightest. Time for the Leader!



However grueling the battle, we have triumphed with grace... Witness the elegant choreography of BIRD POKEMON and I!

VS Gym Leader VS Leader Winona




Winona/Nagi: The bird user taking flight into the world.
From winnow, an air current separating heavier and lighter objects and wind, and from nagi (Asian bayberry, or calm/lull).






Good job guys. I hate that I have to use Iron Tail.



But there we go, Swablu should never be a problem, neither should the Swellow in RS be either. Aside from the newly added Tropius as well, Winona's team doesn't change and features basically all the good Flying types the region has to offer.



She's going straight to her ace, so we should be able to deal with that no problem.



Unless that happens. Man, I could've lived two of those easily if it hadn't crit.



I also don't know why it has an Oran Berry. Oh well, makes my life easier.



Nimbus is here to save the day. Dunno why it's making its Aerial Ace stronger, it knows Dragonbreath.



It seems like the Oran Berry kept it from dying, so, uh, fuck it completely, actually.



I shouldn't be fancy trying to finish it with Steel Wing as you should never use moves that aren't 100% accurate all the time, but... it just keeps using Dragon Dance. Sure it's a Dragon move, but it's not doing any damage, my dude.



Oh well, let's see what everything else does.



If, you know, I didn't 2 shot it. Perhaps, just maybe perhaps, my team is a bit strong.




So far this Pelipper has done fuck all. Big strong Nobunaga has this in the bag.



Especially when that happens, yowza.



I, uh, think we're in the clear here. Aerial Ace has 60BP, 20PP and bypasses accuracy checks. Unfortunately for a lot of Flying types that don't learn *snicker* Sky Attack, this is the strongest STAB move they'll get.

"than I..."

In recognition of your prowess, I present to you this GYM BADGE.

Pokemon Gym

"trades, will obey your every command."

You will also be able to use the HM move FLY outside of battle. And this... this is a gift from me.



Its speed... no POKEMON should be able to avoid it. Though I fell to you, I will remaining devoted to BIRD POKEMON.



Well that was Winona. She sure had a charact- er, she sure had strong Poke- er, she was definitely the 6th Gym Leader. Yep.

Fortree City



Your strength... perhaps you really are the TRAINER that I've been searching for. Remember, you have a fan in me. I'll be cheering from the sidelines. Keep up the great work!



With those words of encouragement and our new HM, we're now ready to head off to the next city for another grand adventure!

...



Alright fine, I'll catch a fucking Feebas.



You know, when I actually hook something. Sigh.



Wouldn't it have been so cool if that had just been it? Well, on the entirety of Route 119, there are 6 water tiles that have a 50% chance of fishing up Feebas. You might have noticed there's a lot of water tiles on this route. So many that no one's really counted them. You can use any rod for this and you have to fish in a tile multiple times JUST IN CASE, since it's not a guarantee.



Once you're sure that tile doesn't contain Feebas, just move on to the next one and try again. And again. And again. AND AGAIN. Until you finally fish one up. Once you do that, you can breed them and never bother with it again. The only positive aspect to this garbage system is that whenever the trendy saying in Dewford changes, so too do the Feebas tiles, though they're unrelated aside from that. So, if you find a Feebas tile, you can mix records with a friend and they'll find Feebas in the same tile.



Wow! Look at that! I found one. What. Are. The. Chances. Yeah, I hacked one in (and also learned the codes don't apply to fishing encounters) and there we go, that's how you find a Feebas. As easy as that.

Oh and catching a Feebas in DPP is even worse, so I've got that to look forward to as well! Ah, jk, I'll be hacking it in that time too.

Route 120



Onwards to the next city!




It's raining again.



The move FLY is convenient, don't you think? While the POKEMON is flying, almost no moves can strike it.



If any one of them is missing, the picture of beauty will be ruined.



Oh hey it's that weather thingy I forgot about already.



I think it's awesome you're so strong battling with your favorite POKEMON.

A parasol wouldn't suit you at all. Why, something like this would only get in your way.

"I bet you didn't know where I was!"


Have I mentioned how much I love double battles yet? Cause I do, they're great.



I wonder... should I evolve my POKEMON? They're cute the way they are, though.

Our camouflage cloaks are all handmade.



Ew, it's all wet.

"TRAINER, learn about them."


The special abilities of POKEMON will make battle styles change.



It's a grass maze! How puzzly.

"rough time in critical situations."


Fitness training is in my routine. I always run with my POKEMON.



Man these things are everywhere.




Like I say to everyone that uses healing items in battle: stop that.



To travel wherever your heart desires with POKEMON... that's the joy of being a TRAINER.



Phew, we're out of there.



Nothing down on that shore aside from Secret Base areas. Hrm.



Lost it... ... ... ... ... Do you have a POKENAV...? ... ... ... ... ... ... I'll try harder...



Weird guy, but he's also good, as I'll go over later.



It's an expression of love, isn't it? Yes, yes. You understand what I mean. You should take this.



Yeah it's a little bit rare. This woman will give you a single berry each day, but what it is depends on your last ID number. 0 or 5 gets you a Figy Berry, 1 or 6 is Wiki, 2 or 7 is Mago, 3 or 8 is Aguav and 4 or 9 is Iapapa. All of these berries restore HP by 12.5% when they go under half, but confuses the Pokemon if it doesn't like the flavour, depending on its Nature. This woman is the only way to get Wiki, Mago and Aguav berries, so you better hope you have the right ID number!



Berries here, get your berries here!



Before I looked into Kecleon locations, I had no idea how many there were I didn't know about.



More good shit, oh baby!



The creation of new ninja techniques is but a distant dream... Perhaps I ought to apprentice under a ninja sensei.



Are you perhaps searching for ancient ruins that are rumored to possibly exist according to legend?




That giant rock... I would like to believe it may indeed contain ancient ruins. But I see no entrance.



Hey, no sneaking in the back way! Anyway, that's the last Kecleon we can find. Seriously, that was the Devon Scope. What a useful item.



Now it's been around 300 images, so this part should be ending? Well, we're gonna quickly catch something here.





After, uh, literally every previous Ghost being a special user despite the Ghost type itself, it's great to finally find one with high Attack! Hopefully that stays forever. Anyway, all you'll get is Shadow Ball, it doesn't really learn that many moves, especially during level up. Like hey, do you want Faint Attack? Well you might have to, since the TM for Shadow Ball isn't far off, but aside from some cool special moves, you'll be using, uh, Return, for your physical coverage. I sure know how to pick em, don't I? Also holy fuck this thing is frail, keep it away from Ghost and Dark types. Or just strong attackers in general.

Insomnia prevents the user from falling asleep from moves like Rest, or from Spore and Yawn and such. It's helpful, but nothing too exciting.



Finally, our fifth team member. I wish I could've caught it on Route 123 so the rest of our team didn't go wildly out of control in levels, but hey, I'm sure it'll be fine. Thanks to Solumin for this nickname.



...Timid? Seriously? Goddammit, that's +Spd -Atk, which, uh, isn't great for a physical attacker, I'll be honest. Oh well, it'll have to do, so let's see how Calbrena does next time.