Part 4: Telnor Cave
Hello everyone and welcome back. Today we're starting off with a request. 10 characters isn't a lot to try to name the Baltoy HarryPottery but I got pretty close.
And while running around, I find the object of another request. I remember using an Onix in my HeartGold run and it kicked 20 kinds of ass there.
HaryPotery can even smack it around thanks to Mud Slap.
Unfortunately here's where we run into a problem. Y'see, at full health Onix has an inexplicably low catch rate: 45 out of 255. Even with its health reduced to the red zone, it's still way too low to reliably catch with pokeballs. So very quickly this...
Becomes this. Take a wild guess how that goes.
That's not a glitch in the gif. That's the approximate point where the game "mysteriously reset" after my finger "accidentally pressed" the reset key.
So after that "mysterious crash" after I wasted $1800 worth of pokeballs, we're back in the cave ready to continue the hunt for an Onix.
Instead we find a Cubone...
This also reminds me that I haven't shown off Delta Charmander's dex entry. He's not #004, though. So we have to search for him instead.
The Insurgence pokedex has this neat little search function. So if we want to find Delta Charmander, all we gotta do is just do a name search.
Regardless of its delta status, Dracolich is still a Charmander first and foremost. So we just need to look for ABC.
We can also apply other criteria, but this should be sufficient.
No wonder we couldn't find it! Primarina? Never heard of it! #730 is obviously Delta Charmander.
Expect to see a lot of usernames in the Delta pokedex entries. Most of them are developer usernames, but there's also some other names in there as well. Apparently way back when this was still in active development, the dev team asked for deltas to put in, and the best responses got added to the game.
Don't ask me why I'm catching so many pokemon. Just 'cause I can I guess.
In between battles it also occurs to me to show off the dexnav. You have to press the D key to activate it and then use the mouse pointer to actually click on the option you want.
We can search for pokemon we've already caught, but I've never had this work
We can also open the regional map, connect to the broken online servers, and the last option lets us get into a trainer battle at will.
There are a lot of trainers in here. Most of them have teams way beyond what we can hope to fight at the moment. Some of them are apparently good to grind on if you need money. But fighting the same battle over and over for a pittance doesn't sound very fun. In fact it sounds kinda tedious. I'm probably never going to use this.
There will come a point where level grinding will cease to be a thing we need to do. It's a long way off, though. It's not completely out of sight, but it's still a distant speck on the horizon all the same.
Good to see Joey is still around after all these years. I hope his Rattata is still in the top percentile.
Moving on! Still catching stuff...
There are some really good pokemon in here. So we'll have lots of options by the time I'm done!
In fact, let's restock in case we run into another Onix. (Spoilers: we won't)
I suppose we should also press deeper into the cave and try to progress the story a little. I believe at this point we've pretty much run out of new things to catch in here until we get the ability to fish... or to surf. Or unless an Onix deigns to show its 5% encounter rate rear.
A common theme we'll find in this game is that the trainers are utterly insane. They're completely detached from reality as we know it.
Machop can't even hit Dracolich, so this fight is extremely one sided.
He tries to be clever but...
Twister is kind of a really good move. 40 BP + STAB bonus = 60 power. Some might say that picking the dragon type starter was easy mode. Meh. Insurgence is really hard anyway, so I'll take whatever kindnesses I can get.
Also this is a trash trainer who spends the entire battle making his Geodude as fast as greased lightning, probably because Geodude doesn't have anything that isn't Tackle.
Dracolich hits 10 and learns such a fun, mean move. I will not feel bad about using this as much as I possibly can.
Is he mad that I wouldn't let him get a hit in?
Jumping ahead a bit, HaryPotery learns Heal Block. I can imagine more than a few fights later on where this would be extremely useful. Also it replaces Harden, so it's not like I'm really missing out on anything.
If it feels like I'm jumping around a lot... it's because I am. The only thing you're missing is a bunch of wild pokemon being KOed for quick experience so my team can reach an arbitrary level.
Also now that we have Gastly, the only pokemon from the first two routes we don't have is Onix. We can catch him later on anyway, so I'm not too worried. I should also mention that none of these new friends have nicknames. They'll get one if I ever use them.
Another level and I think Janine is finally ready for the big time. Quick Attack is a much better use of a slot than one of her stat reducing moves... especially Tail Whip. Yes, the irony of deleting the defense decreasing move in order to learn a physical attack isn't lost on me.
Now that Janine is 10, we technically don't have to level grind anymore. The rest of the team will be there just in case she goes down. So let's move on.
These ladders are very particular. For whatever reason, they're programmed to only work from the front and every other direction is just a block.
Telnor Cave is a very basic cave. The first floor is very straightforward, and the floor below that is extremely linear, it just doubles back on itself after you reach the far end. The only notable detour on the path is for that pokeball up above.
Do you see this wall? Fuck this wall. There are a handful of things I didn't do in my endgame save because of the tedium involved. One of them was getting the ability to unlock walls like this. The ability to do so is locked behind a game-spanning sidequest we can't even start until after the second gym. We have to complete a series of 15-tile sliding puzzles all across the game, including two areas we can't access until after the Elite Four.
What is the reward for doing all that rigamarole and jumping through all those hoops? In this case, a Diglett. A Delta Diglett.
Meet Delta Diglett. It's Normal/Ice type. It evolves into Delta Dugtrio at level 26. This thing comes at level 50, unfortunately. Its three abilities are: Snow Cloak (lowers enemy accuracy in hail), Ice Cleats (doubles speed in hail), and Fur Cloak (hidden; doubles defense/cuts physical attack damage in half).
It is also seriously adorable in a doofy way. I love it.
Anyway, if we come back here for the Diglett, it will not be for an extremely very obnoxiously long time. So let's just move on.
There's only two trainers in the cave, and this is the second one.
N-no? What is he even insinuating here?
I used a Tyrogue for the very first time in my first run of this game. I was not pleased when I learned how useless it is when it evolves. The Hitmons are more or less the face of the fighting type in these games, but someone at The Pokemon Company needs a good smack for how they designed their level up movesets.
My Tyrogue turned into a Hitmonlee at 20. I then learned the hard way that the Hitmons don't learn fighting moves at evolution. The first actual damaging move Hitmonlee learns is at 29. Insurgence, you see, uses the Gen VI movesets.
Take a look for yourself. It's a pretty dire situation. Look at all those wonderful moves that Hitmonlee learns before it evolves. So in order to actually make use of your nice new fighting type, you have to either farm Heart Scales or use Tackle for 9 more levels.
Fuck.
Heart.
Scales.
When the appropriate time comes, I'm going to hack this game's code apart and I will buy a lifetime supply of Heart Scales. I did it in my first run and I'm gonna do it here too. It'll make everyone's life a lot better that way.
Anyway, now that we've beaten this joker we can continue on.
I'm sure there's hidden items down here, but it's nothing we can't live without. (Yes I know the wiki has a list of them.)
If for whatever reason you want to continue level grinding, don't go up this ladder as it will lock you into a story section for the next little bit. We're done with grinding for now, so let's see what the story is all about.
Damian is kind of a jerk.
There's two stones up here, and one is a lot more useful than the other.
Don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure the blue one is the leader of the Abyssal Cult. There's a lot of similarities, but it could just be a coincidence. The red one, as far as I know, is just some random Infernal Cult jerk. Yes, the Abyssal Cult and Infernal Cult are Team Aqua and Team Magma with the serial numbers filed off. For all the points I'll give Insurgence, retreading ground already walked by RSE/ORAS is a mite annoying.
spread about himself.
The devs really missed something by not having the Infernal Cult guy speak with red text.
It would have been a nice little subtle thing.
Jaern is spreading William Wallace style propaganda about himself.
Someone in the thread wondered what cult Jaern is the head of. I'm gonna guess it's the cult of personality.
Let's get going.
: Amy...
Augur when he comes to Telnor Town!
Mercifully the game fades out and then drops you off back in Telnor Town.
five minutes ago!
Jaern can probably hold his own for 30 more seconds while I heal up.
And then put Janine at the front of my party for no particular reason.
Country bumpkins being impressed by a Salamence like you can't find them all over the skies later on when you unlock Soaring.
: What might your name be, young one?: Umm, my name's Damian... and this is Amy...
Damian is about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the knee.
You'll be punished for this!Naturally the adults don't believe him.
The cultists, unfortunately, are really fucking dumb. All they had to do was lay low and let Damian be chased off by public shame. Instead they jump straight to action.
You have to give Damian credit. He's got balls of solid brass.
Amy, to her credit, jumps straight to action as well.
This is the last time that the weaponry will ever be brought up.
Blah blah blah. Damian is suicidally determined to protect the strongest trainer in the region. The cultists are full of bravado. I'm sure you can imagine how the parts I'm leaving out go.
We get the water cultist.
A level 12 Skrelp is "the strongest of pokemon".
Skrelp tanks Janine's shocks pretty well, I'll give it that.
Two seahorses that become dragons has potential, but these guys are at way too low of a level to be effective. These jerks are so below Jaern's notice that it's not even funny.
Sorelosersasywhat?
don't see a bright future for you.
: ...did you just kill them?
would do.
: If you ever pass through Helios City, why not stop by?
He seems nice.
: ...I think so.
the case.
Trainer School!
I'm curious what we just did if it wasn't battling.
Let's just skip through to the end of the cave. There's nothing new to see until then.
I lied. I just remembered this happened. At this low level, Nosepass know the move "Block" and unfortunately...
Roggenrola is too slow to escape from the red nosed moai statue on the first turn.
Nosepass started using Harden, so I started using Harden too.
This fight drug on for way too long. Headbutt ran out of PP and I was reduced to using Tackle. Even with its impressive 50 power, the Nosepass has maxed out defense from all the Hardens. Plus rock resists Normal, so Tackle was working with 25 BP before the defense increases were even applied. The point is, Roggenrola just gently poked a Nosepass to death 1HP at a time.
This Nosepass put up more of a fight than that Abyssal cultist did.
He earned every bit of that XP.
And now we're back here where we saw the cultists.
This was surprisingly fiddly to find. Anyway, this is what Damian wanted to give to Jaern. I give it to Roggenrola for whenever he eventually learns a rock move.
Let's get the hell out of here.
Route 1 is just on the other side of this exit. I'm gonna skip over it now and rush to the next town. You can dodge every trainer if you do it just right. I'll cover fighting them in the next update.
Route 1 is kind of a spiral. We come in the bottom and the exit is in the top left.
Pausing here in the bottom left to grab a hidden item.
One of these is over in the bottom right corner.
I missed it at the time, but there's an item hidden back at the start. It's just behind one of the trees. We'll get it later.
This kinda annoys me. You leave Route 1 by going up and you enter Midna Town by coming down from above. If you aren't paying attention when you walk between them, you'll be going nowhere fast.
Anyway, that's enough for now. Now that we're in a new location, it's time to cover the new pokemon available to catch!
Midna Town is connected to three new areas: Route 1, the Dark Cave (it's the cave in the route 1 map), and Midna Mine. All three are open to us to explore and all three have new pokemon to pick up. So let's go down the list...
Route 1
Meowth
Ponyta
Hoppip
Blitzle
Bunnelby
Dark Cave
Zubat
Abra
Geodude
Poochyena
Purrloin
Midna Garden* (behind Dark Cave)
This is special because we can only get 1 of the 4 available here at a time, and it has a 12 hour cooldown between spawns. Luckily you can savescum it.
Exeggcute
Stunky
Heatmor
Durant
Midna Town
Gastly (Trade a Durant)
Elekid (Trade any bug type)
Rotom (Chance from any TV)
Midna Mine
Zubat
Shuckle
Phanpy
Nosepass
Woobat
Drilbur
Smashing Rocks In Midna Mine
Geodude (33%)
Shuckle (8.5%)
Nosepass (16.5%)
Roggenrola (25%)
Dwebble (8.5%)
Carbink (8.5%)
All those pokemon are available from areas in and around Midna town. So as before, if anyone has anything they'd like to see, you know what to do!
NEXT TIME: Exploring Midna Town, conquering Route 1, and more!