Part 6: Midna Mine

Hello everyone and welcome back. When we left off, we hadn't yet actually started the level grinding. So let's get to that, yeah?



For posterity's sake, here's duranduran before we start.



Because of Durant's high BST, let's throw him into the deep end, so to speak.



Getting lost on a linear path is impressive.





Our opponent is an Exeggcute and... welp, this is gonna be one-sided. Fury Cutter is basically Rollout, But Bug Type as I understand it. It starts at 40BP and that number doubles every time it's used, up to a cap of 160. This is solely going off what Bulbapedia says, which probably isn't the smartest choice. But there's no solid math on how it works anywhere. There's an unsubstantiated claim on pokemondb that backs up Bulbapedia's assertion.

If it's true, then on the fourth turn Fury Cutter has 160BP + STAB. If you do the math, that's a pretty big number.



This is the only thing of note that happened in the fight. duranduran is kinda really good.





Sand Attack is traded in for Bite. I'm gonna keep duranduran around for a while I think, just because of how much he counters. Between dark, bug, and steel moves he can fuck up Ghost, Psychic, Grass, Dark, Rock, Ice, and Fairy types.



Whiting out and rushing to a pokecenter in a blind panic is a type of navigation method... I guess.



Looking at duranduran's moves, I'm not sure Metal Sound is going to see much use given the physical nature of his attacks.







The third Machop roadblock for Delta Squirtle finally shows up. Remember, we're tackling this route backwards because I abused line of sight to sneak past all the trainers the first time.





Telnor Cave is just to the south here.

how to become a trainer!





He had a Murkrow.



That's all the Route 1 trainers, so it's time to start grinding on the wildlife in Dark Cave.



Tempting, but I don't think so.





Then finally duranduran is done. 16-17 took longer than it needed to, so he'll be the only one I take that high. Everyone else is going to 16. He's basically going to be my ace in the hole.



Janine is next up.





I didn't have a baseline for her (or any of the rest of the team) so here's her first level up to compare against the last, if you like.



Hell. Yes.



Out with the growl, in with the move that only gets stronger as Janine gets faster.



Because Geodude is so common in the Dark Cave, I took Janine on a small journey to see if she could get better experience anywhere else. Instead I found this asshole in Midna Mine.



the same purpose!



This guy is a gigantic roadblock. I'm not kidding. He's the hardest trainer in this area by a wide margin. Why?





Solrock and Lunatone are dangerous for the same reason that duranduran is. These fuckers can and will sweep your team if you're unprepared.



Dracolich came out, used one ineffective attack, and then went down like a sack of bricks. Artix tanked two psywaves to the face before Solrock went down.



And to her credit, she would have taken Lunatone out as well if not for its fucking hypnosis.







I'm not playing badly here. I just can't do anything against a hypnosis sweeper this early in the game. Awakenings aren't sold until after the first gym, and you don't get access to berries until then either.



Thankfully duranduran is designed to (literally) chew up psychic types for breakfast. Also the Lunatone used Rock Throw instead of Hypnosis.



Go fuck yourself.



And that's the story of how a random hiker swept through 83% of my team with two psychic types like this was Gen 1. This one fight is indicative of Insurgence's difficulty. Everything's fine until suddenly everything is not fine and you are entirely out of your depth staring down a sweeper built to fuck up everything that moves.

places?





He had a Riolu.

Kids like you should be in school instead!





Sometimes when Insurgence does stuff, it has to pause for a brief moment. Usually this is when you're doing something for the first time in a session: catching a pokemon, healing at a center, winning a wild battle, winning a trainer battle... I dunno why, but it just does. It's one of those idiosyncracies that isn't worth looking into because it only bothers you once every time you play and then you don't have to think about it again.

I bring that up because Flabebe here straight up freezes the game for a good 10-15 seconds while trying to play its cry.



She had a Swirlix as well. Artix took care of it in the usual fashion.



Janine finally hit 16 in a wild double battle. So Dracolich is up next.



Here's his "before" stats.



While randomly grinding I find a Purrloin. I remember someone asking me to use one, but I can't remember who. So instead I asked a friend to nickname it for me.





I take zero credit for this. I told him it was a leopard pokemon and the rest was entirely his doing.



10-15 minutes later...





Shadow Sneak is a pretty decent move. Much better than Scratch, and it gets the all-important STAB!



And because Charmander is the same regardless of Delta status or not...







Stats before and after evolution! Looks like he picked up between 4 and 6 points in everything, except HP where he got 7. Not too bad!



Thanks to being one of my two aces, Artix only needs a single level to hit my self-imposed max.





She continues to be an absolute beast.



I waffled on this, but ultimately decided against it. We'll get easy access to a move relearner later.



I got midway through leveling up Staaaares when I decided to swap her out for Zucchini.



I briefly considered Mewspot, but...



Zucchini is a million times better in every way that matters.





It's an uphill climb, though. For the next 6 levels, Zucchini is actual dead weight. If I had any TMs, I'd teach them just to put his impressive SpAtk to use.



I also had the "bright" idea to train up Zucchini and Morocco at the same time. Unfortunately, the mole's moveset is really, really terrible. Mud Slap would be alright, except it has barely any PP. Sure, on average Fury Swipes is okay to mediocre, but fuck the average.

Morocco's next ability comes at 15. So this is the doldrums of level grinding.





Why not? Let me teleport back quickly!



It finally occurs to me that there are trainers still unbeaten in Midna Mine, and also that Insurgence rewards XP based on levels. So Zucchini will get quite a lot of experience from a trainer battle, and because most of the rest of my team is so high level, they'll get comparatively less.

So...



Midna Mine has two floors. The first floor is a huge spiral. There's something like 18 breakable rocks up here and several trainers.



This is Round. I don't think I've ever used it because of how gimmicky it is.



I also forgot to record fighting this guy. Once I realized how dire Morocco's moves were, and how he could barely hold his own against things lower level than he was, I turned off the recording to take a quick break. When I came back I forgot to start it back up until I'd beaten this guy. You didn't miss much.



This will be helpful later on.

It's so annoying!



Isn't it bad luck to have a parasol open indoors?





Oh sure now you give one to me!











It will be a while yet, but we'll be able to evolve Zucchini without having to bother with nonsense like "having friends" or "trading online."







Moving on, let's finish off Morocco's leveling and be done with grinding until the next time we need to.





Oh hey, for once Morocco can put Mud Slap to actual use.



Because Insurgence won't let me have nice things, Morocco immediately got Quick Attacked by a Pachirisu and went down.





The ledge in the back is something we can't access until basically the very end of the game. There's a mega stone up there for Absol, if I remember right. I never have used one and by the time we can get one, we have access to so many better dark types. So I probably never will use one. Oh well.



Little girl... check. Deep in the cave... check. Protagonist hair color... check. Ladies and gentlemen, we've found Nora.





: Use Tesseract!







She also has a mythical pokemon as a partner. It's not a spoiler at this point to say she's the game's other, more capable, rival.

: I can't believe it. All of our hard work finally paid off! Armaldo, Bastiodon, Kabutops, and Omastar...











I think it's implied that Amy is speaking here.



: Mew...
: What was that?





Mew goes over to play with Celebi.





about Torren.



to find and defeat the cults.



: You know, like Mew, Victini, and Hoopa.

I guess this was written before the term "Mythical Pokemon" was popularized?







legendary pokemon.

anyone.

I'm afraid they'll come after me.

the prophecy, but...





if it does, you might become a target.







: The tournament in the trainer school! I completely forgot!





Well if Nora doesn't want those fossils...









Let's get the hell out of here.



We can't leave town yet even though we found Nora.



Anyway, back to level grinding. At 15, Morocco finally learns a decent attacking move



Fuck Fury Swipes. Does shit-all for damage and has the temerity to only have 80 accuracy. Metal Claw is a much better move.





And finally with Metal Claw, Morocco gets to 16 in no time at all. You know what that means?



WE'RE DONE WITH LEVEL GRINDING FOR THE MOMENT!



One trip to the center later... let's go win a tournament.







Glad to see that no matter where and when it is, some children are dickbags for no reason at all.





Well someone has a high opinion of himself.



This won't take very long.







9 students counting Amy and Damian... That doesn't work out evenly. I guess that means Nora is the champion and the rest of us fight for the opportunity to challenge her?





"Champion".

Eight?



The bug catcher kid with the straw hat isn't participating. How odd.







To those worried I overleveled... well, see the numbers for yourself. Insurgence loves to do this. You'll go through an area and reach what you think is a reasonable level only to find that the game has raised the stakes and you're suddenly underleveled.

So those 2 and a half hours of grinding wasn't me overpreparing, it was me reaching the new baseline.



Morocco went down, but Zucchini picks up the slack.



You don't get any XP for this tournament. It's solely for bragging rights (and the ability to continue the story).



: The stadium is getting heated and the contestants are on fire!





It's naturally a single elimination tournament. The rude Simon gets to fight the undefeated Nora. Pity, I'd have liked to taught him some humility myself.







I don't think Morocco survives the opening round of any of these fights. Thankfully the teacher heals everyone to full in between bouts.



Janine laughs all the way to victory here.



Artix, meanwhile, gets to teach Damian to fear the words "Use Rollout!"



: What spectacular matches!











This fight is in Morocco's favor, but Mud Slap...



This is two mud slaps dealing supereffective STAB damage. The burn is new.

I know Excadrill is good, because when I played part of BW2, I used one. But... geez...



To his credit, Morocco took out most of the Quilava's HP. Quilava is actually Nora's ace in this fight. She can randomly use her pokemon in whatever order she wants, so in this case she led with her best.



We don't have any good answers to the ground type on our team. It's too early for ice types to show up and the only grass type we can get at the moment is Hoppip. But we have the numbers advantage as well as some incredible 'mons.



Even as weak as Twister is, it's more than enough in this case.



This isn't even fair. We win. Hands down.

than me?



one to come out on top!

"Champion"!







It won't be me because I'm outta here the second I don't have to be here.



final...



One neat thing about the game is how every time you do something, it lavishes you with praise because of how cool it was.





: Oh... alright.







Hell yeah! Our first TM, and it's one of the best.

pokemon!







Ouch.







latter.



This is Nora speaking.

and honing my skills.

: You too... ummm... What's your name exactly?
: My name is Damian.
: Right. Damian. I'll see you both in Suntouched City!

watching!

your minds to it.

Laying it on a little thick there, aintcha? I guess it's the sign of a good teacher to encourage her best pupils in this fashion, though. Even if it is at the expense of the others.



Try and stop me now random little kid who no longer exists!



Don't mind me, just talking to the nearby fisherman...



Fuck yeah I do!



That's where the update leaves off. BUT! Because we're in a new route, we have access to a bunch of new types. Let's start with old routes first.

Shade Forest (Old Rod)

Magikarp
Remoraid

Telnor Cave (Old Rod)

Magikarp
Qwilfish

Route 1

Delta Dwebble (Trade a Totodile)

Route 1 (Old Rod)

Magikarp
Barboach

Dark Cave (Old Rod)

Carvanha
Corphish

Midna Garden (Old Rod)

Shellder
Magikarp

Midna Town (Old Rod)

Finneon

Midna Mine (Old Rod)

Goldeen
Clamperl

Route 2

Staryu
Totodile
Marill
Bidoof
Buizel

Route 2 (Old Rod)

Remoraid
Corsola

Ancient Ruins

Sandshrew
Geodude
Tyrogue
Riolu (Only appears after Plot Happens)

Ancient Ruins (Old Rod)

Magikarp

Cyan Cavern

Magnemite
Onix
Shuckle (5%)
Whismur
Makuhita (4%)
Sableye
Roggenrola
Pancham (1%)

Cyan Cavern (Old Rod)

Magikarp
Relicanth

The Ancient Ruins also have something else available, but much, much later in the game...













Meet Delta Geodude. It's Psychic/Rock, and the only one in the game is available at level 50. It evolves to Graveler, I'd like to point out, at level 25. It's 3 abilities are Regenerator (Restores HP when withdrawn from battle), Sap Sipper (No damage from grass attacks, and gets an attack boost when hit by them), and Magic Bounce (Hidden; Reflects status moves).

Unfortunately, Psychic is primarily a special attack type with very few good physical moves. Golem, to put it bluntly, doesn't have special attack stats. It's also available so late in the game that it just isn't worth training up on the off chance it's good.

And that's all for now!

NEXT TIME: We make our way to Suntouched City!