Part 9: Suntouched Gym

Hello everyone and welcome back. Let's get started.



I "found" a cache of rare candies.



Screech replaces Growl.



Double Team replaces Quick Attack.





This is a terrible idea. Staryu has a base speed of 85... Starmie has 115. They're both insanely fast, so naturally they should definitely learn a move that gets more powerful when they're slower. Maybe this could be useful in a trick room setup? Hard pass.

LiefKatano clarifies:


So yeah, avoid the shit out of Gyro Ball.





I can think of some bullshit I can get up to with this. Swapped out Disable for this.



Artix forgets Wrap in favor of Rock Throw.



duranduran's stats.



Dracolich's stats.



Janine's stats.



Staryu's stats.



Zucchini's stats.



And finally Artix's stats.



Staryu gets renamed to Shuriken as well.



And because I don't respect my own time, I'm in here hunting for a 1% encounter.



Fifteen minutes later...





Alright, that's all the preparations done. So let's get to the meat of this update. First up...



I forgot this in the previous update. This is a 1/4 scale map of Suntouched City. Literally every other map I've shown in this LP so far has been 1/2 scale. I just want to impress on you how large this town is.

Anyway, if we step on the fan, we get launched into the stratosphere.





This area is gigantic and there's really not much going on here. Even not counting the relic song wall way over on the right, it doesn't fit on my monitor at all in 1/2 scale.

By the way, just forget that relic song wall exists. We can't get over there until the postgame to start with, and even if we could somehow 1) get over there and 2) open the wall right now, all we'd find on the other side is a pissed off level 100 Zapdos.



South of where we landed we can find this nice young man who gives us a cookie.

happens when you're poisoned?



As far as I've been able to tell, Insurgence doesn't make poison adversely affect special attack. This is just another NPC that brings up something I hadn't thought too hard about and don't really give a shit about to be honest.



Down in front of the huge flower garden is the old man we met last time.



Skipping most of his text...





We can get a single honey on the next route. The guy even points us right at it.



We'll be back here in a moment. This is the Broadcast Tower I've been lowkey hyping up since the second or third update.



This lady offers this trade in one of the houses. You can also find Natu in Friend Safaris, but this one is much easier to get.



They keep hammering in how weird the gym leader is for talking to rocks. Gee I wonder if it's going to be relevant...





This nasty old woman is just plain rude. The wiki doesn't mention she does anything, and I'll never come back here. So she could give away infinite money and I wouldn't remember to check. Oh well!



anywhere near me!

That's pretty funny, not gonna lie.



This uh... individual is one of approximately 10,000 move tutors in the game. Most towns have one and they all teach different stuff. This person teaches some extremely powerful moves to any of the normal starters. So that Totodile you totally caught on the first attempt and you don't get why I had so much trouble? He can learn a move that he potentially could use the entire game!



of his pokemon.

Hint. HINT. HINT! If you have given this any amount of thought you can see Orion's gimmicks coming from a mile away and can prepare appropriate counters. If that wasn't enough, we'll be catching something in this very update that is a hard counter to potentially all of Orion's team!

given Gym?







I'm not entirely sure how they collect these statistics. But 180,147 victors is very interesting. My previous save file is one of those, and I'm sure that there are other damaged folks that have played this multiple times... so I have to wonder exactly how large this game's audience is.

If anyone has any information on how that information is collected, I'd love to know.



This is one of the things I've been dying to show off. The Broadcast Tower is another game-spanning sidequest that gives you the opportunity to catch a lot of rare and powerful pokemon you can't find anywhere else.





Sounds good, huh?





It's kind of a missed opportunity that this guy isn't an optional boss later in the game.





Oh god dammit. I read that line the first time I played and didn't think anything of it. I read it when I was recording and didn't think anything of it. Then I read it while putting this update together and the pun finally hit me.





They just want you to come play with them.







You and me? We'll go far together.



Over on the other side of the second floor, a security guard stops us.











I seriously cut out most of his dialogue. Damn but this game loves to hear itself talk.



The pikachu following close behind her didn't tip me off. I'm not very good at judging trainers.



Poor Amy. Got her hair cut short and she's being mistaken for a boy.













any.





This is mercifully not the only Axew in the game. It's a fairly common encounter in a cave a few hours down the line.





See the grass rustling? It's a surprisingly subtle effect if you don't know what to look for. That's where Axew is. There are no encounters in this grass at all, so you have to find it.





Haxorus is a good dragon type, but I think we're well covered in that department. This is a golden opportunity if you didn't pick Delta Charmander at the start.













And it's that easy!



When the sidequest is ready to continue, you'll get a call on your "pokegear" from the director. The first two stages of it are actually available from the start, it just takes a random amount of steps in order for the next one to activate. After the second, however, we have to wait a long time between calls.

Mission 3 won't be available until we complete an extremely difficult major story battle in an area with high magnetism. The average level of our team, at that point, will be around level 55.



See that black loading screen at the start of the gif? That's the city loading in immediately after finishing the Axew catch. I've never seen it happen that fast before. Later stages of this actually have a minimum of 1500 steps since the last Broadcast Tower event in addition to the usual plot-related gates.









This is actually the reason I've been so intent to show off the Broadcast Tower. So let's not waste any time...



over in the Rezzai Desert.





I could see a TV show about a little girl catching wild pokemon being a big hit. Cut it like a modern reality show in the vein of the "America's/Britain's Got Talent" and people would eat it up.











See that little puff over to the right? That's our wayward Delta friend.





Not gonna give them much "wandering in the desert" footage, sadly. Maybe they'll want to get some B-roll after...



Oh how I've missed you... heheheh.



Before we continue... let's talk Delta Grimer.









Delta Grimer and Muk are both pure ground type. Grimer only has two abilities... Sap Sipper (No damage from grass type moves, being hit by one increases power)... and Water Absorb (Hidden; Gets healed by water type moves).

Delta Muk has the same, but it also has a chance to have the "Regurgitation" ability. (Releases an additional 40 base power Dark, Grass, Water, Fire, Normal, or Psychic-type attack after successfully using an attack. The type of the attack is determined by the pokemon within the Delta Muk's mouth and cannot be changed.)

Delta Muk can, I guess, randomly have one of six different small pokemon caught in its mouth (Horsea, Bellsprout, Magby, Deino, Whismur, Natu). And those captured pokemon will add their $0.02 worth to attacks Muk does. Each one of them has a different front and back sprite as well.

























Putting all that aside, this is the another really fucking good Delta. Grimer's line is very physical-focused, and there's a really good chance that it'll be completely immune to one of ground's major weaknesses for the entire game. This also means that Delta Muk is a fucking terrifying Earthquake sweeper. I used it until the actual endgame in my first run and only replaced it with a pseudo-legendary ground type right before the Elite Four.

There's downsides, though. When you catch Delta Grimer, its move pool is, to put it bluntly, unusable. It knows the following four moves: Sand Tomb, Swallow, Spit Up, and Minimize. It learned Stockpile at 12, but thanks to how wild pokemon learn moves, that is straight out the window. The good news is that we catch it at 25, and at 26 it learns Bulldoze. If you have an ounce of curiosity in your bones, you've found at least one rare candy already... right out in the open.



That's enough of me gushing about Delta Grimer, however. As good as it is, I won't be using it in this run because I used it so much in my last one. I'm trying to keep things interesting!



The green haired lady is optional to talk to, and she only exists to give you hints and words of encouragement and praise.













I think that's enough dicking around. Let's end this update on a high note, huh?



Shuriken comes to the front for the gym.



the light of the sun!



Oh hey, what do you know... I've got both rock and water types on my team, and multiple ground types waiting in the wings if necessary!



Free fresh water the first time we talk to the gym hype guy in each town he's in!

way!



I'm gonna just give you the highlights here. These gym trainers are all around level 20 and solely use fire types, and our water type is 24. Take a wild guess how it goes.





Two routes to the gym leader and both sides have trainers up and down it. This wouldn't have been a bad place to train if I had thought about doing so.















Someone's a sore loser!







I used the overpowered water star to blow a beam made of bubbles at your fire monkey that was voted the single least popular pokemon in existence in a japanese-only poll.

He had a Simisear by the way.







One of this poor kid's pokemon was a numel. Water does really mean things to these regular trainers.





It's not often you see the exact point someone stopped typing for the night and then picked back up the next day.



This is something I love that Insurgence does. Each gym in the game actually has a designated arena in the back.



And up at the very top we find Orion with his white rock friend.

Gym.

: I'm pretty good with Fire-types, and my pokemon work together under the light of the sun!





You now have zero excuses for not picking up on what his gimmick is. He's running a Sunny Day team. This is your last chance to make any necessary changes before battling him.



: ...what? Oh... The rock, everyone wants to know about the rock.





: ...but whatever, that's not important right now. You want a battle, right? Let's get started!



: You won't stand a chance!





Courtesy of the Insurgence wiki. Let's see just what we're getting into here. The Vulpix and Larvesta are both designed to catch Water and Ground types unawares. Vulpix also instantly sets up an 8-turn Sunny Day that we can't prevent, which only makes the rest of Orion's team that much more dangerous.





If not for drought, Shuriken would have one shot the Vulpix and then run roughshod over most of the rest of his team. Instead...





My dumb ass forgets I have an Awakening in my bags.



So a sure thing becomes...







One-two wombo combo of Dream Eater and Energy Ball.



Janine is next up at bat.



I decide I've had enough playing nice. I'm gonna be an asshole instead.



A drought-boosted Flamethrower is a firm suggestion to try a different tactic.



It turns out that Janine is not substantially faster than Orion's Vulpix making Electro Ball a bad move here.



Dracolich is third up.



The poor Vulpix doesn't quite know how to handle a pissed off ghost dragon using STAB moves.



Has it been 8 turns already? Orion threw a potion at Vulpix, by the way.



Another Twister finally KOs the sucker. And thanks to accidentally stalling, Orion doesn't get his boost anymore.



Larvesta isn't necessarily strong against Dracolich by itself, but go back up and look at that overview. It has Ice-type Hidden Power, largely as a secondary counter to ground types. Dragons don't like ice very much...



It hurts, and Dracolich can't damage race it. But Twister has that flinch chance...



Like so.



Once the Sunny Day boost is gone, these Flamethrowers aren't very scary.



Dracolich is quite a trooper! He ate a supereffective Hidden Power and then a STAB Flamethrower without batting an eye.



Fletchinder is Orion's ace. This is what I've been holding Artix in reserve for. Just roll this phrase around in your mind: STAB 4x Supereffective Rollout.



Artix can tank Flame Charges all day. This one took off 8 health... out of 50.



Then the Fletchinder tries to recover health and Artix dutifully misses.



Acrobatics really hurts, even through her defenses.



Orion thought using Overheat was a grand idea. Sure it hurt Artix a bit, except...



Rollout hits harder.



duranduran doesn't get any supereffective coverage against Ivysaur, but on the other hand, he can tank hits from it all day long and not feel a thing.



It likes to use Sleep Powder, though.



This back and forth continues for a bit. duranduran wakes up, uses Fury Cutter, Ivysaur puts it to sleep, and then it uses Synthesis to recover HP while duranduran sleeps.



If you swept the Vulpix in the first round, instant Solar Beams would be kinda scary to face down. Instead...



16 HP is not the victory it sounds like.



Fury Cutter stacking up finally wears the Ivysaur down and...





We win!



I like this gym battle. It's difficult, but not overly so. If you're not prepared, or not paying attention to the numerous hints, Orion will run all over you. In any other pokemon game, he would be a good mid-late game gym leader.



Another thing Insurgence has over Reborn... you actually get the fucking badges when you beat the gym leaders.



A decent fire move is also a good reward!



poison-types!



Damn right I did!



That's actually a good place to leave off. This update has run on longer than I wanted to anyway, and there's a massive plot dump coming up as soon as we step outside.

NEXT TIME: Plot! Route 3! More Delta Types!