Part 11: Metchi Town

Hello everyone and welcome back. Thanks to hard drive failure, I lost all the files relating to the LP. All I have left is the game, the save file and a list of out-of-context URLs pointing at every image I've taken. As a result, this update is going to be kind of content lite, because so much of what I did I can't really recreate. If you want the TL;DR: we fought through Route 3 and entered the next town where we fought Nora.

You've now been caught up and can go about your day. For the rest of you interested, allow me to try and recreate the journey I took...



First off... Shuriken, Janine, Artix, and Zucchini all get benched.



Janine and Artix join the "Hall of Heroes" as reward for their invaluable service. Janine for being the only remaining of the original pokemon that I caught, and Artix for serving her role as "counter to the first gym" admirably.



Surfing in Insurgence works the same as in other...





This is a bug that has been known about for years and has been planned to fix "in the next update" since at least 2017 if not earlier. "The next update" has yet to materialize. For what it's worth, this bug didn't surface in my original playthrough. But now instead of a Lapras sprite, we have a bald underwear-clad female player character ferrying us around on the water like an extremely creepy Charon.

I'll try to minimize the number of times we have to see this, because Jesus Christ.

Because there's not much to say about Route 3, let's talk about the trainers that appear on it.





Camper Joey talks about shorts being comfy and easy to wear and equates them with battle prowess.





Ruin Maniac Robin takes losing in stride.





Bug Catcher Ingram is a bug catcher, but is terrified of "real bugs" which raises all sorts of questions.





Sailor Buckbeard is talking about an area in a later route called "Maelstrom 9." He claims it's so deep that nobody has ever seen the bottom.



Just north of the sailor man is a path with some out of place trees.





This man here wants a Steel type pokemon. In return, he is offering his Scyther.













Delta Scyther is Ice/Fighting type... moreso the former rather than the latter. This is part of the problem with it. Ice is a very special-focused type, though it does have some physical moves. However, Delta Scyther and Delta Scizor don't learn a lot of fighting type moves, so you just have to rely on your impressive stats to carry you instead. Both have BSTs of 500, just with the stats shuffled.

It learns Vacuum Wave by default, Low Sweep at 21 and then nothing else fighting-type until Cross Chop at 53, and then Close Combat at 61. For Ice-type however, it learns... Ice Shard by default, Haze by default, Ice Ball at 25, Blizzard at 33, Hail at 37, Icicle Crash at 41, and Icicle Spear at 49. It also learns Psycho Cut and Night Slash both at 45.

You're starting to see the problem here. The last physical Ice move that either of them learn is the same move that I benched Anatomy for knowing because it's so terrible. Icicle Spear and Ice Shard are the only Ice moves it learns with 100% Accuracy. Then on the Fighting-type side, you're stuck with Low Sweep for so long, and the "replacements" are all 5PP wonders.

As for abilities, Scyther can have... Hustle (Attack +50%, Accuracy -20%), Ice Cleats (Speed x2 during Hail), or Super Luck (Hidden; Crit +1 stage). Scizor can learn Scrappy (Can hit Ghost-type with Normal or Fighting moves), Ice Cleats, Super Luck. As you can see above, Scizor also has a Mega Evolution. Mega Scizor goes up from 500BST to 600BST and gains Adaptability (STAB becomes 2x instead of 1.5x).

Honestly, I'd pass on it. I used one in my first playthrough from this point until just after the 3rd gym, where I benched it and never looked back. It's not terrible, it just has too many problems to be worth using in my opinion. For what it's worth, you need to trade Scyther while holding a NeverMeltIce to evolve it, which is a nice touch.

The one we have also has an Attack IV of 3. Not a great look for a physical attacker.



Moving on, there's a semi-hidden path over here.



It's a little more clear when standing up here. Just follow the path all the way back...



The honey for that sidequest was sitting here. If we wanted, we could go back to Suntouched City to finish the event and maybe catch another Delta pokemon.









This is Delta Aipom, and it's Ghost/Normal type. It's a physical attacker and it seems that most of what it learns are Status abilities. Great...? It's stuck using Astonish and Fake Out until 18 when it learns Fury Swipes. It gets Shadow Punch at 22 and then proceeds to never learn another physical Ghost move ever again. It evolves when it levels up knowing Double Hit (which it learns at 32). That's the last Normal STAB it gets.

On the upside, it's only weak to Dark-type moves. But then you're using something not very good at all.

As far as abilities goes, Aipom can have Cursed Body (Randomly disables moves used against it), Rattled (Bug, Dark, and Ghost moves increase its speed. Multi hit moves increase it for each hit), and Technician (Hidden; Damage of 60BP or less moves increased by 50%). In addition to Cursed Body and Technician (again... hidden), Ambipom can also have Infiltrator (Moves pass through barriers and substitutes).

Technician could make it usable, but don't forget that Hidden abilities are only available in the postgame. Hard pass.

Moving on...





Insurgence keeps asking questions and not presenting answers to them. Does it really matter why fairies are immune to dragons?



Between the sailor and this scientist lady there's also some more toxic sludge. Beyond it is the TM for Rest.



Just past the scientist and a trainer I skipped for some reason, we have Metchi Town. I've been anxiously waiting for the LP to get to this place because it's here where the grind finally dies.



In any other RPG this would be inviting disaster. But here it's actually true. Nothing ever happens here and nothing ever will.





In one of the houses, this man offers to sell us an egg for $3000. This will pop up in many of the towns from now on, and I'll try to call attention to it where I can. This is a Marill egg.



Secret Bases, unlike in RSE and ORAS are actually worth a damn in Insurgence.





More questions that Insurgence brings up but chooses not to answer.



This lady gave us TM57, which is Charge Beam. Handy!



The game does its damnedest to push you toward getting a Secret Base.





Neat!



Speaking of Nora, she ambushes you once you cross the bridge and insists on a battle.



This is her team because we picked Delta Charmander at the start. We don't really have a good counter to Steel or Ghost, but everything else... Celebi is her ace here, and it didn't even get a chance to act because duranduran slammed that 4x weakness with Bug Bite, which he learned sometime during Route 3.

After we beat Nora, she informs us that she took the liberty of telling Damian about both Mew and Celebi. But she couldn't be bothered to tell him to keep his mouth shut. So she asks us to track him down in Vipik City to the South and tell him to keep quiet. Because she "has other things to do."

You can see where this is obviously going.





Part of me wants to tell the game to go fuck itself and part of me wants to chuckle because that's actually kinda funny.



To the best of my knowedge, I've never run across them. So no idea.

From the Kanto Region...

Why?

Oh, by the way, see those trees in the background? Those are berry bushes. Now you know.



This person gave us a Focus Band. It's nice, but I'll never use it.



This person has five very full text boxes about nothing that ends with a sales pitch about how we need to buy a Secret Base. NPCs like him always annoy me because they keep talking when you want them to shut up and go away because you got the point they were making two sentences in.











We'll head that way next time. For as important as Metchi town is (to me) there isn't much to do here. This town is also the cause of some really weird slowdown. It's fine if you aren't using speed hacks or turbo mode, but if you activate either, it slows way the fuck down.



This lady gave us a Destiny Knot, which is cool.



Then finally across the river to the southwest of town is the daycare. We might make use of that later, but not without first vsiting Vipik City...



To the far east of the town is this unassuming little grotto.



When we first talk to him, this guy gives us a massive sales pitch about Secret Bases, and then finally offers to sell us one at $5,000. For the love of all that is good and holy take him up on that offer!

He'll ask you to pick a theme. I picked Forest because it's the default and looks nice.





The default normal sized base is way too big. It's larger than the town we started the game in! It's larger than Metchi Town! However, in the far back there's this little exit.



This is the much-lamented Friend Safari. It only works in the full-sized bases. There's also mini versions that are just a single screen in size, but thanks to some uknown bug, the safari simply doesn't work.



That's... unfortunate. Each Friend Safari only has 3 slots. One is unlocked by default, one is unlocked when you beat the 6th gym, and the last unlocks when you beat the Elite Four. One of our slots is wasted on something we could have from practically the start.



Our Safari is Dark-type, which could be cool. My first game had Steel-type, which is also pretty cool.

I've also confirmed that Safaris are one of the few online features that kinda work. I can't upload mine for you all to come invade, but ones that already exist can be visited just fine. It's kinda like Time Capsules in Subnautica in that regard. I could make a list of every pokemon that can be captured via Friend Safari, but it's a gigantic list, and some of them are kinda game breakingly good.

There's only one pokemon I'm going to capture in that way and it's specifically to act as a counter some Hot Bullshit later in the game. Otherwise our first chance to get one will be immediately after that bullshit and fuck that.



Before I went onto Route 3, I spent some time capturing some pokemon. So let's go over what I found!





I never actually intended to catch this thing. A 1% encounter rate pokemon jumped out at me while I was trying to find a 30% encounter.





Speaking of which, this is azren the Piplup. He's yet another potential candidate to be a counter for that bullshit much later in the game. I still haven't yet worked out exactly how I'm going to tackle it yet, and it's a good 50-60 hours of gameplay away anyway.





I learned after the fact that Crosspeice already had a Nobunaga in his Emerald LP, but I think it fits for the actual samurai pokemon too!





I know it's not very good in the end, but I have a soft spot for the Lotad line. Pineapple Duck is such an out there concept that you just have to like it.





The reference I was angling for fell flat when I remembered that this is an Axolotl. But Muddy is a good name for it regardless!





Then finally we have Maneater the Totodile. And if you think that I'm going to stoop to linking Hall & Oates... then you're right.

We've also got some other friends too.





Here's the cake crab. Are you all happy now? Gateau is the nickname from the original trainer, and I can't change that. Even if I could, I wouldn't want to. Sometimes simplicity is best.





HenryDavid the Throh took 15 great balls to catch. Those stats are goddamned amazing, however and well worth the expense.





Thundervolt has the potential to on the lower end of middle of the road. I've never used an Electivire before, however. So maybe we can make something neat out of her.





Bitey has a nice potential. However his level up moveset is dire as hell. It's a fucking cat leopard and it doesn't learn Bite. What the hell, Gamefreak? Bitey won't be on the team by the end of the update.



The man out front will let you swap out your Secret Base's theme with another free of charge. I decide to use the mini forest theme, and it's a lot nicer. Now... let's actually cover what makes Secret Bases so nice.

In addition to the usual decoration shenanigans, we can hire fourteen different employees for differing amounts of money.

Day Care Agent - If your daycare pokemon have eggs, this old lady will give them to you so you don't have to return to Metchi Town.
EV Resetter - Resets specific EVs of pokemon
EV Trainer - Per the wiki... "Helpful in EV training Pokemon by using specific Pokemon in battle to distribute the designated EVs. Costs $1300 per battle."
Fossil Maniac - Revives fossil pokemon for no charge and with no waiting
Flag Guy - You know that flag minigame from RSE and ORAS? Yeah, it's back. Whatever.
IV Changer - If you have an IV stone, this guy uses it to max out the specified IV of a pokemon.
Mart Worker - Sells whatever a pokemart does.
Move Deleter - Deletes moves
Move Relearner - For the cost of one Heart Scale, can teach your pokemon any move it once knew.
Name Rater - Change nicknames
Nurse - Free healing!
Pokegear Upgrader - Upgrades your pokegear to have a jukebox and to let you fight certain trainers on demand
Pika Taxi Guy - Travel from your secret base to anywhere on the map

LEVEL TRAINER

The level trainer is the big one. It's the reason I've been pushing through the terrible grinding.



The redhead is the level trainer. I'll let him explain himself...











You read that right. This is a trainer with 3 Audinos, and they're available in level increments of 10. We have 1 badge, so we have level 10 and 20 Audinos available. The more badges we have, the higher level we can train to. Once we have all 8 badges, he caps out at level 100 Audinos, which is way more than enough for story mode.





Thundervolt is a traded pokemon and is level 4. This fight would normally not be in her favor except...



The Audinos only know Healing Wish. It's a move that instantly KOs them.



So our cute little level 4 Elekid...















A single level 10 Audino jumped our level 4 Elekid ahead 11 levels. This guy has 3 of them.



The third Audino can't use Healing Wish, because the move fails if it's the last one. So it can't defend itself as a level 13 Purrloin slowly scratches it to death.



Grinding is officially over. In no time at all I can take literally any pokemon and forge it into something usable. This recording is just over 45 minutes, including walking through Route 3. The actual "level grinding" part is approximately from the 15 minute mark to the 45 minute mark.

In half an hour, I turned



this...



into this.

So let's close out the update by going over the new team. Remember, it takes literally no effort to change anyone out and train up their replacement. I have nothing but time and a growing podcast backlog.





duranduran is gonna continue to be a valued member of the team. Some day he will join the Hall of Heroes, but it is not this day.





Thundervolt is gonna evolve in a single level. She's already blisteringly fast, and that's only gonna get better as she goes.





HenryDavid has a lot of potential, and I can't wait to see how he fares against some stuff.





Chompy Boy is back on the team, offering some Water and Dark coverage. If I'm not mistaken, he's nearly ready to turn into a Sharpedo. He won't be able to mega evolve until after the 7th gym at the earliest, sadly.





Dracolich replaced Twister with Dragon Breath, but otherwise remains the same unmovable force of nature.





Finally the meme herself. I'm still not sure how to best use Gateau. I should probably replace Chip Away with Return and just coast with that, because STAB Return is a beautiful thing. Otherwise I'm curious how she's gonna work out as well.

And that's the team as it stands now!

Looking ahead, we have Route 4 and Vipik City with the second gym. So let's cover the new stuff.

Route 4

Abra
Ponyta
Doduo
Cyndaquil
Hoppip
Skiploom
Minccino
Furfrou
Delta Ralts

Route 4 (Hidden Grotto)

Squirtle
Poliwhirl
Panpour
Delta Sunkern

Route 4 (Old Rod)

Staryu
Barboach

Route 4 (Surf)

Mudkip
Wingull
Mantyke (5%)
Ducklett (4%)
Frillish (1%)

Vipik City

Togepi Egg ($2500)
Sneasel (Trade Floette)