Part 13: Vipik Gym

So, here we are in front of the second gym. I wasn't looking forward to doing this boss fight and now I'm sure as hell not looking forward to covering it.



First off, here's the gym guide guy.

Welcome to the Vipik City Gym!











Xavier's platform is just up here. But in order to reach it, we have to go through the second worst type of maze.



The inside of each tree trunk is dark and more than once the path splits. I don't think flash is a move in this game, and the replacement item won't be found for a while more. So how do we navigate the maze? See the sides of the little light circle? You can juuuust barely make out the edges of the path. It's only ever 3 tiles wide, so as long as you can see both edges of the screen you're fine. Yes, it's a fucking terrible gimmick.





Because I kinda remember where to go, we're going right at the T intersection in one of the images above. Can't you see it? It's plainly right there.



Each of the trees like the one we're standing in front of is another underground entrance. So you just have to keep a mental map as you go through the area.

you have to say about it!





Part of me is thinking that it's awful early to be learning Flamethrower, but level 30 is firmly the midgame in any other pokemon title. Here, we're in the second gym of eight!



Flamethrower replaces Incinerate and now Infector is perfectly positioned to take on the gym leader.



Right...



Anyway, random choice says we're going right first.



This is yet another T intersection. We go left here.











I want to give a shout out to Avery's Shuckle. Despite being burnt, he still went forward with his Power Trick idea. It takes guts to swap Shuckle's impressive defense and its pathetic attack around, when the attack already is taking a 30% penalty.



You might call me crazy, but I'm not learning Solar Beam here. This gym is Infector's time to shine, and grass moves are pretty much useless against bug and poison types.



Sure thing, kid.



Anyway, back in the tree and over to the other side of the intersection.



Welp.



Let's try the other tree.



It's a straight shot through.



Like I said, as long as you keep a mental map of where you've been and where you need to go, this isn't a difficult gym gimmick.



Would you believe that I specifically sought you out for a battle?





She had a team full of poison types, and I'm using Zucchini. Anyway, there's nothing else in here, so we're now done with the right side of the first intersection.



Chompy Boy, as it turns out, is an equally bad idea to bring into this gym. Lots of bug types wanting to put a hurt on a dark type...





Seriously. Xavier is a lowkey pothead.







Random choice says let's take the lower tree first.



It's yet another straight shot across.



Fuck off.





At 31, duranduran replaces Bite with its bigger, meaner brother.



No really. Fuck right the fuck off with that Arceus worship crap.



This tree doesn't have a knot, so I guess that means this is a dead end.



I'm going to take this healing opportunity to swap out Chompy Boy for another ace in my pocket.





But first he should probably evolve.



No.





Some pretty nice gains all around! I'm looking forward to using him more, especially in the upcoming routes.





Clarence will be tagging in for the leader fight.



Moveset could use some work, but I've seen worse.



Rage is a terrible move, but Return is a really good one that will only get stronger if we use Clarence more after this.





Clarence is a little underleveled, but it should be fine. Famous last words, those.



I didn't see it at the time, but the path in the tree splits again. I went down, but presumably up went to another trainer.





Fuck. My first playthrough, I used the level trainer to take my team all to 35. I was also running a Ponyta on my team, who I then used all through the gym to take out the trash trainers. By the time I had gotten to this point, that Ponyta was a Rapidash. So I had something much faster than all of Xavier's team hitting him stupidly hard for weaknesses. I rolled right over them.



This time? My team is in the early-mid 30s, and nobody is higher than 35. Xavier's team is all between 33 and 35. duranduran, somehow the lowest leveled member of the team, will be going up first.

: What's good? The name's Xavier.



: You here to battle? Sweet!





: Let's get started!





Xavier is not Insurgence's best sprite work. I can't decide if it's his absolute mountain of John Deere Green hair or the fact that he's like twice as big as every other sprite in the game... but something is off about him. Anyway, let's actually look at his team.



I shamelessly look up what these teams are beforehand so I can make plans. Shuckle will be first up which is why duranduran is going out first. Steel will hit for supereffective against Rock. Likewise, Zucchini is here to counter the Croagunk. However, the two biggest threats on the team are the Haunter and the Beedrill. The Beedrill is not only custom built to counter whatever it's weak to, but it can mega evolve! The Haunter, meanwhile, just hits like a runaway train.

So let's get started.



And by "get started" I mean show a greatest hits reel.













I reset the first attempt at the fight when it became clear I wasn't going to win. It took half of my team to take out half of his and things were steadily going downhill. Next up was his Tentacruel, and I had serious doubts about Zucchini's ability to handle it, despite its weakness to psychic.



The second attempt starts out well!



I expected this to happen.



This, however, I didn't.



Clarence is a pretty good answer to the Beedrill, so that's a solved problem for future attempts. If I had taken him up to 34 or 35, he would probably outspeed the Mega Beedrill and would one shot it regardless. Instead, he takes it down to 1 HP with a supereffective STAB attack. Not bad for a 4 level difference, especially when the other side is mega evolved.



The Beedrill is Xavier's ace. However, this Haunter caused me more problems than anything else he had.



Haunter is hitting really fucking hard with Shadow Ball. Even when it's neutral, he one shots most everything on my team.



If Crunch could have landed, duranduran would have torn it apart. Instead she never got a chance to act.



Clarence goes down and with him, my chances at victory.



Thundervolt trades with Haunter and eventually emerges victorious, but it was not a good exchange.



I spend too many turns setting up with HenryDavid and Heracross takes him out.



Game over. I lose.



This is the fifth attempt. The others died at various points in the battle, but none were as interesting as the second.





duranduran takes out the shuckle across something like 9 turns. It attacked with rollout once, and spent the rest of the time using Curse and trying to repeatedly lay down Sticky Webs.





Rather than send Clarence in, possibly to his death, I elect to leave duranduran in against the Beedrill.



Thanks to duranduran being a beast, she very nearly takes out the Mega Beedrill. She only falls flat at the end when it combines its stupidly high attack with STAB X-Scissor.



Knock Off was probably not the smartest choice for the Beedrill to use. Clarence wipes the floor with it.



Croagunk is screwed here, so moving on...



There's no good answer here. Clarence can hit the Haunter pretty hard with Pursuit, but...



It's a familiar story.



Infector barely holds it together against the Haunter. Neither was hitting for supereffective damage, but they were both special attack powerhouses.



I thought this was a solved issue. I was wrong. I forgot that Tentacruel is a fucking wall.





Supereffective STAB damage did that much. Yeah.



Zucchini hits it as hard as he possibly can.



By the way, this is a thing for both Tentacruel and Haunter. Just that little extra "fuck you."



By the way, that wasn't regular poison. That Tentacruel was going below the belt as hard as it could.



I call bullshit on this, by the way. On poison damaging your pokemon if they stay in battle after KOing something.



HenryDavid takes the Heracross down to half HP and then succumbs to Toxic.



Oh fuck me.



Victories don't get much more clutch than that...







I can't believe I won.



: That's called Mega Evolution! It's pretty impressive, right? Maybe one day you'll get to do it too...











Please no. I don't want to. You can't make me!





I'm going to have to go, aren't I?



Leader with gym based around the sky uses dragon pokemon. Film at 11.



Seriously... how the fuck did I pull that off?





with me.









Fucking hell Nora. This is your fault and now we have to pick up the pieces.

of the town.

Anyway, that's it for now. With the second badge, a bunch of shit opens up. So...

For Sale in Pokemarts Now

Ultra Ball
Hyper Potion
Revive
Super Repel

Vipik Dump

Grimer
Gulpin
Stunky
Venipede
Trubbish

Crossroads

Growlithe
Weepinbell
Ditto
Kecleon
Fletchling

Crossroads (Surf)

Slowpoke

Route 5

Roselia
Luxray
Glameow (10%)
Servine
Cottonee (5%)
Floette

Route 5 (Surf)

Croconaw
Prinplup

Route 5 (Fishing)

Seadra
Lanturn

Samsara Cave

Machoke
Graveler
Riolu
Boldore
Delta Pidgey

NEXT TIME: The Vipik Dump!