Part 36: The Ancient Tower
Hello everyone and welcome back. If you don't read the thread between updates, I want to apologize in advance. From here for pretty much the rest of the game, it's gonna be fairly edgy. We'll see the first bits of that starting in this update.
But for now, let's explore that old tower!
There's two ladders leading up here, but I don't actually think it's possible to get over to the other side.
This second floor requires Tesseract to proceed.
Do you see that small white thing near the ladder? That's some research notes.
more."
ow-..."We'll find a few more as we climb the tower, so let's press on.
You can probably make an educated guess about those cracked floor tiles. Anyway, more
can't walk away now!"At least these sound like they're fairly positive, instead of so-called "apocalyptic logs".
We got a bike a long time ago, and I promptly forgot about it because I run the game using 1.85x speedhack anyway. But for this section we need to turn it off and proceed on bike.
This was taken a split second before falling down. It takes a few tries to get through, but eventually we do. The only penalty for falling is going back down a floor. We don't get knocked off our bike, and we can even ride it straight up the ladders. So this isn't even all that annoying because you can just try again about 5 seconds later.
had caught my attention."
This is actually a tad annoying. The central pillar obscures the path forward, so you have to guess on how to proceed.
And the path is cracked to make it "better."
It takes a few tries to realize that you can ride up behind the central pillar.
the dragon I saw were to perish!"
This is the top floor! Ho-Oh is above us, but we have to be in the past to reach it.
had found my new Delta Species!"
greeng rass on its neck and chest."
The last page is right in front of us.
Delta Pokemon."
Noibat."
Gaea Town is strictly postgame-only. We need the Rock Climb replacement to get up there. Also those research notes were the first steps in the quest to get our own Delta Ditto whenever we get to Gaea.
On the way back down, a Mienfoo jumps out.
We have Centaurion, so we will probably never use it. But it's nice to have the option!
Let's take this egg over to Vipik City.
Aww, it's so cute.
Magnolia is not only a pretty name, but it's also a pretty good joke/reference.
Her attack potential isn't great, but that's okay. She doesn't need that.
If I'm showing her off, then I've already resolved to use her. But just for the sake of formality...
Delta Noibat and Noivern are Grass/Steel type. Noibat has Chlorophyll (Boosts the Pokemon's Speed stat in sunshine), Natural Cure (All status conditions heal when the Pokemon switches out), and Solar Power (Hidden; Boosts the Sp. Atk stat in sunny weather, but HP decreases) for abilities, while Noivern has Chlorophyll, Solar Power, and Flower Gift (Hidden; Powers up party Pokemon when it's sunny).
Honestly, ability doesn't matter to me because I'm not planning on taking advantage of any of them. While Natural Cure would have been nice to keep, the sunshine weather requirements for the others go against what Dracolich does. Thankfully, New Moon doesn't negatively affect any of these abilities.
As far as stats go, it's friggin' Noivern. We all know why this pokemon is great. Sure it evolves at 48, but that doesn't matter here. So yeah, long story short, welcome to the team Magnolia!
Let's get down to business!
The Audino trainer caps out at level 100. That was a level 80 Audino + a level 1 Delta Noibat + a Lucky Egg + Gen 6 XP scaling.
Five minutes later, she stops gaining levels from that first Audino. From 1-35 is amazing. Anyway, skipping ahead...
A Life Orb to make her hit really hard, plus Leech Seed to offset the detrimental effects. The only change I would make would be to change out Petal Blizzard for Giga Drain to further make the Life Orb a non-issue. I might also change out Flash Cannon for better type coverage, but I'm not sure what I would replace it with.
Now that we've got Magnolia, let's continue on.
: Such an odd place to have built anything at all. I can't believe people can live out here. Why is there a temple here, of all places?
: Ah, our guest of honor has finally arrived.
If you look really closely at the edge of the light circle, a few Giratina Cultists have appeared.
: What is this? Show yourself! Who on earth are you? What do you want?
: Me? Behind everything? What could you possibly mean?: I... I've been researching. I know where the First Augur, Adam's Crystal came from. I've looked into Persephone's past, which led me to Zenith and the Infernal Cult and what he can do. All of it ties back to you.: You've certainly done your research.: Are you cultists? Trying to catch Giratina?
: You've been playing us like pawns! You've been playing ME like a pawn!: Actually, I know you don't want to hear this, but...
: My intention was for the Infernal Cult to eventually overthrow the First Augur and secure the crystal for me. But no, you just had to interfere, didn't you?
: You're evil.: I'm surviving.: Stay away from me. Don't make me break the crystal.
: ...but I'll let you go. Your shard is nearly useless to me without the other two. And though I didn't care for you at first, you've slowly become useful. Enjoy your trip home, Jaern...
Do you guys also get the impression that was the end of one of the pre-release chapters?
There's not much on Route 14. It's an entirely linear path, and while there is a grotto here, there's nothing worthwhile in it. In fact, most of the items on the route require a Mew DNA power we don't even have yet.
pokemon in Torren!
Jennifer here is the first random trainer battle that's had the possibility to be dangerous to us since probably before the second gym.
Where's Daryl Hall? Or Garfunkel?
This route is really nice looking at least.
There's a railroad on an unreachable ledge above, and there's a large pedestrian bridge spanning the water below.
That's Rain Dance. Kinda odd that in this otherwise generous game, that it's locked until what is basically the end of the game.
dragons!
This guy is reminding me that I never finished Des2ny's story mode campaign.
Also he only had a single Dragonite, that Magnolia gave a bad day with Flash Cannon. It turns out that Petal Blizzard barely deals any damage. So that's not ideal.
Something about the bottom half of this route reminds me of that route between Suntouched and Metchi.
Poor Ace Trainer. Amy gives zero fucks about this lady trying to act cool.
Oooh. That's nice!
important to the Torren Region.
creatures while they made a home here.
people!
battle.
No. Bad scientist! No battle data! Stop propagating that stupid trope.
Garchompite is somewhere beyond this golden Manaphy statue.
end well.
again!
This is actually a good stopping point. I originally intended to keep going, but I didn't realize the Ancient Tower would take as long as it did. So we'll cut here.
NEXT TIME: The word on everyone's lips in Oranos seems to be "epidemic"