Part 56: Holon Marsh

Hello everyone and welcome back. Today we find ourselves in Settlement Oscar.



It's bordering four different biomes simultaneously. Back to the west is the grasslands, to the north is a lake, to the east is a marsh, and then to the south lies a desert. I don't think real geography necessarily works like that but whatever. It's not like the suitability of deserts is a thing the mainline game map designers take into consideration either!



Good to see you again, Amy! I've been examining the area... and it seems there are a couple directions we can go from here. There's a lake up north, but you need to be able to climb waterfalls to get up there. There's a marsh to the east and a desert to the south. Hmm... why don't you take the desert, I'll take the marsh?

Sure.

Afterwards, we can regroup and double-check to make sure we haven't missed anything. The desert's just south of here! Good luck!



We're totally going to the marsh next. It's an entirely optional area, but it does have some neat delta species to check out.



There are only four settlements, but you can use them to access seven different biomes! And each biome has their own rare and Delta Species poikemon. How cool is that?



If you can build a settlement on the cross section of three biomes- you'll have resources aplenty!

Why does that sound like a tip for Minecraft?







That famous evil guy? Well, there's only a handful of evil guys with weird hair...



But there's only one we can turn into.







Uh... neat?









We'll grab this later.



Tangela is one of those pokemon that I've always wanted to use, but never found the occasion to. Ever since I first saw it, I thought it was cool as hell.





Remember that Gastly we caught in update 3? I wasn't saving it for anything in particular, but...



















Delta Numel and Camerupt are pure Poison type. Their three abilities are Venomous (All poison inflicted is toxic), Poison Point (Chance to poison on attack), and Liquid Ooze (Hidden; Deals damage when leech life or absorb moves are used). Mega Delta Camerupt keeps Venomous. That means that Delta Camerupt is the only fully evolved pokemon that has Venomous as a non-hidden ability.

You're damn right we're gonna use him for a while. He even learns Corrode as a level up move. This guy seems awesome as hell.







His IVs leave a little to be desired, but IV stones exist so even that can be fixed. Maybe I'm putting too much emphasis on Venomous, but it's such a cool ability. I wish Delta Deino kept it, and Delta Purrloin could get it before the postgame.



We're still mostly set from the last time we bought stuff from Pine, but there is one thing I want to pick up for the marsh.



Honey. We'll actually need some here in a bit.



We'll also need the services of Hetfield the Gigalith once more. Why? Because he knows Headbutt.



Now that we're properly equipped, let's head into a marsh!



Before I show this map, I'd like to point out that this is at 1:4 size!



Holon Marsh isn't really a place you explore. You just kinda blindly wander around until you stumble across whatever it is you're looking for. Even if you kinda know where you're going, you never really know exactly where you are. It's not a great map because everything looks samey. And don't forget this is at 1:4 size.



Here's the entrance in 1:1. Now imagine trying to wander around in that when all you're seeing is 512x384



This is all you're ever going to see at one time. Even in the grasslands, things looked different enough that you could generally tell where you were at a glance. It's one of my few gripes about the otherwise excellent map design in this game.





Captain Kidd?











I'm just kinda wandering around. There's really no rhyme or reason to where I'm going.



This looks important.





Is that a Goomy?















Delta Goomy's line is Water/Ground type. Their abilities are Overcoat (Protects the Pokemon from things like sand, hail and powder), Water Absorb (Restores HP if hit by a Water-type move), and Gooey (Hidden; Contact with the Pokemon lowers the attacker's Speed stat).

This one seems like a weird gimmick. Water/Ground types only take normal damage from water anyway, so Water Absorb is a weird addition. Otherwise, it's Goomy. It has an absurdly high base SpDef, and can attack pretty much equally well with special or physical attacks. Also it's a pseudolegendary.

So, y'know, it's good. It's just deathly allergic to grass moves.









Fun fact, I once had a boss try to shame me for using an umbrella after he told me to go stand out in the pouring rain and direct traffic.







The flowers here are where we spread honey to attract another delta species.

and mess up my data!



You might recognize this woman's face, because I use it as Professor Pine's portrait. Otherwise she doesn't get one.





We have to reload the area for the delta to show up, so we'll get back around to it just before we're done in here.

















Delta Tentacool's line is Grass/Poison type, and their abilities are Regenerator, Poison Touch, and Overgrow (Hidden; Powers up Grass-type moves when the Pokemon is in trouble).

It actually has more weaknesses and fewer resistances than regular Tentacruel. It's still cool looking, but it's just not as good as the non delta version.





I had to



Why did you wear your nice pants into a marsh?





If you're this upset about your pants, you're in for a hell of a surprise when you realize your socks are just as caked in mud.







Amy's a child. There's just some wordplay you never use with kids, dipshit.



And now I've gotten lost. We've made a complete circuit around the area and I somehow missed at least one trainer.



Just north of that last guy was this guy.





Huh? (This is actually copied dialogue from a trainer in the desert.)



This tesseract rift will eventually lead us to another delta species.







Mega Poliwrath has No Guard (All attacks made by and made against this pokemon connect) for an ability. It's actually pretty good! The Insurgence dev team worked some magic with this sucker.





There's a bunch of items hidden around the tesseract rift.





The delta species is in the bottom right corner.





than answers.

My dude, you're probably gonna be trapped here in this marshy hell for the rest of your life unless a passing Celebi takes pity on you. Sadly we can't lead him back to safety.





The bottom left corner has a heart swap statue.

















Delta Froakie and Frogadier are both grass type. Delta Greninja is Grass/Fire type. All three have Steadfast (Boosts the Speed stat each time the Pokemon flinches) and Prankster (Gives priority to a status move) as abilities.

Delta Greninja is pretty usable. It's fast as lightning, and its base attack is 8 points lower than its base spatk, meaning it can use both pretty equally. You can also absolutely pull some bullshit with Prankster.







Could be useful.



Anyway, that's all we can do back here.



Somewhere in the middle of the real world, we find this item.



And thankfully the tesseract rift counts for reloading the area, so...











Delta Yanma's line is Grass/Flying type. Yanma has Adaptability (Powers up moves of the same type as the Pokemon), Leaf Guard (Prevents status conditions in sunny weather), and Natural Cure (All status conditions heal when the Pokemon switches out) for abilities. Delta Yanmega, on the other hand, has Chlorophyll (Boosts the Pokemon's Speed stat in sunshine) instead of Leaf Guard.

It's still got the same number of weaknesses and resistances as regular Yanmega, the types are just shuffled around some. I guess it would still be good? Maybe?







Anyway, that's all the damage we can do in the marsh.





That black belt wanted us to find his embarrassing stuff. It's around this red rock.



I don't think that was it...

According to the wiki...


And according to the items list on the wiki...




Shit ain't here, captain.



I actually had to look this up in RPG Maker because I couldn't find it for anything. The embarrassing stuff is found two tiles above the boulder's interact point, and all the way west against the cliff face.



Don't forget that hidden items in Insurgence can only be found from one particular direction. So you have to come from the east to find it. At least the wiki editors aren't mixing up right and left again.









We could have gotten Deta Scizorite before we even got a mega bracelet. So why is this found here?



And... that's actually all for now!

NEXT TIME: The Holon Desert and its pyramid of intrigue!