Part 45: Prion Town

Is this real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, we've escaped from reality.



Hello everyone and welcome back. We've touched down in the Prion Site. It's kind of a drab place, and nowhere we want to especially hang out.



There's a way out over here to the west, so let's see what's over here.



Hmm...



On second thought, let's not go west. Going this way is for losers.



The actual way forward is south into a town. Be warned, we're about to be thrown straight into a boss fight... and it will not be fun times.



: A dream sequence? How cliched can you get? Are we really doing this? And it's basically the nightmare realm, too. Everything's black and red, it's so edgy.

So what you're saying is it's your kinda place, Miss-wears-black-and-red-and-is-the-games-biggest-edgelord?



A flock of Drifloon with a Drifblim in the lead makes me nervous.

: I can't believe it. Of course this would happen. The one time everything's going right for me. The one time I had Darkrai... and under my control too. Unbelievable.



: Somehow, you're behind the reason I'm in your stupid edgy mind dimension. I'm gonna tear you to pieces, then find my way out of here. Consider this payback! I'm going to love every minute of this!





This is the final battle against Persepone. The Darkrai Cult will functionally cease to exist after this.



Unlike all the other cult finale fights, Persephone doesn't have an insanely powerful legendary on her side. The worst she has is just a bunch of extremely strong regular pokemon. No big deal, right?



No



Big



Deal



This is my seventh attempt at Persephone.





Mega Spiritomb, whatever.



Sucker Punch fails for reasons I'm still not entirely clear on. Don't really want to know, either.





The point is, Gateau is allowed to repeatedly smash her cake topping in peace.





And for the first time in all seven attempts, Will-o-Wisp actually misses. Meaning Gateau is free to...



Play Rough.





Hammer Arm mercifully misses.



And Metagross takes a lot of damage from Lava Plume as punishment.



Beeisel isn't as lucky the second time, but...



Persephone didn't heal, leaving us 2-0.



I should have mega evolved here and blasted Alakazam with Lunar Cannon.





Instead I let the Alakazam deal 3/4 of Dracolich's health with Shadow Ball while I waste a turn just making its ghost attack stronger.



So now we're 2-1 because I basically gave Dracolich up on a silver platter for no good reason.



I send Aragog out to take care of the problem and Persephone tries to hit its Ground typing with Energy Ball. It doesn't work, and Aragog returns the favor with X-Scissor.



The good news is that a 1 HP pokemon is a very tempting target for the trainer AI. We all know that Persephone is gonna slam that Full Restore right into Alakazam's head.



Like that.



This time, Alakazam is done because it doesn't have the Focus Sash keeping it around.



This is the Houndoom that murdered those Darkrai grunts at the start of the LP.



Super-effective STAB Life Orb-boosted Fire Blast. Aragog goes down in a single hit because somehow Houndoom is faster than Metagross.



Centaurion won't let me down, though.



Ouch.



Houndoom may be faster than Bisharp, but Drain Punch still one shot it.





I keep forgetting that Fairy moves, for some reason, are super effective against Fighting. It's one of those matchups that just doesn't make any sense to me. Anyway, Centaurion holds on by a thread.



Acrobatics is awesome.



Gateau is as safe as can be here.



I could have used Shell Smash, but there was no need.



4x weakness to Fairy is a bitch.



So you might be asking, how did I lose 6 times to her? Simple. Crits. I made that last run look easy because the RNG rolled in my favor consistently. I'm no expert on the subject, but super high level pokemon play seems to heavily favor massive alpha strikes. It's a game of "one shot or be one shot". There's lots of "lucky" crits and 10% additional effect chances coming up consistently.

It feels heavily weighted against you in major plot battles. The closer we get to the Elite Four, the more I notice it because of how often these moments happen. I could also just not be noticing when, like in the battle we just finished, the RNG rolls in my favor. It's also quite sad when "the RNG rolls in your favor" simply means the AI doesn't crush you like a bug.



: Losing and having nothing go right for me? What a brand new experience!



You and me both. There's the door. Don't let it hit you.

: I'll find my way out of here, I promise. And then, Amy, I'll find you. I'll crush you. So keep an eye out, Amy. I'm coming for you.



Good riddance.



Welcome to Prion Town. It's so small that there's no point in even posting a map.







It's such a pity this game doesn't pull some end of Martian Dreams shit, and let Amy create stuff out of whole cloth while in her dream realm.



Let's start with this guy by the exit.







Adam?







Amy's a celebrity in her own dream realm. It's such a cute touch.



To put it simply, Nightmare on Elm Street rules apply. If Amy whites out, then she's dead and everyone in the Dream Realm is just as dead.

for the better.

yet. I promised not to ruin it for you.



If we find this parchment, this nice man will give us a Bisharpite.



Instead of pokecenters, there's Chanseys in the dream realm.







the dream realm.













Delta Doduo and Dodrio are Psychic type. Their abilities are Compoundeyes (Boosts the Pokemon's accuracy), Trace (The Pokemon copies an opposing Pokemon's Ability), and Psycho Call (Powers up Psychic-type moves in a pinch).

You know how the Psychic-type is largely special focused? Well, Dodrio has 60 base SpAtk. It can learn Psycho Cut and Zen Headbutt, but it's just not enough. If endgame Insurgence weren't so brutally difficult it would be a different story. A psychic Dodrio might even be fun to use in any other circumstance.



Anyway, that's all we can do here, so let's move on.



Cortisol Road is a bit winding, but is still really linear. So no need to really post a map.







Fair.







You're better off not knowing.















Yeah, it kinda has that feeling, doesn't it?



See those stairs? There's another boss fight waiting at the top. So let's... not go up there.



The Dream World has a single hidden grotto, so let's peek inside.













Delta Chinchou and Lanturn are Ghost/Fire type. Their abilities are Flash Fire (Powers up the Pokemon's Fire-type moves if it's hit by one), Illuminate (Raises the likelihood of meeting wild Pokemon), and Levitate (Hidden; Ground moves miss).

Going by stats alone, it's not very good. But looking at whatever it learns, it feels like there's a specific strategy it's really good at that I don't get.



It's such a strange assortment of moves. It learns, by my count, moves from eight different types. Anyone have any insight?





Named for the enemy from Mario 3.



Alright, let's do this.





Howdy boys.

: ...we were doing so well, too. Persephone is insufferable. We tried to help her, bring her into our fold. It's a shame, really. Every person we fail to convert just makes our plan take longer to finish. And you see... I don't think we can exactly follow through with our mission of helping the world from down here.



: There's no easy way out, aside from using Darkrai's ability.



: This world can't survive without the person in which it resides. And if it's your dream realm, Amy...



: It's a shame, too, Amy. I would have loved for you to join us. Damian?



Please don't do this, Damian.



Damian has an extremely large number of different teams. He has one for each different starter, difficulty level, and time of day. I recorded this at like 8:30 PM, so...



I really hope when you're fighting his Deoxys, you aren't actually fighting him.



Oh boy. I don't think we have to worry about its Focus Sash.





I prepared ahead of time (meaning I reset when NATHAN got one shot) and gave him a Focus Sash too.



He's only got one job in this fight. It neuters the rest of Damian's team, but doesn't do much about this monstrosity.



I could have used a Full Restore on NATHAN and he still would have gone down. The damage was still done, though. Now I just need to get through the legendary.



It's pure Psychic-type, so...



Getting really fucking tired of legendaries taking my guys out in a single shot.



I'd have been better served to just have Dracolich smack its ass at Deoxys and save the mega evolution for Aragog.



Remember way back when I was talking about the Mega Rayquaza fight, and how it just kept 1-hit KOing my dudes in my first run? YEAH, IT WAS LIKE THIS.



Aragog has higher defense than Beeisel. Beeisel got hit with a supereffective Low Kick, while Aragog was only hit with normal effectiveness Psycho Boost.



Beeisel will not survive a second Low Kick, and this motherfucker's already swept through half my team. Two of my strongest couldn't so much as act before they instantly went down.

Do you see why I struggled to call the game good in the OP? Because of bullshit like this.



Because I guess the AI took pity on me, it used a nerfed Psycho Boost instead of kicking Beeisel to death.



On the "upside" Beeisel is now faster than it.



Iron Head hits hard when it's boosted like that.



Get fucked, asshole.





Here's the "funny" thing, no amount of playing better could have prevented this. The number of pokemon that are faster than a regular Deoxys is vanishingly small, and most of those are other legendaries. In fact, the only strategy that I see that could work would be to send out a sacrificial 'mon with Trick Room, armed with a Focus Sash.



Battle's not over yet, though.



Gateau can handle this Blastoise.







I said it for Hydreigon and it remains true for Delta Blastoise... 4x Fairy weakness is a bitch, innit?



Metagross is coming out and... ouch. Deoxys did so much damage to my dudes.



Need to look up if I can give NATHAN the Roar move. It wouldn't have helped here, but it may in a future battle.





Zen Headbutt hurts, but Centaurion is a tough guy, so he can take whatever this jerk can dish out.



Mostly because of Drain Punch, to be fair.



Livewire started paying dividends once it finally started to affect the enemy team.





Metagross is losing here and it's glorious.







Two words, Damian: "you lose."



Between Drain Punch and Acrobatics, Centaurion is probably the strongest pokemon I have on my team.





: You're quite a battler. It's a shame you never chose to join us. You would have been excellent.

Not that I would have, but you never asked, asshole.

: We could have saved the region in days.



: I sensed another legendary pokemon down here... perhaps they have a way to get out. Worse comes to worst, we could just... stay down here. The people down here are corrupt. This would be the perfect place for us to help...



: Let's go, Damian.



: Let's go, Damian.
: ... ... ...





: What are you doing? I said now. Yeesh, give a kid something to look after and their head grows three sizes.





NEXT TIME: Adam wanted to meet with us, so let's not keep him waiting