Part 29: Fight for Survival

Part 28: Fight for Survival

Route 226 Night



Nothing can stop you, Diamond and Pearl! Uh, ahem, welcome back to... the LP. Right.



Please stop kicking my ass.



My Pokemon... they're the first friends I ever caught. They mean everything to me!



By heck they have a new HM and they're gonna milk it by all its worth!



They sure introduced a bunch of shitty items that they'll have to endlessly place somewhere. And I'll have to endlessly find.



How do you do? I'm Stanley, and I'm a Dragon Tamer. What do you say we let our Pokemon have it out? Sound OK to you?



Silly tamer, that's not a dragon, that's a bird. Oh, the other thing is a dragon?



Most of the time, my Pokemon return to their Pokeballs right away. But sometimes, they just fall asleep on top of my head. That gets messy.

It seems to me, there's this certain image that goes with a Dragon Tamer. But me, I'd much sooner take it easy, take it slow, and take it my own way. I figure there's more than my style that I need to work on first.



Well that was a fun cliffside adventure. While I was just talking about special moves for Etrian, there's no way I'm getting rid of Wood Hammer, shit's cash.




Oh hey I was wondering where a PP Max was. This was hidden. Thanks.



Boy I hope you like fishing encounters, the Super Rod nets you so many different mons all across the region. Though since these are new routes, the Good Rod still has some alright stuff, the Old Rod is only Magikarp, of course.



This is why I keep Wood Hammer. Also because I shout BOOM, BABY! every time I do it.



I thought that everyone would be all dedicated to training out here. But most people are really laid back. It's not like what I imagined. I guess being with Pokemon, people get all mellowed out.



Weird patch of grass. Anyway, let's see what this house is about.



I'm the Meister. In this language's parlance I would be called a craftsman. Something like that, n'est ce pas? Comprendo? So, sniff, sniff, I smell you! I smell something about you! There is no question! You are a lover of Pokemon just like me! This is wunderbar! So, this is what I will do. I will power up your Pokedex so you can read the descriptions of Pokemon in other languages! Je suis desolee, but not for all Pokemon, however. Only the countries I, the Meister, have visited. Now, may I see your Pokedex? So, I change this setting here... fool with this here... and done! Now, you may read the descriptions of the Meister's Pokemon favourites in other languages. How uber!



Have you a Pokemon named FINNEON? C'est un Pokemon fish-style? If you would be so kind, trade it will you for my precious MAGIKARP? Oh! This is a tragedy! A tragedy, I tell you! But one day, you will trade me the Pokemon I want! The Meister knows this because I have traveled the world!



Japanese companies sure come up with some colourful characters, eh? Since we've got the GTS, or, uh, at least did, we can get Pokemon from all over the world and from many different countries. This guy seems pretty German, and we will get a German Magikarp from him, but in German versions of the game he's English and is called The Master instead. Hmmmmmmmm.

Anyway, in DP, he unlocked the ability for you to collect foreign Pokedex entries for 14 different Pokemon, Ekans, Pikachu, Psyduck, Ponyta, Staryu, Magikarp, Wobbuffet, Heracross, Sneasel, Teddiursa, Houndour, Wingull, Slakoth and Roselia. These entries could be obtained in Japanese, English, French, German, Spanish and Italian, with the foreign entries being the LeafGreen ones. This feature was expanded to EVERY Pokemon in Platinum, with all future games having this option from the start. The foreign entries in this game are from Diamond. We'll come back to trade soon enough, but we've still got quite the journey to go until the next town, so strap in.




The encounters are just super! Gotta fit 200 extra Pokemon into a region somehow.



Fish is flipping me off, please advise.



Well that was a horrifying attempt at a water route, let's pretend it never happened.



North is Stark Mountain, but there's plenty to do before we head there. Don't think this game is nearly over, oh god, I've recorded pretty far ahead... but there's still so far to go...

Route 228 Day / Night



I hate sand... but I LOVE this track! Definitely one of the best route themes, this series has their swirly dust music down pat.



Ah. Well, nevertheless...



Pokemon and numbers... who cares about that stuff? Winning is what's important. Numbers aren't everything.




It was beneath the desert sand that I toughened my body and soul. Accept my challenge! Uraah!



I thought I couldn't win before it became a fact... I've let down my Pokemon... they go to battle with faith in their Trainer...



You know Floatzel is fragile when this kills from full.



I feel invigorated from that battle, even though we lost. After all, we gave it everything we had.



Like the others, this route is a little winding, but we'll cover the right side first. Don't miss this little cave!



One by rock, one by ice, one by steel... whatever it means, I don't have enough Pokeballs.




It's not good enough for a Pokemon to just be tough. It's not good enough for a Trainer to just work hard. Both have to grow together!



Out of all these HMs, we haven't needed Defog in a while... well let's not think about it any further.



...very well. Let me reward your passion with some absolutely astounding moves. They're the ultimate moves! Shall I teach them to your Pokemon?

I would never sully my starter with these shitty moves. Okay, FRLG Vegeta was an exception, its other option was Giga Drain.




What else would you find on a pond in a swirling sandstorm?




And since we're in a pretty different biome, let's catch some more Pokemon! Hm, regional dex? What's that?



There's more to get, but that's what the rest of the route is for.



Everyone's mean to Skulletor...



Protecting Pokemon and nature. Think of what that means.

The world is full of Pokemon and all sorts of Trainers.



Cute.



Imagine if this series had a weight limit.



The planks connect up to the top of the route by the Dragon Tamer, but uh, it's faster to just head left to get through this route, I guess this is here so you can avoid trainers?




That is pretty yowch!




Thankfully that's the last trainer, battling in damaging weather gets very old.



Oh hey another hidden one. Thanks.



Wonder what's in the house, let's go fi- oh wait, there's no item to be gained, and that's the only thing I care about! Maybe there's some interesting info to be gleamed, but why don't I talk to every single NPC, huh? I'm sure you could discover some tantalising secrets if you played the game yourself.



Hrm.




Oh, hey, there's a regional Pokemon! See, I'm still working on the Pokedex! Honest, guv. Also since it took forever to appear, I stopped recording so I didn't have to skip a bunch of video (and also make the game run faster, my laptop is only so powerful), but then caught one without turning it back on. Whoops!

Route 229 Night



Alright, two routes down, here's the third! Surely we're nearly done, everyone's getting pretty tired.



I haven't seen a magic show in a millennium.



These are some rude Pokemon! Seem a bit familiar too...



Remember when we couldn't get seals? Haha good times.



Your love of Pokemon really shows!

I'll be happy to battle you again! Let's battle again sometime, yeah?

I grew up together with Felix and my team, right from my childhood. All our memories, we've always shared them.

Okay most of you are pretty confused, but this is in the game! These are Butler and Diane, the two antagonists from the sixth movie, Jirachi: Wish Maker. All 4 of Butler's Pokemon are split between the two, since Diane didn't have any Pokemon, but this is a weird anime reference they don't do again for a long time. Well, the localization didn't catch this and renamed them, but they have the same names in Japanese, so guess Doug isn't a movie fan. Honestly.



Routes so long I'm outta Quick Balls.



DP postgame items strike again!



nani



I suddenly remembered what it was like when I had my first battle. I wonder why that would be?



I wish I had a new nugget of wisdom to share with you, but alas, I don't! So, I'll have to make it up to you with this!



Oh, why not? Take another! It makes up for the wisdom I lack!



Those are my Nuggets! Try to spend them wisely! Nuggets of gold have to be worth more than nuggets of my wisdom!



These people are way too camouflaged.



Worth it.



Everyone can do their part to keep nature clean. It doesn't take much.



There's a fair few new mons on this route, but they don't fancy showing up.



Ugh, wow, what is this incredibly heavy sense of entitlement? Is it coming from that building?



More random surfing encounters. Masquerain is the rare one, so it won't be found.



Rod? Sounds like a dumb name for a character.



That's another route down, I've had enough, let's get all these Pokemon and split.




Alright, I think that's everything.



Oh yeah, there's a morning encounter too. This area was very different in DP, having Oddish and Bellsprout, as well as Scyther and Pinsir as version exclusives. I'm sure we'll find all of them before too long.

Resort Area Day / Night







Well that's a title. Who wants to own a shithole like this?



Oh, wait, no, no, no! It's not what you're thinking! This is no scam, see. In fact, you'll be doing me a favor! See, I was given this Villa. But, to be honest, I don't need it, either. So don't say a word. Just nod and this Villa is yours!

I've been poor my entire life, I know when something's too good to be true, people don't give stuff away for free, what do you think this is, a JRPG?!



Still, take advantage of dumb people and scam them out of everything they have!



The original owner was from Hoenn, see? The owner collected up all the rare stones of Sinnoh and went back home. I somehow got saddled with this place as if it were some gift. There's no figuring what rich folks will think of next. Still, I thank you for helping me out. Come with me, will you?



So, yeah, I know, it's barren. Still, not bad, eh? But anyway, I feel kind of bad just imposing the place on you for nothing. I'll tell you what, order a Table from this order form. That'll do as my thanks to you!



The furniture place's service is great. They're real eager for business. Look, they left another order form on the Table they delivered. Anyway, I'm finally rid of this Villa thanks to you. Now I can go back to traveling like I always wanted.



Woohoo, that's wicked awesome! You must be rich! Gimme something! OK, this is what I'm gonna do. I'll tell everybody you got a Villa!



Oh boy... so you can easily see from the DP map that the Villa is new to this game, and it's where you put all of your hard earned cash into. There's not much reason to, everything in this Villa is set and it takes a while to fill everything out. Hell, there's a fair few things that need to be unlocked by hitting random milestones, like hatching 30 eggs, walking 300,000 steps, or defeating the Elite Four 10 times. That is something you'll need to do, since buying everything in the Villa costs TWO POINT FIVE MILLION!!! There's absolutely no reason to grind this out, the best way to grind is rematching the Socialite pair on Route 212, who give 12,000 apiece, so with an Amulet Coin you get 48,000 every couple minutes. That's only FIFTY TWO REMATCHES!!!



The curved surfaces describe sublime lines of an indefinable charm. Here, allow me to give you this book I've been reading as a gift.

Hm! You look well. It's commonly accepted that Pokemon evolve to grow more powerful. There must be other reasons than that. I would like to know during my lifetime.



Cool. Some NPCs show up when you buy specific furniture, and you can be visited by a variety of Gym Leaders or other trainers once a day, they'll either be outside, or already here, or only show up when you walk to the left of the table. Some also interact in pairs, like Flint and Volkner, or Candice and Maylene, so the canonical couples, obviously. We'll come back here later, since of course there's plenty more to show off. But oh boy is it a bitch to actually legitimately fill this place out. Thankfully there's no reward for it.



Anyway, there's barely anything here aside from the Villa, so this place was even more worthless in DP.



Ooh, we have those, kinda.



This is an exclusive establishment open only to a select few. You might consider it a special stage for the cream of the crop. If you wish to enter, I suggest you start by collecting lots of Ribbons.

Simple enough, we need 10 different ribbons across the whole team. You don't have to enter a single Contest to do this, Etrian will eventually fulfil the requirement to enter all by himself. But let's just grab some Contest peeps, uh... after I remove the Ball Capsules, sigh...



I truly apologize for my rudeness. It's so out of character for me! If you would be so kind, we would be honored to invite you... oh, no, no! You really must join us as a fully-fledged member!



I do hope you will enjoy the luxurious atmosphere and services that only we can provide.



These ribbons are available only through us. Hikari, would you like one for a Pokemon, perhaps? Right now, I can offer you the Gorgeous Ribbon.



Yay ribbons. At least even though I've been catching a million things and blending up thousands of Revival Herbs, we're still swimming in cash.



Correction, were.



And there it is. The original money sink, just in case you really didn't have anything better to do with your time. Compared to the Villa this looks almost quaint, huh.



You can probably surmise that I'll hack all this fat cash in so we can buy them, cause why wouldn't I?



Our spa treatment will make your ETRIAN grow more friendly. Ah, yes. Right this way, please...



The salon's air is perfumed by an herbal aroma for relaxation. There. All done. Our treatment has made your pampered baby a little more friendly to you.

Alright here's the actual reason for coming here. This is the best friendship boost in the game, depending on what the woman says. A little more is +5, more is +10 and much more is +30, and you can even do this to Eggs! Of course, I'll still be shovelling Rare Candy into faces, but this is the best way, since the Veilstone massage is +3 always. Similarly, it can only be done once a day.



Okay I lied, here's the actual actual reason for coming here, in Plat. The Magikarp fished up with the Super Rod can be found from level 1 to ONE HUNDRED! I gave it a few tries, see how high I could get, and I reached the highest possible number.



Let's do the final trade in the game, they were pretty meh since there was a massive gap, but it's whatever, I never really care about these things.



That MAGIKARP, it accompanied me from the country of my birth. Be good to it, I beseech you! Because there are Pokemon, I can make friends anywhere in the world. It so inspires me knowing that. It's so wonderful in a wonderful way!




Truly, what a wonderful feature. But hey, I think we're all done here, next time, we'll- OH FUCK I FORGOT SOMETHING

Pokemon Gym



Um... I'm fine, thank you. I don't know how to say this, but... nothing...

Um... er... will you trade your Pokemon for mine? Really? Thank you very much! I'll be happy with any Pokemon!



Since she'll take anything, here's the Safari Zone Sandshrew I caught like, what, 4 years ago?




Phew, I remembered this about 2 years ago, figuring I'd do it for this LP, now I'll stop waking up in a cold sweat about it. So, right, next time, we're heading back to the mainland for lots of various reasons!