Part 30: Mainland Mechanics

Part 29: Mainland Mechanics

Surfing



Alright, alright, we're not heading to the mainland yet, there's still a shitty water route to blow past first.



Seeing a Pokemon use Surf to carry you out on the sea... it strikes an emotional chord with me somewhere deep down.



Ow, kinda.



I wanted to be alone, but swatting away immature boys on the prowl... well, my Pokemon grew tough without me really even trying.



Like it never gets as bad as Hoenn, obviously, but man there's not much to these routes.




You ride atop the waves while riding a Pokemon! And you rode right over me!



Hrm, dunno what these ice seals are doing in this tropical area that is of the same northern latitude of a snow blanket, but uhhhh, gulf stream?




At least there's something to distract us. Just assume to get to an item we need to smash a rock. It seems weird to carry around a garbage move like Rock Smash around for the ENTIRE GAME, but such is Sinnoh.



And hey guess what, there's even more Pokemon to catch here. Weirdly enough, the evolved forms are pretty damn rare, while Oddish and Bellsprout are pretty common during night/day respectively. Yet I still found the 5% first.




Like seriously, what the heck?



Because you could also find these mons on Route 229 in DP, there was very little reason for coming here, so it's good they shook up the encounters there. And by that I mean removed the repetitions, there were a LOT of Pokemon on that route.



Alright back to this...



I don't remember all the various seals on random trainers, it's been a nice surprise.



I've grown with my Pokemon, too. My swimsuit's getting a little tight...

Being a good swimmer doesn't make me any better as a Trainer...



Alright, we're basically done here, let's just see what's biting. Oh? This one seems a little heavy, but I've traversed an entire country, my arms are JACKED!



Just reeling up a 900 pound whale, what of it?



Yeah, this is less impressive.



There we go, that's a full loop. Obviously Stark Mountain is important, but there's a fair few things on the mainland that we need to go over eventually. If you thought we were nearly done with the postgame, oh no, oh nonononononono.



Gero gero, we're just getting some supplies, gotta have some balls after all, but we'll be back here later.

Pal Park



Pokemon from around the country can be brought here. In other words, Pokemon from places like Kanto and Hoenn. This place also happens to be where you compete to see how quickly you can catch those Pokemon! It's good to see you've come to join us for a visit. Let me make a gift of this Trainer Counter app for your Poketch.



I plan to be in Eterna City for some time. Being here, I should make the best of my time studying the Pokemon of the Sinnoh region.



Trainers and Pokemon are so full of intensity here! I've never seen some Pokemon. Would you show me if you had one? Let me see... a Pokemon that does nothing but eat and sleep. What was that Pokemon's name now...? Oh, it's on the tip of my tongue!



It's a head-on clash of will and wits between Trainer and Pokemon. I especially look forward to seeing Pokemon from Kanto and Hoenn. But it tugs at my heartstrings to know they're so far away from home.

Poke Radar!



As I figure out how the get the Pal Park working, because I can show that off, let's go over the Poke Radar. The app we just got just shows the longest streaks we've done for a specific Pokemon. I'll go into more detail at the end of the update how the Poke Radar works, but you want to be in a large patch of grass so you have the best conditions to chain a specific mon.




Defeating or catching the Pokemon will continue the chain, with catching resulting in a slightly better chance of encountering the same Pokemon again. There are lots of factors to keeping a chain going, such as grass animation, how far the shaking patch is, and whether the game can even spawn a shaking spot.



Without knowing all these factors, which are not told to you at all, keeping a chain is very, very difficult.



It's very important, since there's a LOT of Pokemon that can only be found via this method. And as the chain gets higher and higher, the chance of you finding a shiny Pokemon can get as high as around 1/200 for a chain of 40 or higher. If you think that sounds like fun, well I think I'm crazy enough to let you guys vote on which Pokemon you want me to hunt.

Regardless, on basically every route there's now a new Pokemon to find, such as: both Nidoran, Nidorina, Nidorino, Venonat, Venomoth, Mankey, Primeape, Slowpoke, Grimer, Tauros, Sentret, Togepi, Mareep, Flaaffy, Hoppip, Sunkern, Wobbuffet, Stantler, Smeargle, Tyrogue, Miltank, Poochyena, Swellow, Kirlia, Nincada, Loudred, Aron, Torkoal, Baltoy and Bagon. And there's still multiple more ways to obtain other Pokemon. Also notable is Ditto, Trapinch, Larvitar, and Skiploom are DP only, well some are version exclusives, like Larvitar to Diamond, and Slowpoke to Pearl.



But enough about two methods of catching Pokemon, how about a third? Ya like dongles?



On a DS or DS Lite, not the DSi and on, you can put in the 5 Gen 3 cartridges in the bottom and any Gen 4 game will read them! There's more to them in DPP, since there's only really the Pal Park in HGSS, but you can send over 6 Pokemon, items and all, but no HMs, to come have a new home in Sinnoh or Johto. Seems going to Orre wasn't enough for these lot!



The Pal Park is split into six different zones and all 386 Gen 3 Pokemon have a specific area they appear in, so that's something you have to puzzle out.



But that's all there is to it, Park Balls are reskinned Master Balls, so they skip the catching formula, nor do they replace the Pokeball your old Pokemon were in. Indeed, in DPP, you can't even hack them in as they're not an inventory slot, HGSS introduced them as such, though they can't be used in regular battles.



Ranmaru was also in the Field area, while Calbrena was in the Forest.



Then Cold Gregg and Wargreymon were in the Mountain area, and for Water types you might have to guess if they'll be Pond or Sea.



Pond, btw, you get a berry depending on how good your score was, which is calculated from three things: the average time between each capture, the overall time it took, and the type of Pokemon caught, as in rarity. You get standard berries up to 3000 points, the healing with flavour berries up to 3300, the Poffin berries up to 3500, and then the rarer Poffin berries past that. All the berries can be obtained otherwise, but it's a nice reward I suppose.



I wish you would take this "Sky" Backdrop. Please try using it when dressing up your Pokemon with Accessories.



It's so dreamy... Sinnoh sets my heart aflutter.

While not specifically related to catching shows, this lady will give you a backdrop for the Hoenn games, or an Accessory, Crown or Tiara, for the Kanto games if you have them in. This is determined when you boot the Gen 4 game up, so you'll have to save and restart with another game inserted if you want the other stuff.



Looking good champ. The Pokemon that come over are basically identical, though happiness is reset, standard. For Pokemon that gained an ability between gens, this is determined by the personality value, which only gets rechecked and reflected accordingly when you evolve something. So Cold Gregg could have Ice Body, but since she'll never evolve, we'll never know. This still wouldn't occur if you went all the way to Gen 6 or 7, since the game locks specific oddities from happening, but we would then be able to use an Ability Capsule. Uh, anyway, Pokemon will also be set location wise to whichever games they came from, so you can get a Kanto Swampert if you traded it to FRLG beforehand.

Now the Pal Park is a very important facility to help you patch holes in your dex if you somehow don't have all 5 Gen 4 games. Though doing it in this game is not recommended, DPP has a 24 hour limit for each Pal Park use with the same Gen 3 game, while HGSS has no such restriction. Gen 4 is actually incredibly good about obtaining a LOT of Pokemon, but there are some you still need to transfer over. Obviously there's all the mythical Pokemon, while Manaphy and Phione are the only legitimate Gen 4 mythicals obtainable. Lugia and Ho-oh, as well as a smattering of other legendaries needed to be transferred over to DPP, though HGSS lets you obtain a good chunk of missing mons, including the rest of the starters. Prior to Platinum, Tangela and Tropius had to be transferred over, since there were no way to obtain them otherwise. The only regular Pokemon that need to be sent over are the legendary golems, since they're event only in Gen 4. Kinda sucks, huh.

Oh yeah, there's also certain held items that have to be sent over, like the Shoal Salt and Shoal Shell and the Enigma Berry, which replaces any e-Reader berries you try to send through Pal Park. Some items can otherwise only be obtained through the Pokewalker, like some of the very rarest berries or the Fluffy Tail, and the Soul Dew, which is from Battle Revolution without either the RSE or HGSS event. All fascinating stuff!

Eterna City Day



Capturing every kind of Pokemon is no easy feat, I'll grant you that. But I'm sure you ca accomplish it! Ah, yes! An acquaintance from Kanto has sent me something quite interesting. I think you'd make better use of it than I ever could.

"that Up-Grade."

Incidentally, and this is an entirely different topic... I've heard that there have been sightings of very rare Pokemon. The legendary bird Pokemon: ARTICUNO, ZAPDOS, and MOLTRES! They've been spotted at various locations here in Sinnoh, no less! Why, you may be lucky enough to see them yourself in your journeys! ARTICUNO, ZAPDOS, and MOLTRES are extremely rare even in Kanto. There have been precious few sightings as it is. So why would they be spotted here in Sinnoh of all places? There are still many, many mysteries surrounding Pokemon, it seems!



Three more roamers that I'll ignore for as long as possible aside, with our Emerald cart inserted, would you like to learn about another way to catch Pokemon?



The dongle method isn't as extensive as the others, but it's important all the same, as you can already see. Inserting any of the 5 Gen 3 games causes various Pokemon to appear depending on the game, usually those game's version exclusives. Any game inserted will cause Gengar to spawn in this specific room, the eyes have it after all, with Haunter also being here in DP. Inserting FRLG and Emerald also made Staravia and Bibarel appear at Lake Verity in DP for... some reason, probably because the grass over the water has the same encounters. There are others, but Gengar is the only notable one.



Thank god it has that, I was running out of Nest Balls. Ruby and Sapphire introduces Seedot, Nuzleaf, Mawile, Zangoose and Solrock, or Lotad, Lombre, Sableye, Seviper and Lunatone, respectively, in the same places as each other. The same occurs with FRLG, with Caterpie, Metapod, Ekans, Arbok and Growlithe or Weedle, Kakuna, Sandshrew, Sandslash and Vulpix, with Elekid or Magby for DP. Finally, Emerald has Teddiursa, Ursaring, Pineco and Shuckle, with Gligar in DP. Sure, you could catch them in the respective games and trade them over, but where's the fun in that?

Veilstone City Day



I've heard about you and what took place at the Spear Pillar. Our leader, Master Cyrus, hated the very idea of spirit. He hated spirit for being incomplete. And yet, using fiery exhortations, he rallied the sprit of others. What he hated most, he used to control others. Isn't that ironic? That fascinated me. I wanted to see what he would do. And I did. At his side. But it's over. A world without spirit... who would want such a thing?! So, what now...? What to do with Team Galactic? But I've learned that extremism is never the solution... perhaps we should really be searching for new sources of energy. Instead of lying about it through our commercials.



Ah, Hikari, it's you. Does life continue to thrill you? It does for me. For example, I recently discovered some Pokemon only evolve in certain locations. When I learned that, I felt thrilled!



As fun as it is to chat with various NPCs, the real reason we're here is Cynthia has better things to do than stand in front of a cave all day.

Turnback Cave

"...before 30 is surpassed..."

Well doesn't this set the mood. This is another area with ignorable Defog, since all the Pokemon we can encounter here are ones we've seen.



The maze is pretty simple, the door you entered from will send you back to the entrance, and the other 3 doors lead to either the pillar room, the destination, or the other 2 room designs for this section of the maze. When you reach a pillar room, the top number is the pillar you've reached, with the bottom the number of rooms traversed. If you hit 30 rooms without finding the third pillar room, you're kicked back to the entrance.



Oh neat, you can chain all 3 pillar rooms, but it's a 1/3 chance each time. Each pillar you reach will also change the design of the intermediary rooms, as well as what Pokemon you can encounter. Ever wanted a level 16 Dusclops? As we get to the end of the maze, Pokemon reach the 40s and some like Chimecho and Bronzong become quite common. It was similar in DP, though the levels were much higher, not sure why they were reduced so much for this game.



And, uh, there we go. That was weirdly easy. If you get here in 3 rooms, a Reaper Cloth will be here, 4-15 rooms is a Rare Bone, what you actually want, and 16-30 is a Stardust. The item won't be here if Giratina is, so your first time in DP, or if you defeated it in the Distortion World.



That were life sparkles... that where life has faded... a place where two worlds overlap...

Distortion World



Welcome back. There should be a spiky angry man around here, so hopefully this is a short visit.



This is a new section of the Distortion World, not that it really means much.



But these platforms lead us back to where we clashed with Cyrus and fought Giratina. Now we can use Origin form out of the Distortion World and it boosts Dragon and Ghost moves by 20%. Handy! We'll never return here until the LP of the remake, I'm excited for it!

Canalave City Day



Books are wonderful things. The thoughts of people written in books stretch beyond time and space. I was just reading an analytical tome on humankind. It examines the human species from cultural and social perspectives. This is a thought-provoking quote: "It all began without humans. The end will also be without humans." The world we share with Pokemon... does it exist for us? I imagine we'll see each other again at the Pokemon League. Take care.

Occasionally Lucian will be here reading about five different books. Very interesting stuff and if you don't think so read some damn books you uncultured swine!

I was just reading a book of philosophy from an ancient, far-off land. Their 'universe' was a word that described both space and time. That people even back then understood the basic tenets of the universe... it fills me with a serene sense of inspiration.

I was just reading a collection of observations on Pokemon in the wild. One article addresses the question why Pokemon would go into a Pokeball. According to this article, this behavior is based on instinct. A weakened Pokemon will curl up tight in an effort to heal itself. The Pokeball was invented to take advantage of that protective instinct.

I was just reading a collection of essays on the science-fiction genre. There was one quote attributed to a novelist I found remarkable. 'Though love may lose, kindness wins.' I find that philosophical and, at the same time, compassionate.

I was just reading a collection of letters written by an artist long ago. More precisely, they were written to the artist's younger brother. 'The stars above tantalize from across infinite space. Feeling their gaze from so far away, I am charmed again by life.' The artist must have come to a conclusion seeing the night sky... it's an affirmation of life. It's very moving.



DAR... DARK... is watching... me...



It's happened in the past in Canalave. There were people who never woke up from their nightmares... ...that is, until they were awoken using something called the Lunar Wing. My husband went to find a Lunar Wing on Fullmoon Island, but he failed... does it take a Trainer to do that? We feel so frustrated by this...



We're both counting on you! Only you can awaken my son from his awful nightmare... please, I need the Lunar Wing from Fullmoon Island to awaken him! I went, but I failed to find it... anchors aweigh!

Fullmoon Island



There's still plenty of the map to discover, it's like Gen 3's event islands was just the beginning!



That seems pretty Lunar.




And yes, we now have FIVE ROAMERS! Like, it's a good thing we have the Marking Map, but that doesn't mean they have to keep outdoing their awfulness from last time. Ugh.



I've heard tales of it flying from place to place throughout Sinnoh. Oh! That sparkle... so, that's the Lunar Wing... thank you... that will wake my son from the nightmare...

Canalave City Day




Oh, my son... I... I don't know what to say... thank you! We'll never forget you! Seeing you back to normal makes me feel great! I've regained my spirit as a Sailor! Come sail with me later!



It was a scary place... it was a dark place... and there was a dark Pokemon... but, Daddy, Mommy... I could always hear your voices...



Well that was a nice little event, though it sounds like any continuation is something we can't do. Oh well! We can also head back to Fullmoon Island at any time, though the only reason to do so is access the top left of the Underground map. Weird, right?



You know, my son trains as hard as you do. But I still treat him as if he were a child. It's ridiculous, really. He is a proper Gym Leader and all. It's always tricky between a father and son, it seems. Humph, I've wasted your time. Take this an my apology!



They need to hold that item while being traded to evolve. Try using it if you'd like. Farewell!



Before we move on to a crazy new locale, there's a few Pokemon here and there that we can get with the Super Rod. Lumineon is in most sea areas.



I heard from Cynthia. You're working on a Pokedex, aren't you? There should be many rare Pokemon in the temple. Enjoy your exploring!

The temple is said to have been built in ancient times. It pays homage to the Pokemon of rock, ice, and steel that shape the land. So it is told.

Snowpoint Temple



There's not much to this place, but hey, there's new Pokemon to catch I suppose!



And the first non-Gym related ice puzzles! Well, "puzzles".



I will happily ignore a rock if I can go around it. I think it's quicker too.



But of course you're never truly free.



In the lower levels, there's Jynx, who is A Problem.



And what's this on the bottom floor?



Easy enough to get to, just gotta loop around to just behind it.




Interesting, what does it mean? Well it sounds like something we'll never be able to do, so oh well!

Great Marsh



And it just doesn't stop, this is our last visit to the Great Marsh, since the daily Pokemon increase by a fair amount in the postgame, so let's see what crazy new Pokemon we can find!










There we go, quite the collection, wouldn't you say? Yanma was in place of Kecleon in DP, but surely we're done with all this damn catching, right? How many more different ways of catching new Pokemon can there be???



Well as we head to that next mechanic let's fish some more. Octillery are in most ponds, with Whiscash filling out the other ones.



What the hell I have a repe- oh. Okay.



I'm busy! When I have a spare 10 hours I'll come hunt you down, bah.

Backalot Mansion



Muhohoho... I bet you are! I knew you would be! But I don't mind! I enjoy sharing my stories with you! So! When I go out into my prized trophy garden, Pokemon come running to me. They sidle up, as happy as they can be to see me! Well? Doesn't that make you envious? You are envious, yes? Muhohoho... I bet you are! I knew you would be! But I don't mind! I enjoy sharing my stories with you! So! This is what happened this morning when I went into my trophy garden. I noticed a cute-eyed CLEFFA, which joyously ran over to me. The CLEFFA ran up and gave me a smooch on my cheek...



It doesn't exist in the garden...

Wha... erm... wh-what are you saying? I'm no blowhard! Listen... mutter, mutter... whisper, whisper...

Yes, Master! Right away, sir!

...it's true, I tell you! No lies ever leave these lips! There really are cute CLEFFA in my trophy garden! Honest truth!



Alright, the last way to get Pokemon, once a day there will be a new Pokemon in the Trophy Garden and there's a lot of important ones!



For whatever reason they moved Ditto from the Poke Radar on Route 218 to here, which is definitely a pain, but still very necessary, we'll be making use of its services for sure.



Also the first time we can catch wild Eevee! I'll be cloning a few of these later...








And that's finally all of them, very important babies that can be caught for the first time. Porygon was also here in DP, but you only get the one in this game, have to wait for another gen to catch those. That's all the different ways you can catch all manner of Pokemon outside and inside the regional dex, it's pretty crazy!

And if you're curious, the other Pokemon found here are Clefairy, Jigglypuff, Chansey, Marill, Bonsly and Mime Jr., which can be pretty nice to catch from a daily chance. Only Porygon and Ditto are version exclusives, everything else is in all 3 games.



Since we've done a lot of catching, next time, it's a lot of battling. Not against the Elite Four, oh no, there's still lots of things to do in the postgame, as well as a fair few new areas!