Part 12: It’ll Be a Scream

Update 12: It’ll Be a Scream

Route 3 - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST

Let’s start this update out right – television!



Reporter: …A Pokémon battle, course!

Cameraman: Good Pokémon and Trainers really shine on-camera!



As I mentioned before, you often run into double battles when you’re alone; if so, you just send out your first two Pokémon and things proceed as normal. These games have an uncomfortable number of moves tweaked specifically for double battles, which is baffling, since they tend to be pretty rare.

Here… would be picture of the Pokémon Daycare, but I think I forgot to take it and can’t do so yet; I’ll go back and upload/edit it in later. Pokémon Daycares have been around in various forms since the beginning, and they started out as a solution to the XP grinding issue. If there was a Pokémon you want to trained up but you didn’t want to bother grinding with them, you could head to the Daycare, drop it off, and run around doing other things. While it was there, it would gain one experience per step you talk, which was also extremely slow but at least it let you do other things. In Gen 2, they not only let you drop two Pokémon off, but if you did (if they were the right genders and Pokémon types), you’d eventually come back and find an Egg, which you could carry around until it hatched (after taking up a slot in your party the whole time, the bastard). The process of producing and hatching eggs in different circumstances to get different results is called Pokémon Breeding, and it’s a whole complex world I won’t be indulging in unless there’s some huge demand for it in the thread. After several generations (probably as they made leveling easier), they dropped the XP gain aspect from them and renamed them Nurseries, as is present in Galar. When we stop in to take a look around, some rando we start pestering casually hands us a Toxel, a Pokémon rare enough you probably shouldn’t be handing them out to people you don’t know the first time you see them. What should I name it, should I or should I not include it in my party, and if I do, what Pokémon should it replace? There’s a current party list in the OP. Those of you with post/voting credit (I believe Black Robe, Megane, and Tenebrais) can use it to overrule everyone else if they like.

Team Yell Appears! - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST



Team Yell Grunt: We’re gonna use that bike to chase around Gym Challengers! It’ll be a scream!

???: How barbaric! It wouldn’t work anyway. You don’t even have a Rotom with you! Hey, young Gym Challenger! They’re trying to steal my bike! Please, if you could give them a good thrashing, I would be in your debt!



Team Yell Grunt: Oi, we’re not tryin’ to steal the bike! Only borrow it! We’re going to use it to chase after Gym Challengers and make ‘em all tired!

And what happens if you catch up to them?

Team Yell Grunt: I dunno, yell at them a bit? We’re tryin’ to tire ‘em out, not hurt ‘em.

And what happens if you hit them? Or if they trip, fall, and hurt themselves?

Team Yell Grunt: We’ll be careful –

Or if you wreck the bike? Are you going to give it back like that? Or what if you managed to hurt yourselves trying to help her? Marnie wouldn’t like that.

Team Yell Grunt: Oh yeah? And how do YOU know what Marnie wants?

We’re friends. She spent an hour texting me about textile manufacturing this morning.

Team Yell Grunt: _{That DOES sound like Marnie, maybe she’s telling the truth.}. Well… Maybe this wasn’t the best plan, yeah. But we ain’t stoppin’ yet! You haven’t seen the last of us!



Route 3 - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST

???: Thank you, young lady. It was looking a mite dangerous there.

All in a day’s work, sir.

???: And I see you have a Pokédex, two! That means you have a Rotom with you! Fantastic! I think I’ll give this bike to you, then. Better you have it then Team Yell!

… Just like that?

???: Absolutely! Now, you know that Rotom love motors very, very much, right? Enough to jump right into machines that have motors! So, that got me thinking… If I attached a motor to a bicycle, then maybe I could get a Rotom to pop into that as well! Come now – give it a shot! Enjoy cycling together with Rotom to the fullest.



And now we have some new wheels. Bikes are an old Pokémon tradition, something you acquire a couple Gyms in that lets you travel at a respectable speed. Back in Gen 1, they had yet another subplot where you had to hunt down a voucher to buy a bike that would otherwise cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for some reason, but they quickly dropped that. As time passed, they started experimenting with different things they could do with bikes; in Gen 3, for instance, you had bikes that could speed across railings or bunny-hop over obstacle courses.



This time around, we start out with a nitro ability that I honestly barely use, but we’ll be gathering upgrades for much of the of the game. Unfortunately, I’ll probably avoid using it. Why? That uniform. The game forces it on you every time you go for a ride and won’t let you take it off. It’s painfully gauche.

The bridge the Team Yell goons were talking about really is long; it’s designed to make you want to use the bike and build up a little bit of experience as you go. Of course, that means you don’t always see the Hop at the end of the bridge waiting to fight you.



I’m warning you, though… Any closer than that and we’re going to have to have a battle – you and me!

Fortunately, the game doesn’t force you into a fight and gives you a second to catch your breath/rearrange your team. Normally, I find the cushioning this game provides you with a bit much, but I like the way they laid out this area.

Not that that means I’ll go easy on Hop.



This is the perfect training!

Pokémon Sword and Shield: Hop Battle Theme Remix





I, of course, get too caught up in writing this update and forget to heal up my Pokémon, but it doesn’t matter much. Hop still has the same team as last time, though he has levelled them quite a bit (and evolved his Rookidee and Bonham). It isn’t the clean sweep I’ve had before; none of my Pokémon are really in danger, but they do take hits and lose some health.



Bonham is also looking pretty nice, now evolved and with a level comparable to much of my party. He even survives Bruce’s most powerful attack and deals a dozen HP of damage to him, probably the most of any Pokémon so far. Unfortunately, he goes down in the next hit, but we’re seeing some definite improvement. The game never becomes hard, per se, but it does ramp up over time, and we are finally seeing the pace start to pick up.



In older games, HM moves like Strength could only be learned through the relevant HM. Now, you just learn them leveling up sometimes. I also only just now realized that Murphy knew Rock Smash, another old HM move, back when I caught her, since I haven’t changed her moveset since. I love it.

Route 3 - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST

You’ve gotten a lot better since last time, mate.

Not as good as you. Just means I have more to train before hitting up the Water Gym. Hulbury’s just a bit up the road, want to walk the rest of the way together?

Why not? So, did you run into the interview crew back there?

The what?

There was a GBC camera crew back near Turffield city limits. They gave me an interview, seeing as how I’m a Challenger and all.

You fucking wanker, you stole my spotlight! I’m supposed to be the famous one!



I swear, they weren’t there when I left town.

I bet they came out just to find me .



…

… Well, one of the first things Marnie asked me about was what kind of boys I liked.

Ouch.

Yeah. But when I said that didn’t apply, she asked me a bunch of questions about it that were kind of blunt, but more “I’m being really direct” than “I’m judging you negatively”, I think.

D’you think they were “I’m realizing something about myself” questions?

My gut says no, my heart says yes, and my brain says “you’ve never been attracted to someone who wasn’t straight”.

Well, you can always hold out hope.

Nah, I’m gonna let it go. We’re still texting each other like mad and it’s not like I NEED –

Hulbury - Pokémon Sword and Shield OST







Oh, we’re here.

I think I’m going off to the Center, get my team healed up. You coming with?

Nah. I think I’ll be scoping the town out for a bit.

Then see you later, mate.

Same to you.

...

Wait…



...Is that Bede?