Part 8: Welcome Back to the Resistance
Another day, another new game. This time, we're jumping right into the sequel of an alright game.
Title Screen
Looks like this peaceful island nation is about to be ready for war!
If you thought the first game had Gen 1 vibes, well it's about to get very Gen 2 in here, we can play as a girl! About damn time! Since the boy was Mark, then this girl is Mint, but since this English translation patch of a game that was NEVER RELEASED OUTSIDE JAPAN, then we have access to Hirigana and Katakana to spice up the name. Note, I don't know what this symbol is, other than it looks like a smiley face.
Oh Hey It's The Narrator Again: Minto came to this island seeking the Legendary Pokemon Cards. 8 Club Master guarded the way to the Grand Masters, and the 4 Grand Masters protected the Legendary Cards. After many card duels, Minto beat the Grand Masters! The 4 Legendary Pokemon Cards were finally inherited by a new Master Duellist. Then, one day... something terrible had happened!
Enter Team GR!
Oh Hey It's The Narrator Again: They called themselves "Team Great Rocket", or Team GR! Team GR attacked the island's card clubs and stole all their cards!
Oh Hey It's The Narrator Again: You must notify Dr. Mason about these Pokemon card thieves! Let's go to Dr. Mason's lab immediately...
Ronald Encounter
Remember me? I'm your long-time rival, Ronald! Minto, do you have any Pokemon cards on you? Oh! Team Great Rocket stole them?! I'd better check them out to stay one step ahead of you! By the way, I think Dr. Mason wants to speak with you. Well then, see ya, Minto! TCG Island
It's awful! A group called Team Great Rocket, or "Team GR", invaded! This island's card clubs were attacked one by one! Everybody's cards were stolen, and many club members were kidnapped! Team GR stole the Legendary Pokemon Cards from the Grand Masters, too! Please help us get the cards back from those villains!
Uh, you know, look man, I've been thinking about it, and there's more to life than children's card games...
...but at the same time I think my collection was worth thousands of dollars, so I'm gonna fucking kill them!!!
Since they took your cards, you'll need a replacement deck. That way you can use your deck to battle with others. Here, take this deck, luckily it wasn't stolen by Team GR!
It can list your card collection, check mail, and even record decks! All recorded decks are sent to our Lab's Deck Record Machines, too. I'm counting on you to get everyone's cards back, Minto! You must find all of the members of Team GR. Ronald and the others need your help. Search all of the clubs!
Alright, time to get all the cards again. As you can see from the DOUBLE AMOUNT, this game is quite a bit larger than the first one, having all the cards from that game, and then some! We'll get them all, don't you worry about that.
Unfortunately one of the best localisations changes, the large deck limit, wasn't carried over to this English patch, so the JP limit is probably in place, or maybe the JP version reduced it between games, who knows.
We don't get a choice of decks, this time we're stuck with a thoroughly terrible Charmeleon deck. Though this is really all you need to beat the entire game, if you noticed how little trouble I had last game with consistent damage. But we'll get a way to get more chunks of cards later, so don't start hyperventilating just because we have ONE DRAW SUPPORT WHAT THE FU
We have mail on the move and can record decks on the fly, though we need to come back to the lab to rebuild them. We can also see all the cards we've obtained from each booster pack. The mailbox is unchanged, but has more utility we'll get into later, though it can only hold 8 mail and we can't get more unless we delete some. Oh yeah, we can also change our coin this game! There's a lot of coins, some are incredibly tedious to get and I won't get them all!
Finally, we can change the window colour. Best game, 10/10.
PCs don't see much use in this game since it's all on our... Poryphone, I think the kids call it? But what's this deck diagnostic?
Oh no...
There is a decent amount of Basic Pokemon in this deck! In that case, this deck is in prime shape to battle right away!This guy wouldn't know a good deck if it slapped him in the face.
I know, I know, many of you were clamouring to see Tech Sam again! At least you're not forced through the tutorial again, but hey, might as well.
D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D-Duel
The game is still the same as it ever was, but the presentation got a cleanup, much more colourful and card backgrounds are now much clearer. Overall, just makes more a more enjoyable experience, even if the base gameplay is basically the same.
A lot of moves got updated animations, such as Double Kick... uh, well you see. Ahem. Opponents will also emote as the duel progresses depending on how they're doing. One happy and one sad! Since we'll always see the sad one when we beat them, I'll also post the happy one, cause they add a lot of characters to these, uh, characters! Admittedly, it might not be much sometimes, but hey, why not. Anyway, like before you're following Dr. Mason's steps exactly.
However since it's optional you don't get anything from it, you need to beat Sam in a normal duel to get booster packs of energy from him, which you also need to build up again. Fun. But there's a new room to the west!
How do you like our new training room? It was built to help tutor players of the Pokemon Card Game! You can start your training at Step 1! You must start with Step 1 first. Would you like to try it?
Let's get through these quickly for some booster packs. I'm only bothering with this side mode so we actually see Tech Aaron in this game.
Each of the booster packs have different designs and also aren't split up according to the expansion they have, so you never really know what you're gonna get. Of course Present boosters only contain energy.
Come back for more training whenever you're ready! Hoohoo!! Step 2 features the Poison, Sleep, Paralysis, and Confusion statuses.
We're using predetermined decks for these, so we'll see some cool new cards, which mostly end in Charmeleon hitting everything for decent damage and winning. The Wartortle was from the Intro Pack, a Japanese exclusive half-deck released in Jul 1999 to introduce younger players to the TCG. It featured Bulbasaur and Squirtle and a fair few cards from this pack is in this game. The Grimer, meanwhile, is from the Team Rocket expansion, which was the biggest expansion yet! Shame that they've already infiltrated this much!
Now for the first booster pack, Beginning Pokemon in Japan, of course, this booster has a mix of Base Set, Jungle and Fossil cards, such as Charizard, Gyarados, Dugtrio, Machamp, etc, but it also contains cards from the Intro Pack, as well as Vending Machine cards. These were also Japan exclusive that came in, well, vending machines that were randomised into sheets with 3 cards each, until the 3rd set had a fourth card on the back. Each of these 3 sets of 36 cards can be considered Promo cards due to looking pretty different in comparison and being very difficult to get, not including the additional Promo cards included in this set that we'll get to later. In case you forgot, there's a lot of fucking cards in this game.
Pokemon Powers? Well, I don't think the tutorial will use anything that terri-
Why are you using Alakazam/Chansey??? WHAT KIND OF TUTORIAL IS THIS?!
Oh well, we still have mister illegal over here, so I think we'll be fine.
Remove all damage counters and energy from a Pokemon? Yeah that seems pretty nasty for an Alakazam deck, least Murray was kind enough to use Scoop Up. Legendary Power contains cards from all sets bar Team Rocket, which obviously won't happen until later and contains a fair few cards we're used to, as well as DCE and Breeder, always very important.
However, Step 4 lies ahead of you! You'll have to try it sooner or later if you want to get better! Hoohoo!! I'm waiting!
Alas, we can't do Step 4, which is a normal duel against Aaron, until much later, so his happy face will have to wait until then! I know, I'm also disappointed.
Second room has a lot less to it, auto deck is still shit, never use it!
Firstly, let's tackle the biggest elephant in the room, how long has this been here?
GR No.5: You don't have the 4 GR Coin Pieces required to be one of the 'chosen'. If you want in, find the GR members numbered 1 through 4 on the island. If you manage to defeat them all in card duels, I'll step aside. Every member you defeat will award you with a GR Coin Piece. Beat them all and you'll be given a ride to GR Island!
WOMAN: He's the man who made Team GR's new cards! He's so amazing, don't you think? *sigh...*
Well we found out our goal pretty quickly, wow there's a whole new island to explore! Also note that since this is a fan patch, all the various names to new characters are not official ones, such as キング ビルリッチ or King Biruritchi becoming King Villicci. Yes it's kinda the same, but had this game been translated, he would've been called like Matt, or something.
Ronald Encounter
It's more serious than I thought!! Every club has been burgled! Team GR doesn't seem to be in this particular club at the moment. I've heard that there's been a sighting in the Rock Club, though. Anyway, I barely have any cards to duel with as it is! Say, why don't we Card Pop! to get some new cards? Come on, let's Card Pop! Card Pop!
A-Alright, I don't think this is how cards are made, but hey, might as well.
In any case, Team GR isn't here. Minto! Please go check out the Rock Club! I'll visit the other clubs and gather information about Team GR. Later, Minto! GR Takeover
All the clubs have gotten a makeover and it all looks rad as hell, definitely one of my favourite things about the game.
Our Club Master, Mitch, was defeated by GR No.1! All of the Fighting Club's cards were also taken by Team GR! Jessica told me they've done the same at all of the other clubs... now it's impossible for us to fight back against Team GR... I beg you! Please defeat GR No.1! Oh?? For real? Thank you very much! Before you go take on GR No.1, though, have a duel with me! If you win, I'll give you a few new cards! We'll have a duel with 4 prize cards! Let's go!
So not everyone had their cards stolen, a select few club members will still be available to give you unlimited boosters so you can rebuild your collection. Sure whatever. Like all the boss battles in the last game, the GR ones aren't difficult either, but we could use some better cards!
However don't think these will be interesting battles. See, depending on game progress, certain opponents will upgrade their deck to something you'd see in the first game. So Michael right now has Machamp and Raticate as evolved Pokemon, 1 Professor Oak and 2 Pikachu... for some reason. It's gonna be a while before we start seeing new stuff, since it's going to be very unlikely that your opponents will actually evolve their stuff, due to having terrible deck builds. But what else is new?
Not that we can talk, since we don't even have a damn Dugtrio! Like last game, you're very beholden to booster packs, but there's other opportunities to get cards, so you're not completely outta luck. Also Diglett is still a monster, just very fragile.
Still, we won't have any problem, once we get a lot of Fire energy rolling, Charmeleon becomes one of the best Pokemon in the game. I wish I was joking.
You're just as strong as I thought! Here, take this! You didn't need anything training after all. You're already strong!
SENIOR: No one seems to talk with me, so I have no opportunity to trade. I'd like to have the rare card Hitmonlee Lv23 for my new deck. In exchange, I'll trade you a Mewtwo Lv60, if you don't mind.
Of course trades are back for mostly Promo cards. If you thought there were a lot of random Promos last game, HOO BOY have I sights to show you later.
Main counter remains the same, except you now get booster packs by purposefully losing to yourself because you don't have fri- wait a minute this game was Japan only, so of course you had friends to play with!!!
The game is poking us towards the Rock Club, but we can fight the GR leaders in any order, so might as well scope out the situation proper.
You want the cards we stole from you back, I'll bet! Well tooooo bad! Prepare to be defeated for defying Team GR! But I'm too lazy to do it myself... Nicholas!
Yes, miss GR No.4! Isaac!!
......... Go ahead, take care of this chump! Show him the power of our new club! Heh heh... If you manage to defeat these two, I'll take you on myself! I don't like to waste my time with weaklings, you see?
It seems some of our friends, and characters you definitely remembered the names of, have turned against us!
As per GR No.4's conditions, you must duel me. Are you ready? If you don't fight me, you won't be able to advance.
I tried to protect my dear Pikachu deck, but now it's gone! Even if I could have a deck without a Pikachu card, I would be happy...
Our club has been taken over by a girl calling herself 'GR No.4'. If it wasn't bad enough, Isaac, our club master, is working for her. Is it possible for you to defeat GR No.4, Minto? After all, you were strong enough to defeat the Grand Masters...
Seems like a ripoff, we'll come back later.
But fine, fine, this is next on the list. If you were curious what Ronald says if you visit this club first:
It's serious, Minto! Team GR is here! A weirdo calling himself GR No.1 is attacking the Rock Club! The Club Master and members are trying their hardest to resist him. I'd like to fight him myself, but I don't have any cards to duel with! [Card Pop!] Just one card isn't enough for me to take care of that guy... alright, Minto! I'm leaving it to you!! 
Save yourself the trouble! Fall to your knees and respect me, GR No.1!
Ah, but you're so inexperienced! I won't do anything of the sort! Gah! Impossible...! That I, GR No.1 of Team Great Rocket, would lose... tch!! So it seems I've failed to capture the Rock Club... it figures that the Rock Club's the only one good at defense... Rock Club Master Gene!! I may be retreatin' today... but be warned! I'll return and beat you to a pulp! Rock Club
I see! Minto! Team GR has been attacking the 8 clubs on this island recently. But I, Gene, have defended the Rock Club like a hardened stone. The other clubs, though, seem to have been taken over. I know you had the power to defeat the Grand Masters once before! Please help all of the other clubs by taking down Team GR! So your cards were taken away, don't despair, Minto! Feel free to duel the members of the Rock Club to gain some cards back! But I, Gene, have the toughness of a hardened stone! I made a deck that makes GR No.1's deck look weak in comparison! Are you ready to fight against Gene, the Rock Club Master?
He kept his cool during the duel against GR No.1 and easily won. It's easy to see why everyone admires him in this club. Hey, why don't we have a duel? I'd love to practise my own style.If you want some booster packs, this is a good place to get them, but we can come back and beat everyone here later, since we'd need to fight Gene to then fight GR No.1 since they wouldn't appear otherwise.
WOMAN: He's a strange little man who dresses in black tights, you see! He tends to wander aimlessly from club to club on this island. If you find him, challenge him to a duel! You may learn something!
GIRL: Hey, do you have a Snorlax Lv20 card? If you do, may I have it? If you do, I'll gladly trade you my rare Jigglypuff Lv12 for it!
Let's see if my main man avoided this purge. Invasion? Warring island states?
Ishihara's House
I love collecting Pokemon Trading Cards. However, Team GR seems to have everyone's cards at the moment. Team GR has effectively shut down the clubs and Challenge Hall. Is everyone okay? Pokemon Dome
Oh yeah shit, should probably check if anyone's still alive.
GR No.5: The Grand Masters have been caught and taken to GR Island! Once we're done with our takeover, we'll have every last card there is! Pokemon Trading Cards are simply wasted on the likes of you fools. We'll pick all the best cards for our decks and lock the rest away! Team GR will have all the cards in the world soon enough!!!
In GR Island... first you get the Pokemon Trading Cards... then you get the power... then you get the women...
RECEPTIONIST: This is the building where we hold the Challenge Cup Tournament. ...but we can't hold a new cup since everyone's cards are missing. Please do something, Minto!
Alright enough distractions, back to the clubs.
Ugh fine, uh, whatever your name is.
Didn't notice anything different in the Psychic Club, guess it was too weird to invade. What next?
Team GR caught me unprepared, beat me in a duel, and locked us all up. There's no way to open the doors, either. Only GR No.3 can do that. If you want to help us get outta this cell, defeat GR No.3. You're our only hope for freedom. You can do it!
GR No.3 took us all one, and we all lost, one after another. Our cards have also been taken. What can we possibly do? That GR No.3 guy left saying something about the Waer Club...
I'm the Fire Club member who burns the hottest! 'tis I, John! ...but since I've been caught, I'm not feeling so hot any more...
Even if it's caught! Fire! It can't be put out! Fire! Even if we have no strength left! Fire... Imakuni?
Don't call me baby, baby. Wait, what's that music?
Eh? Who am I?! Well! Don't you know me? It is I, the Super Musical Star Imakuni?! But I'm sad right now... there are no Pokemon cards left... or right! Hey, you! Card Pop! with me! Even if you don't want to! Let's Card Pop!
The card I got was Machamp, hooray! You got... an Imakuni? card? You're so lucky! Be glad! Yeah! Since we had a Card Pop!, we both got cards we never had! GR Takeover
Look at this place! GR No.2 of Team GR is to blame for all of this! Our club's been taken over, and our Club Master, Rick, was kidnapped! Only you, the one who defeated the Grand Masters, can do this! I've been told that GR No.2 is over in the Grass Club. If I understood correctly, he's taken control of their garden.
Oh no, not Rick, how terrible.
Team GR has locked up our Deck Machines, though. It's a mess. However, would you care to duel me? I've hidden my cards from them. We'll implement 4 prize cards for this duel! I'll have you know, though, that I won't be defeated so simply!
There hasn't been enough battles in this first update of this card battle game, so let's fix that! Disable could be annoying from this Vending Venonat...
But Ponyta has 2 good moves, so I don't care. Oh yeah, he still has a Nidoran deck, it would be scarier if he actually fully evolved them, but he only has Nidorino and Golbat. And then 2 Porygon for the heck of it. Don't think about it too much, they needed to fill 60 slots and boy did they!!!
We get lucky enough to ignore Ponyta's fragility, since we can't evolve it, and clean house.
Though eventually we have to let the big boy in the back take charge. Or girl. Gender isn't really a thing in the TCG.
Ahh, just as I expected, easily defeated without the Deck Machines. Well, a loss is a loss. Here, take these booster packs. You can definitely beat Team GR! That's my hypothesis, Minto!
Alright, not having many leads with these northern clubs.
Or, uh, indeed any of the clubs we're meant to go to. Hello?
You're Minto, the one resisting Team GR, right? Well, Club Master Nikki was driven out of the club by GR No.2. Our club is now unfortunately the territory of the nefarious Team GR. In any case, take this. I managed to keep it hidden.
Neat. Island of Fossil contains cards from all but the Rocket expansion, with very important trainers like Computer Search, Mysterious Fossil... and Pokeball. Also got Articuno and Vileplume and that.
Our Club Master, Nikki, has fled from the club. I was told to give you this if you stopped by to investigate.
Please do your best to help Nikki. Brittany knows where she fled to. You can find Brittany sitting at the duelling table over there.
Say, you're Minto, the kid going after GR No.2, right? If you wanna beat him, you'll need to speak with Nikki first. Beat me, and I'll tell where she is. Lose, and I won't tell you anything. If you're ready to test your abilities, let's duel! In that case, 4 prize cards!
Since we're forced to use Fire, this was never going to be difficult.
Still, we're pretty weak and have a terrible deck, so it might even out.
The translation team screwed up repeating her deck name, it's called the Poison Bee deck and features Beedrill! We won't be seeing it, but uh, I can highlight it since it's the first interesting card I've mentioned so far that we haven't come across! Don't worry, there's plenty more to discuss later on. She's also got Intro Ivysaur and Nidorino, wow!
I showed that Butterfree is damn good, and hey, so is Beedrill! 40 damage for 3 energy is some good shit and if you land that poison chance, it'll do 60 damage by the time you get back to your turn! Definitely slow, but can still work in a Venusaur deck. Of course, more cards means more strategies, but they're not as helpful as you'd think. And if you don't fancy the poison chance, I guess you could flip one extra coin to do the same damage?
You wanted to know where Nikki is hiding, correct? You can find her at Ishihara's, the house near the northwest cape. Hurry to Ishihara's house and speak with Nikki!
We'll go there later, since it's literally the second place I'd look.
Take a look at the pool! Just look at the Club Members! Sara, Amanda, Club Master Amy... though Joshua ran away before I could catch the little whelp. But why are you here? You want me to free them from their cage? Alright then... if you can beat me in a duel, I'll free them all! Don't you want to help the members of the Water Club? All you need to do is duel me. You may win ownership of the club! Well, suit yourself.
Thanks to Club Master Amy, I was able to escape unharmed. Amy, Sara, and Amanda have all been captured by GR No.3, though. You gotta help us defeat Team GR, Minto! GR No.3 is in our play hall along with the captured girls. However you won't be ready to duel him until you can beat me! We'll duel with 4 prize cards. Let's go, Minto!!
This is a slight problem, but thankfully Diglett isn't weak to Water. Most of our deck is though.
Stop running away! Ah well, I've been slowly making this deck less shit, and a Hitmonchan means instant competitiveness.
Hmm, can't take it out in one punch, man, so a horse will have to do. Such is the upper echalons of heroes.
I've been defeated... here, take this booster packs! You may have beaten me, but you'd better not lose against Team GR!
Haven't I been forgetting some- oh shit, mail!!!
Alright, we've got Ronald telling us about upcoming battles, but we'll save that for when we fight them, like before. What does the old man want?
Ok boomer, give me what you owe me and stop calling me!!!
Ah, but now we've scoped the situation, things are looking pretty bad. We're gonna need to think about what we can do with our current deck. Man, if I only I had every card in the game.
...oh. Wait, uh, hold on. Sorry, ignore everything I said, I just found all my cards. In my other pocket, what are the chances? Next time, we'll rise up and fight back against these foreign invaders. And we won't be taking any prisoners!