Part 2: Jitterbug Love

Thanks for establishing this, not like there was a text crawl that's kind of redundant with normal worldbuilding elements.


Theo runs upstairs when he sees Dick Solomon enter.


His father, Cameron (the guy from the intro, yes) is kinda miffed at the source of his son's misfortune.


But he understands when we explain.


Cameron is an alright execution of supprotive dad, maybe I'm just glad there's a father-son relationship in a video game that's, like, mutually amicable and there's no resentment or anything.

Not a whole lot of those in the world, especially when Uranium's set up Dick Solomon's dad to be distant and cold.


Of course Cameron has to SUBTLY HINT that he's going to get killed by a rampaging dinosaur

wait I mean that he's leaving for his next job, at a new nuclear power plant.

Much less ominous.


He also gives us what is essential a smartphone, in that it works as a telephone, has a map, and let's us play pirated MP3s.


Theo's cheered up and races off.


Upstairs he has a story where he's awesome and wins all the time and I'm jealous.

I think they're going too far in establishing him as a literal child.


Uh, yeah, sure lady.

There's only one pokemon in Uranium I find cute, and I'll reveal the secret when it's time.


This lady's grousing about her son playing video games. What game is he playing?


Haha! Wow!


Bamb'o is along the west edge of town and walking up starts the capture tutorial.


Unlike normal capture tutorials, this one happens as a cutscene instead of involving, like, a scripted battle.


That makes it faster, which I am very thankful for, but it doesn't really tell you much. Not sure why you even need a capture tutorial in a fan game anyone who isn't dick-deep in Pokemon wouldn't know about, but whatever.



Bamb'o gives us Pokedexes, Theo runs off claiming he'll catch everything and defeat us, the usual.

One of the goals of this playthrough is to complete the Pokedex, so you'll get to see every little punk coded in this.


Good thing: Route 1 has this whole sunlight peeking through trees effect that I think looks pretty nice.


Combine this with terrain more elaborate than grass or not-grass, it's a pretty route. Anyway, here's the first patch of grass in the game that matters.


For music I've replaced, I'm going to post the original track then my choice, like so:

Original: PU-WildPokeBattle.ogg
OFSelects: T. Rex - Mambo Sun




Tackle is here in its 5-6th generation incarnation, where it had a hefty 50 power and a perfect hit rate. Before Black & White it sat at 35/95 with that legendary 1/20 miss chance, and Sun & Moon downed its power to 40 but kept the accuracy.


Anyway, Chyinmunk is the normal-type trash starter, a tradition started by Ratatta. Unlike most examples, this dumbass doesn't learn, like, any HMs. Wasteful!


Someone suggested Alvin but this Chyinmunk is a girl so I went with his Chipette counterpart.


auntie no the internet is full of memes and smut

Auntie heals your team for you, which is useful this early on.




Those side effects are nigh pointless when nothing learns Fly or Bounce normally and the AI is in no hurry to use either, so it's just a special-based flying move.


Birbie carries on the proud tradition of Pidgey as the early-game bird with late-game prospects that mostly just learns fly for you.


I have no clue about this name but I love it anyway.


The grass in Moki Town is fully functional. It's 100% Chyinmunks.

Chyinmunks give 1 defense EV each so you could grind for defense here, if you're stupid.


This Lass is our first non-Theo trainer battle!

Original: PU-PokeTrainerBattle.ogg
OFSelects: Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne: Normal Battle


Owten is some sort of

owl cat

uh

It's really outpacing Gutterball, though. My guys besides Zapmander can barely do work.




Peck is like Gust, but physical. Or Gust is like Peck, but special, depending on how you view causality.

With what this cat is pecking us is unknown. Zapmander resists flying so it's easy-peasy.


And then Zapmander's ability kicks in! It has a 30% chance of paralyzing the opponent after they use a contact move, which Peck is. Which moves are contact or not is mostly flavor. A punch or kick is contact, but throwing a rock is not. Only two special moves make contact, by the way.


Berries are healing items that can be equipped by Pokemon and they'll use them automatically. Oran Berries restore 10 HP and are used automatically at half. Since we're dealing with totals below 30 this is makes it very useful for winning damage races.


You can plant berries in soil like this, consuming the berry but letting it grow into a new tree that gives more than one in return. But without a watering can there isn't much return for these. Where do we get a watering can?

In the post-game, after the final boss.

Welcome to Uranium.


Wow, that's some... pro tree tiling.


She has that Chyinmunk next to her, appropriately.


It'd be great if Gutterball could get some experience in but she's still level 2 and Zapmander has to do all the lifting.





D:


There's one last thing in Route 1, Cubbug.

Apparently this is cute. Maybe cattepillars with teddy bear heads just ain't my thing.


Does it work for you?


How about now?


A bug catcher has 3 cubbugs and Gutterball can just gust through them, finally she's like a real Pokemon.


Apparently the original name of this Pokemon was Fartog.

Kinda juvenile, but this is the franchise with Stunky, a skunk with a butt for a face whose cry is a fart sound.




There's one free antidote as means to deal with posoin, the ailment, which costs a Pokemon 1/8th of its HP each turn. Raptorch resists pioson and Orchynx is straight immune, so I've got the raw deal when it comes to the final boss of route 1.

It's not that bad, really, but it with a little bad luck it can turn sour.


One trainer per route will will ask for your phone number, and they'll call you for rematches occasionally. I fight literally none because it's not worth the effort.


Kevlar town is on the other side of route 1.


It has a totally normal item shop.

Ahem.

Okay so decrypting Uranium to look at it gave me the ability to change it. this is the summation of the edits I made, because holy fucking shit is the experience garbage, and it ramps up really fast sometimes, especially near the endgame.

I won't do anything like level one thing to 60 and coast on it. I'll just keep my levels on par with what the game's throwing at me, without having to grind on random encounters. No changes to Pokemon/Trainer data, scripts, or anything but this one shop.


Hahaha see because it doesn't sell these items they'd be really useful!

Haha, that's not funny at all.

Most of Uranium's attempts at jokes are total flops like this.


Kevlar Town also has a bike repair shop. If we happen to find a broken bike, he'll repair it and make it a functional bike!


Kevlar Town is "the smallest town in Tandor" or so it says.

Moki, Kevlar, Nowtoch, is there something to these names I'm not seeing?


The berry shop is missing a salesperson, but we do get four berries new for Uranium. They're functional copies of normal status curing berries.


The first big thing I noticed about Uranium is just how far from town entrances the Pokemon Centers are. You're never ambushed such that not finding it first is a problem, but at the same time it made me uneasy because Uranium is certainly fond of ambushing you elsewhere.


Uranium has functioning online features, for some reason. The server is maintained by dedicated fans. I'll use 'em later.


This guy is supposed to be describing a few bad matchups for our starter but instead he's revealing that besides poorly executed gags, Uranium's other attempt at humor is randomly applying memes.


This Rich Boy is complaining about always losing. Let's help him with that.


Guy has three level 4 Chyinmunk.


Struggle Bug is a decent move, but Buttplug has bad special attack and nothing here besides opposing Cubbug and Birbies will use special attacks, so it's just yet another STAB move.


His three Chyinmunk give 24 experience and 1 defense EV each.


I mention this as he then gets his Pokemon healed up and is open for a rematch exactly as you left off. This is a decent grinding opportunity this early, and $320 isn't a lot but an extra potion might be all you need.

This is the only trainer like this until the endgame.


Up next is Route 2 and Passage Cave, with more weird-looking Pokemon and bad game design choices!