Part 4: Mediocrity is nothing to brag about

There are two junior trainers in Maria's gym. There's no puzzle, just chances to walk around if you don't want to fight.

I want to fight.


Dankey's low-kick deals huge damage to the pure-normal Pokemon, and the half-flying ones can't break Bob Dennis.

Well nothing here can break Bob Dennis, but that's really lame.




Huh, it doesn't know any electric moves to use with it. Not that it'd help. Charge is awful at all times in all circumstances.


Haha, geddit? It's what that one trainer from Brock's gym said in Red & Blue! Just... again!




The slower Pokemon always moves second... in a given priority bracket. A move like Quick Attack here goes before slower brackets.

Doesn't help this Birbie.


She also has a new pokemon, the kitty cat Feleng. Intimidate is a hella-strong ability that reduces the opponents' attack one stage just from switching in.




Hey, remember what I said about stores not selling Awakenings?

Yeah. Here's a thing with a sleep move that never misses, so you can be firmly aware how there aren't Awakenings.

But I have Ice Heals! That's important!




Scratch is nothing special, it's how Feleng is gonna claw down your sleeping things.

God, this turn after Yawn hits but while my guy is still awake is frustrating as hell, as there's nothing I can to do to prevent sleep from landing next turn.

Well, except switching.


Except the goddamn thing yawns again.


I made the incredible mistake of planting the berry that cures sleep as it is useful for something much further down the road, so one free full heal is all I have to cure sleep. Even then, if I waited for that berry to grow I'd have all of two because the watering can is in the fucking post-game!


Bob Dennis however can take dozens of scratches with her iron body. If I didn't have her I'd be kinda boned by my inability to handle Yawn in a reasonable manner.


This isn't the oddest thing. Cheren returns from Black & White in their sequels as the first gym leader and uses a different team. His old team is a bonus battle in the post-game.


But then they decide to open this pandora's box. There have been underleveled evolutions throughout Pokemon's history, but never have they commented on it. But now the jig is up. How good of a trainer is she? Why can't I ever do it, no matter what I do? What about wild Pokemon that evolved early? Did that Slowbro take that good of care of itself it evolved at level 15 instead of 37?

Having created this conundrum, Uranium then never mentions it again. Thanks!


In getting ready for the gym leader, Buttplug evolves (at its normal level of 10 because I am a plebian trainer apparently) into her new form which looks like a buttplug now, kinda. Her defense is a fair bit higher as this is the cocoon stage, and she picks up a fairy secondary type. This makes her extremely resistant to fisticuffs and unharmed by meteors.

"Your buttplug evolved" is a perfect phrase, by the way.


She ends some sentences with tildes~

What does this even mean~


She gives her backstory again, which we already knew from NPC chatter. AFAIK her motivation for quitting is still that the fame got to her, which... uh... sure whatever.



Original: PU-GymBattle.ogg
OFSelects: Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden: Chapter 1 of the Hoopz Barkley SaGa: Johnathan Taylor Thomas


Her Pokemon hold no items, have level-up move lists, IVs of 10 (of 31), and are generally unremarkable. Trainer EVs in Pokemon Essentials productions are always level*1.5 in every stat.


I may or may not have known in advance she led with an Owten.




Bob Dennis picked up this power move at level 10. She'll never make anything flinch as she's slow as heck, but 70 power is a lot so I'm fine with never flinching.


For some reason, Uranium trainers have a weird habit of switching out something that's almost KOed even if all it means is I get a free hit on whatever comes in.


Of course, her Feleng has Yawn.


NPC trainers can have items too.


She switches back to Owten for some reason, right when Bob Dennis wakes up.


I try to let Dankey get some work, just to pretend this isn't 100% about Bob Dennis.


Gym leaders have some quip when they're down to one Pokemon. The music also changes.

Original: PU-DecisiveBattle.ogg
OFSelects: N/A

How this engine works is, if the song it's supposed to change to is missing, it just keeps playing the previous one. So we're still on Johnathan Taylor Thomas. I didn't like the last Pokemon music in Black & White, I don't like it now.


Oh, this is Felunge, Feleng's evolved form. It's the same, but more. It didn't Intimidate on entry so it has Cute Charm, like Static but for falling in love.


It of course also has Yawn.


It has Scratch so it can't break through Bob Dennis either.

So glad this dumb whatevertheheck trivialized this entire gym, because otherwise we'd have stare in terror at Yawn with no countermeasures.


For this she gives us the Normal Badge, a badge that's normal. Badges don't do anything in this game, but that's fine. It's about the achievement and the flags.




Return is a weird move. Happiness is an invisible attribute that ranges form 0 to 255, and so Return can have power from 1 to 102. Most Pokemon start with 70, giving Return power of 28, and it goes up with levels, walking around a lot, steroids, candy, etc. At max power, Return is the premeire physical Normal move.

I'm glad to have it.


The game gives us no real direction, but trying to leave through route 2 has Theo catch us.

I imagine if I tried Passage Cave I'd just run into nothing and have to come back to here, but I'm just imagining in bad faith.


Theo's still snotty about losing, and now even more snotty about us beating Maria first.


He of course challenges us to a fight to prove he's the strongest.


Theo has his own Cubblfly.




Bug Bite is a good physical bug move, which is good since Cubblfly has more attack than special attack.

Of course, Buttplug is stuck with Struggle Bug. Cubblfly learns Bug Bite at level 8. When it evolves at 10. There are wild Cubblfly with it, but it's rude that by catching Buttplug as soon as possible I have denied her a good STAB move.

Well, this is hardly unique to Uranium, Shadow Bone at 27 and all that, but a romhack shouldn't have that problem.


Anyway, Gutterball wins off of Gust.




Well now I am the monster with the sleep move.

By the way, Gutterball did in fact get a ton of EXP from the Cubblfly. Evolved Pokemon give a ton more than unevolved ones, and a lot of Uranium's exp troubles come from how rare you get to fight evolved Pokemon consistently.


Too bad it misses and Gutterball dies for the trouble.


Oh well, second verse, same as the first.


Theo almost cries this time. Progress?


He's still huffy though. What do we get?


An HM, great.




Bamb'o had a letter with it, telling us about the HM and to come back to Moki Town. That finally gives us direction. Say what you will about getting railroaded right when you exit a building, at least it means you know where to go at all times.


Rock Smash is a decent move, but as an HM it has a use out of battle. It can crush boulders like those blocking our way to route 3, or composed the road block.

As an HM move it can't be forgotten under normal circumstances though.


Bob Dennis takes it.


It's easy to backtrack to Route 1.


Finally, we've earned the OLD ROD!!!!!


Too bad fishing is hot garbage though. it goes for an extremely random duration before it decides if it's a catch or not, and there's no ! message box to give me an audio cue, so I have to work off the text, which isn't enough for my lame hands sometimes.

It's like they saw Ruby/Sapphire's fishing and decided to make it worse somehow.


Regardless, I get my own Fortog.


IIRC the comment was it looked like a crappy atog.


Magikarp is here, too.


My brother named it.

I shouldn't let him name anything ever again.