The Let's Play Archive

Pokemon XD

by Crosspeice

Part 25: Battle Bingo 1

Side Course 5: Battle Bingo 1

Battle Bingo



Alright, Battle Bingo isn't nearly as intense as the Battle CDs, but it's still an investment regardless. Let's do some cards.



Pretty simple with only three types and very few moves to play with.



Starting off big with Golem and then a chunk of EP.



Best to make a row as quickly as possible so you don't run out of EP immediately if the Pokemon you want to catch isn't nearby.



Since I wasn't really doing a lot, I was maybe reading the forums while recording this and so sometimes I absentmindedly attacked a Pokemon I wanted to catch.




Okay now this is where things get a bit scary. We only have one EP left, so we need to clear some lines each turn, or we're in trouble.



Thankfully the EP+1 panel lets us keep going.



Then one by one we do a row and finish the whole thing! We only needed three Pokemon to clear that, which is pretty uncommon.



Alright, the final Novice card. Now there's four types, woah!





Gonna need a Ground type to start us off and Sandshrew will work quite nicely.



Then we need to catch Doduo and get some EP, cause we've got some tough battles ahead.



Like this Farfetch'd. Cause we were crit, we lose the battle and while we could try again for another EP point, that'll more than likely make you unable to finish the whole card, so don't even bother. It can really suck to lose all your progress right at the end of a card due to a crit, but that's just how it goes sometimes.



Second time's the charm.




Doduo goes on a goddamn rampage, since we don't have anything for the multiple Flying types around. In these cases, it just comes down to a damage race, so that's why you usually catch the strongest Pokemon of their type.



Alright, that's one lot down. Onto the next three.



Let's see how difficult these ones are.



Got quite a variety here, so we'll need to catch a few Pokemon.




There we go, everything we need is nearby, so let's get them immediately.



Oh wait we need to restart since I got burned, so can no longer beat Growlithe in a 1v1. You're always holding your breath when you see attacks with secondary effects and they're annoyingly common.



Alright, that should give us a nice EP boost to clear the second half of the board.



It should be pretty obvious what Pokemon I'm using for what panel, since you want to finish battles asap, so blessed RNG doesn't smash your face into the dirt.



A fast Flying type does do wonders here.



And then the last few panels can be done in whichever order you fancy, since you get a lot of BINGOS so you have plenty of EP to experiment with.



We get some more Pokecoupons and a better PP item.



Alright, onto the hardest card in the game, mainly because of the Pokemon options and the various ways you can go through it. We'll be taking the hardest path, of course.



A massive variety in this one, so it explains all the different ways you could go. I'll only show off one since I don't feel like playing more of this mode than I have to. It's alright, but not particularly engaging after you've solved everything. Sure, that's not an excuse, but puzzling out these cards is just frustrating, so I don't care.



Gonna start off with some oddball Pokemon, since we'll need them.



Nosepass vs Grimer is the hardest fight in Battle BINGO since Nosepass is the most dependable Pokemon on the board to take out Grimer, but Nosepass does fuck all for damage. And it's Rock Throw, so its accuracy is shit. Also if it gets poisoned early, you're in trouble. If you combine them both, you'll lose, so it might take a few resets to get it right. No matter the path, all but one have trouble getting past Grimer and they have other Pokemon to worry about also, so a lot of this card comes down to luck.



Had a couple of near misses, but finally we get some good luck and survive with little HP. Thankfully every Pokemon is fully healed between battles.



Little bit fragmented, but let's start lining up the, uh, lines.



Nice, love me some damage variation that causes me to lose. Still, I made a savestate after the Grimer fight, so I'm not going through that bullshit again.



Shame we don't catch Mankey on this path, or this would be real nostalgic.



Silver Wind boosts are not appreciated after you've beaten the opponent, thanks.



And that's that one down, phew. Once you get past the initial hump, the rest is mostly smooth sailing.



Last card for today is this one, which should be a piece of cake, right?



Of course it's never going to be that easy, as you can see with the wide variety of Flying types we'll face.



Since Sudowoodo is so slow, it might not survive all the attacks sent its way, so we'll need some extra help.




Alright, that's much better. We'll grab the strongest Pokemon we can find and sweep from there, since even Sudowoodo will struggle against Charizard.



Charizard is useful as an overall attacker, it'll usually win 1v1 battles, but everyone is pretty useful.



And Sudowoodo is still useful to resist various attacks, even if it does have Rock Throw.



Also when would you think Delibird would be fundamental to our strategy? That's another row down!



But of course there's still a bit more to go, so next time, we'll be tackling the hardest cards in the mode.