Part 59: Side Notes #14: Leader Differences (Erika and Koga)

Side Notes 14: Leader Differences (Erika and Koga)

We're getting quite a few badges, so let's have another comparison. These should be pretty interesting.

Erika

The snoozing flower princess. Will this battle be a pain in the grass? Let's find out.





There's a couple of immediate things, firstly, everything's been bumped up a few levels between versions. But it also means she forgot to use her stones. Maybe that's a good thing, but it is a little disappointing. Oh well, but at least Tangela has some actual STAB. And Weepinbell won't Wrap you to death, so maybe it is for the better. Since you get Ice Beam, Doduo, Growlithe, Vulpix and even Flareon if you're desperate, you shouldn't have difficulty taking her down.

In the anime, Erika appears in the 26th episode, just after Ash catches Primeape. He's denied entry for being a boy, so he dresses up and becomes Ashley to challenge the leader, who is also a perfume maker. (Brock is somehow there too, but how else would they include him in the story?) They battle, but Team Rocket cause the place to catch on fire, so when Ash saves Erika's Gloom, he's given his fourth and final pity badge of the region. That was one fun 30 minutes.

Koga

Our fifth (or sixth) adversary shouldn't be too tough due to Poison being a joke in... the series. But maybe he might catch you by surprise. Like a... samurai, or something.





So this a very big change. Sure, his RB team wasn't amazingly varied, but it was a lot better then his Yellow team. He trades a Ground weakness for a Fire and Flying one instead, ones you should easily have by this point, your team is more or less done, right? Well, there's also the weird level jump, still not sure why it's there. At least adding some Psychic moves to the mix does add something, since otherwise it's a load of Poison and Normal moves. But really, this whole Gym is weird and more Psychic related stuff in this generation isn't hugely appreciated. But since the bugs aren't too tough, maybe adding some levels gives them some kind of bite.

Koga appeared in the 32nd episode of the anime, his Gym appearing way, WAY before the actual city did. There were a lot of traps and Ash did battle his Venonat turned Venomoth, but the battle was interrupted by Team Rocket (man, how do they come up with such unique and interesting storytelling such as this?), so the rematch pitched Golbat against Charmander. Because of evolving hax, Charmeleon pulled out the win and Ash got his second legit badge from battling. Nice one.

Well that was two trainers. Now we're gonna beat up 35 criminals. One at a time. Across 11 floors. Yayyyyyyyy.