All the Pokemens

December 14, 2023

Postgame Part 67: Zero Isle Center

I apologize for the brief hiatus between updates, but the last couple of days have had some unexpected personal stuff going on. Some really exciting, some really tragic. But all in all, I'm not done with this project yet! And we're still going strong!

Last time we cleared the final dungeon that was in Explorers of Time and Darkness. Now, we've only got two more dungeons left, and both of them are exclusive to Explorers of Sky meaning no more detailing version-exclusive content!

But before we get into long-term, I do want to note than we hatched another egg.

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Team Flight New Recruit

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Shears (Gligar M)

Item: None

Abilities: Hyper Cutter, Sand Veil | Moves: Poison Sting, Double-Edge, Feint, Counter

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Zero Isle Center

The music in this dungeon is random on each floor. The songs that can play include: Spring Cave Depths, Deep Dusk Forest, Aegis Cave, and Boulder Quarry

This is the last of the Zero Isle dungeons, and no trickery this time. This truly is the final Zero Isle Dungeon period and is exclusive to Explorers of Sky. Whereas the other Zero Isle Dungeons reset your level and stats, forcing you to start from ground zero as the name implies, this one is more akin to Zero Isle North, where your strength and ingenuity with items is tested to the limits. Where Zero Isle North is the ultimate test of these skills in Explorers of Darkness, Zero Isle Center is the ultimate test in Explorers of Sky.

In order to unlock it, you'll need to recycle 150 items at Spinda's Cafe as well as graduate from the guild. This is the final dungeon unlocked through Project P.

Just like Zero Isle North, you're allowed to bring up to 16 different items into the dungeon with you and as much money as you want. You can also bring as many teammates as you want, but I'm bringing Fog alone since he's the best equipped for these sorts of challenges. In addition to the inventory limitations, as per usual, you can't recruit any pokemon inside and you don't gain any exp.

This dungeon is 50 floors of pain and starts out where Zero Isle North left off level-wise and cap at 99 by the 20th floor. Plus, you'll quickly find this dungeon is far more congested with enemies than usual, so even though it's only 50 floors as opposed to 99, expect the dungeon to be dense enough to make you eat through 99 floors-worth of items.

I decided to keep things pretty straight-forward with the items I brought. Reminder that Reviver Seeds are essentially free full heals that automatically get used when you need them the most. They'll heal all status problems, fill your belly, restore your HP and PP, and all after you've pushed yourself to the very limites of the fumes you were running on. Though I also brought a Max Elixir just because sometimes you do need just one extra PP to save some other resources. I brought a couple Golden Apples to expand my maximum Belly and get more mileage out of my Reviver Seeds, and I stuffed as much space as I could with Pure Seeds as there are no other dungeons I can bring items into.These 9 Pure Seeds will allow me to more or less skip the last 9 floors of the dungeon, turnign this 50 floor dungeon into a 41-floor dungeon. 40, really, considering the final floor is a safe floor. In addition, I'm bringing Fog who I've dumped all of my Joy Seeds into. He wasn't quite able to reach Lv. 100, but 98 is close enough as far as I'm concerned. And of course, he'll be bringing X-Ray Specs, too, though if I was lucky enough to get one, a Tight Belt would certainly be an excellent choice. Then I wouldn't need to bring the Golden Apples at all.

Thankfully, there are no Sealed Chambers to worry about in this dungeon, so you're good to use all 16 item slots as you please! No Keys necessary!

And you bet your ass I plan to cheese the hell out of this dungeon. Though, once again, I must stress that I'm abusing save states, and this strategy is admittedly a little bit reckless. You might want to bring more items to help you get out of sticky situations or to clear rooms of dangerous threats. Spurn Orbs are a really good choice.

Items: Poke, Gaggle Specs, Insomniscopes, No-Aim Scopes, Scope Lenses, Def., Pecha, and Sneak Scarves, Friend Bows, Gold Ribbons, No-Slip, and No-Stick Caps, Patsy, Power, Special, Stamina, Twist, Weather, and Zinc Bands, Iron Thorns, Silver Spikes, Sticks, Geo Pebbles, Gravelerocks, Gravelyrocks, Apples, Black, Clear, Gold, Gray, Pink, Purple, Red, Royal, and Yellow Gummis, Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Oren, Pecha, and Rawst Berries, Blinker, Doom, Dough, Dropeye, Eyedrop, Reviser, Reviver, Slip, Totter, Via, Warp, and X-Eye Seeds, Max and Mix Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs

Traps: SelfDestruct, Explosion, Grimy, Grudge, Gust, Mud, PP-Zero, Random, Seal, Slow, Slumber, Spin, Sticky, Summon, and Warp Traps

And of course, you're almost certain to run into a handful of monster traps as you progress through the dungeon. Most of them only have Poke inside, but might also be completely unmarked, so be on your guard. Thankfully, Fog can simply slip through the walls to avoid any such danger. It's worth noting though that room-wide attacks can still damage you if you're only one tile deep into the wall.

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Zero Isle Center [B1F - B7F]

Pokemon: Golduck, Wailmer, Relicanth, Mantyke, Golem, Nosepass, Lairon, Gible, Onix, Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario

Right away, let me remind you that the pokemon here start at Lv. 90. Coming off of the last few dungeons, you might be used to dealing with Lv. 1 pokemon early on, so be prepared to deal with a lot more powerful attacks like Close Combat, or room-wide attacks like Blizzard and Earthquake. Pretty much assume that every enemy can kick your ass and proceed with caution. And try to only poke your head into large rooms to see if items or stairs are inside. Otherwise, turn right around and leave. Frankly, even most of the items aren't going to be worth the risk of a Gible wandering in and Draco Meteor-ing you to death.

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Zero Isle Center [B8F - B9F]

The tileset changes on the 8th floor to feature a fairly generic savannah look.

Pokemon: Golem, Nosepass, Lairon, Gible, Onix, Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Tyranitar, Sableye

Of course, Tyranitar means some pesky Sandstorms are headed your way. Try to avoid wasting too much time on these floors.

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Zero Isle Center [B10F - B13F]

Pokemon: Golem, Nosepass, Lairon, Gible, Onix, Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Tyranitar, Sableye, Togepi

Togepi joins up on B10F and, curiously, this pokemon is only Lv. 5. Needless to say, you don't have to be afraid of Togepi in the slightest. Just blow on it and it'll go down.

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Zero Isle Center [B14F - B16F]

We've got another tileset change on B14F to a snowy field. This is actually the tileset of Mt. Faraway from Rescue Team which is only used here in this dungeon.

Pokemon: Pokemon: Golem, Nosepass, Lairon, Gible, Onix, Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Tyranitar, Sableye, Jynx, Piloswine, Glalie, Walrein, Weavile, Glaceon, Mamoswine, Rhydon

On B14F, we've got some incredibly dangerous threats. In addition to the regular issues from before, we now have Jynx's Perish Song, several Blizzard users, Weavile's Pressure, and Rhydon's incredibly powerful attacks like Stone Edge and Hammer Arm. Oh, but Togepi dips out for a little bit here.

The weather is random on B15F, it was Cloudy for me. But you had better pray it's not Snowy here or you'll be swarmed by dangerous Ice-types.

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Zero Isle Center [B17F - B18F]

And now we're back to the Savannah tileset.

Pokemon: Golem, Nosepass, Lairon, Gible, Onix, Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Tyranitar, Sableye, Rhydon, Togepi

And Togepi returns here! Thankfully, the beasts of the snow are gone with the snow, too.

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Zero Isle Center [B19F - B20F]

Once again, another Tileset change. This time, it's a Jungle! This is another tileset from Rescue Team that isn't used anywhere else, this one's from Howling Forest.

Pokemon: Nosepass, Lairon, Gible, Onix, Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Tyranitar, Sableye, Rhydon, Venonat, Venomoth, Beautifly, Dustox, Masquerain, Volbeat, Mothim, Hitmonchan

Now Golem and Togepi are gone in favor of more bug pokemon along with Hitmonchan. Although Venomoth doesn't have Silver Wind since it's a Lv. 1 move for it, Beautifly, Dustox, Masquerain, and Mothim all do. Volbeat can even power them up with Helping Hand. Monster Houses here are terrifying.

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Zero Isle Center [B21F - B22F]

Pokemon: Onix, Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Togepi, Gabite, Aggron, Probopass

Thankfully, all the bugs' presence are short-lived and they're all gone on B21F along with Tyranitar and Sableye, while Nosepass, Lairon, and Gible are all replaced with their evolutions.

The weather is random again on B21F, hail for me!

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Zero Isle Center [B23F - B25F]

Pokemon: Onix, Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Gabite, Aggron, Probopass, Bayleef, Meganium, Sunkern, Sunflora, Nuzleaf, Shiftry, Tropius, Leafeon

On B23F, the focus shifts toward Grass-types. Now we've got Grass types instead of Bugs! I don't recall any of these guys being particularly scary, though.

The weather is random on B24F, so if it's Sunny, you might start to run into some scary situations with those Grass-types after all.

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Zero Isle Center [B26F - B27F]

We're back to the Savannah!

Pokemon: Onix, Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Gabite, Aggron, Probopass

To coincide with the change in venue once again, the Grass-types are gone.

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Zero Isle Center [B28F - B30F]

On B28F, we're now in a volcanic cavern with random weather once again. It was rainy for me, but you might want to tread carefully if it's sunny.

Pokemon: Hitmonlee, Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Gabite, Aggron, Probopass, Charizard, Growlithe, Magmar, Slugma, Magcargo, Houndour, Houndoom, Magmortar, Steelix

Onix is now replaced with its evolution, Steelix, and we also see a number of Fire-type pokemon join the party. As you can probably guess, these ones, too, are going to be fairly short-lived. Charizard's got Heat Wave to watch out for and you've gotta watch out for moves like Lava Plume and Fire Blast, too. Plus, regardless of the weather, there's always the risk of pokemon using Sunny Day.

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Zero Isle Center [B31F - B32F]

And we're back to the savannah.

Pokemon: Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Gabite, Aggron, Probopass, Dragonite, Altaria

Of course, you already know by now that means the Fire-types are gone. And this time, Dragonite and Altaria join in on the fun. But it's not all fun. Dragonite has Dragon Dance while Altaria has Perish Song. So be wary of them as you see them.

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Zero Isle Center [B33F - B35F]

Now we're in a yellow forest tileset. And as you can see by the image, we've got Electric types this time!

Pokemon: Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Gabite, Aggron, Probopass, Dragonite, Altaria, Magneton, Electabuzz, Lanturn, Elekid, Luxray, Magnezone, Electivire, Rotom, Clefairy

Naturally, you've got some scary enemies here including Rotom's Discharge and Ominous Wind combined with the ability to travel through walls. Clefairy also joins here, but like Togepi, it's only Lv. 5, so it's nothing to really be concerned with.

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Zero Isle Center [B36F - B37F]

I forgot to screenshot it, but the pattern does continue with the Savanah again here.

Pokemon: Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Aggron, Probopass, Dragonite, Altaria, Clefairy, Garchomp

Of course, the Electric-types are gone. In addition, Gabite is replaced with its evolution, Garchomp.

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Zero Isle Center [B38F - B40F]

This time the tilset is that of a Poisonous swamp. This is another tileset pulled from Rescue Team that isn't used anywhere else. It's the tileset of the Poison Maze.

Pokemon: Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Aggron, Probopass, Dragonite, Altaria, Clefairy, Garchomp, Ekans, Arbok, Grimer, Muk, Koffing, Weezing, Croagunk, Toxicroak

And of course, that must mean we've got Poison-types this time. Frankly, I don't think these are any scarier than most of the challenges we've been facing. The only thing that might cause you to struggle down here compared to the higher floors is running low on resources.

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Zero Isle Center [B41F - B42F]

We're back to the standard savannah once again.

Pokemon: Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Aggron, Probopass, Dragonite, Altaria, Clefairy, Garchomp

And you know the drill by now, the Poison-types are gone.

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Zero Isle Center [B43F - B45F]

Now we've got the ruins of an ancient castle.

Pokemon: Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Aggron, Probopass, Dragonite, Altaria, Clefairy, Garchomp, Kadabra, Alakazam, Mr. Mime, Baltoy, Claydol, Bronzor, Bronzong, Mime Jr.

It's not quite as obvious as the other ones, but we've got Psychic types here! Frankly, I'm surprised they resisted the temptation to put a Ghost-type section at the end. But like hell am I gonna complain about that! Of course, Baltoy and Claydol's Earth Power and Explosion can be a huge problem. But for the most part, everything is pretty straight-forward here.

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Zero Isle Center [B46F - B49F]

Once again, I forgot to screenshot here, but we're back to the savannah tileset once again on B46F.

Pokemon: Primeape, Skarmory, Swampert, Empoleon, Lucario, Rhydon, Hitmonchan, Aggron, Probopass, Dragonite, Altaria, Garchomp

Clefairy and the Psychic types are gone here, leaving you only with the mainstayers who've stuck around since they appeared.

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Zero Isle Center [B50F]

And on the final floor, we're rewarded with four Deluxe Boxes. Each one containing an exclusive item for your leader's species. It seems like it can be of any rarity, but it will never be an exclusive item that only appears from hatching an egg. That also seems to be quite a rare experience, because I've never had it happen in all this time. Frankly, I think I would prefer some Stat boosters or Wonder Gummis over these if I'm being totally honest. But I suppose if you're able to reach these depths then you're not really hurting much in the stat or item department. Still, I'm not sure how much of an incentive an abundance of exclusive items really is. Oh well, the rewards have been pretty lacking in general so I guess I shouldn't be too terribly surprised.

Once we've claimed our prize, we step onto the Warp Tile and finish our exploration!

And that's it for Zero Isle Center! We're finally done exploring Zero Isle! It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it to be, in all honesty. All that's left now, at least in the main story mode, is Destiny Tower, Explorers of Sky's ultimate challenge of endurance. See you soon for that one!

December 16, 2023

Postgame Finale: Destiny Tower

So we're finally arriving at the final dungeon in the game. And this will be our final postgame update. Going forward, there's only a few cleanup updates to make but we'll finally be done calling each update "Postgame Part X". Anyway, let's finally get on with the ultimate challenge of Explorers of Sky: Destiny Tower.

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Destiny Tower

This music in this dungeon is random on each floor. The songs that can play include: Drenched Bluff, Sealed Ruin, Brine Cave, and Upper Steam Cave

Welcome to Destiny Tower, the dungeon I've hyped up pretty much since we first unlocked it as the game's ultimate challenge. Curiously, the only requirement to unlock this dungeon is to graduate from Wigglytuff's Guild, at which point you can unlock it by finding it's location in the bottom of a bottle at Spinda's Juice Bar. This is the last of the dungeons unlocked through this method as well as the last dungeon we've yet to explore period.

This dungeon has pretty much every restriction you can think of. You're not allowed to bring any items or poke into it, only the leader may enter, you cannot be rescued if you get knocked out inside, you cannot gain Exp or recruit any pokemon inside, your level is reset to 1, your stats and moves are temporarily reverted to their defaults, IQ skills are disabled (for you, not the enemies), and there's actually an additional special rule applies to this dungeon and Zero Isle Center I forgot to mention: The game warns that traps will "remain invisible" until stepped on by the player. I'm guessing this means they can't be revealed with attacks or with skills like Trap Seer or Goggle Specs, but I'm not certain. Regardless, you can't bring items or IQ skills here anyway, so it's not like that poses much of an effect. Just don't bother randomly attacking each floor.

Anyway, of course, this dungeon is another 99-floor endurance challenge where your level is set to 1 and you're forced to climb the entire tower alone. Once again, the wild pokemon start at Lv. 1 and climb up to Lv. 30 by the end of the dungeon, so if you aren't staying on top of your levels, you're going to need to avoid combat like the plague in the later floors. Thankfully, just like Zero Isle Center, there are no Sealed Chambers to worry about.

Items: Poke, Gaggle, Lockon, and Whiff Specs, Insomniscopes, No-Aim Scopes, Scope Lenses, Bounce, Curve, Detect, Patsy, Persim, Power, Racket, Special, Stamina, Twist, Weather, and Zinc Bands, Def., Pass, and Warp Scarves, Gold, Heal, Joy, and Plain Ribbons, Munch Belts, No-Slip and No-Stick Caps, Iron Thorns**, Silver Spikes**, Sticks**, Geo Pebbles*, Gravelerocks*, Gravelyrocks*, Apples*, Big Apples*, Grimy Food*, Blinker, Dough, Dropeye, Eyedrop, Heal, Joy, Life, Pure, Quick, Sleep, Slip, Stun, Totter, Via, Vile, Violent, Warp, and X-Eye Seeds, Calcium, Iron, Protein, Zinc, Ginseng, Max and Mix Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs

*Items marked with asterisks cannot be found on 20F.

**Items marked with double asterisks can only be found after 20F.

In addition, though they aren't listed on Bulbapedia, I know I found berries while exploring the dungeon. So I'm pretty confident that Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Oren, Pecha, Rawst, and Sitrus Berries are all available here, too. And it's pretty safe to assume they're not available on 20F like the basic food items.

Two of the biggest thing that make this dungeon more difficult than Zero Isle South are right here in the selection of items available: Notice that there are no Reviver Seeds or TMs. Reviver Seeds aren't available in this dungeon at all, and TMs can only be obtained through Kecleon Shops. So money in this dungeon serves a very important purpose that is significantly different compared to Zero Isle South. That means you're much more likely to rely on whatever your natural level-up moveset is, and moves like Protect aren't as likely to see use here. I hope you chose your pokemon well!

Traps: Chestnut, SelfDestruct, Explosion, Grimy, Grudge, Gust, Mud, PP-Zero, Random, Seal, Slow, Slumber, Spin, Sticky, Summon, and Warp Traps

And of course it wouldn't be the ultimate challenge if not complete with every trap int he game, including the special Grudge and Random Traps new to Explorers of Sky that exist here solely to make you hate your life that much more.

Lastly, after the first five floors, Monster Houses are an ever-present threat throughout the dungeon. Make sure you have the means to get away!

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Destiny Tower Green Crystal Cave [1F - 3F]

Since I didn't save much time in my apporach to covering Zero Isle South, I'm going to take a slightly modified version of that approach to covering the pokemon available here. I'll now be grouping pokemon together by the tilesets they appear on, listing pokemon that appear on the same floor together and noting next to their names the last floor they'll appear. Any sections of pokemon labeled with a lesser sign, '<', are pokemon that appeared before the tileset changed, but still continue to appear in the new tileset. I'm hoping this approach will reduce the time I spend trying to comment on each pokemon and free up more time to actually talk about my experiences. I apologize that these posts might not be very interesting. Since these parts of the game are all gameplay, there's not really much for me to play with and there's a lot of stuff I want to list for the sake of consistency. I'm just trying to find ways to get it done smoothly! I hope you don't mind!

Pokemon:

[1F]: Cleffa [2F], Bulbasaur [3F], Pidgey [3F], Bellsprout [3F], Shellder [3F], Chikorita [3F], Cyndaquil [3F], Treecko [3F], Torchic [3F], Barboach [3F]

[2F]: Caterpie [4F], Mudkip [4F], Spoink [4F]

While on the second floor, I leveled up and learned Water Gun, but it's only actually going to be useful for so long...

[3F]: Exeggcute [5F], Chinchou [5F], Loudred [5F], Whiscash [5F], Glameow [6F]

For the first few floors, there isn't anything too terribly special. You'll want to rack up KOs on these earlier floors to build Exp, though. It's far more important here than in any other Level Reset dungeon since there are no Reviver Seeds or free TMs. I took this for granted and really suffered during my playthrough.

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Destiny Tower Rocky Cave [4F - 7F]

Pokemon

[<4F]: Caterpie [4F], Mudkip [4F], Spoink [4F], Exeggcute [5F], Chinchou [5F], Loudred [5F], Whiscash [5F], Glameow [6F]

[4F]: Seadra [6F], Totodile [6F], Gulpin [6F], Chingling [6F], Stantler [7F], Bidoof [7F], Burmy [7F]

[5F]: Nidoran F [7F], Rattata [8F], Linoone [8F], Lotad [8F]

[6F]: Larvitar [8F], Starmie [9F], Togepi [10F]

[7F]: Clefairy [9F], Marowak [9F], Diglett [11F]

We're already starting to get into some fairly dangerous pokemon here, but nothing too bad just yet. Everything's still pretty low-level so they're mostly lacking their more dangerous attacks. And reminder that, starting on B6F, you can start to run into Monster Houses! Be on your guard!

It was on 6F where I reached Lv. 7. It turns out, if you erase Encore, Walrein tries to relearn it at Lv. 7. Still, I got rid of it, though this definitely wasn't a smart move.

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Destiny Tower Dark Cave [8F - 12F]

Pokemon

[<8F]: Rattata [8F], Linoone [8F], Lotad [8F], Starmie [9F], Togepi [10F], Clefairy [9F], Marowak [9F], Diglett [11F]

[8F]: Aron [9F], Machoke [10F], Weepinbell [10F], Ninjask [10F]

[9F]: Hoppip [10F], Wobbuffet [11F], Spearow [12F]

[10F]: Gloom [14F], Electivire [15F]

[11F]: Ralts [13F], Nosepass [13F], Tentacruel [14F], Eevee [14F], Vaporeon [14F], Azumarill [14F]

[12F]: Dustox [14F], Baltoy [15F]

Levels are starting to desynch from the floor number here, but we're already at the point where enemies are starting to deal a lot of damage and we can't do much to fight back. This is gonna be a long trip. I miss that Warp Scarf I was lucky enough to get in Zero Isle South...

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Destiny Tower Blue Crystal Cave [13F - 21F]

Pokemon

[<13F]: Gloom [14F], Electivire [15F], Ralts [13F], Nosepass [13F], Tentacruel [14F], Eevee [14F], Vaporeon [14F], Azumarill [14F], Dustox [14F], Baltoy [15F]

[13F]: Meditite [14F], Volbeat [16F], Armaldo [16F]

[14F]: Hypno [17F], Natu [17F], Lanturn [18F]

[15F]: Exeggutor [16F], Stunky [19F], Bronzor [20F], Porygon-Z [20F]

[16F]: Scyther [19F], Hoothoot [19F]

[17F]: Quagsire [20F], Sudowoodo [20F], Slakoth [20F], Plusle [20F], Minun [20F], Buneary [20F], Beedrill [21F], Arbok [21F], Grimer [21F]

[18F]: Graveler [21F]

[19F]: Sentret [21F], Swinub [22F], Swalot [22F], Oddish [24F]

[20F]: Sunflora [24F], Abomasnow [24F]

And this is where we can see some of the regular pains from these dungeons. Electivire is as scary as always, and we've also got Porygon-Z as well as Hypno and Exeggutor who can put you to sleep and Bronzor who soaks up so much damage it isn't even funny. Hopefully you haven't neglected your levels like I have been quite guilty of.

The weather is random on the 15th floor, it was Sunny for me.

And then, on the 16th floor, I unfortunately hit a wall. I'd exhausted all my useful items and PP and I spawned in the middle of a Monster House. Unfortunately, no matter how much I save scummed, there was no salvaging this run. I would have to start over from the beginning. Thankfully, I was only 16 floors in. But man is this a terrifying situation to find yourself in.

On my second attempt, I found a small helping of stat-boosting items to help me along the way, including a Ginseng to boost the power of Powder Snow!

This time, the weather on 15F was Foggy.

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Destiny Tower Cold Cave [21F - 29F]

Pokemon

[<21F]: Beedrill [21F], Arbok [21F], Grimer [21F], Graveler [21F], Sentret [21F], Swinub [22F], Swalot [22F], Oddish [24F], Sunflora [24F], Abomasnow [24F]

[21F]: Castform [24F], Drifloon [25F], Kirlia [25F], Shroomish [25F], Beldum [25F]

[22F]: Venonat [25F], Ledyba [25F]

[23F]: Farfetch'd [28]

[24F]: Growlithe [28F], Poliwag [28F], Trapinch [28F], Gorebyss [28F]

[25F]: Voltorb [28F]

[26F]: Yanma [30F], Mime Jr. [30F], Meganium [32F], Spinarak [32F]

[27F]: Raichu [30F], Teddiursa [30F], Beautifly [30F], Dustox [30F], Monferno [33F]

[29F]: Dugtrio [32F], Grotle [33F], Rhyperior [33F]

You're given a bit of a break from some of the more obnoxious enemies, but you've still got Beedrill to worry about. Plus, Drifloon joins up here to follow you through the walls, and we all know how dangerous that can be. Even running away is quite dangerous, now. In addition, we're seeing a lot more pokemon capable of attacking you from a range or across corners, so make sure to keep your distance and try to KO enemies before they become a nuisance.

The weather on 21F is random, it was a Sandstorm for me.

On 22F, I was able to find a Stamina Band. Not quite as good as the Warp Scarf I got in Zero Isle South, but it'll certainly help a significant amount by reducing my reliance on looking for Apples on the ground. Belly is especially important without Reviver Seeds in play.

The weather is random again on 24F, though when it's Hail it's hard to say whether it was the random weather or if an Abomasnow just happened to spawn right away. Regardless, the weather is random again on the 28th floor, where it was snowy! If I was smart, I would've taken this opportunity to explore for items and get more levels, but my impatient ass said I have savestates so there's no need to play things cautiously...

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Destiny Tower Wet Cave [30F - 43F]

Pokemon

[<30F]: Yanma [30F], Mime Jr. [30F], Meganium [32F], Spinarak [32F], Raichu [30F], Teddiursa [30F], Beautifly [30F], Dustox [30F], Monferno [33F], Dugtrio [32F], Grotle [33F], Rhyperior [33F]

[30F]: Electrike [34F], Grimer [35F], Electabuzz [36F]

[31F]: Ampharos [33F], Nidoran M [35F], Gligar [35F], Misdreavus [36F]

[33F]: Psyduck [37F], Pinsir [39F]

[34F]: Mareep [37F], Magnezone [38F]

[35F]: Doduo [39F], Drifblim [40F]

[36F]: Poliwrath [40F], Snorlax [40F], Manectric [40F]

[37F]: Cacnea [41F]

[38F]: Castform [44F]

[39F]: Murkrow [42F], Heracross [42F], Breloom [43F], Weavile [44F]

[40F]: Tauros [43F], Skorupi [45F]

[41F]: Spearow [45F], Cacturne [45F], Granbull [46F], Gyarados [48F]

[42F]: Ariados [46F], Skiploom [46F]

[43F]: Dunsparce [46F]

By this point in the dungeon, most of the pokemon blend together. You already know everything there is to watch out for among these guys. We're starting to see ghosts more frequently which is never fun. And we're not even halfway to the end! Oh brother...

Things weren't looking good when I reached 31F and ran out of PP in the middle of a fight with a Grotle. All I had to rely on at this point were items to get me by until I could find another Max Elixir on the ground... sometimes that's just what all this boils down to. Unfortunately, that means a lot of items are gonna end up going to waste just to help me get through these floors, which is definitely going to bite me in the ass later down the line.

The weather is random on floors 32 and 38. It was Raining on both for me.

I ate a Sitrus Berry on 38F. It took quite a while to be able to finally reach full health to be able to use it.

And the weather is random again on B42F. A sandstorm for me!

-----------------

Destiny Tower Autumn Forest [44F - 60F]

Pokemon

[<44F]: Castform [44F], Weavile [44F], Skorupi [45F], Spearow [45F], Cacturne [45F], Granbull [46F], Gyarados [48F], Ariados [46F], Skiploom [46F], Dunsparce [46F]

[44F]: Nincada [49F]

[45F]: Skuntank [52F], Probopass [52F], Muk [55F]

[46F]: Golbat [50F]

[47F]: Nidorina [50F], Nidorino [50F], Bagon [50F], Magmar [52F]

[48F]: Tangela [52F]

[49F]: Illumise [54F]

[50F]: Surskit [53F], Mawile [54F], Spinda [54F], Arcanine [55F]

[51F]: Fearow [54F], Forretress [55F], Shuckle [55F], Electrode [56F], Hitmonlee [56F], Hitmonchan [56F]

[53F]: Elekid [59F], Numel [59F], Lopunny [60F]

[55F]: Drapion [60F]

[56F]: Mightyena [60F], Magcargo [61F], Ditto [64F]

[57F]: Castform [62F], Rampardos [62F], Rapidash [64F], Torkoal [64F]

[58F]: Rhyhorn [64F], Swablu [64F]

[59F]: Kricketune [63F]

[60F]: Snorunt [65F], Piloswine [67F], Vileplume [69F]

The enemies only continue to get scarier while we struggle to level up! It's a hard-knock life for sure.

I didn't get any screenshots because I was admittedly stressing quite a lot at the time, but I wound up running into a Monster House on 47F that happened to be guarding the stairs. You need to understand that I'm only Lv. 11 at this point and I'm dealing with Lv. 27 pokemon. Powder Snow was doing around 7 HP to Skuntank. I genuinely thought this run was dead here. Thankfully, I was able to use Encore (No, I hadn't deleted it yet this time) to trap Gyarados into Thrash which would damage the enemies around it. And after a several attempts of save scumming and trying various combinations of actions, I eventually found that the only way I was going to be able to get through the monster house was to eat two Quick Seeds and use a Quick Orb to slip right through the crowd and make a beeline for the stairs. Thankfully, no traps prevented this strategy, but man was I worried about dropping all those items just for one Monster House. Little did I know that wasn't even going to be my biggest challenge in this run. Let me tell you, the game did not want this run to be successful and in the timeline where I'm not playing this game with savestates, well, I pray for that boy's sanity.

The weather on floors 48 and 52 are random, it was rainy for me both times!

I ate that Sitrus Berry you see on 52F a handful of floors later on 56F once I've reached full health.

On 57F, the weather is random again. This time, it was Sunny.

----------------

Destiny Tower Mountain Cave [61F - 79F]

Pokemon

[<61F]: Magcargo [61F], Ditto [64F], Castform [62F], Rampardos [62F], Rapidash [64F], Torkoal [64F], Rhyhorn [64F], Swablu [64F], Kricketune [63F], Snorunt [65F], Piloswine [67F], Vileplume [69F]

[61F]: Furret [63F], Lairon [68F]

[62F]: Metang [66F]

[63F]: Pineco [67F], Shieldon [68F], Wormadam [68F]

[65F]: Spheal [66F], Aerodactyl [69F], Shelgon [69F], Pupitar [70F], Zangoose [70F], Purugly [70F]

[67F]: Sealeo [68F], Skarmory [71F]

[69F]: Walrein [70F], Luxio [73F], Bastiodon [73F]

[70F]: Venomoth [74F], Girafarig [75F], Masquerain [75F], Slaking [75F], Dugtrio [79F]

[71F]: Mothim [75F], Magby [77F], Koffing [79F]

[73F]: Golem [79F], Rhydon [79F]

[74F]: Nidoqueen [76F], Parasect [78F], Duskull [78F], Mamoswine [79F], Magmar [80F]

[75F]: Ursaring [80F], Claydol [80F], Castform [83F]

[76F]: Prinplup [80F], Floatzel [80F]

[77F]: Nidoking [79F]

[79F]: Porygon2 [84]

Did you say you wanted a pokemon with Pressure, Agility, and Swagger? No? Well fuck you, you get 4 floors of Aerodactyl harassment.

By this point, survival was all about finding creative ways to run away. And those ways have to get increasingly creative because we're starting to run out of items while dealing with Agility, ranged attacks, Silver Wind.... Cutting through walls is a key skill I wish I had access to right about now. But I suppose that's to be expected. We're nearing the end of the dungeon now and the enemies are slowly reaching the Lv. 30 cap.

The weather on 67F is random once again, Foggy for me!

I also found took a Protein on that same floor. I'd actually had this Protein in my pocket for a while now, but it was Sticky when I picked it up and I had admittedly only just now remembered I had it after having used a Cleanse Orb to deal with that Monster House from before.

------------------

Destiny Tower Desert Cave [80F - 96F]

Pokemon

[<80F]: Magmar [80F], Ursaring [80F], Claydol [80F], Castform [83F], Prinplup [80F], Floatzel [80F], Porygon2 [84]

[80F]: Hariyama [84F], Grimer [85F], Camerupt [85F], Lucario [85F], Magmortar [85F], Mismagius [86F]

[81F]: Garchomp [86F]

[83F]: Shuppet [87F]

[84F]: Scizor [89F], Lunatone [89F], Solrock [89F]

[86F]: Ledian [90F], Miltank [90F], Hippowdon [90F], Dusclops [92F]

[89F]: Castform [94F], Metagross [95F]

[90F]: Politoed [99]

[91F]: Empoleon [97F], Altaria [99F], Honchkrow [99F], Bronzong [99F]

[93F]: Tropius [99F], Roserade [99F]

[94F]: Crawdaunt [99F]

[95F]: Kangaskhan [99F]

[96F]: Noctowl [99F]

The desert cave is the final stretch! And it doesn't hesitate to punish you if you get impatient!

On the 86th floor, I had the biggest scare of my entire run. I was low on HP, low on items, and it seemed the entire run was walled by the monster house I'd dropped into with the unfortunate placement of three Ledian that blocked my way toward the nearest hallway. This screenshot is before the Monster House triggered and you can already see how tantilizingly close I was to that hallway. The worst part of all of this was the Scizor using Agility to speed everything up around me and the fact that I was low enough level this far down that everything could 1-shot me. I wasn't completely out of hope, but nearly all of my items were completely useless for this exact scenario. It was mainly just tricks to get away from lone enemies in halls. I had used all my Warp Seeds by now and the best I could do was stop a single enemy from attacking. No matter what I did, something would kill me. But after lots and lots of save scumming, I eventually found a single, and completely nonsensical, action that was able to save my life. By stepping away from the hallway (down and to the left), I was able to get most of the pokemon in the room to use status moves like Safeguard and Pursuit, and I was able to take advantage of that opportunity to slip around and squeeze my way into the hallway. But every step of the way, there was another danger lurking. Of course, I not only had to worry about a Mismagius following me in the walls while a Scizor stuck to me like glue from behind, but in the next room over there was a Miltank ready to ambush me, so my movement options were limited there and I had to cut the corner tightly to go into the next hall, the one you can see in the corner of this screenshot.

But of course, as soon as I reach a corner of that wall, what would I see but a Hippowdon waiting for me? I don't have room to retreat and I'm surrounded completely by pokemon this way. And there's no other way forward since I don't have the time to use an item without either Scizor or Mismagius hitting me for the KO. I was even able to find a spot where I could use an item. I tried for a Two-Edge Orb which I never actually looked into assuming it was an Orb version of Double-Edge. Apparently, I was completley wrong, though. Instead, this item cuts all enemies' HP to 1 but taxes you for half your HP per pokemon. That's an incredibly powerful effect for a situation like this where every pokemon KOs me in one shot anyway! The only problem was that Miltank I mentioned earlier. This was how I found out that, apparently, Miltank's Milk Drink heals all allies on the floor. And beyond that, there was also a Garchomp waiting for me just behind the Hippowdon right out of view. Oh, and to add insult to injury, the Sandstorm timer was set so that I would take Sandstorm damage right after using the Two-Edge Orb which would kill me. So I had to load state and rework the whole strategy again.

This time, I decided my only option was to use the Mobile Orb I'd been holding on to for as long as I could and make a beeline straight for the stairs. But that is my strongest failsafe and it was far too early to use something so powerful, so I had to really cross my fingers and hope that things would work well.

And on the following floor, I was dropped right in a field of enemies, too. Thankfully, I was able to actually use the Two-Edge Orb effectively here to get a handful of easy KOs and finally level up once more! Yes, I'm only just now reaching Lv. 13 and learning Ice Ball. Enemy levels grew too fast too quickly for me to be able to safely KO anything and I was struggling to find Max Elixirs early on. By the time I did find some more, I could barely damage any of the enemies, so I just had to avoid combat as much as I could. I decided to get rid of Encore for Ice Ball. Perhaps there would be a chance I could hit enough times with Ice Ball that I could cheese out a KO in a tight situation. Of course, it's not a reliable strategy, but when you're desperate, you try everything.

The weather is random again on 89F, Snow for me! A fantastic breath of fresh air after those nightmare of floors I'd forced myself through! And would you believe the worst part has yet to come? That was only my excuse for why I was totally out of items by this point.

-------------------

Upper Destiny Tower [97F - 99F]

Pokemon

[<97F]: Politoed [99], Empoleon [97F], Altaria [99F], Honchkrow [99F], Bronzong [99F], Tropius [99F], Roserade [99F], Crawdaunt [99F], Kangaskhan [99F], Noctowl [99F]

You're almos there! Just a little bit further! But even though some of the most dangerous pokemon are gone, this particular lineup of pokemon still have some major terrors. Namely, Politoed and Altaria for their Perish Song. You don't wanna be in the room with them. And that, my friends, is exactly why I said before the worst had yet to come. Remember how I said I'd used up pretty much everything I had to get past that horrible Monster House on 86F? Well, that in turn made 97 and 98F a total bitch to navigate. Politoed will just randomly take pot shots at you with BubbleBeam, and you're lucky if it decides to do that instead of Perish Song. I'm able to survive a single BubbleBeam at full health. But I'm not lying when I swear to you that I ran into another Politoed every time I turned a fucking corner. There was no escaping these things and I led them on wild goose chases for as long as I could, watching the locations of the enemies on the floor with a Luminous Orb, before I could finally find a path to the exit. It took several, and I mean several attempts to make it work. The worst part was on 98F where the stairs were right there in another room, but I just couldn't make it over there. Every time I tried to go down, a Honchkrow was blocking the entrance to the room just far enough in to where I couldn't just Totter Seed it away, and there just so happened to be a second Honchkrow sleeping behind it that I would wake up if I used my Blowback Orb to hit it from there. ALong the upper paths, all routes were blocked by Politoed and Empoleon at angles where I'd just blow them into corners if I used Blowback Orbs. Eventually, I was able to loop around enough to where I could squeeze through the lower route while being pursued by a Politoed and the only thing standing between me and the stairs was a single Roserade. And the only reason I couldn't just Totter Seed the Roserade away was because it used Sweet Scent instead of stepping toward me. And that was enough to buy it time to get Politoed into position to KO me with BubbleBeam if I tried to use any items. It took several attempts to make this setup work, but I was eventually able to find an RNG setup where I could use the Transfer Orb to turn Roserade into a Noctowl, it would use a status move, and then I could finally slip through to the other side unopposed.

And thank god that the 99th floor has a special flag set so that pokemon don't naturally spawn here on their own. This floor is a victory lap of sorts, as Bulbapedia puts it, but it's not guaranteed to be completely safe because it's still possible you could wander into a Monster House. It's generally pretty safe to collect the items you find on the floor, though.

===============

Destiny Tower Pinnacle

We've finally, finally reached the top! And I've only ripped out about 20% of my hair in the process. Not too bad!

Up here, we find a statue depicting Arceus. You may have been expecting a boss fight with Arceus, but thank Arceus there is no such thing like that here. I would be woefully unprepared to fight a boss under these conditions, but I absolutely wouldn't put it past this game to pull something like that. Unfortunately, this is the only time you ever see Arceus in any way shape or form in this game. That's right, you cannot actually recruit Arceus at all. I have to wonder if there were any rumors of Arceus being unlockable through some requirement like recruiting every pokemon and leveling them all to 100 or anything like that. Hehe... regardless, Arceus is not in the game, though there is room for enough slots in the game's memory which suggests that perhaps at one point you were meant to recruit Arceus and it would have access to all of its different forms. I'm curious how that would've worked out... But regardless, there is no Arceus, sadly. Just this brief cameo.

Instead, upon examining this statue, we receive a special item known as the Space Globe. This extremely powerful held item doubles the powers of all of your moves! Give it to someone who really struggles to keep up and watch the tables turn!

And that's it for Destiny Tower! That's our final dungeon! But don't think we're done just yet! Yes, we've still got a little bit more to cover. But this is what I consider the moment that marks the completion of the postgame! There is nothing else that I would really consider "significant" content. All that's left now I think better falls under the umbrella of cleanup. So, next time, the cleanup of Explorers of Sky officially begins! And I think we're going to start by finally looking into those mysterious items we got before...

See you soon!

December 17, 2023

Cleanup Part 1: Something's missing...

Now that we've covered every single dungeon in Explorers of Sky, what else is there to do? Well, the big long-term project for this game is to recruit every pokemon. And while I'm obviously not going to go that far for a self-contained side game like this one, I am going to at least talk through the process of doing so. But before we get to that, however, I think it's high time we address a certain subset of pokemon you may have been questioning. We've covered exclusive items for pokemon like Deoxys and Moltres but have seen neither nide nor hare of any of these legendaries... so where are they hiding? Well, remember those mysterious items we got as quest rewards and I promised we'd talk more about them later? Well, that's right, the Mystery Part and Secret Slab hold the key to finding these legendaries, referred to as Roaming Legendaries.

As mentioned before, the Mystery Part and Secret Slab can only be obtained from specific Prospecting missions obtainable from the bulletin board. These missions are normally only available after reaching Diamond Rank, though something must've caused a glitch during my coverage of Explorers of Darkness because I inexplicably got these missions long before I was supposed to be able to. Once you have these items secured, you'll want to treasure them as you take them into certain dungeons in search of the roaming legendaries in question.

Among the items you bring, I recommend bringing both X-Ray Specs and the Golden Mask with you. You'll want the X-Ray Specs to help locate the pokemon on the floor, and the Golden Mask to help with recruiting it, as none of them are 100% guaranteed like normal boss fights. In addition, having your leader be a pokemon at least Lv. 99 with the Fast Friend IQ Skill, available only to pokemon in the B or H IQ Groups with 550 IQ or more. With all of these qualifications, you should have a base 49.6% recruitment chance of any pokemon, in addition to their default recruitment rate. Not only will this help with recruiting these legendaries, it'll be a big help in recruiting any rare pokemon period, and it'll be downright necessary for what's likely to be the final pokemon you ever try to recruit in your playthrough. I'll cover those details soon enough. But for now, we're focusing on the Roaming Legendaries.

To demonstrate how this works, we'll head to Amp Plains with the Mystery Part in our inventory.

And as we reach the 7th floor, we'll notice an oddity in the Recruitment list: Zapdos is present?? Sure enough, as we explore, we'll eventually find Zapdos roaming around the floor.

We equip the Golden Mask and engage Zapdos in battle, making sure our leader is standing adjacent to it and is the only one attacking the pokemon--this is the only way to guarantee a chance to recruit the pokemon. If a teammate gets the final hit or you aren't standing immediately adjacent to the pokemon, you won't even get to roll for the recruitment chance. The pokemon will simply faint and fade away. Each of these Roaming pokemon have a base 10% recruitment rate, meaning with the above qualifications, you should have a 56.6% chance to recruit them with each KO.

A Roaming Legendary will always spawn as long as you start the floor with the Mystery Part or Secret Slab in your inventory. Either item works, you do not need specific items for specific pokemon. So if you have X-Ray Specs equipped, one of the Red Dots on the map when you first reach the target floor will be the legendary you're after.

=============

Team Flight New Recruit

---------------

Energy (Zapdos); Lv. 49

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Charge, Drill Peck, Roost, Discharge

=============

In case it isn't clear yet, this is going to be the focus of today's update. We're going to be covering the various roaming legendaries, what dungeons they can be found in, and recruiting each one.

At Giant Volcano, Moltres can be found at 10F.

Lugia can be found on B18F at Surrounded Sea.

Ho-oh on 19F at Mt. Mistral

Celebi, unfortunately not the shiny variety, and Darkrai on 10F and 13F respectively at Mystifying Forest. Celebi is an Explorers of Time exclusive, so it's only available in Time and Sky. So it will not appear in Explorers of Darkness at all. Darkrai can also alternatively be found at Miracle Sea B3F, Lower Crevice Cave B2F, Mt. Travail 17F, and Spacial Rift 14F. Is this the same Darkrai that got scattered through time and presumably lost his memory? Worth noting, it is found at the same level as that very final boss... I suppose there's no way to know for sure, but perhaps this is his chance to find a new purpose in life. Spacial Rift is arguably the best place to find Darkrai, though, because...

Latias can be found on B10F of Spacial Rift while Latios can be found on B5F of Deep Spacial Rift. You can find Darkrai between the two.

And finally, Deoxys can be found at Shimmer Hill. Deoxys can also be found at Temporal Tower, but you can't actually recruit pokemon there, so it's more of a secret "boss fight".

===============

Team Flight New Recruits

--------------

Meteor (Moltres); Lv. 44

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Endure, AncientPower, Flamethrower, Safeguard

--------------

Typhoon (Lugia); Lv. 45

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Recover, Hydro Pump, Rain Dance, Swift

---------------

Sunrise (Ho-Oh); Lv. 43

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Recover, Fire Blast, Sunny Day, Swift

---------------

Time (Celebi); Lv. 44

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Safeguard, Magical Leaf, AncientPower, Baton Pass

---------------

Stream (Latias F); Lv. 43

Item: None

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Water Sport, Refresh, Mist Ball, Zen Headbutt

--------------

Jet (Latios M); Lv. 44

Item: None

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Protect, Refresh, Luster Purge, Zen Headbutt

--------------

Eclipse (Darkrai); Lv. 53

Item: None

Ability: Bad Dreams | Moves: Hypnosis, Faint Attack, Nightmare, Double Team

--------------

Dna (Deoxys); Lv. 45

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Teleport, Knock Off, Pursuit, Psychic

==============

In addition to these guys above, Explorers of Time and Darkness have a few additional entries. In Explorers of Sky, these pokemon are instead tied to Challenge Letters, most of which we've already obtained.

Raikou, Lv. 46, and Entei, Lv. 47, can be found at Concealed Ruins B20F and Deep Dark Crater B10F respectively.

Additionally, as a version-exclusive counterpart to Celebi, Mewtwo can be found in Explorers of Darkness at Aegis Cave Pit B5F or Dark Crater B6F.

Between these roaming legends, challenge letters (in Sky), the Final Maze (in Time and Darkness), recruits from story progression, rematches with story bosses and revisits to significant NPCs, and the Seven Treasures dungeons, every Legendary and Mythical Pokemon except for Arceus is recruitable in the game! In our next update, I'm going to be summarizing the process of recruiting every pokemon in the game. My coverage of this game was a bit of a scattered mess, so it would be good to have all of the details consolidated in one singular place. That same update will also detail some of the rarest recruits that you're likely to still need to fill out any gaps if you're going for 100% completion. See you soon!

December 18, 2023

Cleanup Part 2: Gotta Recruit 'em All

Today's update isn't going to be covering much gameplay. As this is something that I'm not actually going to do myself, but might be something anyone trying to play along might be interested in.

So you've finally reached the end of the line, you've gotten all the rare items, completed all the dungeons, and played through all of the Special Episodes. What's left to do? Well, recruit everything, of course! Just like in Rescue Team, nearly every pokemon up through Gen IV is recruitable in this game. As mentioned in the previous post, that's every pokemon that existed at the time except for Arceus. But it's likely, even if you've been quite thorough, that there's still some gaps in your recruitment list.

Before even focusing on trying to recruit every pokemon, I first recommend doing everything I mentioned before: Raise your Manaphy or Cresselia to Lv. 99 and stuff it with gummis until it learns the IQ skill Fast Friend. Of course, any other pokemon in the B or H IQ Groups can learn this skill, but you'll always have access to Manaphy and Cresselia since they're recruited after completing the postgame's story. Get yourself the Golden Mask, too. By the time you're down to the final pokemon, all of these factors will be required.

Slightly less required, but still helpful, are the Mobile Scarf and X-Ray Specs. These can help you track enemy locations or cut through walls to chase after enemies that are being difficult.

By the time you finish the postgame, you will already have a couple of pokemon recruited completely free. These include your starter, your partner, both of which are variable among the options listed on the first post, Cresselia, who isn't technically given to you automatically but is easily obtainable by talking to her in the hub world, and Manaphy who returns to you at the end of the postgame story. But odds are, just by playing through all these dungeons, you've likely recruited a sizeable chunk of pokemon already. Even still, it's doubtful you've recruited everything unless you were extremely diligent in the process.

Before we get into the details of all of this: I want to emphasize that it is impossible, at least by official means, to recruit every pokemon in Explorers of Time and Darkness today. This is because the Pokemon Mewtwo and Celebi are version exclusive to Explorers of Darkness and Time respectively. Back when DS online services were still up, there was a special online event you could participate in to receive Mewtwo or Celebi in the opposite version, but without online support, these two are impossible to obtain. Beyond that, Lucario and Lopunny were also exclusive to Explorers of Time and Darkness respectively and not available through Wonder Mail, either. You can, however, obtain other version exclusive pokemon simply by wonder mail codes for missions that reward you with that pokemon's recruitment. I believe you can even find these in the base game without using Wonder Mail, you just have to be incredibly lucky and check the Bulletin Board every day.

Now, the first thing you're probably going to want to do is unlock all of the dungeons. For this post, I'm going to assume you've already cleared the main story and the postgame's story. By the time you've done this, you should have a sizeable chunk of dungeons unlocked. But you might still be missing some of them. I'm not certain how many are necessary, but either way, having access to all of the dungeons will certainly guarantee you have access to as many pokemon as possible.

Of course, some dungeons can never be revisited: Side Path, Rock Path, Forest Path, Chasm Cave, Dark Hill, Sealed Ruin, Dusk Forest, Deep Dusk Forest, and The Nightmare. None of these dungeons allowed you to recruit pokemon anyway, though, and any pokemon that could be found in them can be recruited elsewhere.

As for the other dungeons you may be missing...

Some of the trickiest dungeons to unlock are from Spinda's Juice Bar. You've probably unlocked at least most of these dungeons just trying to get the Fast Friend IQ skill. This happens randomly and there's really nothing you can do to make it happen faster. You can squeeze out some extra rolls by throwing in random food items like Apples and Oran Berries, but if you're investing all this time anyway you're probably better off taking a few trips through Marine Resort gathering Gummis to use instead. There's no static number necessary to unlock these dungeons, it's all up to the dice. The dungeons you're looking for here include: Lush Prairie, Serenity River, Happy Outlook, Lost Wilderness, Mt. Mistral, and Destiny Tower.

Then there's the Project P dungeons which are unlocked by recycling items at Wynaut's Recycle Shop in Spinda's Cafe. I hope you've been staying on top of this because you need to recycle 150 times by the end of the game. I generally prefer to recycle for the highest tier of ticket here to clear out my storage when I reach the capacity rather than sell items, but if you just want to grind through it all really fast, you can recycle any 4 items for a bottom-tier Prize Ticket. Sacrifice 600 items to Wynaut and you should be good to go. Surely you have a bunch of junk from all your adventures you're never going to use. You'll know you've unlocked them all when you unlock Zero Isle Center. Note, you can only unlock Zero Isle Center

In Explorers of Time and Darkness, you obviously don't have access to Spinda's Cafe, so all of the above dungeons require Wonder Mail codes to access. You can check the Bulbapedia page for each dungeon to find Wonder Mail codes for missions that will unlock them. Note that Wonder Mail S Codes only work for Explorers of Sky while regular Wonder Mail codes work for Explorers of Time and Darkness.

Up next, there are the Seven Treasures dungeons. By the end of the postgame, you should have the Secret Rank naturally, so you should be able to at least receive requests from the Exploration Team Foundation. You can get them randomly from NPCs in Spinda's Cafe, or alternatively use the Wonder Mail or Wonder Mail S Codes to obtain them. The Seven Treasures dungeons include Shimmer Desert, Giant Volcano, Mt. Avalanche, Bottomless Sea, World Abyss, Mystery Jungle, and Sky Stairway. You can look up each dungeon individually for their Wonder Mail codes on Bulbapedia, or you can visit this page for a more convenient list. You can also unlock Labyrinth Cave in this way, but it's not really necessary for recruiting every pokemon.

There's also Wish Cave which requires you to complete Bidoof's Wish. Then it's possible to receive a Challenge Letter from Jirachi that will unlock the dungeon for you to explore in the main quest.

Perhaps the biggest struggle to unlock everything is Sky Exclusive. And that's grinding all the way up to the Guildmaster Rank at 100000 points. That takes a loooot of missions completed. There's a reason it took so long between Southeastern Islands and Inferno Cave. Thankfully, this grind was a big part of why I was able to reach Lv. 100 by the end of the game. Once you've reached Guildmaster Rank, you'll have arguably the most difficult dungeon to unlock: Inferno Cave. You'll also more than likely have accumulated plenty of junk to recycle to finish Project P. Having this max rank will also make it certain that any other dungeon can be accessible. You might not think these dungeons are important since recruiting isn't an option, but you'd be wrong since you need these dungeons unlocked to receive the Challenge Letters for the Legendary Beasts... those pokemon are arguably much easier to recruit in Explorers of Time and Darkness, but I'd say that's a fair tradeoff given the limitations of those games.

So, now let's transition into actually recruiting the pokemon! Let's start with the easiest ones, shall we?

The Lake Guardians, Dialga, and Palkia can all be obtained by finishing their respective dungeons a second time and defeating them in a rematch. In Uxie's case, this is actually your first time fighting it since you fought an illusion of Groudon your first time through. In Explorers of Time and Darkness, recruiting Palkia was also a prerequisite to being able to evolve your starter and partner.

Likewise, Shaymin and Phione can be recruited just by revisiting the end of Sky Peak Mountain Path and Miracle Sea respectively a second time, no boss fight required. Note, Shaymin is only present in Explorers of Sky.

Then you have the Legendary Golems which each have a flat 50% recruitment rate which unfortunately is not modified by any boosts, so it may sadly take multiple trips through the dungeon. But Regigigas is an exception, as it's a 100% recruitment rate. Though its allies cannot be recruited. This dungeon is a huge pain, so try to stockpile any excess Unown Stones needed for the chambers. That's R, O, C, K, I, E, S, T, and L.

And then you have the guardians of the Seven Treasures: Groudon, Heatran, Articuno, Kyogre, Giratina, Mew, and Rayquaza who are all found at the ends of their respective dungeons. Like the Legendary Golems, all of these bosses are only available as a static 50% chance. Though the Seven Treasures are useless at this point, it's the only way to get these holes in your roster filled.

Then you have the Roaming Pokemon, Zapdos, Moltres, Lugia, Ho-oh, Celebi, Latias, Latios, Darkrai, and Deoxys. Who require the Mystery Part to be found. You can follow the guide in the previous psot to get these pokemon. Though, again, Celebi isn't available in Explorers of Darkness, only Time and Sky. Moltres is only available as a roaming pokemon in Explorers of Sky, too.

Of course, you'll need to have access to their respective dungeons. Most of them are tied to story progression, but Giant Volcano is one of the Seven Treasures dungeons, Mt. Mistral is unlocked through Spinda's Juice Bar (you shouldn't have much problem accomplishing this if you've been regularly using the bar to boost use Gummis and vitamins like you probably should have been throughout the game), and Shimmer Hill is unlocked through a job request.

In Explorers of Sky, the pokemon Jirachi, Raikou, Entei, Suicune, and Mewtwo can all be obtained through accepting Challenge Letters. Jirachi will unlock Star Cave for you to explore, but Raikou, Entei, Suicune, and Mewtwo require you to unlock Southeastern Islands, Inferno Cave, Treacherous Waters, and Sky Stairway respectively before you can receive their challenge letters.

In Explorers of Time and Darkness, Moltres, Suicune, and Jirachi are somewhat awkwardly crammed into the Final Maze instead of the means you recruit them in Sky. They're found similarly to Roaming pokemon on B23F, B29F, and B40F respectively. However, they do not require the Secret Slab or Mystery Part to find. Moltres and Suicune have base 30% recruitment rates while Jirachi has a -12% recruitment rate.

In addition, Raikou, Entei, and Mewtwo are also roaming pokemon in Explorers of Time and Darkness, though Mewtwo is Darkness-exclusive.

Now that we're caught up on all the guaranteed encounters, the real bulk of your time is going to be spent crawling through dungeon after dungeon trying to KO pokemon after pokemon until you recruit every single pokemon you can to fill in all the gaps. Some additional problems you may run into: There is a cap on how many pokemon you can recruit, and while it is above the maximum number of pokemon in the game, including alternate forms like Unown, you may want to avoid recruiting duplicates of the same pokemon unless you intend to evolve them. And on that note, while most pokemon are pretty easily accessible once you reach peak recruitment potential, you might find it easier to simply recruit a weaker pokemon and evolve it than trying to recruit the fully evolved form in the wild.

For questions about specific pokemon you might be missing that I don't address in this post, I'll point you to my reference for a lot of the following information, this gamefaqs guide by xvolution. It's in the Explorers of Sky section, but it contains information on all three versions of the game. I'm not going to list out every single pokemon and where to find them, I've detailed every dungeon quite exhaustively already. You can either turn to that guide, Bulbapedia for individual dungeons, or my own posts to find that info. Just make sure you're looking at dungeons you can actually recruit pokemon in. Note that some version exclusives, such as Butterfree and Beedrill, can be circumvented through the process of evolution.

And speaking of evolution, some pokemon cannot be recruited in the wild at all. While they might appear in dungeons, the dungeons they appear do not allow recruitment. In order to obtain these pokemon, you'll either need to recruit them through jobs or through evolution. These pokemon include Hitmonlee, Omastar, Dragonite, Crobat, Porygon2, Gardevoir, Manectric, Grumpig, Dusclops, Salamence, Metagross, Rampardos, Bastiodon, Purugly, Bronzong, Abomasnow, and Porygon-Z.

All of these pokemon are pretty straightforward with their evolution requirements. Most of them are simply level evolutions. Hitmonlee requires its Attack stat to be higher than its defense stat, which should be fairly easy as long as you make sure to pump it with Protein and avoid Iron for a while. The most complicated evolutions here are Porygon2, Porygon-Z, and Crobat. The former two require and Upgrade or Dubious Disc respectively along with a Link Cable while Crobat requires 200 points in IQ to evolve. Golbat won't be far off from evolving once it learns the IQ skill Practice Swinger, and you'll know for certain it's ready to evolve once it learns the IQ skill Trap Avoider. You would think more item evolution pokemon would be exclusive to evolution, but nope. Most of them are available in dungeons, curiously enough. Frankly, I think this is kind of an odd selection of pokemon to be unobtainable through recruitment. It doesn't seem designed for the most part, just that these pokemon coincidentally were only used in tougher dungeons like Zero Isle. Thankfully, none of these evolutions should take too terribly long. Throw on a Miracle Chest and run through some high-end dungeons and you should be good to go on that front.

Wailord is also quite a rare encounter in the wild, only appearing on Surrounded Sea B16F and Bottomless Sea B26F. Definitely a very easily missable pokemon if you aren't paying attention to the recruitment list.

Thankfully, unlike in Rescue Team, you don't have to worry about going solo to recruit pokemon. Since you can send any pokemon back to the guild, including the new recruit, you can recruit as many pokemon as you want making Explorers far more convenient to complete in this regard compared to Rescue Team where, at most, you could only recruit three pokemon at a time and if you didn't have room for the pokemon in your active party, the game wouldn't even give you the chance to recruit it. Oh, but just you wait for Rescue Team DX's solution to this problem... it's... definitely a solution.

Now then, eventually you'll follow all of these steps and seek out every pokemon... and you eventually get them all except... you finally look at your recruitment list and you realize there's only one pokemon you're missing... Kecleon.

Yes indeed, Kecleon is recruitable in this game, just as he was in Rescue Team. And it's the exact same story here. Kecleon has a -26% recruitment rate meaning it takes a Lv. 99 Pokemon with the Golden Mask and the Fast Friend IQ Skill just to have a 0.1% chance to recruit it. And indeed, Kecleon is regularly considered the secret final boss of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games and the game actively deters you from even trying to recruit one. You can only fight Kecleon by stealing from a Kecleon Shop in a dungeon. The safest approach to this is to stand on the stairs and use a Trawl Orb. But as soon as you do, many Kecleon will begin to spawn aggressively all around the map and hone in on your location, and they spawn in with max speed! They are insanely powerful, have Fury Swipes to eat through your Reviver Seeds like candy, Escape Orbs do not work after the event is triggered, and if you end up dying, all the items in your inventory get swapped with Plain Seeds. All of them.

To recruit Kecleon is the ultimate test of patience and skill in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. You do not want to mess with these guys and I imagine most casuals have never even considered that you could recruit Kecleon. I cannot stress enough how scary it is to even try to recruit Kecleon. I mean, you don't even get the check unless you KO one while it's in your face. And, at best, your speed is equal to its. That's insane! Only the bravest of souls accept this challenge and, sadly, I have to confess that it's simply over my head. Maybe one day I'll brave it out, but that one day is not today and I don't intend for that day to ever come, either.

Anyway, I do believe that about covers everything in regards to recruiting every pokemon. You shouldn't have too many issues recruiting all the miscellaneous pokemon as long as you have all the dungeons unlocked. Next time, we're going to focus on some miscellaneous title screen stuff. I know, I know, real exciting, but hey, we're thorough here. And we'll be onto the next project soon enough! See you soon!

December 18, 2023

Cleanup Part 3: Those Other Things

There isn't so much more to talk about with this game, but there's still a little bit more we can. Today we're going down the main menu and seeing what options we have.

First of all, let's hit Continue to see our final save file. Okay, technically this isn't "final," because there's still a little bit I want to do, but this is what our save looks like. It's been 125 hours of in-game playtime with 205 excursions. That's a lot of gameplay out of this deceptively simple game.

The next option is Go Rescue which brings you to Pelipper Island. I believe I've covered this place in my coverage of Time and Darkness, but in case I haven't, this is where you'll go to perform Friend Rescues if you resceive an SOS Mail from a friend through Wi-Fi, Local Wireless, or a password. On a Friend Rescue, your gameplay is in a sort of limbo state kind of like a Special Episode where you're not really playing in Story Mode, but you can access Kangaskhan Storage and Duskull Bank from here to manage your tiems and money. Any money and items you don't store before leaving will disappear forever, so make sure you make use of these stations! You can also access Chimecho Assembly to restructure your team. You probably want your best pokemon because you can't be rescued here if you get KO'd. You also cannot recruit any pokemon in the dungeon while performing these special rescues.

The actual Friend Rescue process otherwise works the way it did in Rescue Team. You receive an SOS Mail, go into the dungeon that player was KO'd in, rescue their leader like a normal rescue job request, then you'll receive an A-OK Mail which you can send back to the player you rescued. They can enter that A-OK Mail to be liberated of the heavy burden of failure. Furthermore, that person can optionally send a Thank-You Mail containing an item from their storage. Make sure to send a worthwhile gift as thanks! It's better to give up one rare item than the several you would've after that KO! Essentially, Pelipper Island is a stand-in for the Pelipper Post Office in Rescue Team.

Pelipper also mentions that he can provide you with a reward for going on Friend Rescues. I'm not actually sure what that means specifically, but it's surely worth checking in with him after performing a successful Friend Rescue.

Speaking of Friend Rescue, the Friend Rescue menu is where you go to receive said Mail. SOS Mail, A-OK Mail, and Thank-You Mail can all be sent by Password or over Local Wireless or WiFi. Note that when you send SOS Mail, you cannot continue playing until you're rescued unless you cancel the rescue request. Other people can still perform the Friend Rescue since it's an independent code, but you won't be able to receive the A-OK Mail for it.

The Wonder Mail S menu is very similar. You can send and receive Wonder Mail over Wi-Fi or Local Wireless with a friend, or bring up the passwords from your Job List. Once again, reminder that Wonder Mail S Codes only work for Explorers of Sky while regular Wonder Mail Codes only work for Explorers of Time and Darkness. I previously mistakenly stated Wonder Mail codes could be used for Explorers of Sky as well, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Instead, it seems that only works for Friend Rescue.

Unfortunately, I only just today learned that, apparently, the US version of this game doesn't use the same Wonder Mail codes as the EU version. I believe every code I've shared is specifically the US version code, so I'm terribly sorry for anyone following along from the UK who may have been confused why the Wonder Mail codes I've been sharing haven't been working, I know quite a few Europeans on here so I'm a bit disappointed to realize this detail means this game doesn't connect so smoothly between versions. I'm unsure whether or not the original Japanese version also has its own codes.

Anyway, I'm actually going to enter a Wonder Mail code I found online for that final Challenge Letter I was never lucky enough to get naturally. This is, of course, for Entei at Inferno Cave.

Of course, I probably don't need to tell you that actually recruiting Entei was easy at this point and wasn't really much more than a quick bullet point.

============

Team Flight New Recruit

--------------

Eruption (Entei); Lv. 65

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Swagger, Fire Fang, Lava Plume, Extrasensory

============

Anyway, up next is the Trade Items menu which is exactly what it sounds like. You can trade items with other players out of your storage. This was mainly useful for Explorers of Time and Darkness to help get opposite version gummis and other version-exclusive items. Items can only be traded over local wireless. Explorers of Sky is able to trade with Explorers of Time and Darkness, but obviously, items that don't exist in Time and Darkness cannot be traded over. That mainly refers to the Space Globe, all the lookalike items, and a sizeable chunk of exclusive items.

You might be misled by the presence of "Trade Team" into thinking you can trade pokemon with your friends. Sadly, this only puts your friend's team in the Marowak Dojo as an Ai-controlled boss fight, just like it did in Rescue Team. So don't get your hopes up to easily fill out those missing recruits by piggy-backing off of a friend.

In the Other Menu, we have a handful of additional options to look through.

The Adventure Log is pretty much the same thing as it was in Rescue Team. It records your statistics and this is the ultimate tracker of your progress toward 100% completion. Most entries are milestones to accomplish, such as recruiting every legendary pokemon (and... Rotom, for some reason...). As you can see, I still have a couple of entries missing. The one on Page 1 tracks you rnumber of successful friend rescues and show sup once you accomplish one, while the one on Page 8 is about recruiting Rotom. It really is as simple as that. You'll be delighted to know this Adventure Log isn't nearly as absurd to fill out as the one in Rescue Team. There's no RNG grindfests like encountering Munchlax nor is recruiting Kecleon actually required.

Of course, there's also the Sky Jukebox which I've covered before. It had a picture of Chatot before but it's a Shaymin now. I'm not sure if it's chosen randomly or if Shaymin shows up here after you recruit him or something, but I couldn't seem to get Chatot or any other pokemon to show up, so I guess Shaymin is here to stay. It's a cute walking animation that plays to the music, though, so I like it.

You can change the shape of the frame around the textboxes here, too. Not very significant, but it's a cute little detail.

There's also the Wi-Fi menu where you can manage your friends list, register friends, and find your friend code. Yes, this was in that era of Nintendo WiFi where you had to have a separate Friend Code for your system and every game that used WiFi so you'd pretty much need a spreadsheet of all of your friends and their friend codes for every game they have. You can also connect the game to your Email, just like in Explorers of Time and Darkness to receive notifications of anything sent to you. Again, this seems like an incredibly ahead-of-its-time feature.

Last but not least is the final hurdle we have with covering this game... the Demo Dungeons. We're not going to do these in this post, as it's actually going to need me to switch over to physical hardware to actually cover. I've tried to be coy about this, but I'm sure I may have probably already mentioned these at some point. But yes, we technically do have a small handful of dungeons to cover with this game, but these are going to be independent demo dungeons, all of which cannot be found in Story Mode at all and even come with some special restrictions. They're only demos so they likely aren't challenging or anything, but they are dungeons and we've been quite comprehensive in our coverage of those. And I imagine most people completely ignore this feature, so I thought it would be fun to take a quick look at it. So, next time, we switch over to physical hardware and begin playing some Demo Dungeons. See you soon!

December 20, 2023

Cleanup Part 4: Wanna Try?

Today should be our final update on Explorers of Sky. Unfortunately, I did run into some issues that prevents this update from being quite as comprehensive as I would've liked, so we may revisit this game one day, though as this is such a small part of the overall package, I'm not sure I'm going to put much effort into it.

Anyway, the only option we didn't cover in the previous update was this option right here: Send Demo Dungeon. In case it isn't obvious, today we're going to be covering the Demo Dungeons!

Explorers of Sky allows you to send a demo dungeon over DS Download Play to allow people who don't own the game to give it a try! Normally, I wouldn't put a spotlight on this and would just cover it as a bullet point in the previous update, but these dungeons are actually unique and can't be played any other way. They're extremely brief, only about 5-7 floors, and due to being limited in filesize, there are a handful of oddities while exploring them. All in all, though, they're technically new dungeons we've yet to cover!

Unfortunately, we're going to have to switch over to physical hardware for this update as, obviously, I can't connect over wireless here. For the rest of this update, you're going to have to excuse some low-quality photos of my DS screen using my phone. It's the only means I have of taking "screenshots" here.

And yes, I'm aware I need to clean off my screen. I haven't used this thing in half a year, alright?

Once you have the Demo being sent over, anyone else can open up DS Download Play on their DS and download the dungeons you're sending out. According to Bulbapedia, there are 6 different dungeons. I say that because, unfortunately, I could only ever get three of these dungeons to appear. I'll discuss that more in a bit, but for now, I think I'll just play through these three dungeons. And we'll be starting out with Little Plains here, which happens to be the lowest level of the dungeons!

Once you've downloaded and booted up the game, you'll see this title screen showcasing the new starters from Explorers of Sky!

Higher quality images like this one are pulled from Bulbapedia, of course.

Little Plains

Once you get into the game, things are pretty much what you'd expect from an Explorers demo. You'll explore a brief dungeon with two pre-determined starters and be given the sort of . The music in each of these dungeons is Cave and Side Path, and the dungeons themselves are quite comparable to those. But the list of items, and even traps, is surprisingly complex. There are certainly some oddities you'll experience while playing that can be a little distracting if you're used to the game. Mainly, due to the limited filesize of the demo, many sound effects are different. The sound effect for anything negative is replaced with the damage sound effect, which can be a little bit alarming when you're walking through the halls and suddenly hear the damage sound, which normally only plays unexpectedly if you've made some sort of dangerous mistake, but it's just because you're starting to get hungry. In addition, when you try to pick up items, you'll only get the sound effect that plays when you step on a trap or Wonder Tile.

Little Plains here uses the tileset of Tiny Woods from Rescue Team, which is otherwise completely unused.

You also can't access the settings menu to change the display of the top screen, so it'll always display the controls.

As for the dungeons themselves, Bulbapedia actually isn't very comprehensive in its coverage, likely because these dungeons aren't easily accessible for emulation. I'm going to assume all of these dungeons have the same list of items, and they're mostly generic items: Poke, Iron Thorns, Apples, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Blast, and Warp Seeds, Max Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs. In addition, you also start each dungeon with a single Apple in your inventory, not that you should have any problems with hunger at all.

Of course, this isn't an exhaustive list by any means. These are just the items I recall stumbling across in my playthroughs. Had I known ahead of time that Bulbapedia's listings on these dungeons were so blank, I'd have taken better notes on the items I'd found. It's actually quite fascinating they have as much of a variety of items as they do for these demos since, again, filesize seems to be quite limited due to the missing sound effects.

I didn't run into any traps, and Bulbapedia claims there aren't any traps in this dungeon, but as you'll soon see, that isn't necessarily the whole truth. But as I didn't disprove it, I'm forced to assume it to be the case for this dungeon.

=============

Team Pokepals (Little Plains)

-----------------

Riolu M, Lv. 14

Item: None

Abilities: Inner Focus, Steadfast | Moves: Endure, Quick Attack, Foresight, Counter

----------------

Pikachu M, Lv. 15

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderShock, Tail Whip, Thunder Wave, Quick Attack

=============

Little Plans [1F - 5F]

Pokemon: Pichu, Starly, Bidoof, Buneary

The pokemon in Little Plains are as easily dispatched as you'd expect out of a glorified tutorial. And since there's no saving any items you get in these demos, you may as well unleash hell on them with whatever you happen to find.

And with that, we've cleared Little Plains! Of course, you can't expect these dungeons to be difficult, though I will say the following dungeons actually did surprise me a bit with what they were willing to do...

Upon completing the dungeon, you're greeted with a typical demo end screen and are returned to the title screen of the demo. You can replay the dungeon as many times as you want until you turn the system off.

Hidden Shopkeeper Village

The second dungeon I was able to access was Hidden Shopkeeper Village, where we follow Psyduck and Meowth into what I assume is the only demo dungeon with Kecleon Shops, given the name. The dungeon uses the tileset of Buried Relic from Rescue Team, another tileset that isn't used anywhere in the full game.

Unlike the previous dungeon, I actually ran into some traps while exploring this dungeon despite Bulbapedia claiming the dungeon doesn't have traps. Like the items, I'm going to assume each of these dungeons also shares the same list of traps: Grimy, Gust, Poison, Pokemon, SelfDestruct, Slumber, Slow, Spin, Summon, Trip, and Warp Traps are the only traps I distinctly remember running into. But I'm willing to bet there's more, too. Since these are only demo dungeons, making the stakes much lower, I don't mind dangerous traps being here nearly as much.

===========

Team Pokepals (Hidden Shopkeeper Village)

--------------

Psyduck M, Lv. 17

Item: None

Abilities: Damp, Cloud Nine | Moves: Scratch, Water Sport, Tail Whip, Disable

The use of Psyduck here is a very interesting choice, as Psyduck is notably not available as a Starter or a Partner in any Explorers game. Perhaps early in development of Sky they were considering bringing Psyduck back as a starter from Rescue Team?

--------------

Meowth M, Lv. 17

Item: None

Abilities: Pickup, Technician | Moves: Growl, Scratch, Bite, Screech

============

Hidden Shopkeeper Village [B1F - B5F]

Pokemon: Cleffa, Igglybuff

This dungeon is actually deceptively scary. Between Charm, Sweet Kiss, Sing, and Cute Charm, Cleffa and Igglybuff can actually be really annoying to run into at a bad time, and the darkness on the lower floors might cause you to be caught off guard by them every now and then. Getting careless might actually spell out a loss for you in this dungeon.

As mentioned before, you can find Kecleon Shops in this one, meaning a larger assortment of items are available, if you're lucky enough to be able to afford them. After selling a couple of items, I was actually able to afford the Curve Band. Not exactly my item of choice, but more likely to be useful in the immediate future than the other items here.

And that's all there really is for Hidden Shopkeeper Village. There was one more dungeon I was able to access!

============

Trial Forest

Now this one was a surprise! Trial Forest was easily the most challenging dungeon of the three. The main reason being it's slightly longer than the others and I found myself running into traps more frequently. But beyond that, there was also Snorlax here, and it was actually pretty rough sometimes to deal with them.

============

Team Pokepals (Trial Forest)

----------------

Torchic M; Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Growl, Scratch, Focus Energy, Ember

----------------

Bulbasaur M; Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Growl, Leech Seed, Vine Whip, Razor Leaf

============

Trial Forest [1F - 6F]

Pokemon: Snorlax, Combee, Pachirisu, Togekiss

Snorlax is rough. It often takes a couple of turns to KO and its Thick Fat means it resists Torchic's Ember. Thankfully, Bulbasaur can tend to make quick work of them if Torchic isn't in a good spot, but even still, I was surprised these demos were able to put such a dangerous enemy in here. Togekiss is also a bit of an intimidating sight, but it wasn't nearly as bad.

To my surprise, I was also able to recruit a Combee! I went into this assuming that recruitment would simply be shut off for these demos, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all! This was where it was confirmed to me that your team, which is otherwise unnamed, is defaulted to Pokepals, which makes sense as that's what's filled in by default when you first start the game.

============

Team Pokepals New Recruit

--------------

Wireless (Combee M); Lv. 11

Item: None

Ability: Honey Gather | Moves: Sweet Scent, Gust

============

So not the most exciting recruit, to be fair, but still, I didn't expect to be able to recruit any pokemon in these dungeons!

And that's the last of the dungeons I was able to explore. I tried everything I could to get the other three dungeons to show up. I disconnected, reconnected, turned both systems off and on, no matter what I did I could only get Trial Forest, Hidden Shopkeeper Village, and Little Plains to load. Because my physical copy is in the Grovyle hunting part of the game, I suspect that the reason I can't get the remaining dungeons to share is they're actually secretly unlocked by progressing through the game. That's incredibly unfortunate because I really don't want to run through the entire game again for the fourth time just to unlock a couple of dungeons for my final update when I don't even know for a fact that that's the actual explanation. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be much documentation on this mode, so it's hard to say where the problem actually lies.

So, sadly, I won't be playing through the last three dungeons. But for the sake of comprehensiveness, I'm still going to cover what is written about them on Bulbapedia.

==============

Mt. Clear

For this dungeon, you play as Mudkip with Piplup as your partner, both at Lv. 20. It's a bit odd to have two Water-type pokemon, but I suppose the idea is to let you freely explore across water as you navigate the dungeon. Honestly, kind of a fun concept.

---------------

Mt. Clear [1F - 6F]

Pokemon: Diglett, Skarmory, Electrike, Kricketot

Yeah, that's right, they're surprisingly cruel enough to put an Electric type in this dungeon where you're forced to use two Water-types. Thankfully, I imagine Mudkip probably has Mud-Slap to help cover for that one. Other than that, the other pokemon probably aren't going to give you many problems.

==============

Challenge River

This dungeon is curious. You play as a Turtwig and your partner is a... Kirlia? I can't imagine an evolved pokemon besides Pikachu was ever planned to be a starter for Explorers of Sky, yet here it is! Very, very strange. Anyway, both pokemon are Lv. 24.

---------------

Challenge River [B1F - B7F]

Pokemon: Poliwag, Magikarp, Vaporeon, Wobbuffet, Azurill

This dungeon is filled with Water pokemon. Turtwig should also know Bite to help deal with Wobbuffet, but certainly, I'm sure Wobbuffet is the scariest pokemon to encounter here. Be wary of its Counter and Mirror Coat!

===========

Guiding Sea

Last but certainly not least, we have Guiding Sea. You enter this dungeon as a Pachirisu with Lapras as your partner, both at Lv. 30... I guess we're just done with starters at this point, huh? Maybe what I said earlier about Psyduck being possibly being planned doesn't really hold water after all...

--------------

Guiding Sea [B1F - B5F]

Pokemon: Staryu, Wingull, Pelipper, Wailmer

This time we have some pokemon from the sea! They're all pretty basic, of course, but I can imagine Wailmer and Pelipper maybe being a little annoying to deal with.

============

And that's it! Not just for the demo dungeons, but for our coverage of Mystery Dungeon Explorers... period! At least, unless we eventually get an Explorers DX one day. Then we might be revisiting some of these iconic locations through a more modern lens. So it's finally time for my thoughts on the game as a whole. I'm going to be honest, though I came into the postgame expecting to really dislike it just like I did with Rescue Team, I found it to be much less stressful. I've mentioned it before but I think a big part of that was my willingness to abuse Savestates this time. I wasn't beating myself up over it this time around and it just made the whole experience so much less stressful. I didn't have to worry about having to redo entire dungeons just because I lost an important item, nor did I have to worry about a single trap ruining hours invested into a single dungeon crawl. These are the kinds of experiences that just ruin Mystery Dungeon for me. So barring myself from ever having to worry about them really boosted my enjoyment a lot.

Of course, the grind toward the end was a bit much, but when you consider that Inferno Cave probably isn't meant to be grinded for but rather as a neat surprise after playing the game for a really long time, I think I can appreciate it. It's hard to make a game like this last for years, and this is just one way that's possible. But that very grind helped me get my whole team prepared for Zero Isle North and Center, so I was appreciative of it in the end.

When I first started the postgame, I was worried I was going to hate it even more than Rescue Team. I still wish you could switch leaders in the middle of a dungeon and really can't fathom why they removed that ability. So many situations would've been so much cleaner if I could just switch my leader and let the better pokemon for the job take over, but you have to be totally committed to only controlling one specific pokemon which I think places an unnecessary amount of importance on that leader being Manaphy, Cresselia, Palkia, or a ghost. I'm also really not a fan of how IQ works in this game. I was already not a fan of how it worked in Rescue Team, but I really didn't like the whole IQ Group system barring really useful skills from certain pokemon for no good reason.

I made a status about it recently, but this is by far the biggest game we've covered in this thread so far. I was kind of shocked to realize I'd been playing this one game for half a year and it's spanned 6 different pages. Admittedly, those details are inflated a bit by some IRL stuff getting in the way and I probably didn't need to cover Sky Peak in the way that I did, but still, it's kind of crazy to look at how much content we've covered in this one single game compared to many games that are covered in just a single post.

I don't know right now if it'll be realistic to continue using save states for coverage of all future Mystery Dungeon games, in particular, Gates to Infinity is the one I'm most worried about. But I would like to continue relying on them. Gates to Infinity may have to be played on official hardware, though, but that's a problem for the future.

This isn't even close to the last Mystery Dungeon game, though. In fact, we're actually pretty close to our next Mystery Dungeon games. But we are taking a brief break from Mystery Dungeon. And, quite fitting for the holidays, we're gonna start... toying around in our next project. See you soon!

December 21, 2023

Pokemon Rumble

On June 16th, 2009, Pokemon Rumble hit the Wii Shop Channel as the second Pokemon WiiWare title. Developed by Ambrella and seemingly designed off the same engine as My Pokemon Ranch, even using the same models for the pokemon, this game explores a world of pokemon toys that come to life after being wound up by magical Wonder Keys. I thought it was really fitting that this would be the game I'd be covering going into Christmas since it's a game about toy pokemon.

Of course, being a WiiWare title means there's no way to officially obtain this game today ever since the Wii Shop Channel was shut down in 2019. One of the many WiiWare titles that nearly became lost media as a result of this shut-down. Thankfully, the game has been preserved... legally... yeah... and it can still be played today!

I should mention that my only knowledge of this game comes from a downloadable demo that I believe cuts off as soon as you get a pokemon with 100 power. So the majority of this game will be completely blind for me! I think I have a good idea of what this game is like, but there might still be some curveballs.

Music: Opening

When we first start up the game, we're introduced to a Toy Rattata.

And we get to see the process of the Wonder Key being used to bring it to life!

After being wound up, the Rattata can move freely!

Apparently, these Toy pokemon can't grow, implying evolution is not on the table, but that they can still battle like normal pokemon.

In this world of Toy Pokemon, every pokemon strives to be recognized as the most powerful Pokemon by winning at a Battle Royale, where every pokemon battles to reach the top.

In order to overcome their weaknesses, pokemon often team up to combine their strengths and cover each other's weaknesses. But if it's a Battle Royale, doesn't that imply they'll have to fight each other in the end? I'm probably already looking too far into this.

Soon, we see Rattata getting thrown into what looks like a hub world.

Up ahead, there's a gate with a small gap in it.

Rattata begins squeezing through the gate, which is supposed to keep weak pokemon out of the Battle Royale...

Rattata manages to squeeze through the gap and approaches the trampoline inside to take on the Battle Royale, but something tells me it's not going to end well...

With that, Rattata jumps onto the trampoline and is bounced high into the sky.

And now we find ourselves in the HUB of the Battle Royale. This game is played with a sideways Wii Remote so its controls are fairly simplistic. The 1 button calls Rattata's attention to the camera, just like in My Pokemon Ranch, while the 2 button causes Rattata to attack with Tackle.

The signboards on the left or right detail the rules of the Battle Royale: The goal is to defeat all of the pokemon in the arena within the time limit, and you can't switch pokemon until you faint (though we're alone right now, so it looks like we're just SoL if we faint).

Once we're ready to go, we'll take the green trampoline to take on the Battle Royale!

After taking the trampoline, we're brought to a pretty intense transition with "Battle Royale" spelling out in red letters before fading away to reveal the arena behind it.

And then we're shown the C-Rank Battle Royale arena! Pokemon here have "Power" of 100 and higher, and we can earn 500P as a prize. It's clear we'll have to win this Battle Royale in order to take on higher-ranking ones and the goal is obviously to win the highest rank Battle Royale! A? S? Who really knows?

Before we begin, we're shown the silhouettes of three different powerful rival pokemon that we'll need to especially watch out for. They look to be Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon. Though admitiedly I did not recongize the silhouette of Vaporeon at first.

Battle Royale

Then, we're plopped into the center of the arena and met with a count down, we're plopped into the center of the arena. We're not nearly strong enough to participate, so we'd better play super aggressively if we want to stand a chance at winning!

Of course, things go about as well as you'd expect. We quickly get swarmed and end up getting knocked out. It's a bit overwhelming to explain everything that's going on right now, so I think we'll need to take a breather first before coming back with a more level head.

Immediately after losing, we're tossed out of the arena and the gate slams shut. No more squeezing in early, I guess we blew our chance.

C-Rank Terminal

After that embarrassing failure, the game point sus toward a new trampoline that's present here in the terminal leading us to a place called Silent Forest. It looks like there are five other locations like this, but this is the dungeon we're being nudged toward, so it only makes sense to go there first.

So, we approach the trampoline to Silent Forest and hop in!

============

Silent Forest

This will be our tutorial stage, so let's get going! Our objective is to find stronger pokemon! Ideally, we'll get a pokemon strong enough to qualify for the Battle Royale, but right now we really just need to focus on getting stronger.

So, while exploring these levels, we have three Wonder Keys. These are our lives. If we faint, we'll have to use a Wonder Key to come back to life. If we're out of Wonder Keys, we'll be forced back tot he terminal. That makes sense to me. But as you can see on our map above our WOnder Keys, there's some red dots ahead. I think we can all guess what that probably means...

Battle!

They're enemy pokemon, of course! When you approach enemies, the music will transition to a battle theme unique to the area. You'll need to attack the pokemon ahead of you to knock them out. They can drop Poke for you to pick up. So far, this game almost seems like a much more simplified version of Mystery Dungeon. It may not have nearly as much depth, but I'm down for it! We continue bashing our way through a bunch of Caterpie.

They just know Tackle like us, so there's not much to worry about, so we just bash on through until they go down.

And up ahead, we run into some Paras next. These guys have Scratch. And just past these Paras, there's a trampoline leading us to the next area.

And that seems like it's gonna be the basic gameplay loop for this game! I don't believe these dungeons are procedurally generated or anything like that, and I don't know if they get more complicated toward the end of the game, but right now, it seems to just be linear pathways with wave after wave of pokemon you'll have to fight through.

We run into a Pikachu that tries to attack us in Area 2. But when we knock it out, it falls over! This will happen occasionally when you knock out a pokemon. You can retrieve the toy and use it as your new ally!

All you have to do is touch it! And this Pikachu is way stronger than Rattata!

So, we can bring up the menu with A and switch over to Pikachu to use him instead.

Pikachu is not only almost twice as strong as Rattata, but his ThunderShock is also a much stronger attack than Rattata's Tackle. This is an easy switch for sure! You just have to keep in mind the type matchups. I'm not sure how the math works out, but I imagine it'll still be better to use Rattata for Grass-type pokemon. Though it doesn't seem to be too terribly significant right at this moment.

We reach a trampoline at the end of Area 2 which will carry us further to Area 3.

In Area 3, we start to run into Metapod!

We also manage to get a Caterpie to join us! Nice!

There are also Butterfree up ahead, which Pikachu's Thundershock should be super-effective against.

And yet another Trampoline at the end.

In Area 4, we push through more enemies and end up recruiting a Paras! This Paras is actually stronger than our Pikachu. But for now, we'll continue to carry on.

Since paras is technically higher power, I decided to try it out. But I suspect it to be a little underwhelming since it only has a Normal attack that's weaker than Pikachu's Thundershock, yet pretty much has the same range.

Finally, we arrive at Area 5 where, just a few steps in...

Vs. Ivysaur

It looks like we've got a boss fight on our hands.

A giant Wonder Key drops down onto an Ivysaur ahead of us and a large health meter appears overhead. The key begins winding...

Ivysaur begins growing...

...and growing! He's huge!

In this boss figth, we're up against an Ivysaur surrounded by a bunch of Bulbasaur minions. Due to its large size, Ivysaur's attacks have a lot more range than other pokemon, and it can actually be a little bit imposing. I started out trying to focus on the henchmen, but they just spawn in infinitely, so you'll need to just clear out the space around you and focus your attention on the main boss.

Ivysaur's got a few attacks that are concerning. One of them I believe is Poison Powder, which will poison you briefly, slowly sapping your health away. His attacks will also knock you back and away, so you'll spend a good amount of time trying to push back in toward him.

Eventually, after applying enough pressure, we manage to knock Ivysaur down with a KO! Ivysaur begins to shrink down and lots of Poke spills out of him!

And with that, SIlent Forest is cleared!

A trampoline also drops down to allow us to finish the level.

But let's not forget the biggest prize here: Ivysaur's toy is left behind for us to claim!

Ivysaur is now our current strongest pokemon with 75 power! But even that's still not good enough to qualify for the Battle Royale... Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have all of the attacks it was using as a boss, so I guess it got a lot of power from that strange Wonder Key, too.

In the end, we see a ranking screen where our performance is rated based on how many Pokemon we were able to KO... as you can probably guess just by looking at this screen, this game has a competitive co-op multiplayer element to it. Other players can join in, too. We'll talk more about how that works soon enough.

We're also treated to a little screen detailing all the pokemon we've befriended from our adventure, with any new pokemon highlighted as we scroll over them!

The most powerful pokemon you recruited will also be noted on this list as you scroll over it.

As we return to the facility, five more trampolines drop down, granting us access to the other 5 stages.

Also, some facilities have opened up in the Terminal which we'll certainly check out next time.

If we check back with the title card of Silent Forest, we can see a list of all the pokemon in the area. Pokemon we've yet to see are blanked out with question marks while pokemon we've yet to befriend are listed with black and white images. It seems like this game probably wants to you to collect all the pokemon. I can't make any promises one way or another, but for now, I think the best approach will be to give each course a playthrough. Since this playthrough is almost entirely blind, I have a feeling there's a lot we'll need to play by ear to figure out the best way to cover things. I would like to have all the pokemon recruited by the end, though, of course. So we'll just have to see.

Anyway, that's going to be it for today! Next time, we'll check out those new facilities added to the terminal and then probably explore one of the other courses that have opened up! See you soon!

December 22, 2023

And we're back with our coverage of Pokemon Rumble for the Wii1 Last time, we covered our basic introduction to the game, so now we're going to start exploring the basic gameplay loop! But before we get into any gameplay, I first want to go over these facilities that we just unlocked at the end of the previous update.

The Wii Remote on the far left here is the Wii Remote Pokemon facility.

Here, you can deposit or withdraw pokemon from your wii remote. I'm not sure about any storage limits just yet. But I imagine the main purpose of this menu is to search out bring your favorite pokemon to a friend's house to play with them, or to transfer pokemon for your friends to use in their game.

The next facility is the Recruit Point.

I can't actually afford to use this yet, but I'm guessing it works kinda like a Gaccha machine where you'll get a random pokemon available at your current rank. There's also a password system you can use to get special event pokemon which we'll cover at a later time. I feel like it would be cheating to use some of these passwords now.

The next facility, the blue building, is a Release Point which is exactly what it sounds like. It allows you to get rid of any pokemon you no longer want. There's actually a bit more to this than that, but it's gonna be a bit before we can explore it from that angle.

The little platform with two people standing on it is the Multiplayer facility.

This is where you go to connect multiple players. This is also where I somehow accidentally switched Player 1 to be controlled with the GameCube controller! Oops! I fix that at the end of the session, but it did lead to some awkwardness while playing the actual game. I actually didn't even know you could use a GameCube controller for this game. Anyway, each player selects one of the active pokemon and they spawn in with a Wonder Key. I can only assume there's damage scaling for bosses and such so that you can't just demolish bosses with 4 players, but I can't frankly say so for certain.

Moving right along to the Collection,

This is essentially the pokedex. Right now, it looks like we've only got the original 150 pokemon to work with.

This next facility is the Training Point, were you can pay 200P to learn a new move!

With this, I was able to teach Ivysaur Leech Seed! It's a projectile attack that heals me! I don't know how the ins and outs of how learning moves works just yet, but each pokemon can have two moves at a time, assigned to the 1 and 2 buttons. You'll need to replace one of those moves if you want to learn a third move.

Lastly, there's the Play Info facility which details the stats of your save file. Pretty straightforward stuff.

With all that out of the way, it's finally time to start exploring the next area. I figured, since my strongest pokemon was a Grass-type, my best choice was Rocky Cave, which sounded like it would have a lot of Rock-type pokemon in it.

===========

Rocky Cave -- Rank C

And so, we begin with Rocky Cave!

Rocky Cave Battle

As it turns out, it seems each area has its own distinct battle theme!

The first new pokemon we found was a Clefairy!

And there was a group of Machop up ahead as well!

I also came across some Geodude...

Ekans...

...and Clefable! As you can tell, I switched to Machop partway through because I befriended one that was stronger than Ivysaur.

Vs. Arbok

At the end, we of course have to fight a boss. This time, it's Arbok.

And as it turns out, you can actually grind out against the boss to recruit its Henchmen! It's probably unnecessary, but maybe it'll help you progress! Anyway, this fight was pretty much the same as Ivysaur. Arbok could create shockwaves, shoot poison in several directions, and poison pokemon around him with... PoisonPowder...? I guess?

Anyway, after a bit of fighting and carefully stepping out of his reach, I was eventaully able to overcome Arbok with little difficulty.

And that was that! Unfortunately, you're not guaranteed to recruit the boss of an area. I suspect recruiting the Ivysaur before was scripted since it was a tutorial. Instead, the Arbok just disappeared and left Poke behind which, frankly, is fine, because I can use that to make my other pokemon better!

Anyway, we've got quite a hefty chunk of new friends joining our team! Since individual pokemon seem to be pretty disposable in this game, I'm not going to highlight every single one like I did in Mystery Dungeon, but I will focus on any new pokemon and anytime we find a pokemon with high power! Here, we've recruited Clefairy, Machop, Geodude, and Ekans.

In addition, this 90 Power Machop is by far our strongest pokemon yet! This is the one I was using at the end.

Apparently, at some point, I also must've KO'd a Machoke and never noticed. But it looks like we've encountered all but one pokemon that's available here. Hm... well for now, we're gonna let that slide.

We didn't unlock anything this time, so next time, I think we're just gonna do the rest of the stages in one update and summarize the pokemon we found there. It's looking like this game will be a little bit repetitive if we try to play through it all like that. So see you next time where we'll hopefully have cleared all of the levels in Rank C and have obtained a pokemon strong enough to compete in the Battle Royale! See you soon!

December 23, 2023

We're back with more C Rank levels! This time, we're going through the remainder of the stages we haven't explored yet. They're all more or less the same thing, just a series of five areas with wave after wave of pokemon that vary from level to level. The goal in each of these levels is to befriend as many pokemon as you can and earn more money to learn new moves for your current active pokemon.

We'll be starting with Fiery Furnace since it seems like the one our strongest pokemon, a Fighting type, would be best equipped to handle. I'm expecting Fire, Steel, and maybe some Rock Types in a stage like this.

Fiery Furnace

Fiery Furnace has the same music as Rocky Cave, so unfortunately it seems each area doesn't have its own unique music. Even still, the battle themes are still totally unique!

The pokemon I encountered here include Mankey,

Vulpix,

Magnemite and Charmander,

Primeape,

Ninetales,

and Magneton.

Vs. Charmeleon

And in the end, a boss fight with Charmeleon surrounded by Charmander, of course.

I actually wound up getting KO'd in this boss fight, and this was a bad time to realize that most of my strongest pokemon were actually a bad matchup against a Fire-type... oops.

Thankfully, Ekans was enough to finish the job. I need to be a bit less reckless with these fights. Unfortunately, once again, I was unable to befriend the boss.

Throughout this dungeon, I was able to recruit two Magnemite, a Ninetales, and a Mankey. The second Mankey actually has a power of 97 making it my new strongest pokemon! But it only knows Tackle, so it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Once again, it looks like there's another pokemon I didn't happen to find... I'm starting to wonder if each level has a pokemon that never appears the first time through the dungeon? That, or just a really rare pokemon?

Regardless, up next is Windy Prairie. I figured even though Magnemite doesn't actually know any Electric moves, he'd be able to resist the Flying types I was expecting to deal with. I could've stopped by the facilities to learn an Electric attack, but I figure it's likely this Magnemite will become obsolete fairly quickly, so it's best to save my Poke for when I'm ready for the Battle Royale.

===========

Windy Prairie

It seems there's only two songs for the dungeons in this game. I suppose we can consider them the "outdoor" and "indoor" dungeon themes, the former plays in Silent Forest, Windy Prairie, and Bright Beach while the latter is played in Rocky Cave, Fiery Furnace, and Eternal Tower.

As for the pokemon I battled here...

We have Doduo, as well as Dodrio at one point, but I accidentally killed it before noticing it in a crowd of Doduo.

Meowth, Rattata,

Raticate,

Lickitung, Spearow, and Fearow,

Vs. Persian

and Persian as a boss.

Persian was a really easy KO after switching to Machop, and I was even able to befriend it! Alright! I'm not sure if you have any control over the odds of recruiting pokemon, but I'll take a free recruit of a boss!

In the end, I recruited three Doduo, two Meowth, Raticate, Fearow, Spearow, and the boss Persian.

The Raticate and Persian were both equally powerful. These are my new strongest pokemon. More significantly, though, notice that their power is over 100! It looks like we can now qualify for the Battle Royale!

And when we return to the Terminal, the gate to the Battle Royale opens up to us! But we've still got two more levels to cover.

Also, once again, it looks like there's another pokemon we're missing here in Windy Prairie.

===========

Bright Beach

Up next is Bright Beach which shares the outdoor theme with the other outdoor dungeons.

As for pokemon to battle,

Pokemon here include Tentacool, which are actually a little bit more dangerous than we're used to because they have Poison Sting, a fairly weak but projectile attack that can poison you. You have to approach them much more carefully than most pokemon.

Magikarp,

Poliwag,

Tentacruel,

Shellder,

Squirtle,

Eevee,

Vs. Wartortle

And as you'd probably expect following the pattern with both Ivysaur and Charmeleon being bosses, Wartortle is the boss this time around. And yes, he's surrounded by Squirtle.

And once again, there really wasn't much to say about this fight. Pretty standard fare.

As for my recruits, I got five Magikarp, which is a very significant number for reasons we'll cover soon, Tentacruel, Shellder, and Squirtle.

Squirtle is also our new most powerful pokemon at 113 power. So that's exciting!

We're once again missing a pokemon here at Bright Beach. Judging by its placement, I think I can guess this to be Poliwhirl. Also, Eevee was also available in Fiery Furnace, so we now have seen every pokemon available there!

==============

Eternal Tower

And now we progress to Eternal Tower! The last, most imposing, and most difficult of the six dungeons.

The pokemon you'll be battling through include...

Drowzee, which are particularly dangerous because their Hypnosis can actually put you to sleep! This leaves you a complete sitting duck for a little while and that can be a little scary. Hypnosis also has a surprising amount of reach, so don't assume you're safe! Try to avoid being in front of these guys!

There's also Nidoran Male,

and female,

Cubone,

Nidorina,

and Nidorino which I almost failed to recognize because they so strongly resemble Male Nidoran.

Vs. Marowak

As for the boss, it's Marowak!

This one was actually a fairly unique boss fight, because he uses Bonemerang which throws out small projectiles that travel in a wide arc and appear to home in on you. They're pretty easy to avoid as long as you're mindful of them, but also watch out for the Headbuts form both Marowak and its Cubone henchmen as they can make you flinch!

In the end, I recruited Drowzee, two Cubone, Nidoran Female, and Nidorino.

Oh, I forgot to take a screenshot of the pokemon list, but we're also missing one pokemon from here. Eevee could also be found here.

And that's where I'm gonna leave things off for the day. My session did continue on a little longer, but I think it makes sense to spend the next update preparing for the Battle Royale and recruiting any missing pokemon, hopefully getting lots of strong pokemon and getting some solid moves on them rather than just whatever they come with. See you soon!

December 26, 2023

Merry Christmas! Christmas Eve was a bit busy, so I didn't end up getting around to this update last time, but this is going to be a relatively small update as we prepare for the Battle Royale. Admittedly, I don't really know what exactly to expect and I'm probably overpreparing, but even still, I want to put some effort into developing a few solid pokemon. But before we do that, we want as many options available to us.

I suggested last time we'd recruit every pokemon available, but that's ultimately not what I ended up doing. I figured the best way to approach this would be handling it similarly to Mystery Dungeon, just making the best of whatever we happen to find. Even still, I'd like to at least encounter every pokemon available in each level. But before we get into that, I wan to call attention to another use of the Release Point besides just getting rid of pokemon you no longer need.

We've got lots of Magikarp, and we all know that's a pokemon that isn't going to perform well on its own. And with the knowledge that toy pokemon don't grow or evolve, I can't imagine Magikarp being much good, right? Why don't we go ahead and release these guys.

When you release pokemon, they'll leave Poke behind as a gift, so releasing them is essentially like selling them.

However, by releasing 5 of the same species of pokemon, you'll receive a special Ticket you can use to recruit a new pokemon! The ticket will be for their evolved form or, if they're fully evolved, for their first form instead. Pokemon that do not evolve instead cannot leave tickets. Eevee also seems to be a special exception, you won't get recruitment tickets for the Eeveelutions this way. I don't know yet how this behaves with other branched evolutions like Slowpoke or Poliwhirl. Perhaps it's based on the rank of the terminal? If it's not entirely random, then that's my guess. The significant detail about this, though, is that this process allows you to get a handful of pokemon that are not normally accessible at your current rank. Gyarados, for example, has no other way to recruit here besides through a Recruitment Ticket.

To use the Ticket, you need to visit the Recruitment Point where you'll see a new option: Recruit Using Ticket!

And out pops our Gyarados! It's got a power of 168 which is awesome! But... well, it's a bit more complex than that. We'll explain why at the end of the update. For now, let's turn our attention to our goal of just building up our ranks.

We'll start with Silent Forest, where there are still three pokemon we've yet to encounter.

We found a Wigglytuff here this time,

Parasect,

and Jigglypuff.

In the end, I got two Paras, four Caterpie, and a Bulbasaur.

These are the pokemon available in Silent Forest Rank C! Plus, with the help of Recruitment Tickets, we can also get Raichu by releasing 5 Pikachu or Venusaur by releasing 5 Ivysaur which can be obtained either from the boss or through Tickets from Bulbasaur.

Windy Prairie is next, and there's one more pokemon here we've yet to see.

That pokemon, it turns out, is Farfetch'd.

After playing through this dungeon again, I recruited three Meowth, two Doduo, and a Rattata. One of these Meowth ended up having more power than any other pokemon I currently have.

These are the pokemon available in Windy Prairie. You should also be able to get Lickilicky by releasing 5 Lickitung.

In Rocky Cave, there's another missing pokemon, which is easy to guess from the list here.

As expected, you can find Graveler in the dungeon!

We've got three Clefairy, two Machop, three Geodude, a Graveler, and an Ekans.

Amogn the Geodude, one of them is my most powerful pokemon yet with a power of 167!

Here's the list of pokemon available here in Rocky Cave! With Tickets, you should also be able to get Machamp from 5 Machoke and Golem form 5 Graveler.

As for Fiery Furnace, we've already encountered every pokemon available here so there's no need to dive back in. But you can also get Charizard and Magnezone from Tickets using Charmeleon and Magneton. But don't waste your time trying to get a bunch of Eevee, remember that you can't get Tickets from them!

There is one missing pokemon in Bright Beach! This is another one that's easy to guess!

Poliwhirl is found here, too.

I recruited three Squirtle, three Tentacool, a Poliwag, and a Shellder this time.

Here's the complete list of pokemon. Additionally, you can get Blastoise, Poliwrath, possibly Politoed as well, Cloyster, and Gyarados from Squirtle, Poliwhirl, Shellder, and Magikarp. That's a lot of options there! It seems like it's not coincidence that I recruited 5 Magikarp my first time through here... If you get an evolution from anywhere, it's likely to be here since there's so many possibilities.

We've got another easy to predict missing pokemon in Eternal Tower.

It is, of course, Hypno.

I ultimately wound up recruiting a Cubone that is my new strongest pokemon, too!

Here's the complete list from Eternal Tower! You can get Nidoqueen and Nidoking through Tickets from Nidorina and Nidorino.

From the Recruits I was able to get, I released some to retrieve a handful of additional recruitments including Metapod,

Clefable,

Persian,

Machoke,

and Dodrio.

As for what I meant when I said that Gyarados's strength wasn't so straightforward, well, even though the game shows you the pokemon's actual power, when you actually go to swtich to it, you'll notice it's power seems to be capped. It looks like at Rank C, pokemon obtained through the Recruitment Point have their power capped at 99, so you cannot gain access to the Battle Royale simply by recruiting pokemon. I don't know yet if this means you can't use these pokemon in the Battle Royale, either. But you'll notice a blue exclamation mark next to the Power on their summary. This mark means the pokemon's power will increase up to its real power you saw when you recruited it. Unfortunately, this means all the pokemon we've obtained just now have their power capped at 99 until we do our Battle Royale with the pokemon we've recruited directly through dungeon crawling.

Now, I want to use the Training Point to learn some new moves on some of my strongest pokemon! Let's start with Cubone who will now be learning Rock Tomb as its secondary move. Originally, it got Screech but I wanted another harming move. I don't think debuffs like this are going to be particularly helpful in this game's format. At least not yet.

Geodude learned Hidden Power Electric which I think is actually pretty fantastic!

Tentacool learned Cut, but I'm not going to be too picky about all of these pokemon just yet. It's likely they'll be obsolete soon, anyway.

Machop learned SmellingSalt, I'm not sure how useful a move like this would be on a pokemon that has no way of paralyzing enemies, but what the heck.

Finally, Squirtle learned Brick Break and Brine! I replaced Water Gun with Brine without a second thought.

Now, I'm willing to bet that the stars indicating the attacks power probably aren't the most accurate way to know how strong each attack is. And even if it is, you do want to consider what you're giving up. Different attacks will have different areas of effect, or might come out slower or faster than other attacks. It takes some trial and error to figure out what moves are good, so ultimately you'll want to toy around with it. I'm also unsure if factors like STAB play into how much damage you can do. It might, but it also might not. I can't really say one way or another. Unfortuantely, the game isn't exactly transparent about most of this in the interest of keeping things simple, which is fair, but frustrating when you want to cover something in depth. And of course, a game like this isn't going to be nearly as popular for dataminers to break apart as main series Pokemon, so it's not likely we'll see anything like this in the near future.

And that's it for today! Frankly, I think I've probably massively overprepared, but it's also possible the Battle Royale will be more difficult than I expect. We'll just have to see. Next time, we take on the Battle Royale and see how well we can do! See you soon!

And I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! A new year is starting soon! Look forward to it!

December 26, 2023

Last update was all about prepping for the Battle Royale. It's time to finally jump right in! As I mentioned before, I have a feeling I'm somewhat overprepared for this challenge, so I'm not really expecting much in the way of challenge here. I'm choosing to go in with Geodude because Magnitude has the potential to KO several pokemon at once.

A small refresher of the rules: The goal is to defeat every pokemon in the Royale within the time limit, and you can only switch pokemon when your active pokemon faints.

If you feel like you're not prepared, you can always take the red trampoline here to exit back to the Terminal. But we're more than ready, so let's head up to the Green one to the Battle Royale, just like in the intro!

The Battle Royale begins!

Once again, we are given previews of our powerful rival pokemon which appear to be the silhouettes of Vaporeon, Jolteon, and Flareon. Between Magnitude and Hidden Power, Geodude should be well equipped to fight all three of them! I just gotta be careful around Vaporeon's attacks.

Battle Royale

And so, the Battle Royale begins! We're thrown into the center of the arena and are surrounded by pokemon that are available in Silent Woods!

And so, we get to attacking! As you'd probably expect, they're fairly easy to KO even if they resist your attack. I'm pretty sure these pokemon do not have 100 Power.

As you KO enemies, they'll drop little stopwatches instead of Poke. These will add time to your timer, so be sure to pick them up to make sure you have plenty of time to KO all the pokemon!

As you eliminate the pokemon in the first wave, a second wave will begin with pokemon from the next area. This will repeat, with pokemon from each area, until you reach the final wave.

This is where those powerful pokemon from the start come into play!

I started right in front of these guys, and due to the action focus of the game, I didn't really get a chance to get a good screenshot. I'm thinking re-mapping the screenshot hotkey might be a good idea. Regardless, I wanted to take out Vaporeon before it could get some dangerous shots on me as these pokemon are definitely significantly tougher than all the others. But indeed, a couple of Magnitudes and Hidden Powers was enough to get rid of Vaporeon and Flareon.

Jolteon was a bit of a straggler, but it didn't take long at all to finish it off, too. All that was left now was a Charmander that was hanging out in the back.

Once Charmander was defeated, we won our prize! I'm frankly not entirely sure what the 500 means here. 500P was the prize, but I'm not certain if that's the correlation or if this means I KO'd 500 pokemon or something... I wasn't paying much attention to the numbers, admittedly.

Regardless, our prize money drops into the center of the arena in the form of a giant coin for us to collect to finish the Royale.

Upon completing the Battle Royale, our Wonder Key is upgraded! I don't know for sure yet, but I suspect this means I essentially have an extra life in game. That, or it's the game's way of telling me that pokemon with blue Exclamation Points now have their caps released.

In addition, we also see a blue trampoline drop into the corner of the terminal, granting us access to the B-Rank Terminal!

When we take it, we're given this ominous image of Mewtwo's Silhouette and a warning that our challenge has only just begun. It seems like we're now entering the point where the game is starting to get serious... I must admit, I'm kind of intrigued at how this game will get more difficult.

Anyway, we soon arrive at the B-Rank Terminal where you might be a little bit let down. The B-Rank levels are exactly the same as the C-Rank ones, at least on a surface level, though I have no way of knowing just yet if they're exactly the same but with different, stronger pokemon, or if the levels themselves are made more challenging with additional stages or more complex layouts. That's gonna... B... something for us to figure out next time.

For now, let's continue poking around this new terminal. It looks like we're going to need pokemon of at least 200 Power to enter the B-Rank Battle Royale, so we've got some more work cut out for us.

And as I mentioned before, pokemon with blue exclamation points are now unlocked for us! This means Gyarados is now our most powerful pokemon. And yet, it only knows Thrash which is a little disappointing because Thrash causes Gyarados to be confused which shuffles your movement directions. This is far from desirable, of course.

Beyond that, the Training Point is more expensive here in the B Terminal. I suppose it likely provides stronger attacks than the C Terminal, but it still means we won't be able to get as many moves out of it, and it makes me feel less inclined to invest into Gyarados right now since we might get a better pokemon than it soon.

Likewise, it costs 2000P instead of 800P to recruit a new pokemon from the Recruit Point, too. Yikes. It looks like Recruiting a pokemon here costs 4x as much as teaching a new move.

Anyway, that's gonna be it for now. Next time, we'll dip into one of the levels and see how much more difficult it is. We might go ahead and run through all six levels and make that the new standard if I don't notice any significant changes. See you soon!

December 31, 2023

We're back with Pokemon Rumble! This time we'll be exploring the B-Rank Levels! Sorry for the long wait between updates, I just recently started a new job so I need to delegate some time getting used to a new sleep schedule, but I still have no intention of stopping AtP just yet!

Right away, you can see that Terminal B has the exact same levels as Terminal A, though they are slightly more complicated. For one, each of these levels now has 6 stages instead of 5. And the pokemon you'll find inside are different than before--and much stronger.

I'm also going to start using images from Pokencyclopedia again. I generally prefer to use sprites or snapshots of models from the game I'm covering, but in this case, these are actually the models used in Pokemon Rumble World on the 3DS. To my knowledge, these are the same models used here in Pokemon Rumble as well as My Pokemon Ranch, just with different lighting. Now then, without further ado, let's get back to dungeon crawling!

The gameplay loop from here on out will be familiar. You'll play around in these six levels until you find a pokemon with enough Power to qualify for the Battle Royale. In this case, we'll need a pokemon with 200 Power. Then, you'll build up your forces in preparation for that Battle Royale. Since the overall gameplay is quite repetitive at this point and the levels are also quite short, we're just going to cover all of the B-Rank levels in one post today.

Silent Forest Rank B

Our first choice to explore would have to be Silent Forest, of course.

Before I get into the pokemon we can find here, one new mechanic we'll be running into starting in the B-Rank stages, wild pokemon can now spawn in just like in boss fights to ambush you from behind! This can put you in some sticky situations if you aren't careful. Try not to get cornered in an unfavorable position! Thankfully, unlike boss fights, there seems to be a definite limit to the enemies that spawn in this way, so it's a good idea to stop and KO all the spawning pokemon before progressing to avoid getting sandwiched.

Anyway, Pokemon I ran into while exploring this dungeon include Venonat, Weedle, Pikachu, Parasect, Wigglytuff, Venomoth, and Kakuna.

And the boss was Raichu with a bunch of Pikachu cronies.

These boss fights are pretty straightforward, so there's not much to be concerned with in that department.

As for Pokemon I recruited, we got...

Three Weedle,

Three Parasect,

A Venomoth,

And two Pikachu.

The Venomoth in particular, though, really stood out. Not only is it by far my most powerful pokemon yet, its Silver Wind is a wide-range attack that knocks enemies back. Even though it isn't limited in PP in this game, it also maintains the ability to boost your attack, defense, and speed! This attack feels incredibly overpowered and I have a feeling I'm gonna want Venomoth on my team in the Battle Royale... but we've still got five more levels to be even more impressed.

After just that one playthrough, we've seen all the enemies we can here in Silent Forest. So, it's time to move on.

Windy Prairie Rank B

Maybe it was a terrible idea to go into a place teaming with Flying-types using a Bug-type, but I was feeling a little cocky, what can I say?

Anyway, the dungeon here was also pretty straightforward. Nothing Venmoth couldn't handle.

Pokemon I ran into included Pidgey, Bellsprout, Exeggcute, Pidgeotto, Exeggutor, Lickitung, and Weepinbell.

And the boss was a Pidgeot with a bunch of Pidgeotto as minions.

As for my recruits, we had:

Three Pidgey,

Bellsprout,

Two Exeggutor,

Weepinbell,

And Pidgeotto from the boss fight. Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to get the Pidgeot.

One of the Exeggutor I recruited actually had more power, but its Uproar attack didn't seem nearly as convincing to me, so I decided to pass on it.

Though I didn't see one this run, you can also apparently find Farfetch'd here. It was already marked as seen, though, since it was around in the C Rank version of this level, too.

And that's all the pokemon available here!

Fiery Furnace Rank B

Moving right along, the next dungeon we've got is Fiery Furnace.

This was the first dungeon where I was starting to feel a bit of pushback with the strength of my Venomoth's attacks. It's probably just because Silver Wind wasn't very effective, but even still, some of these pokemon took quite a few hits to KO. Maybe Venomoth is unfortunately just lacking in the power to stand up against the cooler foes ahead... Perhaps not the best choice for a Battle Royale?

Pokemon I ran into my first time through here include Growlithe, Voltorb, Ponyta, Arcanine, Rapidash, Electrode, and Hitmonlee.

However, I did find something special along the way: A Pokemon with a special trait. Special Traits are a new mechanic available starting in Rank B. These are extra, passive abilities a pokemon can have, similar to Abilities from the main series or IQ Skills from Mystery Dungeon. The Feisty trait causes this Arcanine's attacks to have more knockback than usual. There are various Special Traits that can affect the pokemon in a variety of ways, such as granting them strong resistances to certain types, boosting stats, recovering faster from status ailments, etc. As far as I'm aware, these Special traits are entirely random and any pokemon can have any of them.

I'm not certain if this is actually the case, but I feel like wide-open areas like this one weren't as common in C-Rank levels. It can be trickier to fight enemies in these areas and it's a lot easier to get surrounded, so make sure to watch your back!

The boss of B-Rank here is Magmar, followed by a bunch of Rapidash as minions instead of the Magby you'd probably expect... come to think of it, we've only seen Gen 1 pokemon so far... hmm...

Anyway, the new pokemon we recruited this time around are:

Two Voltorb,

Two Ponyta, one of which has 200 Power making it our most powerful pokemon yet, though it only knows Flame Wheel so it's not exactly our most impressive pokemon.

Three Arcanine, one of which is the Fiesty Arcanine I mentioned before,

An Electrode,

And a Hitmonlee.

With that 200 Power Ponyta, we are now qualified for the Battle Royale, but I still want to explore all the levels before rushing ahead.

If we take a look at our Feisty Arcanine, we'll find that its Special Trait is listed under its moves in its summary. This looks like a potentially powerful pokemon. I just wish there was a way to increase its power... If this were a modern day game, you'd probably be able to trade in duplicate Arcanine to boost the power of one particular one. But sadly, that doesn't appear to be an option here.

Anyway, as it turns out, there is still one more pokemon missing in Fiery Furnace we've yet to see. This time, it wasn't one that was in the C-Rank version which means we'll have to revisit this dungeon.

I decided to give the dungeon a second run-through to see if I could spot that last pokemon, but no such luck just yet. I did get a few more pokemon, though.

Three Growlithe,

an Arcanine, this one has 229 power with Ember and Bite, making it my new most powerful pokemon,

two Rapidash, one of which is a Perky Rapidash which means it recovers quickly status conditions,

three Electrode,

a Voltorb,

a Ponyta,

and Magmar from the boss fight.

Rocky Cave Rank B

Considering the possibility there might be some pokemon with special requirements that may need to be met before they spawn (not based on any evidence or anything, just a thought that crossed my mind) I decided to jump ahead to Rocky Cave where I was surprised to find tha tthi slevel is actually quite visually distinct from its C-Rank counterpart. The dungeon has more of a yellow color with gold nuggets in the walls. Interesting... I wonder if the higher ranks continue this theme? This was certainly a pleasant surprise. I really hope to see more changes like this going forward.

Anyway, at some points this dungeonw as quite densely packed with pokemon. It could actually get a little bit worrying at some points.

Pokemon I ran into included:

Diglett, Zubat, Rhyhorn, Sandshrew, Onix, Dugtrio, Golbat, and Sandslash.

Diglett and Dugtrio were a little annoying at first because of their tendency to hide underground with Dig, but then I realized that they're actually still vulnerable even while they're underground, so that actually made them pretty useless on their own. Even still, in large numbers, anything can be dangerous. Bad situations can humble you real quick, that's for sure.

As a boss, it's Rhydon and Rhyhorn!

There weren't many new recruits this time, but there were some!

We got a Zubat,

a Sandshrew, this one also was a Lucky Sandshrew which means pokemon it defeats drop more Poke.

two Dugtrio,

a Rhyhorn,

and an Onix.

And that's it for pokemon available here! Moving right along!

Bright Beach Rank B

Up next is Bright Beach!

This dungeon can actually get quite hectic with the abundance of enemies that have long-range attacks, so you've gotta position yourself very carefully! Also, as I noted before, type matchups are becoming progressively more important as the game goes on, so we'll need to be more mindful of that.

Pokemon I fought throughout this dungeon include:

Psyduck, Goldeen, Krabby, Horsea, Golduck, Seaking, and Seadra.

And the boss was Jynx with a bunch of Seadra minions.

And with that, even more new friends!

Two Goldeen,

a Psyduck,

A Krabby, my new most powerful pokemon with 249 Power as well as the moves Vicegrip and BubbleBeam. Vicegrip isn't STAB, but it has a really solid range in front of Krabby. I'm not the biggest fan of the endlag, though. It leads to scary situations where Krabby ends up getting swarmed.

A Golduck,

two Seaking,

and two Seadra also joined in on the fun.

And that's all the pokemon available in Bright Beach.

Eternal Tower Rank B

Eternal Tower was easily the most difficult of the C-Rank levels, so I was honestly a little bit nervous going into it on B-Rank, but nothing ventured nothing gained--let's go!

Once again, these B-Rank dungeons aren't afraid to get a little dicey. Don't underestimate the number of enemies ahead!

Pokemon I ran into here include:

Koffing, Gastly, Abra, Weezing, Kadabra, Haunter, and Mr. Mime.

I was surprised when I went into the boss chamber expecting an Alakazam or Gengar but was met instead with an Electabuzz as the boss! Followed by a bunch of Kadabra. I guess I should've known Electabuzz would be somewhere since there was Magmar and Jynx, but why not Bright Forest in Raichu's place? I'm not sure I get the correlation between Electabuzz and Eternal Tower other than they just didn't know where to put Electabuzz and really wanted Raichu as a B-Rank boss.

Anyway, I got some new friends, of course.

Two Gastly,

a Haunter which has 300 Power! That's my new strongest, but he's struggling in the attack department, only knowing the move Lick. Still, with 300 Power that's definitely worth investing into right now. It might even buy us an immediate foot into the A-Rank Battle Royale? Maybe? It's not impossible there's a spike in power requirements, though. 500 for A-Rank and 1000 for S-Rank sounds appropriate to me right now.

Then there's Weezing,

and Kadabra from the boss fight.

And now we've seen every pokemon in Eternal Tower as well! That means there's only one B-Rank pokemon we've yet to see. So, let's make another pit stop at Fiery Furnace just to see if we can find that last pokemon.

This time, I finally found our missing link: Hitmonchan! There must be some sort of shenanigans tied to the spawning mechanics of this game if I couldn't get these guys to spawn after two whole trips through the dungeon yet found two back to back this time. Probably as simple as randomly selecting pokemon from an encounter table.

Anyway, we've got a bunch of new pokemon this time!

That's three Ponyta, one of which is a Healthy Ponyta which means it gradualy recovers HP,

three Voltorb,

four more Growlithe,

Two more Electrode including one with 309 Power with the moves Spark and Rollout! Rollout is a very interesting move. It behaves pretty much exactly as you'd expect. You'll lunge forward damaging anything in your path. The attack lasts a while and helps you barrel through enemies if you're in a tight spot, but it comes at the cost of compromising control over your position. You'll just keep lunging forward with much more difficulty steering. But it's the long-lasting part of the attack that makes it interesting. It's probably more useful on a pokemon like Graveler, though.

Oh, and two Rapidash, too.

And after that, we've finally seen all the pokemon available in B-Rank Firey Furnace, and all the pokemon available directly from Terminal B!

Of course, there's still a handful of other pokemon you can get through Tickets.

Beedrill can be obtained from releasing 5 Kakuna.

Paras from 5 Parasect, though you can just as easily get Paras from Terminal C.

You can get Kingler by releasing 5 Krabby.

Lickilicky is a theoretical. Since this game seems to be going out of its way to not give us any pokemon from other gens, I'm not actually sure if you can get Johto or Sinnoh evolutions just yet through this method. But if it's possible, you should be able to get Lickilicky through releasing 5 Lickitung.

Crobat, Steelix, Kingdra, and Rhyperior should also be available from 5 Golbat, 5 Onix, 5 Seadra, and 5 Rhyhorn.

Mime Jr. would also be available by releasing 5 Mr. Mime.

In a similar vain, if it's possible to get othergen pokemon through Release tickets here, then you should be able to get Electivire and Magmortar through 5 Electabuzz and 5 Magmar, as well as access to the baby pokemon Tyrogue, Smoochum, Elekid, and Magby by releasing 5 Hitmonchan or Hitmonlee, Jynx, Electivire, and Magmortar respectively.

And, as a slightly bigger stretch, if othergen pokemon are available through this method, you may be able to get a Hitmontop by getting your hands on a 5 Tyrogue and releasing them. But again, I still don't really know how branched evolutions would work with a system like this. It might just give you one of the options at random, which would make Hitmontop take even longer to get--and I honestly can't imagine all that effort will be worth it. I wouldn't bother trying for something like this until the game is over and you're trying to clean up and recruit every pokemon.

Anyway, that's it for our coverage of the B-Terminal pokemon availability! In case it isn't obvious, I have an inkling the game isn't going to allow pokemon outside of Gen 1 for now. After all, the collection screen only shows 151 slots... But I also suspect, from the intro alone, that othergen pokemon will be available. I'm pretty sure we've seen the silhouettes of Dialga and Palkia already. But they're definitely intentional about only showing the Gen 1 pokemon right now, and I'm suspicious of the fact that it feels like we should've seen a handful of other pokemon by now. Time will tell, of course. Time will tell.

Anyway, next time, we'll be making preparations for and taking on the Rank B Battle Royale! If the first is anything to go by, it shouldn't be too difficult. See you soon!

December 31, 2023

We continue with our coverage of Pokemon Rumble! This time, we're heading off to the Battle Royale! But first, we've gotta prepare our team! I did get some new pokemon through Release Tickets, but there was nothing particularly noteworthy just yet. Instead, most of the substantial differences come in moves I got.

I didn't touch Electrode's moveset because I'm pretty satisfied with it as is.

Haunter ended up having to stick with Lick, but it also learned ThunderBolt which is pretty rad! Thunderbolt is a ranged attack with a large hit radius. It takes a bit longer to come out, but it's quite powerful and damages a lot of enemies at once.

Rapidash learned Facade. It's not the most exciting move, but it's better than nothing!

Krabby's moveset also remains unchanged. I'd like it to have something stronger than Vicegrip, but its power level isn't quite so impressive anymore.

Likewise, I didn't bother teaching Venomoth any new moves. While Silver Wind is awesome, it's just far too weak to realistically use at this point. And with no way to power it up, it's likely to just have to sit things out from now on, sadly.

Anyway, that's all the preparation we need for now. Let's jump right in to the next Battle Royale!

It's the Rank B Battle Royale! We need to a pokemon with at least 200 Power to qualify, and the prize money is 1500P! But our rivals are far more intimidating this time around. It looks like we've got the Gen 1 trade evolutions! We'll need to watch our step here!

Battle Royale Rank B

It's Battle Royale time! The royale works pretty much the same as the first, but with Rank B enemies instead. There's only one significant difference as far as I could tell:

Powerful Rivals spawn in throughout the match instead of all at once at the end. So we'll want to deal with them as they spawn in!

Electrode's Rollout is good for barreling through hoards of enemies, but its restriction on your mobility does lead to easy punishment for reckless play. As you can see, my health is already quite low and I haven't even KO'd the first rival yet...

It isn't too long before my reckless behavior catches up to me, and I'm KO'd! Yikes!

It looks like Haunter will have to pick up where Electrode left off!

Thankfully, Lick is strong against Alakazam, and it's a STAB attack, so I can shift my attention that way to take him out quickly.

And Golem is already pretty weak, so another few Licks that way and he went down, too!

Gengar was next!

Like Alakazam, Gengar is weak to Lick, so I was able to stun lock him with Paralysis until he was out.

And then there was Machamp!

By far the least scary of the opponents for Haunter. But let's not underestimate the weaker pokemon! THey can make things messy if you try to ignore them.

After KOing all the rivals, it was just down to the last pokemon once again! And a quick ThunderBolt was all it took to eliminate Farfetch'd!

And that was that! We win the Battle Royale and its prize money!

After claiming the prize, we return to the Terminal.

Now, our Wonder Key is upgraded meaning all of those recruitment ticket pokemon are now higher strength. Ironically, none of them exceeded 300 power, though, so Haunter and Electrode are still my strongest pokemon. More importantly, the trampoline leading us to Terminal A is here!

As we take the trampoline, we're given that same ominous preview of Mewtwo. We must already be drawing close to the end of the game!

Anyway, Terminal A is the same story as before, this time it's Pink! We've got the same six levels again, this time with even stronger pokemon and, perhaps, longer levels with more challenging layouts than before. Maybe we'll see even more tricks being pulled on us?

In order to qualify for the Battle Royale, we're going to need 400 Power or more. But we're already not far from that, and if B Rank was anything to go by, we'll probably have 500 Power by the time we take this challenge.

And yes, more moves are available at the Training Point at 1000P per move this time. Try to save up for some powerful attacks! Likewise, the Recruitment Point costs four times as much at 4000P. I really can't imagine a world where this is worth it over just exploring the levels, unless you can get pokemon that aren't normally available.

Anyway, that's gonna be it this time. Next time, we'll explore the levels of Terminal A and begin making progress toward our next Battle Royale! See you soon!

January 10

A-Terminal

We've had another unexpected hiatus to make excuses for, but it's whatever. I'm still getting used to things at my new job! Sooner or later I'll probably get more comfortable with my schedule. But for now, I have an easy day to follow up here. So, let's get down to it!

We return with Pokemon Rumble! Last time we left off, we'd just cleared the B-Rank Battle Royale, and now we've reached the A-Terminal! By this point, you already know the routine. Once again, we're exploring the same six levels but with new pokemon and, sometimes, new aesthetics. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the dungeons don't seem to be any longer or more complex than the B-Rank stages. The higher difficulty comes from not just stronger pokemon but a larger selection of pokemon.

Silent Forest [A Rank]

Pokemon available throughout this dungeon included Metapod, Oddish, Bulbasaur, Kakuna, Ivysaur, Beedrill, Butterfree, Gloom, and Vileplume.

And our boss here is none other than Venusaur with a swarm of Ivysaur henchmen!

Among the new pokmeon I recruited, I got a Gloom which was my new most powerful pokemon at 324! I'm going to stop noting every single pokemon I'm able to recruit going forward as some of these levels have had significantly rarer pokemon than anything we've explored so far. I've found myself playing most of these levels several times over just to find every pokemon. It would take a needless amount of time to list out every single pokemon I recruit when most of them are just gonna sit in storage or be released unceremoniously anyway.

There's still not one, but two pokemon we've yet to encounter here, so we're definitely going to be paying a second visit, but for now...

Windy Prairie [A Rank]

Windy Prairie is up next! Just like Rock Cave's B-Rank version, this place has an aesthetic shift in A-Rank. The stage seems to be set at Night this time!

We've got Raticate, Pidgeot, Meowth, Weepinbell, Victreebel, Tangela, Persian, and Tauros in this run through.

The boss here is a bit of an odd case, being Aerodactyll with a bunch of Tangela as its minions. I feel like they could've gone with Fearow or something to make it fit better, but nope, Tangela.

Anyway, I wound up recruiting a Tangela that beat Gloom as my strongest pokemon! Though its moves were unfortunately quite lacking, so I still stuck with Gloom for a while.

And yet again, we're stuck with two slots missing... hm...

Fiery Furnace [A Rank]

Moving on, next we've got Fiery Furnace!

We've got Charmander, Ninetales, Magneton, Primeape, Hitmonlee, and Charmeleon. And lots of 'em all! Watch your step because you don't wanna be swarmed by these nasty guys!

And as you could probably guess after seeing Venusaur in Silent Forest, the boss here is Charizard with a swarm of Charmeleon.

I was actually lucky enough to recruit that Charizard! It has 399 power, unfortunately just shy of being able to unlock the next Battle Royale. It's also unfortunate that its only attacks are the pretty weak Scratch and Dragon Rage which is a fixed damage attack meaning he can't actually take advantage of his higher power all that well without some tutoring... which... isn't likely to happen since there's no doubt I'll get a stronger pokemon than this one before long.

Surprisingly, even though I encountered such a small selection of pokemon, we've already seen all the pokemon available here!

In addition to the ones above, Hitmonchan and Magmar are also available here. But they aren't marked with '?' since we saw them in B-Rank. So it looks like we have no need to replay this level which is all well and good because this was the stage I had to replay the most before.

Rocky Cave [A Rank]

Up next is Rocky Cave! The A-Rank version of this dungeon has a more pinkish color to it. This is the only dungeon that appears different in every rank so far, to my knowledge.

Pokemon I encountered here include Graveler, Celfable, Slowpoke, Machoke, Machamp, Slowbro, Golem, and Kangaskhan.

The boss here was Lapras with a bunch of Slowbro as minions. I certainly would've expected Lapras at Bright Beach instead, but I guess there's quite a lot of precedent for Lapras as a cave dweller in hindsight.

Anyway, it was here that I recruited my next most powerful pokemon: Slowbro! This one has a power of 430!

That means the gate to the Battle Royale is open to us now, so we can progress whenever we feel we're ready. But I still wanna keep exploring.

Rocky Cave, once again, still has two new encounters missing.

Bright Beach [A Rank]

Bright Beach doesn't actually appear to be all that bright at A-Rank. It looks like this one's set in the early morning!

Pokemon I found here included Staryu, Squirtle, Poliwhirl, Starmie, Seel, Dewgong, Wartortle, Krabby, Kingler, Omastar, and Cloyster.

And the boss, you guessed it, Blastoise and Wartortle.

I wound up recruiting a Starmie with higher power than Slowbro, but once again its moves are quite lacking, so it likely won't be seeing much action.

Once again, we're missing two slots. But this time, the pokemon appear unrelated to each other. Judging by their positions, we can infer we're missing Poliwrath and Omanyte.

Eternal Tower [A Rank]

Moving along to our initial run of Eternal Tower, this place has also changed atmosphere with each rank. This time, it appears to be more of a greenish color.

Pokemon encountered here included Nidorino, Kadabra, Nidorina, Haunter, Grimer, Muk, Nidoking, Electabuzz, and Nidoqueen.

And the boss at the top of the tower is Gengar and Haunter. Can't say I'm too terribly surprised.

Gengar's Shadow Ball is actually a pretty interesting projectile, though. It'll follow you around, so you'll need to focus on your movement and make sure you always have an escape route!

In addition to the pokemon already noted, there's also Alakazam here, which we've encountered previously in the Battle Royale. There's also one more unidentified pokemon here...

So yeah, suddenly, we've got quite a few pokemon available to us which we haven't seen... which means it's time for a second lap to fill those empty spaces! There's something fishy going on...

Eventually, in Silent Forest, I wound up running into a Pinsir.

And then after a few more runs, we were able to find Scyther. This was fairly comparable to the struggle I had finding Hitmonchan in Fiery Furnace, so that doesn't exactly bode well...

It took five runs, but we were able to spot every pokemon in Silent Forest! Hopefully the rest will be done a bit faster, yeah? Haha... oh boy.

Back in Windy Prairie, it took attempt after attempt before I finally found myself a Dratini. This all but confirms my suspicions that there are definitely rare pokemon slots in this game, and this pokemon's spawn rate has to be around 5% or less. It took forever to find just a Dratini. And if we're missing Dratini, I think you can probably guess what the other pokemon was that we're missing.

And yes, it took even longer to find a Dragonair! For future reference, you can get a rough idea of how long I've been at these levels by the amount of Poke I have in these screenshots, by the way. Not only are Dratini and Dragonair both incredibly rare, I have a feeling they can only appear on certain floors, with Dragonair only spawning on the later floors while Dratnini only spawns on the earlier floors. That makes Dragonair even rarer than Dratini even if they have the same spawn rate. I found a small handful of Dratini before I ever got lucky enough to find a Dragonair.

It took 11 runs before I was able to encounter every pokemon here! But here's the list!

We aren't missing any encounters in Fiery Furnace, so we jump right on to Rocky Tunnel where we would soon spot a Kabutops! And that can only mean the other pokemon we're missing must be a Kabuto. It shouldn't take too long to find the weaker form, right?

Well, this time I'm not pulling your leg. It was only a couple more runs before I was able to find a Kabuto. It's odd I found Kabutops so much quicker, though...

Anyway, that one was relatively painless. And hey, surely there can't be anything much rarer than Dragonair and Dratini, so I don't think we have anything else to worry about...

At Bright Beach, it didn't take too long to spot the Poliwrath I was after,

And sure enough, Omanyte wasn't any more painful than Kabuto to find. Again, though, it's odd I found both of these first-form fossil pokemon over their evolved counterparts.

Regardless, here we are with the full list of pokemon! The sheer number of pokemon available in each area are certainly getting bigger, aren't they? I can only imagine that's a trend that will continue as the game progresses...

Last but not least, we found Porygon here at Eternal Tower. It's cute and small! And it's only capable of putting up so much of a fight.

And that's the last pokemon from Eternal Tower!

Now, of course, there are still some other pokemon that are technically available here through recruitment tickets, but thanks to the higher rank, most of the fully evolved pokemon of these evolution lines are already available, and any previous evolutions have been available in previous ranks.

Theoretically, you can get Dragonite by releasing 5 Dragonair, but of course, you can see how long it took me just to find a single Dragonair. Let alone recruit 5 of them. Even if you get one or two from trading in Dratini, you're looking at a large amount of time spent on the hunt. Curiously, Pidgeot isn't available here in the wild despite being in B-Rank. You'd think it would replace Pidgeotto if nothing else.

Additionally, with Tangela being so common, I was finally able to confirm that, indeed, you can obtain pokemon from Gen 2 and 4 through tickets, even if the levels themselves go out of their way to avoid pokemon outside of Gen 1. That said, in looking deeper into how branched evolutions work, I still don't have any definitive answer, but it does seem that not every pokemon exists in the game. It's possible that pokemon like Politoed and Slowking simply don't exist here for the sake of simplicity.

Running on the assumption that branched evolutions are all axed, these are the pokemon that evolve from pokemon available here that I cannot yet confirm or deny are available through release tickets: Scizor, Porygon2, and Porygon-Z. Of course, there's also the evolutions of pokemon that were previously available, too, such as Magmortar, Electivire, and Magnezone.

Anyway, that's where we're going to leave things off for now. Next time, we make preparations, assemble a new team, and take on the Battle Royale! See you soon!

January 15

We're back with Pokemon Rumble! Once again, I must apologize for the wait between posts. Training for the new job takes up a lot of my free time, and there are other areas of my life that I do prioritize over this. However, I do intend to continue slugging along! And thanks to a three-day weekend here in the US, I've got some extra time to spend making our next update!

Last time, we explored all the areas of Terminal A, so now it's time to make preparations for the next Battle Royale!

And so, I went through the usual process of grabbing my strongest pokemon and running them through the Training Point a few times to try and get better moves. And these are the ones I settled on!

First, we have Vileplume, my highest power pokemon at 522. It has Energy Ball for long-rage attacks, and Facade for close-range. Energy Ball is pretty great because it can actually rebound off of enemies to spread residual damage across a crowd!

Nidoqueen, with power of 513, has Secret Power and Shock Wave.

Aerodactyl is tied with Nidoqueen at 513 power, and he has Hidden Power Ghost and SuperSonic. I would've preferred to have a second offensive move, but I didn't want to spend too much money trying for one and SuperSonic can be pretty good if I'm backed into a corner.

Then we have Nidoking, at 511 Power who has ThunderBolt and Brick Break.

And lastly, there's Cloyster tied with 511 power with the moves Icicle Spear and Aurora Beam.

Of course, I won't be using all of these pokemon, as you're limited to only 4, but it's good to have some options.

With all that out of the way, it's time to jump on into the Battle Royale!

This is the first time our Battle Royale comes with pokemon we've already faced before as our powerful rivals. This silhouettes are undeniably those of Venusaur, Blastoise, and Charizard! But let's not underestimate them!

Battle Royale Rank A

You know the drill for how these Battle Royales work out, so I don't think it's necessary to spend too much time on the experience, but this was where I first experienced Energy Ball and it felt quite powerful ricocheting off of enemies and getting KOs left and right.

Of course, it wasn't long before our powerful rivals appeared.

They all appeared at one time like in C-Rank rather than B-Rank. I feel like that actually makes them easier to deal with since you can get them to fight each other while you focus on whichever one you have the strongest advantage against.

I actually did come quite close to getting KO'd, but I was able to survive to the end!

Upon defeating our final rival, we win the Battle Royale and earn our ultimate prize of 3000P!

Of course, with this win, we now have an upgraded Wonder Key allowing us to realize the full potential of more pokemon recruited from the Recruitment Point!

And, of course, we also unlock access to Terminal S!

With this jump, another foreboding message noting that we seem to be nearing the end of our journey...

And with that, we reach Terminal S! S Rank should be the final rank! Although I get the feeling there's a bit more to this game than just clearing the S-Rank Battle Royale...

Anyway, to reach the end of S-Rank, this time we need a pokemon with 600 Power, which means pokemon recruited from the recruit point can have power up to 599.

The training point costs 1500P per move this time,

But for the first time, the Recruit Point costs more than 4 times the cost of the Training Point, so it seems that's not a hard rule after all. It costs 6500P this time, so you'll need to build up some serious dough if you want to rely on this to recruit every pokemon.

So, next time, we begin exploring the S-Rank stages! And I have a feeling these will take even longer to get through than the A-Rank stages, so it might be a bit of a wait for the next update. I just want anyone following along to know that I'm not neglecting this series! Progress is just going to be a little slow for a while.

January 24

S Terminal

Once again, I know, coverage has been slow, but we're slowly making progress through this game! I guess there's no need for me to keep apologizing and saying the same thing every post, so let's just get right into the S-Rank stages!

Silent Forest [S Rank]

Starting out with Silent Forest, it seems to be an evening twilight this time around.

The pokemon I ran into include Beedrill, PIkachu, Raichu, Butterfree, Venomoth, and Venusaur.

And the boss was Snorlax with Raichu as its minions. Raichu notably being the boss of this stage at an earlier rank. It's an interesting dynamic here.

Upon completing this stage, my strongest pokemon was a Raichu with 536 Power, but we still need more!

Windy Prarie [S-Rank]

Moving onto Windy Prairie, it, too, looks to be set during the evening twilight.

The pokemon I ran into here include Fearow, Tangela, Pidgeot, Exeggcute, Victreebell, Aerodactyl, and Tauros.

The boss was Dragonite with Aerodactyl minions. I can't say I'm surprised to find Dragonite here. And I'm sensing a pattern with reusing earlier bosses as minions for the S-Rank bosses.

By the end of this, Fearow was my strongest pokemon with power of 546, but a rather lacking moveset...

Rocky Cave [S-Rank]

It's Rocky Cave next and this place now has a darker blue color to it.

Pokemon here include Onix, Dugtrio, GOlbat, Arbok, Rhydon, Machamp, Golem, Kangaskhan, and Sandslash. Of particular note, I found Machamp to actually be really scary. Their attacks have a large range and they hit like a truck. I'm guessing it's Close Combat, Cross Chop, or something along those lines. But you definitely want to keep your distance from Machamp. Getting too close to them too many times actually bought me my first game over! There isn't much of a penalty for a game over as far as I can tell, though. Your adventure just ends early and you have to start over again. It's all well and good because I'd likely need to redo these levels multiple times to encounter all the pokemon, anyway.

The boss, however, was quite a surprise. I wasn't expecting to run into the Legendary Birds here of all places. I thought I'd see these pokemon as the powerful rivals in the battle royale. But I suppose they'd have to be here if they were going to be recruitable...

Articuno can be quite a threatening boss with the range of its Icy Wind, but as long as you're careful, pelting it with Rock attacks can burn right through its health.

By the time I was thorugh with this stage, my toughest pokemon was now a Machamp with 599 power, just short of what we need to qualify for the Battle Royale! It'll probably be out of relevancy by the time we're ready for the Royale, but it's still a really solid-looking build here with two three-star STAB attacks!

Fiery Furnace [S-Rank]

We're moving onto Fiery Furnace! I'm not sure I've noticed any changes to scenery here so far, but here the iron looks to be redder in color than the usual dark colors here.

Pokemon here include Electrode, Rapidash, Arcanine, Charizard, Eevee, and Flareon. Those latter two might be a pleasant surprise but, overall, there's nothing too surprising here.

And after running into Articuno, it shouldn't come as a surprise to find Moltres here, with Arcanine as its minions.

Coming out of this, my new strongest pokemon was a Rapidash with Poison Jab, a powerful 4-star poison-type attack, and Agility which is really nice to have for convenience while dungeon crawling. It also boasts 610 power!

That's enough to qualify us for the Battle Royale! But of course we've still got a ways to go...

Bright Beach [S Rank]

It's Bright Beach! This one looks to be another twilight scene.

Pokemon I ran into here included Magikarp, Tentacruel, Omastar, Blastoise, Seadra, Golduck, Seaking, Dewgong, Starmie, Eevee, and Ditto.

And the boss was Gyarados with Poliwrath as its minions. A rather strange way to break the pattern of using previous bosses for the minions. I would've thought we'd have Jynx here but I suppose that's just not how we're doing things here.

Anyway, upon clearing this stage, our new most powerful pokemon is a Starmie with much less impressive moves than Rapidash, but, hey, 648 power is nothing to sneeze at!

This other one, though, with slightly weaker power, is much more appealing with BubbleBeam, a move with pretty solid range, and Recover, which can help make up for mistakes.

Eternal Tower [S-Rank]

It's Eternal Tower next! You can probably guess what pokemon the boss is since it's still unaccounted for...

Pokemon I ran into here include Nidoking, Alakazam, Marowak, Gengar, and Ditto. Can't say there's much room for surprise at this point.

Anyway, the boss here is Zapdos surrounded by Nidoking minions.

My new strongest pokemon here is Gengar with 702 power, but it only knows Payback and Mean Look which is a huge drawback. Quite a disappointing pair of moves.

But this Alakazam with Psycho Cut and Reflect is much more appealing. Psycho Cut is an interesting move as it throws out a projectile that mirrors your movements. You have to be careful of your positioning, but if used well, this can be great for dealing with crowds of enemies. And it's a really powerful attack, too!

Now that we've finished each of the areas, it's time to go back and fill in the blanks. It looks like Vileplume, Scyther, Pinsir, and Ditto can all also be found here in Silent Forest. But we're still missing one more pokemon here... and I already had a solid guess of just who that would be.

It took several runs, but my suspicions were finally confirmed that this rare pokemon was, indeed, Chansey! This pokemon is probably the hardest to recruit so far as it's extremely rare and, unlike Dragonair and Dragonite, you can't alternatively encounter it through recruit tickets. At least, not without Happiny in the picture.

Meanwhile, I am pushing the power cap even further with a Mighty Venusaur I recruited! I'm not a fan of Vine Whip in this game, it's just too slow and close range to be satisfying for me. But Grass Knot is a pretty solid attack!

Anyway, with that, these are the pokemon that can be found in Silent Forest S-Rank.

And it turns out we've also already seen all the pokemon available in Windy Prairie! The remaining ones include Dodrio, Dratini, and Dragonair. None of which are a surprise.

Here are the pokemon available in Rocky Cave! Even though we haven't seen them all in S-Rank, we have seen them all before.

Ones we've yet to encounter here in S-Rank include Lapras, Ditto, and Kabutops.

Fiery Furnace indeed has a really fine selection. We've already seen every pokemon here save for Ditto.

Bright Beach has a pretty wide selection of pokemon. But nevertheless, we've seen them all already.

Though Vaporeon is interesting to note as this is our first chance to actually recruit one for ourselves since they can't be obtained through Recruitment Tickets.

Finally, at Eternal Tower, we've got some other pokemon we didn't encounter in our run.

Nidoqueen, Mr. Mime, and Jolteon can all be found here. None of which should come as a surprise.

And that's it for today! Next time, we move on to the Battle Royale! This should be the final Battle Royale... at least, as far as we're aware... cough cough

See you soon!

January 26

We return with Pokemon Rumble! Last time we cleared all the levels at the Rank S terminal, and today we're making preparations to take on the Rank S Battle Royale!

Real quick, I want to acknowledge that, even though I was able to get Tangrowth by releasing 5 Tangela and I'd assumed that meant releasing 5 Raichu would get me Pichu, that doesn't appear to be the case. Doing so only got me a Pikachu. Perhaps baby pokemon simply aren't in this game?

Regardless, I put together yet another team of mighty warriors! This should be our final Battle Royale, so we'd best be as prepared as we can be!

Our strongest pokemin is this Mighty Venusaur with Grass Knot, a solid generic Grass attack, and Toxic, an AoE attack that badly poisons pokemon ahead of you. It's much more powerful than PoisonPowder, obviously, so I'll gladly take it. This Venusaur also has the Mighty special trait which reduces the knockback it receives. It's not the most useful Special Trait, but it's a nice bonus! It's rare that my strongest pokemon has one at all!

Then we have Gengar which, frankly, is the one I'm most excited for. Just look at those stats! Shadow Claw and Toxic are both 4-star attacks, though I'm not sure Toxic does damage directly. Regardless, Shadow Claw is a powerful STAB ghost attack that comes out really fast! Paired with Gengar's offensive prowess and I think this is one the enemies will have to watch out for.

Snorlax is where we kinda start to get into the lackies. I didn't put too much effort into these guys' attacks figuring I'd only need Venusaur and maybe Gengar. But I got Snorlax with Rock Slide and STAB Facade.

Alakazam got Iron Tail over Reflect. Frankly, I'm not sure this is better, but I figure if there's no physical special split, it's an interesting opportunity to use a rather unorthodox move for the pokemon.

Then there's Raichu who's pretty much as Raichu as Raichu can get. Thundershock for quick attacks and Thunderbolt for AoE. Pretty straightforward there.

Anyway, with our team assembled, it's time to march onward into the Battle Royale!

=============

Once again, it looks like we're dealing with the Legendary Birds. It's a bit odd that we just fought these guys as boss fights, but I figured no other pokemon would make sense as the powerful rivals for the Rank S Battle Royale, so I can't say I'm too surprised here.

==============

Battle Royale [Rank S]

You know the drill with these, of course, so I won't waste any time. Though this is notably the toughest Battle Royale yet. If you aren't careful the damage you collect from the large attacks your rivals dish out can quickly add up to your KO!

Not too far in, the three Legendary Birds spawn in!

We've gotta clear the way to them and take them out! But don't ignore the foes around you! The last thing you want to be is surrounded! It's a good idea to let some of the nobodies soften up the powerful rivals. Especially if you're not exactly well equipped to fight them...

Soon enough, Venusaur did end up getting KO'd. So it looks like my secret weapon's going to have to come out.

Heerrre comes Gengar!! His Night Slash is insane! I knew it would be good, but I don't think I realized just how easily I'd be able to autocombo my foes with such a powerful attack! Once Shadow Claw hits an enemy, there's no escaping unless something else comes to the rescue!

Vs. Mewtwo

But while fighting with the birds, a "surprise" fourth powerful rival enters. The most powerful pokemon of all: Mewtwo! He's in a league of his own! I can't say this is too much of a surprise since it's been built up from the beginning, but this fight comes with a really sick boss theme that's a remix of the Red and Blue Wild Battle theme, the music that would, of course, be playing during the Mewtwo encounter in the original games. This remix really goes hard!

Well, he would be if I couldn't autocombo him to death all the same as anything else... Yeah, I'd probably have talked a bit more about how much of a threat Mewtwo was, but the fight was actually a lot more straightforward than I admit I expected...

After defeating Mewtwo, all I had to do was clean up the rest of the foes.

And with that, we win the 5000P prize!

More importantly, we're now crowned the strongest pokemon of all!

And that's where the credits roll! I've gotta admit, even though this game is extremely barebones and most certainly incredibly repetitive, it's definitely got a certain charm to it. As a kid without much better to do, I could see myself coming back to this game a lot in an effort to recruit every pokemon in the game.

If you watched those credits, though, you might've noticed a special extra scene at the very end where our Battle Royale winner happens across a mysterious new Wonder Key...

Upon touching the key, the pokemon watches it fly off toward the sky...

And we're met with an interesting screen showing various Gen 4 pokemon! We've got a postgame, ladies and gentlemen. That's right, we're not done with this game quite yet. See you next time when we unravel what exactly this screen is foreshadowing...

January 29

We're back! Last time, we finished our initial playthrough of Pokemon Rumble, but as my word choice there implies, we've got another playthrough coming up! When we finished off last time, we were left with a teaser image of various generation IV pokemon in the Battle Royale arena. Up until now, the game has generally tried its hardest to keep our selection of pokemon limited to Gen I pokemon only with a few exceptions thanks to Recruitment tickets.

But if we make our way back to our save file to continue our game...

We're now given a choice between two game modes. Normal and Advanced! I think it's clear what we're going to be doing right now...

When you pick Advanced Mode, you're given this new image depicting the silhouettes of Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina. It looks like our sights are being set even higher than Mewtwo this time...

And then it seems our adventure is starting over from C-Rank in this new advanced mode!

And if we try to take on the Battle Royale, the bar is much higher than the first time around! We need a pokemon with at least 1000 Power!

The Training Point is also significantly more expensive, as is the Recruit Point. It looks like things are going to get a lot tougher this time around, so we'd better be prepared!

We do have access to all the resources we had at the end of our last game, mind you, so we're not totally in the deep end. But, of course, the pokemon we had at the end of the Normal mode playthrough are rapidly going to get power crept here. So we'll need to get whole new ones!

So, let's not hesitate and get to work! My process for handling each rank will be the same here, but I'll be covering an entire rank per post this time to make sure we don't waste too much time on redundant details. I'll be covering all the pokemon that can be encountered all at once after I write about each level.

Silent Forest [Advanced Rank C]

It isn't going to be long at all before you're introduced to the main difference between Normal and Advanced Mode: Not only are the pokemon much higher power, but there are also now Gen 4 Pokemon!

The boss here is Grotle, with Turtwig as its minions. You can probably guess what at least two other stages' bosses will be by this.

Grotle's Razor Leaf can actually be quite threatening as it reaches quite a range around him and circles back inward. But it also leaves him quite open as the projectiles move in really predictable patterns, so you can sneak a few hits in when he does this.

Upon clearing Silent Forest, my new strongest pokemon was a Wormadam that knew Psychic and Protect. Nice! But not quite nice enough to get us into the Battle Royale...

Windy Prairie [Advanced Rank C]

The types of pokemon you can expect to run into in each of these areas don't change all that much. You'll be seeing a lot more Gen 4 pokemon over Gen 1, but there still are a handful of Gen 1 pokemon you can find every once in a while. At the very least, namely the ones that can be found in Diamond and Pearl, or pokemon that have Gen 4 evolutions, such as Tangela here in Windy Prairie.

The boss of this stage is Bibarel and its Bidoof posse.

My new most powerful pokemon now is a Tangela with AncientPower and Stun Spore, with 949 power! We're getting closer, but we've gotta keep climbing!

Rocky Cave [Advanced Rank C]

In this dungeon, I ran into something I never expected! A shiny pokemon! Indeed, every pokemon that spawns, at least in one of these dungeons where pokemon are recruitable, has a chance to be shiny! I don't know if these are actual odds as in the main series, or if they're based on different numbers and consequently more or less common, but I found a shiny Croagunk here!

I'm currently under the assumption that Shiny Pokemon will always be recruitable, so make sure to take them out when you see them! It'll be great if your shiny new friend also happens to be your strongest!

Anyway, the boss of this dungeon is Toxicroak with, you guessed it, a unit of Croagunk minions.

And here's our shiny Croagunk! He's not the best for fighting, but his name is colored blue to indicate he's a shiny pokemon, so you don't have to worry about accidentally releasing a shiny you wanna keep for your collection. But that's right, not only can you strive for a complete collection of every pokemon, but there's shiny hunting in this game! I'm not sure how excited most people would get over that, but, I guess if you're a fan of Shiny hunting, maybe this game might be up your alley.

Regardless, our new strongest pokemon here is a Rhyhorn with Rock Blast and Take Down.

Fiery Furnace [Advanced Rank C]

Hey, remember how Sinnoh infamously had almost no Fire-type pokemon in Diamond and Pearl? Yeah, I don't expect much to come out of Fiery Furnace in the way of pokemon. But we can at least find Chimchar here.

Speaking of, it should come as no surprise that the boss here is Monferno with a family of Chimchar at its command.

Bright Beach [Advanced Rank C]

Once again, really not much to say about this one. It's just Bright Beach but with Sinnoh Pokemon, what do you expect?

And of course, the boss here is Prinplup with a bunch of Piplup. About as predictable as you can get.

But, we got a new strongest pokemon in Floatzel! This one has Brine and Rock Tomb at 1046 Power!

Thanks to this guy, we can now access the Battle Royale! But of course, we've still got some more exploring to do.

Eternal Tower [Advanced Rank C]

Consistently, this place has probably been the most dangerous and that still holds here in Advanced Mode. Some of the enemies have some serious range and Toxic lingers quite a bit. Watch your step and don't run blindly into attacks!

The boss here, Mismagius, has Kadabra as its minions. Which is quite odd, surely you'd expect Misdreavus... this got my mind stirring and nearing a conclusion about exactly what pokemon are and aren't in this game...

Anyway, after replaying each stage until I encountered every pokemon, which took especially long here in Eternal Tower, these are the pokemon available in each area:

In Silent Forest, you can find Pikachu, Chansey, Eevee, Turtwig, Grotle, Budew, Roserade, Burmy, Wormadam, and Happinny... but wait a minute, Budew and Happiny are baby pokemon! Perhaps my theory about Baby Pokemon not being included was false, but why then couldn't I get a Pichu ticket by trading in 5 Raichu...? And why no Roselia here if I can find Roserade already? Perhaps you've already come to the same hypothesis as I have at this point, but we'll need to test it before we can say it with confidence.

Anyway, thankfully, your encounter history from Normal Mode is carried over into Advanced Mode, so I don't have to put the hours into hunting down Chansey again.

In Windy Prairie, we can find Tangela, Bidoof, Bibarel, Pachirisu, Cherubi, Cherrim, Buneary, Lopunny, Chatot, and Tangrowth.

In Rocky Cave, we've got Geodude, Graveler, Onix, Rhyhorn, Rhydon, Eevee, Croagunk, and Toxicroak. Not many Gen 4 pokemon seem to be here just yet. Croagunk and the boss, Toxicroak are all you get for now. But we can see precedent for a couple of others, too.

In Fiery Furnace, we have Ponyta, Rapidash, Magmar, Eevee, Chimchar, Monferno, Cranidos, and Shieldon. The latter two I had to search for my second time through, so they're probably significantly rarer than anything else here.

Bright Beach was quite diverse in the pokemon available, so I was surprised to find I'd encountered them all already: Tentacool, Tentacruel, Magikarp, Gyarados, Eevee, Piplup, Prinplup, Buizel, Floatzel, Finneon, and Lumineon.

Eternal Tower was quite the hassle, as you can see by the times cleared: 14! It took me forever to find the one pokemon I was missing which was Porygon-Z! The pokemon you can find here are Abra, Kadabra, Electabuzz, Eevee, Porygon, Mismagius, Stunky, Skuntank, Skorupi, Drapion, and Porygon-Z.

In the process of searching for Porygon-Z, I also found this shiny Skuntank as well! I'm not sure if I was just really lucky in this session, or if Shiny pokemon simply aren't unlocked until Advanced mode, but I'm pretty sure they are accessible in Normal Mode, too. Though maybe they're unlocked after defeating Mewtwo as an incentive to keep working toward a long-term goal.

Anyway, while releasing pokemon, I found that trading in 5 Budew for a Recruit Ticket nets me a... Roserade Ticket? This seems to confirm my suspicions: It seems clear to me now that this game only features pokemon from Generation I and IV. Gen II and III Pokemon are completely absent. Budew skips straight over Roselia to Roserade, Pichu, Magby, Magmar, Smoochum, and Misdreavus don't exist which explains those oddities, and this also conveniently removes the complications of branched evolutions and further explains why Eevee, the only branched evolution to persist in all these limitations, doesn't provide a recruit ticket for any of its evolutions. This is how the process is kept simple even with later gen pokemon being introduced. But it does lead to a strange selection of pokemon when I think about it. For example, it's likely we'll be encountering Mantyke in Bright Beach at higher ranks, but never Remoraid or Mantine. Also, Mime Jr. and Mr. Mime will both likely be here, but Bonsly will be without Sudowoodo... There's no guarantee this "no Gen II or III" rule is universal, but I see no evidence as of yet that any of these pokemon will show their faces and only evidence to the contrary. The only way to know for sure is to keep on going...

Anyway, I also wanted to note that it isn't entirely true that Eevee is the only branched evolution. There is at least one more: Burmy! Not only that, but Burmy is even more complicated because it and Wormadam have 3 different forms! So, I traded in five Burmy (Plant Cloak of course, it's the only form I have access to so far)

...got me a Sand Cloak Wormadam! Not a Plant Cloak... it seems the cloak Burmy and Wormadam have are random when obtained through Recruitment Tickets.

Naturally, I traded in 5 Wormadam out of curiosity as to what would happen next.

And what I got was a Mothim! It seems that, for simplicity sake, Mothim is treated as the "final evolution" in the Burmy cycle. Even though Mothim doesn't evolve from Wormadam and instead evolves from Male Burmy, this game doesn't seem to indicate individual pokemon's gender, and that wouldn't really work with this system of "evolution" anyway. It isn't quite evolution, after all, so I suppose oddities like this can easily be explained away. Anyway, if I had to guess, trading in 5 Mothim would just net me a Burmy with a random cloak, just like Burmy to Wormadam. Definitely a curious line...

As we prepare for the Battle Royale, I've focused my prepartion on three pokemon, all of whom I've gathered during my search for Porygon-Z. First, we have this Snappy Drapion here. Its Special Trait allows its moves to come out much more quickly, which makes Rock Climb and Sludge Bomb much more viable moves than usual. Rock Climb is especially powerful as it can hit enemies in rapid succession and pile on lots of damage at a time! It also helps Drapion push through crowds. Sludge Bomb is a safer option to get pot shots off at enemies from a safe distance.

Next, we have Mismagius who can poison crowds of enemies with Toxic and use Psybeam from a relatively safe distance.

And finally, Skuntank comes with Night Slash to deal lots of damage at once. This seemed to be the most promising of the Skuntank I had, the others would've required much more investment to make usable.

With preparations out of the way, it's time to take on the first Advanced Battle Royale!

And things are definitely significantly different here. Suddenly the Battle Royale is filled with not one, not three, but six powerful rivals to watch out for! As always, the silhouettes aren't subtle at all. These rivals are going to be Rotom and its many alternative forms!

Battle Royale [Advanced Rank C]

It's Battle Royale time! The rules are the same as they've always been. We've gotta take out all our opponents in the time alotted! In that department, there's nothing too special going on here. It's just more of the same.

It isn't long at all before Rotom and its friends come to play!

And, I've gotta say, as prepared as I feel, seeing six Powerful Rivals lined up like this all at once is certainly an intimidating sight! You definitely don't want to get too close!

And with my health getting low, I took the safe option and stood on the outskirts, lobbing Sludge Bomb into the chaos to score a few KO's here and there.

It didn't take too terribly long before I was able to take down the final foe: Fan Rotom!

And with that, the prize money is mine!

And as we take the trampoline to the Advanced Rank B Terminal, we're met with the same image as before... I'm curious just how tough this game will be capable of becoming...

Anyway, next time, we explore the levels at Advanced Rank B! I wonder just what kinds of surprises Advanced Mode has for us going forward? We can certainly expect things to get a lot tougher by the end if Normal Mode is anything to go by. See you soon for our coverage of Rank B!

February 3

We continue with our coverage of Pokemon Rumble! Last time we covered everything at the Rank C Terminal in Advanced Mode, this time we'll be exploring the Rank B Terminal!

In order to take on the Battle Royale here, we'll need a pokemon with at least 1200 power.

The Training Point costs 3000P per move and it costs 12000P to recruit a random pokemon through the Recruitment Point.

With the general details out of the way, it's time to jump into the levels themselves!

Silent Forest [Advanced Rank B]

We're starting out with Silent Forest! Once again, there's not really much at all to talk about in our progress through these stages. Nothing particularly new, though Combee's gust can be a bit intrusive with how long it lingers.

In the end, we face off against the boss: A Vespiquen with Combee as its minions. I'm pretty sure the Combee are all male, though. I'm not certain this game pays attnetion to gender and I think it just uses one model for each pokemon outside of things like the Rotom forms.

Windy Prairie (Advanced Rank B)

Windy Prairie is up next, a handful of new pokemon are here of course. It's nothing too dangerous, either, but you can easily find yourself getting surrounded with Purugly's awkward attack patterns paired with Glameow's Fake Out.

The boss here is a Staraptor with Staravia for its minions. It's as straightforward as it sounds.

Rocky Cave [Advanced Rank B]

Moving along to Rocky Cave, we've got more of what you'd expect. This dungeon is more or less the same as it was in Normal Mode but with a few Sinnoh Pokemon. I did run into a few Snover a bit further in. But perhaps the most significant addition are Gible and Gabite.

As for the boss, we've got Abomasnow and Snover.

Fiery Furnace [Advanced Rank B]

It looks like we've unlocked variety here! We're now running into some Electric and Steel types to broaden the scope of pokemon you can find.

And that includes the boss, Luxray and its pride of Luxio.

Bright Beach [Advanced B Rank]

And up next is Bright Beach! Perhaps the most oddball decision here is the addition of Hipopotas. I'm guessing the devs just assumed Hipopotas lived on the beach because it's a hippo, but it's definitely always been more of a desert/cave pokemon... It's an odd place to run into one on the beach, for sure.

Regardless, the boss here is a Hippowdon with Hipopotas as its minions. This cements this place as their home, I guess. The Hippowdon in-game is female, but I'm pretty sure the concept of gender doesn't exist in this game. I haven't noticed any variance in gender differences anyway. But I also can't say I've paid much attention there, either.

Upon clearing this stage, I recruited a Gastrodon with 1219 Power! That's enough to open up the Battle Royale!

But even with the Battle Royale gate open, we've still got more to cover!

Eternal Tower [Advanced Rank B]

Now that we're in Eternal Tower, we can talk about Bronzor because oh my god this enemy is incredibly annoying. It has a decently ranged psychic attack, so you have to be wary of approaching it when it's winding up to attack, and it also has a lot of HP and Defense. It feels like it takes forever to take these guys out. Try to avoid getting tunnel visioned on them and make sure you're constantly moving into favorable positions. Eventually, you'll be using pokemon strong enough to take them out more efficiently, but even with a 12000 Power pokemon, I was still struggling to deal with them.

And to make matters worse, who would the boss be if not Bronzong? This is by far the most annoying boss to fight yet just because of how long it takes to go down. These pokemon ahve really solid defensive typings and really solid defenses. You don't wanna put yourself in this boss fight poorly prepared. Again, it isn't hard, it just takes a long time to wittle its health down if your attacks are resisted.

=============

Anyway, with each of the levels cleared, let's talk about the pokemon we can find here.

In Silent Forest, we've got Pikachu, Raichu, Scyther, Snorlax, Kricketot and Kricketune, Combee, Vespiquen, Munchlax, and Carnivine. With Scizor presumably excluded, there's no special pokemon available thorugh recruitment tickets here.

Starly, Staravia, Staraptor, Ambipom, Drifloon, Drifblim, Glameow, Purugly, and Riolu can all be found in Windy Prairie.

Riolu is quite rare, but with enough dedication, you can theoretically get a Lucario through a recruitment ticket from them, too.

Rocky Cave brings Clefairy, Clefable, Zubat, Golbat, Machop, Machoke, Onix, Gible, Gabite, Snover, and Abomasnow to the mix.

And with patience and dedication, you can get your hands on a Garchomp through Gabite, too.

Fiery Furnace curiously hasn't actually grown all that much at all. We've got Magnemite, Magneton, Shinx, Luxio, Luxray, Cranidos, and Shieldon. Surprisngly, there isn't even a single Fire type here in Rank B! It's just Electric types and the Fossil pokemon. Very strange that not even Chimchar or Monferno would be here. I don't believe it's ever been without any Fire-types at all before... I imagine this would make repeat playthroughs of this level feel extremely redundant.

But, if you were to power through the reundancy, you might be rewarded with the ability to get a Magnezone!

Bright Beach brings Psyduck, Golduck, Goldeen, Seaking, Shellos, Gastrodon, Hipopotas, Hippowdon, and Mantyke. Shellos and Gastrodon are both in their West Sea forms here and I'm pretty sure Hippowdon will always be its female coloring rather than the male coloring the image here depicts. Unfortunately, as I noted before, Mantine is likely not included in this game, so Mantyke is all alone.

Gastly, Haunter, Mr. Mime, Honchkrow, Chingling, Bronzor, Bronzong, Bonsly, Mime Jr., and Gliscor can all be found in Eternal Tower. And let me tell you, the hunt for Mime Jr. was incredibly frustrating. This was the only stage I had to replay several times like this at this rank and I've already voiced my frustrations about how uniquely long it takes to fight Bronzor and Bronzong. And of course, every time I did this stage, I had to beat Bronzong again and again. Thankfully, I got better and more efficient at it each time, but even still, I felt like I was going insane walking in circles looking for Mime Jr. I ran into Mr. Mime and Bonsly over and over, both of whom seem to also be quite rare as I don't always run into them. But it took forver to finally find Mime Jr.

Anyway, this is another situation where the absense of Gen II and III pokemon makes things a bit awkward. Chimecho and Sudowoodo are both missing, so Chingling and Bonsly are both permanently stuck as babies even though Mime Jr. is here with its evolution, Mr. Mime. Likewise, there's no Gligar or Murkrow for Gliscor and Honchkrow, either.

But, you can always hold out for the ever-popular Gengar from Haunter!

============

In the end, my three strongest pokemon were a Bronzong, Staraptor, and Drifblim.

Bronzong's moves didn't need to be changed at all. It was pretty solid as it came with 1330 power, Extrasensory, and Hypnosis.

Staraptor has 1318 Power with Steel Wing and Close Combat. A really interesting pair of moves to get him naturally with, as Steel Wing is an attack that's somewhat slow to come out but covers a moderately wide range in front and has a chance of boosting your defense, while Close Combat reduces your defense in exchange for a fast, powerful fighting attack. This is some really solid synergy that's hard to beat! The Lucky Special Trait was also a solid bonus, too. I was mroe than happy to get this guy!

Lastly, we have Drifblim which is easily the weakest link. I tried my best to give it some better moves, all it had originally was Payback and Focus Energy, both of which are incredibly underwhelming moves for a game like this. Now it at least has attacks that it can consistently use offensively.

Anyway, with our preparations set, it's time to jump into the Battle Royale!

=============

This time around, we've got four Powerful Rivals. It looks like the evolved Fossil pokemon as well as Magmortar and Electivire. Make sure you're prepared!

==============

Battle Royale [Advanced Rank B]

And it begins! Once again, I'm confident I don't need to tell you too much about this. Nothing's changed but the pokemon.

Eventually, our rivals join the party: Rampardos and Bastiodon!

I very quickly realized that starting with Bronzong may have been a mistake. Not only does it not have the best offensive capabilities, but I'm also dealing with a Bastiodon which is likely even more defensive than I am. So it's a lot more important than usual to make sure I pick up the clocks pokemon drop when I KO them.

Eventually, I'm able to take care of the two of them, though, so we can continue forward!

Unfortunately, all it takes is getting aught up in a few attacks and have my speed reduced to have Bronzong go down. A bit of a shame.

But hey, on the plus side, this was my chance to bring out my true ace in the hole: Staraptor!

Soon after, Magmortar and Electivire crash the party! Electivire is an intimidating sight for a Flying-type, but we've got Close Combat on our side!

All it takes is a bit of creative movement and Close Combat to power our way through the crowd and hammer our tough foes with lots of strong attacks!

Eventually, I'm able to take out Electivire with a Steel Wing.

And Magmortar is soon to follow with a series of rapid-fire Close Combat!

And with that, we win the Advanced Rank B Battle Royale and its prize of 10,000P!

We claim our prize and move on!

As we return to the terminal, the trampoline headed to Terminal A opens up. We're once again nearing the end of the game! Just two more areas to explore! But last time, this was where it started to take a lot longer to encounter all the pokemon in each area, so I suspect it might take even longer to cover Advanced Rank A. We'll see soon enough, though.

February 5

Our quest continues! As we take the trampoline toward Terminal A, we're greeted by a familiar image with yet another message. We're almost there, yet we've still got a ways to go. It's rough being at the midpoint.

Now that we're at A-Rank, things are gonna start getting even more challenging! I daresay this is the first time I found myself struggling with parts of the game. More on that in a bit, though. Let's talk about what's immediately ahead of us!

In order to get to the Battle Royale, this time we need a pokemon with at least 1500 Power. The Training Point requires 4000P per move and it costs 16000P to recruit a pokemon through the Recruit Point.

Silent Forest [Advanced Rank A]

There isn't anything too special going on in Silent Forest.

The boss is Torterra, meaning you can probably guess what two of the remaining bosses are already.

Windy Prairie [Advanced Rank A]

Windy Prairie likes to swarm you with Chatot whose Chatter (or Uproar?) has quite the range, so it's not uncommon for the way forward to be completely walled off like this. But the Chatot themselves are fairly easy to KO, so it's nothing too dangerous.

The boss here is Lickilicky and, again, tell me this thing doesn't look like it was designed to be a baby pokemon! Such a strange pokemon...

Rocky cave [Advanced Rank A]

Of course, Rocky Cave is as dangerous as it's always been around here. Especially with Machamp present. You might recall me noting how dangerous these guys were in Normal Mode, and that applies tenfold here where they're a lot stronger! Keep your distance and don't make mistakes like the one shown here! Yikes!

The boss here is Rhyperior with Rhydon minions. I suppose that's no surprise.

Fiery Furnace [Advanced Rank A]

Moving onto Fiery Furnace, this place is a haven for pokemon like this Earthquake Mamoswine! Just look at all these electric-type pokemon lining up for the slaughter!

Even though this maneuver is a bit reckless, it feels good enough when you pull it off that it's totally worth every ounce of risk.

Anyway, you've already guessed that the boss here is Infernape. And Infernape is actually kind of an interesting boss because it occasionally uses Close Combat which reduces its defense. It's a powerful and dangerous attack, but if you can survive or evade it, you can deal some really harsh punishment! Especially with a move like Earthquake!

In the end, I walked out with a Magneton with 1507 Power.

This is enough to open the gate to the Battle Royale, but not only are there more levels to explore, but, frankly, this Magneton isn't anywhere close to being good enough to carry me through the Royale. It only knows Tackle and SonicBoom! What a joke!

Bright Beach [Advanced Rank A]

Moving right along to Bright Beach, I can't think of anything significant to say here. It's got the same dangers it always has: Make sure not to get sniped by BubbleBeam and the like!

And naturally, the boss here is Empoleon and Prinplup. I'll bet you're very surprised.

Eternal Tower [Advanced Rank A]

Eternal Tower is definitely a lot less scary when you're using a Ground-type pokemon with STAB Earthquake. You can tear through most enemies with that attack alone.

The boss here is Dusknoir, another curious case. Because there are no Gen II or III pokemon, he can't have Dusclops as his minions. So you instead get Mismagius. Personally, I think Haunter would be more fitting, but Mismagius has been around for a while, so I guess it's not too out of pocket.

============

With all the areas completed, it's time to take a look at what pokemon you can find here!

In Silent Forest, you can run into Scyther, Turtwig, Grotle, Torterra, Wormadam, Mothim, Carnivine, Yanmega, Gallade, and Rotom. I never ran into Rotom here, but I suspect, given the location, that you would specifically run into Mow Rotom here, rather than Rotom in its base form as depicted. But it's possible it is just vanilla Rotom you'd find.

Through Recruitment tickets, you can also get Burmy by releasing 5 Mothim. And just like Wormadam, the cloak you'll get will be random.

Pokemon available in Windy Prairie include Lickitung, Staravia, Pachirisu, Lopunny, Chatot, Lickilicky, Tangrowth, Togekiss, and Rotom again. And again, I suspect this Rotom is actually Fan Rotom rather than its base form. But again, I can't say for certain since I never ran into it.

You can get Tangela, Starly, Staraptor, and Buneary from Tickets here, too.

There's lots of pokemon in Rocky Cave! Here we have Clefable, Machoke, Machamp, Graveler, Golem, Rhyhorn, Rhydon, Toxicroak, Weavile, Rhyperior, Mamoswine, Probopass, Froslass, and Rotom. And once again, I'd speculate it's not base Rotom. Instead, I think this one is Frost Rotom given the prominence of Ice-types here.

Of course, Clefairy, Machop, Geodude, and Croagunk should all be available through tickets.

Fiery Furnace brings Rapidash, Magneton, Chimchar, Monferno, Infernape, Luxio, Magnezone, and Rotom. As you can guess, I suspect it's Heat Rotom here. But once again, no sighting means no confirmation.

Tickets make Ponyta, Magnemite, Shinx, and Luxray available here, too.

Then Bright Beach brings Tentacruel, Gyarados, Piplup, Prinplup, Empoleon, Floatzel, Lumineon, Mantyke, and Rotom. Presumably, that's Wash Rotom here.

Tickets bring in Tentacool, Magikarp, Buizel, and Finneon, too.

Kadabra, Alakazam, Haunter, Gengar, Mr. Mime, Mismagius, Chingling, Skuntank, Bonsly, Drapion, Dusknoir, and Rotom can all be found in Eternal Tower. By process of elimination, assuming my speculation about Rotom in the other areas is true, I suppose that leaves only the base form here by process of elimination.

Tickets should make Abra, Gastly, Stunky, Mime Jr., and Skorupi available here, too.

=============

Now that we've found all the pokemon here, it's time to start making preparations for the Battle Royale!

My strongest pokemon is this 1621 power Rhydon with Poison Jab and Hyper Beam. No STAB attacks, I think I'd prefer Earthquake over Hyper Beam but hey, it's still got some powerful attacks, and Poison Jab is dangerously spammable. I was expecting Hyper Beam to have a large cooldown after, but it actually works pretty seamlessly. It seems like the recharge from the main series is nonexistent here.

Then we have Magneton who, try as I might, I just couldn't seem to get good moves on. Spark and Hidden Power Fire are nice for coverage, but I would definitely prefer stronger attacks... This guy probably won't be seeing any play, but I'm bringing it up because it's technically among my strongest.

Up next is Mamoswine. this is actually a different one than the one I was using previously. This one has AncientPower and Earthquake. Frankly, I don't think I could ask for a better moveset. Maybe it'd be nice to have a STAB Ice attack, but I think Earthquake is all I really need. So having AncientPower to occasionally boost my attack while finishing off weak opponents is a really nice bonus.

And lastly, we have Weavile who has Icy Wind and Focus Blast. Focus Blast being an incredibly powerful attack that not only is a hard-hitting projectile, but it will pierce opponents and hit them multiple times as it moves! This thing can get some crazy damage!

============

I was pretty confident going into this Battle Royale, I felt like I had a pretty solid team. I didn't think much could really get in my way. But as you can guess from how I started this update... well, things didn't exactly go quite the way I expected them to.

Battle Royale [Advanced Rank A]

So, our powerful rivals this time appear to include the three starters which was a surprise to me, but even more surprising, they also slipped Darkrai in there!

Naturally, the Battle Royale started as normal.

It didn't take too long for the three starters to join the fray.

The three of them spawn in at once, so you've gotta be careful around them! Especially Monferno because of his dangerous Close Combat attack that can deal some serious damage to you. These pokemon are quite powerful indeed, so you'll need to be extra cautious around them.

Before I knew it, I'd gotten a bit too careless with Rhydon, so I brought Mamoswine out to follow up. I figured he'd be strong against Infernape and Empoleon, and Weavile's Focus Blast would probably tear Darkrai apart.

But before I knew it, Mamoswine wound up getting pummeled on all sides and absolutely destroyed! I honestly didn't even notice what happened. It was like I'd blinked and he was done. It was clear I had to be a lot more careful when I brought Weavile out.

Eventually, I was able to take out the three powerful rivals, but Weavile had also taken a lot of damage. It was clear that this was going to be rough. There are lots of dangerous attacks going around and every little bit of damage quickly adds up, especially when you're down to your last pokemon! I've gotta tread carefully the rest of the way!

I continued taking out pokemon after pokemon, trying my best to avoid damage...

And soon, Darkrai joined in on the fun.

But I wound up getting too hyper-focused on trying to hit Darkrai that I let myself get surrounded and KO'd... this is actually the first time I've lost in a Battle Royale since the intro of the game. But that's okay, I figured. I was just getting careless since I haven't lost yet. I'll just have to be more careful on my next try.

And so, I dropped right back in. This time I elected to start with Mamoswine so that I could have the powerful Earthquake from the moment the starters join up.

...but I wound up getting combo'd into oblivion again! I seriously don't know what was happening! I was trying to be careful to avoid the range of the powerful rivals, but it seems I wasn't careful enough. Seriously, these pokemon tear right through the HP of Mamoswine! To be fair, Mamoswine does have the weakest defenses of these pokemon, but even still, it's really disheartening to go form full HP to nearly dead after getting ping-ponged around by attack after attack.

Anyway, I brought Weavile out next to follow up. It was mainly just Empoleon and Torterra next, so I figured this would be the best choice. Focus Blast could damage Empoleon a lot while Torterra was extra weak to Icy Wind.

But unfortunately, Weavile wound up getting combo'd to death as well, bringing me down to just Rhydon. This was once again looking like a hopeless struggle, but I pushed forward as much as I could!

When Darkrai hit, I thought I just might be able to make it! But the water types lining the stage were certainly a scary sight for a Ground/Rock type on its last leg.

Eventually, I was able to KO Darkrai, but there were still a handful of enemies left to KO and I was low on HP. Sadly, I wound up failing this attempt, too, due to a stray hit.

Unsure of what I could do differently, other than grind for pokemon with higher power or better match-ups, I decided to go back in with another attempt. I was so close, I'm really confident I can make it as long as I'm extra careful to avoid damage! As you can see, I still wasn't doing too hot in that regard, but still, each attempt I'm getting further, so victory is inevitable! With Mamoswine, I was able to take out Infernape pretty easily. Its Close Combat reduces its defense, so I can deal a ton of damage with Earthquake.

After Mamoswine went down, Rhydon was the next to come and I quickly was able to finish off Torterra.

With a brutal spamming of Poison Jab, I was also able to KO Empoleon. It was a bit unorthodox using such a move against a Steel type, but it didn't really matter how much damage I could do as long as I could keep it away from the other pokemon and in a stun lock--knocking Empoleon into the electric fence also helps in the damage department!

Finally, there was Darkrai. Rhydon didn't last too terribly much longer, but I still had a full Weavile to fight Darkrai. This was the moment of truth, but I had to play carefully, even if that meant fighting like a coward.

And that's exactly what I did. I spent the entire rest of the fight getting distance, then turning around and firing off Focus Blast toward Darkrai through the crowd, trying to hit as many pokemon as I could before running away as soon as I'm in their range.

I was eventually able to KO Darkrai with this strategy. And hey, why fix what isn't broken? I kept the Focus Blast strategy up for the rest of the pokemon. I had plenty of time on the clock, so it wasn't like I was in a rush.

And before long, I'd finished off the final pokemon of the bunch.

And that was victory! Wow. I've gotta say I was definitely not expecting this to be such a difficult battle. It kinda makes me worried about what I'm up against in Rank S. But we'll worry about that when we get there. For now, we've earned ourselves a break. Darkrai was a genuine surprise to run into. But ultimately, it wasn't Darkrai that made this fight challenging, but rather the variety of enemies that surrounded me. This Rank had not only the toughest pokemon yet, but also some of the hardest to dodge attacks. There are a lot of wide- and long-range attacks at play here. It turns out a move like Earthquake isn't quite as safe as I'd expected considering I have to be within attacking range of most of the pokemon here. That was a big part of why I struggled so much, I think. Hopefully I don't run into a similar struggle when I do the Rank S Battle Royale where I can only assume I'll be battling Palkia, Dialga, Giratina, and Arceus.

Anyway, upon clearing this Battle Royale, we win the prize money of 13000P!

And so, we claim our prize along with our victory over Rank A!

And that opens up the way to the final terminal... we're almost at the end of the game! But if this session was anything to go off of, I don't expect Rank S to be an easy time...

February 15

We're almost done with our coverage of Advanced Mode! Last time we cleared A Rank, so we're onto the final frontier once again, this time for real! Well, sorta... it turns out things are a bit more complicated than I was expecting, so we may be covering this game a little bit longer after all. But let's dive right into Advanced S Rank!

In order to access the final Battle Royale of Advanced Mode, we'll need a pokemon with 1800P or higher.

Silent Forest [Advanced Rank S]

Starting out in Silent Forest, things were actually significantly tougher this time around--I wound up getting a game over my first attempt once I reached the boss. This was less because of the difficulty of the boss and more because of the powerful Wood Hammer attack from the Torterra you'll run into throughout. This attack is not only strong, but super-effective against my toughest pokemon. So yeah, things weren't playing out the best right away.

I was a bit surprised to find the boss was Cresselia! I suppose it shouldn't be too much of a surprise considering I started fighting Legendary Pokemon as bosses in this rank in Normal mode, but Cresselia carries with it a much different aura than the Legendary Birds. Still, it wasn't anything too crazy to fight. It's just another pokemon, after all. Though it does take quite a bit to take Cresselia down. The bigger threat, honestly, are the Torterra. I've already mentioned that their Wood Hammer is strong, and it reaches quite a range and lingers a while, too. Try to stay away from them! Don't overlook their impact on the fight!

The pokemon available here are Raichu, Chansey, Eevee, Snorlax, Torterra, Kricketune, Roserade, Mothim, Vespiquen, Yanmega, Leafeon, Gallade, Rotom, and Cresselia. I can also confirm at this point that my previous hunch about the Rotom forms was unfortunately incorrect. As odd as it may seem, it is only the base form you'll find in all of these areas. As far as I'm aware, there is no way to recruit the alternate forms of Rotom in the wild. Are they unobtainable then? Well... you'll have to stay tuned to answer that question. For now, let's just move on to the next area!

Windy Prairie [Advanced Rank S]

This stage has a lot of wide-reaching attacks, though it's nothing you haven't already been dealing with for a while. Just watch your step and don't let yourself get surrounded! Make sure you always have an escape route.

The boss here is Lucario with Lickilicky minions. I'm not sure Lucario makes a very good boss. Just watch out for his Aura Sphere projectiles. Back off so you have plenty of room to dodge them. And make sure you don't get surrounded by the Lickilicky and you should be good to go.

The pokemon available here include Staraptor, Bibarel, Cherrim, Ambipom, Drifblim, Riolu, Lucario, Lickilicky, Togekiss, and Rotom.

Rocky cave [Advanced Rank S]

This dungeon is rough for all the reasons you already know, and more! Try to play it safe!

The boss, Garchomp, isn't actually all that threatening. But if it hits you, it can still pack a punch. So you'd better keep a step back!

We've got Golbat, Machamp, Golem, Eevee, Gabite, Garchomp, Abomasnow, Weavile, Rhyperior, Glaceon, Mamoswine, Probopass, Froslass, and Rotom available here.

Fiery Furnace [Advanced Rank S]

Fiery Furnace will always be a fun playground for pokemon that know the move Earthquake!

Surprising nobody, the boss here is Heatran and Infernape! And as you'd expect, he goes down really quickly to Ground attacks.

Magmar, Eevee, Flareon, Infernape, Luxray, Rampardos, Bastiodon, Magnezone, Magmortar, Rotom, and Heatran are all found here.

Bright Beach [Advanced Rank S]

This time, I found confirmation that Hippowdon does come in both genders! I haven't paid much attention until now, but I assume this means other pokemon, at least pokemon with prominent gender differences, also come with those same differences in-game. I suppose it only makes sense since the models are already made.

Anyway, the boss here is another fairly odd one: Regigigas, with Empoleon minions. I guess they just needed an extra legendary and Manaphy wasn't quite "boss" enough (and also technically a mythical). Personally, I would've swapped Regigigas and Cresselia, but I suppose it's not any more or less out of place this way. Regigigas could kinda fit anywhere when you think about it.

During this fight, I actually wound up getting pinned in the corner in a very awkward situation. But I was able to power through it and come out on top! So everything's golden!

The pokemon here are Golduck, Seaking, Eevee, Vaporeon, Empoleon, Gastrodon, Hippowdon, Rotom, and Regigigas.

Eternal Tower [Advanced Rank S]

Finally, we have Eternal Tower which I've frankly grown quite sick of already. This place is always the dungeon I find myself doing over and over looking for that one weirdly rare pokemon. Be wary of stray Shadow Balls from Gengar!

The boss you'll be dealing with here is Spiritomb and Dusknoir as its minions.

Here, we have Alakazam, Gengar, Electabuzz, Eevee, Jolteon, Honchkrow, Bronzong, Spiritomb, Electivire, Gliscor, Porygon-Z, Dusknoir, and Rotom.

There you have it! Now let's get ready for that Battle Royale! Here's the team I'm entering with:

To start off, we have a Steady Bronzong with Earthquake and Confusion. I'd prefer a stronger Psychic attack, but beggers can't be choosers and at least we have Earthquake to deal damage and free up room around us! The Steady trait also protects it from status changes. Unfortunately, I assume that also includes any buffs.

Then we have Lucky Dusknoir who follows up with Ice Beam and Shadow Ball! Ice Beam is strong and can pierce opponents while Shadow Ball bounces around making it potentially great for clearing tight crowds. I don't believe the Lucky trait has any application in Battle Royales, however.

Finally, Gengar has Energy Ball and Poison Jab. Energy Ball is the same story as Energy Ball, except it's Grass-type! And Poison Jab is a fast, powerful STAB attack, so it'll be great for stun locking individual powerful enemies!

After the difficulties I had last time, I don't expect this to be easy. But we won't know what we're in for until we give it a try. No holds barred, let's get going!

The Powerful Rivals here are exactly what we've been expecting to see: The Creation Trio in all of their Wind-up Toy Glory. If this is anything like Normal Mode, though, we can expect a special surprise guest at the end, too.

Battle Royale [Advanced Rank S]

And so, we begin!

...and... we die. Okay, to be fair, I got pretty reckless with Bronzong's Earthquake. Even still, it was a pretty harsh first impression to jsut get tossed to the side so quickly! I'd barely made a dent in the enemies!

I still hadn't even gotten to the Powerful Rivals yet when Dusknoir also went down. Ooh this is going to be a thing, isn't it?

I was able to reach the spawning of the three Powerful Rivals, but...

Well... I didn't exactly last much longer after that. Yiikes this one really is gonna be tough, huh? But okay, to be fair, I was still acting a bit recklessly, underestimating the generic opponents and not actually being careful about my approach. These aren't baby-mode enemies. They've actually got some threatening attacks as I've already learned in the individual levels.

I decided to start with Dusknoir on my second attempt, because the first wave are Windy Prairie enemies, many of which resist Bronzong's Earthquake. Bronzong already has low attack, so that's not a good pairing. My thought was that Dusknoir's Ice Beam would do a lot more to these guys.

Unfortunately, the results weren't much different this time, either. Dusknoir just went down almost as fast.

I was able to get up to the Powerful Rivals spawning, but I wound up running out of time due to failure to collect the clocks dropped by enemies fast enough, primarily because I was trying to avoid putting myself in compromising positions.

On the third attempt, Dusknoir was able to carry me all the way to the Creation Trio's spawning before getting KO'd. So I brought Gengar in to start laying the beatdown on the bosses.

This worked for a little bit, I was actually nearly able to KO Palkia!

But one direct hit from Giratina and Gengar was out for the count. It was all up to Bronzong! Bronzong was ultimately able to KO Palkia, but...

Vs. Mewtwo

Mewtwo?! Words cannot express how terrified I was to see this. I was certain I'd be fighting Arceus here, not Mewtwo. Was Arceus going to spawn in after I defeated Mewtwo?? This was going to be one hell of a challenge.

I was quite worried about Bronzong's ability to hold his own here, but I needed to hold out and wittle away at the bosses. Fingers crossed!

Eventually, I was able to take out Giratina, but I still had Dialga and Mewtwo to worry about... And, yeah, it didn't end as well as you might be hoping...

I decided that if I was going to be powering through these enemies, I'd need a bit more work put into my builds. The main area I felt I was lacking was Bronzong's moveset. So, I went back to the Training Point and, while I still struggled to get anything significant, I was able to get Shadow Ball which I felt would be more useful than Confusion. I didn't really get anything that improved anyone else, though, but I supposed with some extra knowledge under my belt, I could run back into the fight and give it another shot.

This time, I powered through with Dusknoir all the way to the Creation trio.

Unfortunately, Dusknoir didn't last very long against these foes. And once Giratina got a hit in, there was no surviving the attack. So, in came Bronzong who, thanks to having a full HP bar and its new super-effective Shadow Ball, was able to KO Giratina with a bit of spam.

Unfortunately, Mewtwo seems to spawn in as soon as you KO one of the Creation Trio, and even though I was doing well on HP, Mewtwo absolutely destroyed Bronzong, tearing right through his HP with lots of aggressive and powerful attacks. Before I knew it, Gengar, too, was KO'd.

After this experience, I was honestly really burnt out. I was still under the impression there'd be a fight with Arceus after Mewtwo, too. It was getting late and I didn't have any other ideas of what I'd do other than grind out for stronger pokemon, so I decided to hang up this session and come back another day with a fresh perspective.

The next day, I decided to try again after reading up on some strategies online. I decided to lead with Bronzong once again.

I realized that I may have been underestimating the sheer power of Earthquake, assuming it wouldn't do enough to Flying-types to be worth the time invested. It turns out, I'd been overthinking things a lot and the answer really was just to use Earthquake as much as possible to keep enemies at bay and damage several at once. As long as I stay out of the range of any enemies I can't hit first with Earthquake, I should be goot to go. So, that's what I did.

Soon enough, the Creation trio appeared and I narrowed the fight down to just us. My HP was low, but I had almost gotten the three legendaries into a stun lock.

Unfortunately, Giratina slipped just outside of the range of Earthquake and charged in for the kill, knocking out Bronzong. But this was by far the farthest I'd ever gotten! I had hope again! I can do this!

With Dusknoir, I kept the three dragons at bay with Ice Beam, trying my best to keep myself out of range of all three of their attacks and hoping I'd have enough time to whittle their health down.

But once one of the three rivals is KO'd, Mewtwo spawns in. And that's where things start to fall apart. It's really difficult to fight two of the dragons while trying to dodge Mewtwo's attacks. It's just not realistic to do. It's clear at this point that the way to win is to KO the three dragons at the same time, or at least very close, so that I can stun-lock Mewtwo and finish the fight that way. Sure enough, Gengar wouldn't last long at all here, either.

Eventually, I got myself into this situation where it was just Bronzong against Dialga, Plakia, and Giratina. I very carefully placed myself just near enough to all three that I could hit them all with Earthquake without being at risk of taking hits from their signature attacks. I tried my best to prioritize hitting Giratina and Palkia over Dialga since Dialga would take more damage from Earthquake. In particular, Palkia was the one I was most afraid of since it was the only one Bronzong wasn't strong against, and Spacial Rend reaches really far, too, which makes me nervous.

Of course, Dialga wound up getting KO'd first, which is pretty much to be expected. And that triggered Mewtwo to spawn in.

Thankfully, I was in such a position where I could get Mewtwo distracted witht he mooks while I continued to focus my efforts on Palkia and Giratina, who were both fairly low on HP already thanks to my Earthquake tactics from before.

I didn't quite KO them both, but it was now down to just Giratina and Mewtwo by the time Bronzong was KO'd. Bronzong has definitely done more than enough, though. He's basically solo-carried us all the way through this challenge! My heart was racing now, but I was more confident than ever before that this was the run.

With just a little poking, Giratina quickly went down to Dusknoir. And now, it was down to a 1v1 with Mewtwo.

And so began the absolutely shameless Shadow Ball spam. Why would I do anything else, really?

Soon enough, Mewtwo went down.

And with that, we'd finally won the Advanced Rank S Battle Royale!! This has been by far the most difficult challenge yet, but I'm glad it's finally over! It's... finally over... right?

I collected my prize, and...

That's it! The credits rolled! As it turns out, it doesn't seem like there's a fight with Arceus after all! What a relief!

Curiously, however, that little ditty from before began to play again... that's odd... don't tell me...

Oh god... there really is more, isn't there? Sure enough, it seems there's an even tougher challenge waiting for us up ahead... What in the world have I gotten myself into with this game? I never expected a WiiWare title would be dragging me along like this. Well, next time, we'll have to see what this foreboding endcard is foreshadowing... I can't say I'm looking forward to it, I'll be honest. See you soon!

February 17

We are back once again with Pokemon Rumble! Last time, we cleared the game in Advanced Mode and at the end, it seemed we unlocked something else yet again. So today, we'll take a look around at what we've got!

When we go to continue our save file, we now see yet another mode added to the options: EX Mode.

As it turns out, this is essentially the "postgame" mode. Instead of climbing the ranks, you're in an exclusive rank which essentially combines every previous rank into one. It also adds an additional little secret.

The Training Point here costs 6000P while Recruiting costs 24000P. Steep prices, but any move or recruitable pokemon should be available here, and they're at their most powerful. Note that there are no more Wonder Key upgrades, so you just might get some pokemon with really impressive stats using the Recruit Point.

Anyway, I won't spend too much time on the levels this time around.

In each level, you'll find pokemon from all previous ranks. Earlier floors tend to have the lower-rank pokemon while later floors tend to have higher-ranked ones. They're all at their strongest here, as you'd expect.

And the boss will always be randomly selected from among the bosses we've previously fought within the level.

One secret surprise, according to Shiya64 on GameFaqs, is that the Lake Guardians, Uxie, Mesprit, and Azelf, will, very rarely, appear within the levels.

Uxie can appear in Bright Beach and Rocky Cave,

Mesprit in SIlent Forest and Windy Prairie,

And Azelf in Fiery Furnace or Eternal Tower.

These are certainly among the rarest pokemon in the game, so make sure to knock them out when you see them in hopes of getting to recruit them!

I gave each level a quick playthrough to get a few new recruits--it's gonna be important that we really push ourselves to the limits here.

Unfortunately, I didn't happen to find any of the Lake Guardians, let alone recruit them. They must be very rare indeed.

As we look through our collection, we can see that we've filled out a lot of pages! But even still...

Not only are there many pokemon we've yet to recruit,

There are also a handful we've yet to even see! Just what's the deal? Well, we do have the means to fill out some of these slots, but it's quite a tedious task. That's what we're primarily going to be focusing on today. I won't be doing it, of course, but just like I did with Mystery Dungeon, I'll walk you through the more difficult to obtain pokemon.

I've previously brought up the Password option at the Recruit Point, but I've never actually gone into any detail about this. That's mainly because I felt like it would've been cheating to use these while playing through the main game, but I feel like all bets are off here in EX Mode, so now's a great time to start plugging in some passwords!

Now, I should emphasize that not all of these passwords are going to lead to overpowered pokemon. On the contrary, most of them are going to be pretty useless for how far we are in the game. Some of these passwords are just meant to give you early access to some popular pokemon like the Gen 4 Starters. And in hindsight, their strength would likely be capped by your Wonder Key anyway. But even still, some of these pokemon would just be odd to have from the beginning.

You can find a list of passwords here on Bulbapedia. The password you'll use differs by region. I'll be using US Passwords, but there are also Japanese and European Passwords.

You simply enter the password, presumably given out in promotional material for the game or on the pokemon website,

And out pops the pokemon!

The first password gives us a very basic Punchy Charmander with Ember as its attack and 422 Power. The power level, Special Traits, and moves of each pokemon are pre-determined.

Up next is a Hardy Squirtle with 418 Power and Bubble for its attack.

Now this one is really strange, there's no password for a similar Bulbasaur in the US version. There is a European code that gives you a Brawny Bulbasaur, but both English and Japanese only have codes for a Brawny Venusaur. This is especially odd because there are actually two different codes for Venusaur, because there's a separate set of codes for the fully-evolved Kanto starters further on. Anyway, this thing has 540 power and Vine Whip for its attack.

Up next, we have a standard Piplup with 1445 Power and the moves Bubble and Pound! By the time you can use a pokemon at this power level, those moves definitely aren't going to cut it. But you should be able to teach it new moves at the Training Point!

Then we've got Chimchar, 1400 Power with Ember and Fury Swipes.

And Turtwig with 1500 Power, Razor Leaf, and Absorb!

Moving right along, we also have the aforementioned fully evolved Kanto Starters starting with Blastoise at 1601 Power with Aqua Tail.

Of course, Charizard is next with 1668 Power and Flamethrower.

Then we have the duplicate Venusaur. This one is much stronger with 1647 Power and SolarBeam.

Now this one is much more exciting! It's a shiny Pikachu! Useful for anyone collecting 'em all! This one has 1337 Power and the moves ThunderBolt and Quick Attack. It also has the Rally special trait encouraging you to flex on your friends only to find out that they have it to because it's literally a free handout.

There's also a matching Shiny Rally Raichu! This has 1606 power with Thunder and Agility.

Next, there's an Eevee which fits right at home with the Kanto Starter codes with only 417 power and Quick Attack.

And following that we have quite the power jump with Garchomp at 2237 Power and the move Dragon Claw!

And to match it is a Dragonite with 2224 Power and Dragon Rush.

Electivire here has 2048 power with Discharge,

while its friend Magmortar comes with 2070 Power and Lava Plume.

Then we've got a code for a Rotom with 1668 Power and ThunderShock,

One for a Togekiss with 1729 Power and Air Slash,

Regigas with 2324 Power and Giga Impact! By far my strongest pokemon yet!

Then we've got a Shiny Speedy Rattata with Reversal and Double-Edge. It really feels like this thing should have Endure instead of Double-Edge to fully reference the infamous FEAR strat.

Anyway, the next code is for a Shiny Gutsy Bidoof with 1313 Power, Superpower, and Hyper Fang. Quite a powerful little guy, huh?

There's another Pikachu with the special move Volt Tackle and 401 power,

A Zapdos with only 563 power and the move Drill Peck,

A Bibarel with 1612 Power and Rollout,

And among the most important codes here are a Sky-Forme Shaymin with 2346 power and Seed Flare,

Origin Forme Giratina with 2320 Power and Shadow Force,

Mew with 2255 Power and Cut,

and finally Cherrim with 499 Power and SolarBeam.

To my knowledge, this is the only way to get these specific forms in the game. And I don't believe there's any other way to get Mew at all. Also, since the Platinum update for My Pokemon Ranch was never released outside of Japan, this is many people's first chance to see models for Sky-Forme Shaymin and Origin-Forme Giratina.

If we check our collection after recruiting Mew, we'll find that it was quietly slipped in between Mewtwo and Turtwig. Notice that there are 257 pokemon in the list instead of 256. Also, alternate forms of pokemon, including shiny forms, will appear in your collection. They'll just automatically cycle through as you sit on the page. If you have a shiny version of a pokemon, they'll have a little star next to them.

Of course, even after all those passwords, we're still missing some pokemon. What's the deal? Well, there's actually a little bit more to Recruitment Tickets than I've led on so far. For example...

If we release Charizard, Pidgeot, Fearow, and Magmar together at the same time...

We'll receive a Moltres Ticket! Look at that! There are several of these secret recruit tickets, and to my knowledge this is the only way to get certain pokemon that otherwise only appear as Powerful Rivals in Battle Royales. By trading in certain combinations of pokemon, you'll be able to get a ticket for a significantly rarer pokemon.

All the Recruit Ticket combinations are listed on the same bulbapedia page as the passwords. This is where a lot of tedium comes into play. We've actually dabbled in some of these already, this is how the Wormadam and Mothim thing works as well as getting the different forms of Burmy, Wormadam, Shellos, and Gastrodon.

->

The Legendary Birds can be obtained by trading Pidgeot and Fearow alongside Jynx and Lapras for Articuno, Electabuzz and Raichu for Zapdos, and Magmar and Charizard for Moltres.

-> [Wash]

-> [Fan]

-> [Heat]

-> [Mow]

-> [Frost]

The alternative Rotom forms cna be obtained by trading Rotom in along with the corresponding Eeveelution, with Jolteon representing Fan Rotom since there's no Flying Eeveelution.

[Wash, Fan, Heat, Mow, and Frost] ->

The five alternate Rotom forms can additionally be traded in for Darkrai.

->

Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina can be obtained by trading in Dragonite and Garchomp along with Bastiodon, Lucario, and Magnezone for Dialga, Blastoise, Gyarados, and Empoleon for Palkia, and Gengar, Spiritomb, and Dusknoir for Giratina. Specifically, Altered Forme Giratina.

->

Lastly, trading in Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina together will get you Mewtwo.

->

Trading in Lapras and Vaporeon will get you a Phione,

->

And three Phione will get you Manaphy. That means it essentially takes three Lapras and three Vaporeon just to get 1 Manaphy. You'll also need an additional Vaporeon if you want Darkrai, too.

->

Perhaps the weirdest of all of these is trading Charizard, Arbok, Arcanine, Kangaskhan, and Bastiodon for a Land Forme Shaymin. I really don't see any correlation between these pokemon and Shaymin. The only individual pokemon that even remotely fits Shaymin is Kangaskhan. This was definitely a decision...

Anyway, if you're looking to actually complete this game, then I recommend going into Normal or Advanced Mode to recruit any of the pokemon from these recipes you might be missing. Or at least after you've found the Lake Guardians in the areas you can find these pokemon in. Seek them out in the lowest rank you can, their power level won't matter at all. Just make sure you come back to EX Mode to actually release them together or you'll get a much weaker result. Not only will you get through the levels faster at lower ranks, but you'll also gain the advantage of less competition, so it'll be more likely the pokemon you want will show up. And of course, if an enemy appears as a boss, you definitely want to go there as you'll be guaranteed at least one chance to recruit that pokemon. Especially if they show up as a Boss minion.

If you try to hunt these pokemon down in EX Mode, you might end up getting the Lake Guardians along the way which is a nice bonus, but there's definitely far more pokemon that have the chance to appear, so you're less likely to even run into any particular one you're looking for.

Once you've completed all of these, and recruited every pokemon from every area at every rank, you should have every single pokemon in the collection! I'm not sure if anybody cares enough about a game like this to push for such a huge goal, but surely someone out there has... all that's left at that point is to start shiny hunting everything!

But wait, what about the Battle Royale? Well, the Battle Royale here in EX Mode is a bit special... we'll talk more about it next time. You may have noticed that I neglected to mention any minimum requirements. That's because, in EX Mode, the Battle Royale is always open. I wonder what that could mean...?

February 18

We're back again with Pokemon Rumble! Last time we covered the amenities of EX Mode, but here we're going to be taking on the main event: The Battle Royale EX.

Before we progress any further, these are the pokemon I'm entering with. Note that I have a lot more than usual. It's highly recommended you have at least 6 pokemon trained up and ready to take on the Battle Royales ahead. You'll understand why real soon.

I highly recommend bringing multiple pokemon with the move Earthquake specifically, as it damages a lot of enemies in a wide radius. Specifically, try to get Ground-type pokemon with STAB Earthquake to get the most out of it. At this point, I'm under the impression that this game doesn't differentiate between immunity and resistance the way Mystery Dungeon does. So it seems Ground attacks just do standard not-very-effective damage against Flying types, for example. This is good news and makes Earthquake probably the most abusable move in the game.

I also recommend bringing pokemon with quick moves like Air Slash. Stun Locking strong enemies can be a really easy way to KO some of the toughest opponents in the game.

Shaymin has Seed Flare which ultimately is no replacement for Earthquake because it has a smaller range. But at the time, I figured that wouldn't matter too terribly much. I thought the higher damage output would make up for it. You'll see how that worked out.

I really wanted Golem to have Earthquake, too, but I had a hard time saying no to Focus Blast and Stone Edge.

Regigigas's Giga Impact is incredibly powerful. It's a little slow to come out but still works surprisingly well for stun-locking individual opponents. Unfortunately, Regigigas's slow speed ultimately makes it not very good at evading attacks.

Giratina frankly looks a lot more impressive than it actually turned out to be. I was excited to have Shadow Force and AncientPower to boost it, but it turns out Shadow Force is quite difficult to land a hit with since you pass through enemies directly in front of you. And since you move with it, it can be difficult to avoid damage in a Battle Royale, too.

Palkia would ultimately turn out to be one of my star players. Ice Beam helps keep dangerous pokemon at bay while Dragon Claw is another fast attack that can easily stun-lock pokemon and help me tunnel through crowds.

Without further ado, let's take on the Battle Royale!

Right away, you can see things are a little bit different here. Battle Royale EX... 1-1...?

As we jump in, we're met with the familiar sights of the first Battle Royale: The Eeveelutions as our Powerful Rivals.

Battle Royale EX 1-1

As we drop in, we find ourselves in a typical Battle Royale following the typical rules. The pokemon you'll be facing are the ones from the EX versions of the levels, meaning you can also run into the Lake Guardians here, interestingly enough.

Eventually we KO the last of the powerful rivals...

And we win!

After we claim our prize...

We're... back in the lobby? And we haven't healed...

And if we step up to the trampoline, it now says 1-2 instead of 1-1. That's right, this is an endurance round. However, it isn't an endless one. Welcome to the true ultimate challenge of Pokemon Rumble.

Stepping into the next Battle Royale, we're met with the rivals from Advanced Rank C this time.

I brought Shaymin here and starded Seed Flaring away at the enemies.

I ultimately wound up getting KO'd by the Rotom, but we're doing pretty well all things considered.

With Golem, I was able to pretty easily finish off the rest of the Rotom.

Upon clearing the second round, our clear time is recorded! I suppose this is the primary source of replay value.

Anyway, we claim our prize of 18000P once again...

And we return to Terminal EX and are told our rank has gone up! We can now challenge the next Battle Royale EX!

There is no Terminal EX 2 or anything, we can just jump straight into Battle Royale EX 2 from here.

So, as you can see, the challenge here is to take on an endurance round between the Normal and Advanced Battle Royales of each rank. You don't heal between battles, but your wonder keys will be restored. That's why I recommend having at least 6 pokemon trained up and ready to fight. If you get two pokemon KO'd and a third wins with barely any health left, you'll want to use three completely different pokemon for Round 2. Additionally, you'll want to be very careful what pokemon you enter in the first round because they'll likely take damage and be less prepared for the more challenging second round. Try to clear the first round with your weaker pokemon and save your toughest pokemon for round 2.

Anyway, we Earthquaked our way right through Battle Royale EX 2-1 easily enough, this was the one with all the trade evolution rivals.

Hippowdon was low on health by the end, so we switched to Shaymin for 2-2.

This was where I quickly came to realize that Shaymin wasn't nearly as capable as Hippowdon, it wound up getting KO'd almost immediately due to its smaller range forcing it to get closer to danger. Thankfully, Palkia was here to pick up the slack!

I was able to Dragon Claw right through the competition. Driving the enemies into the barriers at the edge of the map can do a lot of damage to them.

And with that, we win the prize money and cleared EX 2!

It's EX 3, however, that reintroduces a lot of problems. You recall that I had trouble with Advanced Mode Battle Royale Rank A, right? Well, now I have to do it again off the heels of Normal Mode Battle Royale Rank A.

The first round isn't so bad, but the second round...

Let's just say there are a lot of frustrations to be had here. First of all, Machoke use Revenge which is an attack that cannot be interrupted with your own attack. On the contrary, its damage will increase if you hit them before the attack finishes. Clefable's Comet Punch comes out really fast and can easily interrupt Earthquake, Togekiss also uses an attack that can't be interrupted, though I don't actually know what attack it is, there are lots of long-range or odd-range attacks going every which way that can knick you for unexpected damage. But the biggest threat is, of course, the powerful rivals. Namely, the Gen 4 starters. Torterra's Wood Hammer can 1-shot pretty much anything. Even Moltres who should quad-resist it ends up getting 2-shotted. Then Monferno is a major glass canon, throwing out Close Combat and dropping its defenses. It's very vulnerable to damage. These guys always spawn in with Windy Prairie pokemon which means we're dealing with those annoying Togekiss along with Lopunny's Dizzy Punch.

And on top of all of that, there's also Darkrai to deal with anytime I do manage to make it through. He's not so bad on his own, but one small mistake by this point usually spells my doom.

Needless to say, it took many, many attempts...

Eventually, though, I was able to get into a routine similar to what I did with the Creator Dragons in Advanced S-Rank. I was able to keep all the rivals together and Earthquaked away to hit them all. Trying my best to priorize Torterra and Infernape as they are by far the most punishing. The most important part is to keep my distance and keep moving. If Torterra and Empoleon get their attacks, they can often reach me at surprising ranges.

Even after establishing this strat, it still took many more tries. Keep in mind that every time any little thing went wrong, I'd have to start over from 3-1 and clear it again.

Eventually, I was nearly able to KO the SinnohS tarters with Hippowdon alone, so I was only just now switching to Palkia when Darkrai came along.

From here, it took some careful stun locking, making sure to watch my surroundings as I've had many challenges end at this point due to getting reckless.

The number of challengers was decreasing...

Eventually, I was able to stun lock Darkrai to death with very little HP to spare.

And from there, it was simple to KO the final Rapidash. I cannot express to you how long and difficult this challenge was.

But we finally made it and claimed our prize!

I was definitely surprised to be met by a congratulations screen here! Does that mean there isn't an endurance round for the Rank S Battle Royales? Haha... let's hope... let's hope...

Yeah right, did you think for a second this game was that friendly? I swear the play the credits just to troll you at this point.

Yeah yeah, we're given another scene where our pokemon picks up the key and sends it into the sky. See you next time for the finale of the game's ultimate challenge.

Surprsiginly, there's no end card for this one. Curious...

February 24

We're finally back and this time finally with the finale of Pokemon Rumble. And as expected, this one is quite a doozy.

On the surface, it doesn't seem like there's anything new this time, but you probably thought it was a bit weird for things to end off on the A-Rank Battle Royales, right?

Sure enough, booting up our save file unlocks the final EX Challenge: Battle Royale EX 4!

Acknowledging the difficulties I had last time, I went and took Golem to the Training Point to get Earthquake on his build. This should help a lot more with clearing those crowds.

Moving right along, it's time to take on our ultimate challenge. Now, full disclosure, I'll be abusing save states to finish this off. I've gone through this whole explanation several times, but long story short, this is postgame content so it seems to be meant for people who really enjoy the ins and outs of the game. The difficulty is incredibly high and, outside of grinding the stages over and over in pursuit of strong pokemon with higher power levels, there's nothing more I can really do to get stronger. The best I can aim for to avoid grinding is a near-perfect run with minimal damage. I already feel like this game has rather overstayed its welcome in my eyes, and I don't want to spend another week grinding out the final battles here.

Anyway, without further ado, let's start our final EX Challenge!

Naturally, in round one, our rivals are going to be the Legendary Birds just like Rank S in Normal Mode.

And uh... yeah, this isn't easy. I opened up with Hippowdon orriginally thinking I'd be able to solo the first round, but it didn't work at all the way I expected. Surprise, surprise, the pokemon here are just as tough if not stronger than the pokemon in the previous EX challenges.

So, the real approach was going to involve pacing myself. I decided to start with Shaymin to focus on mobility and positioning. Shaymin is a lot more dextrous than Hippowdon and should be able to avoid damage for longer. Ideally, we'd make it through the entire phase without losing a single pokemon. But it was clear I'd need to hold some of these guys for Round 2.

However, after a few tries, I quickly realized Shaymin just wasn't cutting it. He just wasn't strong enough to do enough damage to enough enemies. So I had to switch back to Hippowdon, though I was reluctant to do so given the second round...

Eventually, I would make it to the Legendary Birds, but things would rapidly go down south.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that Giratina would be the way to go. His Dark Pulse could spread across all three Legendary Birds pretty well, but it was quite lacking in the damage department.

While I could get a sizeable chunk of damage on these guys pretty consistently, I was never quite able to KO the birds with Giratina alone. I'd always need to enlist the help of a third teammate to finish the job.

Now, once Regigigas gets involved, this would generally spell the doom for the three birds. Regigigas doesn't do well in crowds, so I try to save it for last. But against a small number of enemies that can be kept at bay, he does incredible amounts of damage between Focus Blast and Giga Impact. With defense down from Focus Blast, Giga Impact can do over 1000 damage in a single hit! It may be somewhat slow, but it's just fast enough to be reliable for a single target that gets separated form the herd! It's a great way to put a stray back in its place.

The general strategy is to get some distance by walking away, throw a bunch of Focus Blasts back at the crowd, and if one bird manages to get close, I Giga Impact them once or twice before the group begins to close in. The key is not to get greedy and pay attention to when I should start moving to avoid the range of their attacks.

With enough patience, I can take down each of the birds one by one...

And that's 4-1! While the strategy may seem simple, I can't stress enough how stressful these battle royales can be. One slip-up and pretty much every pokemon was gone in a single hit. There are some devastating attacks to watch out for, and a lot of them have really large hit boxes... I've already complained about a lot of this previously, but it all holds true here, accented now by the difficult bosses! Thankfully, there's no Mewtwo fight here in Round 1... cough.

Round 2 is more or less a repeat of Round 1. Since I had to use some of my stronger pokemon in Round 1, I had to try an dmake Shaymin work here. I kept going until Shaymin had made it quite a way into the fight before deciding to bring out Golem. Around the Firery Furnace enemies is a really good time to bring him out because Earthquake can make quick work of all these guys!

And shortly after, the Creator Dragons join the fray! We all already know the strategy here.

Once the stragglers are out, it's time for Golem to pick off the legends... only... let's not forget how difficult this was in Advanced Mode. And now we're running off fumes following up on our first run. Time is also a very valid concern! Earthquake is only doing so much damage to these guys!

Eventually, Golem would inevitably go down and it would be up to Palkia to finish the job.

Ice Beam does a pretty good job of keeping these guys at bay, but notice that timer...

And of course, after one of these guys goes down, Mewtwo joins in and all hell breaks loose.

We've been through the strategy here, but we just don't have enough time. Even if we can KO all the enemies and get their clocks, it takes a long time to soak up Mewtwo's HP. We are so close yet so far. I also found out the hard way that just spamming Dragon Claw doesn't actually work all that well on Mewtwo. I guess he doesn't get much knockback from the attack for some reason. Instead, I find Ice Beam is the better approach to push him back into the walls--the walls are the key to getting as much damage on him as possible.

But no matter what approach I tried, I even paused and set a save state to try playing perfectly, and I just couldn't finish Mewtwo off in the time alotted. Unfortunately, a draw just won't cut it here.

So, I went back and tried again. I didn't change anything about my approach, I just played better and was more intentional about collecting the clocks. By the way, you also have to be very careful not to let Mewtwo KO too many enemies. They'll only drop clocks if you KO them. Now it's just a matter of threading the needle between Mewtwo's attacks and punishing him with Ice Beams.

Eventually, I got him into a sweet spot where I could juggle him against the wall with Ice Beam until he finally went down. Some part of me wonders if I actually could've made that short time limit work after all if I'd managed to accomplish something like this, but I'm not going to be experimenting with that now. Once I was able to KO Mewtwo, I was done!

My record here was 7'48" but it definitely took a lot longer than this! It took two whole sessions of playtime to finish this fight. I can't explain just how upset I was to finally get to Mewtwo only to not have enough time to beat him. And now that I'm dealing with a job between posts, that adds a curfew to the amount of time I can play. But we somehow managed to make it!

We claim our 18000P prize to end the challenge.

And that's it! We're treated to the credits yet again!

And then we're jumpscared by a familiar scene... Don't tell me there's still more!

But as the key flies away, all we're treated with is a simple thank you from the developers! Honestly, I am kinda surprised there's no "endless battle royale" or something where the goal is to see how many KOs you can get within the time limit, or with only three lives. But I suppose if you had a particularly OP build, that might last indefinitely. But still, I think that would be quite a fitting completion bonus for such an intense final challenge.

Anyway, sure enough, if we boot up our save file, there's no new modes.

The only thing "new" per se is the presence of royal crowns on any pokemon we've cleared EX Round 4 with. Evidently, this includes all pokemon that were used period, not just the one that survived to the end.

It looks like true completion of this game involves not only completing the collection by recruiting every type of pokemon, but getting the shiny versions of them all, at least the ones that are possible, and clearing S-Rank Battle Royale while delivering the final blow against Mewtwo with every pokemon in the game. So yeah, there's a lot of room for long-term goals here if you find yourself absolutely loving this game.

Honestly, while I've complained a lot about this game being repetitive and myself getting bored of it, I can't fault the game for having a high bar for its completion. It's another game that's obviously not meant to be binged. You're supposed to pick it up every now and then and always have another goal to work toward. The basic premise of the game is very simple and there are several cut off points the game is courteous enough to provide that make easy ways out if you do feel like you've gotten all you'll get out of the game. You don't have to play advanced mode, you don't have to play EX Mode, you don't have to go back in and do EX 4. I only did because I want to show off as much content in these games as I can, and that's really the only reason I felt so burned out by the end. All in all, while I do agree with the criticism that the game is a bit too monotonous for its own good, I also think that's okay. This was just a WiiWare title, after all. It costed 1500 Wii Points which was about $15. You can't exactly expect a AAA game with a price tag like that.

So if you want to get in this game, well, nowadays there are sequels that probably have a lot more substance to chew on. But we'll cover those when we get to them. For this one here, I recommend picking it up only every once in a while and just playing until you start to get bored. No need to push yourself. And know that there are some genuine difficulty spikes by the end of the game if you think it's too easy early on. I can see trying to assemble the perfect team being an appeal to certain types of players.

All that said, I think we're finally done here. Next time... oh boy. I hope you didn't think we were done with Gen IV Mystery Dungeon...

February 26

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Keep Going! Blazing Adventure Squad!

Yes, yes, we're not quite done with Mystery Dungeon. There's still another set of three Mystery Dungeon games released on August 4th, 2009 as a WiiWare title in Japan only. As these games were never officially released in English, there is no official English title. But many years after their release, fans made an unofficial fan translation patch of these games translating all the Japanese text in an effort to make this games playable for non-Japanese speakers! These translations take some creative liberties with the titles, opting to call them Wildfire, Tempest, and Radiant Adventure Squad. However, the games are listed with the titles Blazing, Stormy, and Light Adventure Squad on both Bulbapedia and Serebii. I suspect these are more accurate direct translations of their Japanese names. I do prefer the fanmade names a lot better, but I generally try to stick to official names as much as possible, so you might see me flip-flopping between the two.

Anyway, this is Mystery Dungeon's first foray onto a home console. Something that wouldn't happen again outside of virtual console releases until Rescue Team DX on the Switch. I know very little of this game, but just looking at it on the surface level, and considering it's a WiiWare title, I honestly don't expect to have to worry too much about these games. Still, Rumble was deceptively tough by the end, so if I do feel pressured to abuse save states by the end, I absolutely will. Still, I don't suspect these games will be super comparable to the "real" Mystery Dungeon games.

As for how I'll be covering these games, I think I'll be alternating between the games one dungeon at a time. I have my reasons which we'll discuss soon, but for now, we're going to be focusing on Blazing Adventure Squad.

And here's the splash screen of the fan translation. This translation patch was developed by Specialagentape and their team, so a huge thank-you to some really dedicated Mystery Dungeon fans!

Right away, we're alerted to a question of whether or not we want to receive online distributions... our setting here shouldn't matter since WiiConnect24 is a long-gone service anyway. I'll probably discuss these near the end of these games' coverage, but I don't expect to be able to restore them in any way. Regardless, it doesn't seem like we'll be missing much anyway.

Another interesting feature right off the bat is that it seems we can use the Nintendo DS as a controller for this game! If you prefer the control scheme of Explorers, this is probably perfect for you! Alternatively, you can use a Wii Remote and Nunchuck, a GameCube controller, or a Classic Controller to play. Since I'm playing on emulator, it's gonna take a little bit to work out the controls in a way that feels natural. There are a lot more buttons to map for a Wii Remote and Nunchuck compared to a simple DS.

Anyway, when we go to start our adventure, it seems we have a choice of one of four save files! This is a rare sight with Pokemon games, that's for sure. But it makes sense, it's likely the same wii will be shared among multiple players.

As soon as we start up, we have to decide a name for our team upfront. It's a weird way to handle this, but I guess they want to initialize it right away. That's fine, I'll be going with Team Nature since I'm pretty sure this same team name will be used for all three games.

Once we've set up our save file, we can finally start our new adventure! But right away, you'll probably notice something: Indeed, this is yet another game that uses the models from My Pokemon Ranch! A bit humorous since I've just come off of comparing Pokemon Rumble to Mystery Dungeon. Anyway, because of this, I'll be using the same selection of images I did for Pokemon Rumble. So again, if you notice any inconsistencies with the models I paste and the models from in-game screenshots, mainly due to lighting, this is because the models I'm using are actually pulled from a future game that reuses these same models.

As the game opens up, we're treated to a shot of a place called Pokemon Village, where pokemon live peacefully.

We're treated to some shots of pokemon hanging out and chatting. Setting itself apart from Rumble, we're already seeing almost exclusively gen 2 and 3 pokemon which were notably absent from Rumble.

And then we see the Village Elder, Slowking, stepping into the scene.

Slowking seems to specialize in sharing his wisdom with the pokemon of the village to resolve conflicts.

Slowking introduces himself, revealing that he's the narrator of this intro cutscene.

Soon, Aron and Swinub approach Slowking with an emergency! It seems Shuckle has gone missing in a place called Dubious Woods!

Just as Slowking wonders how to respond to the call, a voice calls out to him from behind!

Several pokemon gather around, offering to go help rescue Shuckle!

Unfortunately, Slowking suggests that there are far too many pokemon volunteering to help. While having this many pokemon would help in the search, it would likely cause problems with the pokemon in the dungeon. He suggests only two of us go.

And so, we get to choose two of the nine starter pokemon!

Our choices are Charmander, Vulpix, Growlithe, Eevee, Cyndaquil, Teddiursa, Torchic, Chimchar, and Buneary. This is definitely a first for the series. Rather than going through a personality quiz to have your starter decided for you, you instead get to freely choose two out of the selection of pokemon. It seems as though the species you get to choose from are determined by the version you're playing. Surprisingly, it's not just type, though. It seems that the pokemon are decided based on both type and color. With Blazing Adventure Squad focusing on Fire-types and pokemon with Orange or Brown color schemes.

Another first for the Mystery Dungeon series, and one that probably ties into that previous point about the lack of a personality quiz: There is no human transformed into a pokemon. Instead, all of these are just normal civilians in the game's world, just like your partner usually is.

I didn't put too much thought into my starters, I usually don't, but I decided to choose two pokemon that have never been available as starters in Mystery Dungeon before, which led me to the choice of Teddiursa and Growlithe.

==========

Team Nature

------------

Moon (Teddiursa M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Pickup, Quick Feet | Moves: Fake Tears, Lick, Scratch, Covet

------------

Wildfire (Growlithe M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Intimidate, Flash Fire | Moves: Bite, Roar

===========

After choosing our teammates, we decide which one will be the leader. The game notes that the leader can be changed, so it seems this isn't a very big commitment.

Slowking leads us to the entrance of Dubious Woods. He then warns us of all the typical shenanigans of a Mystery Dungeon. We all know what to expect by now, though. The layout, items, and enemies will change every time we enter and if you get knocked out, you'll lose money and items. Never a fun time.

And with that, we head into our first dungeon!

============

Dubious Woods

Yup! This does look like Mystery Dungeon! And it plays like it, too. It hasn't been long at all since we covered Explorers of Sky, so I probably don't need to catch you up on anything that's familiar to that. As this is the first dungeon in the game, you definitely can't expect things to get too terribly involved. You'll be tutorialized as you collect items and experience new happenings.

Items available throughout this dungeon include: Poke, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Apples, Big Apples, Geo Pebbles, Blast, Heal, Sleep, Stun, Reviver, Warp, and X-Eye Seeds, Blue, Orange, Grass, and White Gummis, Max Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs; all of which presumably do the same things they did in Explorers.

Since I don't have a source for the sprite models for the items from this game, I'll just be using Explorers sprites and I'll try to take screenshots of any new items as we come across them.

------------

Dupious Woods [1F - 4F]

Pokemon: Nidoran F, Voltorb, Ledyba, Cherubi

I took a while to play around with the controls and work out how I should have my controls set up, but in the process, I discovered that this game actually lets you switch leaders right from the get-go! Not only that, but you can change leaders in the middle of a dungeon, too, just like in Rescue Team! Already this is a surprising step up from Explorers! Though I obviously don't expect the story to get nearly as heavy.

Anyway, this screenshot also shows you an Apple and a Slumber Orb as they appear in this game.

While exploring the menus, I've also discovered, among the standard IQ Skills, there's a new one in this game: Everlasting. It's turned off by default, but if turned on, the pokemon with the IQ skill active will never evolve. That's interesting... In all previous Mystery Dungeon games, evolution has been a postgame only mechanic and you had to be very intentional about doing it. It seems it will be an automatic process here. Maybe as soon as you reach the requirements in a dungeon?

Eventually, I stumbled across a room with a Wonder Tile and the staircase leading to the next floor! Things aren't so bad here.

On the next floor, there was an Oran Berry and Geo Pebble!

And on the next floor up, a Max Elixir!

Here's some Poke, too.

I've been so distracted with figuring the controls out that I forgot to finish looking through the menus--here's the options! Most of them are familiar, but there are a few new options: Zoom causes the game to occasionally zoom in on the action when there's a fight going on. Turning the option off will make sure you can always see the entire screen. It's definitely a presentation vs functionality decision. Status display refers to the little icons in the corner of the screen that show how your party members are doing at all times. Dungeon Message is the text speed of the message log. And Frame changes the window frame to one of the above patterns. 3 is the default and that's my favorite, so I'll leave it at that. Lastly, there's an option that disables the home button while dungeon crawling which is very interesting to me. I guess there are moments in certain games where you're not allowed to bring up the home menu, but I never considered it being an in-game options like this ever.

-------------------

Dubious Forest [5F - 6F]

Pokemon: Nidoran F, Voltorb, Ledyba, Cherubi, Weedle

Weedle joins up on the 6th floor, introducing the threat of reduced speed already. Be careful!

Rawst Berries also begin to show up on this floor.

And speak of the devil, there's one right there! It seems the berries in this game are actually designed to look like their main series counterparts this time around!

On 6F, I ran into an Orange Gummi, too!

===========

Music: In the Depths of the Pit

When we reach the depths of the Forest, we see Shuckle stuck at a dead end! And the familiar tune is playing again. I'm linking the Explorers of Sky version because, for some reason, the Adventure Squad version on YouTube is slightly out of tune in certain points. This wasn't how I recalled it sounding in actual gameplay and one of the comments on the video corroborated that idea. Clearly, there's something screwy going on, though it's not impossible it was simply a mistake the team behind this translation mod opted to patch up.

Anyway, upon finishing the dungeon, we approach Shuckle to rescue him!

And that's the end of our first dungeon! Very straightforward here.

When we return to the village, everyone is delighted that Shuckle's home safe and sound! Shuckle appologizes to Slowking and explains that he went into the woods because he'd heard there was something tasty at the end of the dungeon and he wanted to taste it, but he ended up getting lost. It's a good thing we were there to save him! Slowking gladly accepts his apology, as long as he's home safe then everything is fine!

Apparently, this rumor of a super-tasty food has been passed around the village, but nobody knows what the food is or where it can be found. All of the villagers seem to be in agreement that it isn't in the Dubious Woods, several have gone looking and none have ever found it.

Sneasel scolds Shuckle for acting recklessly. And it's true, entering Mystery Dungeons without proper preparation can lead to disaster!

In the end, everybody shares a laugh and Slowking turns to us. He thanks not just Wildfire and Moon, but every one of the pokemon who showed support and offered to help as well. In acknowledgement of our bravery, Slowking decides to ask us for an additional favor.

Slowking leads us all to the Pokemon Village Request Board. It's pretty clear where things are going from here: This is the bulletin board where we'll be accepting jobs. People post their problems on here for anyone to help, but most pokemon are too busy going about their daily life to offer the help needed. And that's why Slowking will ask us to form a namesake Adventure Squad and help the Pokemon of Pokemon Village with their problems!

And before long, our Adventure Squad is officially formed! The Wildfire Adventure Squad Team Nature!

After a quick 4th wall breaking joke about where the name "Nature" came from, Slowking begins explaining the facilities around Pokemon Village that we'll be using as an Adventure Squad, starting with the Request Board which sounds like exactly what you expect: We'll take jobs, accept them, and then go into dungeons to complete them. It's as simple as that.

To go out to the various dungeons, we'll take the same path out of the village we took to Dubious Woods. It's as simple as that.

And there's also a well where we can save, just like in Explorers of Sky.

Slowking then advises that we stop by Kangaskhan Storage and Duskull Bank before heading out. We all already know what these places do, so there's no need to elaborate on them.

As it turns out, our initial choices didn't matter at all--all 9 pokemon we chose from in the beginning are automatically a part of our Adventure Squad! Let's meet them all!

=============

Team Nature New Recruits

-----------------

Charmander M; Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Scratch, Growl

-----------------

Vulpix F; Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Flash Fire | Moves: Ember, Tail Whip

---------------

Eevee F; Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Run Away, Adaptability | Moves: Tackle, Tail Whip, Helping Hand

---------------

Cyndaquil M; Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Tackle, Leer

---------------

Torchic M; Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Scratch, Growl

--------------

Chimchar M; Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Scratch, Leer

---------------

Buneary F; Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Run Away, Klutz | Moves: Splash, Pound, Defense Curl, Foresight

============

If we want to change our team around, all we have to do is speak with Slowking, apparently.

And with that, we've already unlocked our second dungeon! There's no mission tied to it at all, but I suppose we'll be exploring this next time we play this game.. but not in our next post. Next time, we'll be hopping over into Stormy Adventure Squad to start things up there! See you soon!

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