All the Pokemens

[Aura]

Pokemon HQ Lab

It's been a while since my last update. That's partially because of the rather gargatuan task at hand. We now have 83 Shadow Pokemon and only about half of them purified. Citadark Isle alone doubled the number of Shadow Pokemon we've snagged, so we've got quite a lot of work ahead of us.

Our first step, naturally, is to update our Purify Chamber. Here is what they look like:

I won't be showing every single one, you get the idea looking just at this picture. As you can see, I have maximum Flow and Tempo in each of the nine sets. In order to achieve this, I've set aside the pure Normal-type Shadow pokemon and replaced some of the pokemon taking up some of the slots as needed, of course generally trying to favor mono-type pokemon wherever possible. I don't know why I find this part of the game so satisfying, but I really like seeing all these gauges maxed out. It's a shame there doesn't seem to be a way to do it with Normal-type pokemon unless maybe you also get a bonus for having all the pokemon of the same type? I never experimented with that idea, but I suppose it might be possible. Anyway, I through nine shadow pokemon from Citadark excluding the pure-normal type Lickitung, Chansey, Snorlax, and Tauros. The Kangaskhan and Raticate by this point had already been purified.

So, while the Purify Chamber is chugging along purifying these guys, I almost feel it would be criminal not to personally bond with at least some of these Shadow Pokemon, right? So, I grabbed a handful of them, starting with the Normal-types that would have a hard time in the chamber, and brought them to Mt. Battle!

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

Mt. Battle

It's almost nostalgic bringing a horde of Shadow Pokemon to the gates of Mt. Battle for purification before advancing the story. Thankfully, purifying Shadow Pokemon in this game is somewhat less tedious. Admittedly, I've actually been looking forward to doing this since I haven't had much of a chance to play around with all of the cool Shadow moves this game introduces. I felt it would be a shame to just dump all these cool pokemon in the Purify Chamber and I think it's quite fitting to finish the job with a little bit of manual labor on my end as well.

There's also a bit of an ulterior motive in handling things this way. You see, since we've snagged all the pokemon in that final boss fight, all of my team is still around level 44-46, meaning they're pretty under-leveled for the types of pokemon we're going up against here. So, while climbing through Mt. Battle, I decided to take advantage of the Exp Share we got from the mayor of Phenac. I can just slap this onto one of my main party pokemon and keep them in the back of my team while I climb my way through some previously completed areas. That said, let's not overestimate the strength of Shadow Pokemon. They're not exactly immortal or anything, even the legendary pokemon. We're still not going to be able to advance any further up Mt. Battle without difficulty, even with these Shadow Pokemon's powerful attacks. Instead, we'll still be hovering around Areas 5-6 with levels hovering around the 40's. As we've come to expect so far, Mt. Battle has yet another level spike immediately following this to where the trainers in Area 7 are even stronger than Greevil himself!

Anyway, even though purifying shadow pokemon by the traditional method is a bit more enjoyable this time around, it still can't be denied that it's just as much of a slog as it's always been. It takes a long time to purify these guys. You'll probably have to go through 4 or 5 areas worth of trainers before just one pokemon is finally ready for purification. By the time you've purified two by traditional means here, all 9 in the purify chamber will probably already by ready for purification as well. Consequently, there was a lot of me jumping to the entrance and running to rotate the pokemon in the chambers. That said, I was very careful to leave at least the legendary birds to be purified by traditional means.

So, there really isn't much to talk about here. I just went through a handful of Shadow Pokemon and did a bunch of battles until they were all ready to be purified. Since it was entirely optional and I did have an easy out if I ever got bored, I found it to actually be a lot more relaxing this time around and ended up enjoying the process a lot more than in Colosseum. I also didn't have to purify every single Shadow Pokemon in the game manually and I hadn't been doing this every chapter since the beginning of the game either. This does give you a major appreciation, though, for how powerful certain moves like Shadow Storm and Shadow End really are. Honestly, this whole playthrough has given me a much greater appreciation for lower-accuracy moves I normally wouldn't use. It was surprising how consistently I was able to rely on DynamicPunch or Fire Blast for a quick KO in situations I'm pretty confident Brick Break of Flamethrower wouldn't cut it. But, it's important to offset these moves with weaker, more consistent moves elsewhere in your moveset or team. You don't wanna be stuck having to connect a 50% accurate DynamicPunch against a pokemon with weak defenses or high evasion.

Anyway, with all that talk out of the way, let's cover our newly purified pokemon! Buckle up, because there's a lot here! It's been a while since I've done this, so I apologize if I end up using any repeated nicknames. I'm pretty sure I actually did repeat a couple, but I was pretty careful not to. There's just a lot here!

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

Spa (Golduck F); Lv. 33

Item: None

Ability: Cloud Nine | Moves: Charm, Waterfall, Psych Up, Brick Break

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

Humor (Raticate F); Lv. 34

Item: None

Ability: Guts | Moves: Refresh, Super Fang, Scary Face, Hyper Fang

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

Rile (Magmar F); Lv. 36

Item: None

Ability: Flame Body | Moves: Follow Me, Fire Blast, Cross Chop, ThunderPunch

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

Community (Dodrio F); Lv. 34

Item: None

Ability: Early Bird | Moves: Baton Pass, Drill Peck, Agility, Tri Attack

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

Finance (Sableye M); Lv. 33

Item: None

Ability: Keen Eye | Moves: Helping Hand, Shadow Ball, Faint Attack, Recover

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

Femininity (Altaria M); Lv. 36

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Heal Bell, DragonBreath, SolarBeam, Aerial Ace

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

Sparring (Farfetch'd M); Lv. 36

Item: None

Ability: Inner Focus | Baton Pass, Slash, Swords Dance, Aerial Ace

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

Snap (Pinsir F); Lv. 35

Item: None

Ability: Hyper Cutter | Moves: Helping Hand, Guillotine, False Swipe, Submission

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

Generosity (Kangaskhan F); Lv. 35

Item: None

Ability: Early Bird | Moves: Sing, Earthquake, Tail Whip, Dizzy Punch

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

Destiny (Starmie); Lv. 41

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Refresh, Waterfall, Ice Beam, Recover

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

Rebound (Hitmonchan M); Lv. 38

Item: None

Ability: Keen Eye | Moves: Helping Hand, Sky Uppercut, Mind Reader, Mega Punch

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

Trust (Rapidash M); Lv. 40

Item: None

Ability: Flash Fire | Moves: Baton Pass, SolarBeam, Sunny Day, Flamethrower

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

Spice (Magcargo M); Lv. 38

Item: None

Ability: Magma Armor | Moves: Refresh, Heat Wave, Earthquake, Flamethrower

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

Daylight (Solrock); Lv. 41

Item: None

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Baton Pass, Psychic, Sunny Day, Cosmic Power

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

Initiative (Hitmonlee M); Lv. 38

Item: Black Belt 

Ability: Limber | Moves: Refresh, Hi Jump Kick, Mind Reader, Mega Kick

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

Purpose (Banette F); Lv. 37

Item: None

Ability: Insomnia | Moves: Helping Hand, Faint Attack, Shadow Ball, Curse

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

Perch (Swellow F); Lv. 43

Item: None

Ability: Guts | Moves: Baton Pass, Sky Attack, Agility, Facade

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

Trim (Scyther M); Lv. 40

Item: None

Ability: Swarm | Moves: Morning Sun, Razor Wind, Silver Wind, Slash

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

Travel (Lapras F); Lv. 44

Item: None

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Hydro Pump, Rain Dance, Blizzard, Heal Bell

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

Story (Marowak M); Lv. 44

Item: Thick Club 

Ability: Lightning Rod | Moves: Sing, Earthquake, Swords Dance, Rock Slide

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

Rock (Electabuzz M); Lv. 43

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: Follow Me, Cross Chop, Thunder Wave, ThunderBolt

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

Carry (Rhydon M); Lv. 46

Item: None

Ability: Lightning Rod | Moves: Helping Hand, Mega Horn, Scary Face, Earthquake

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

Jokes (Mr. Mime M); Lv. 42

Item: None

Ability: Soundproof | Moves: Follow Me, Psychic, Encore, ThunderPunch

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

Discussion (Dugtrio M); Lv. 40

Item: None

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Charm, Earthquake, Sandstorm, Tri Attack

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

Rivalry (Poliwrath M); Lv. 42

Item: None

Ability: Damp | Moves: Helping Hand, Hydro Pump, Rain Dance, Brick Break

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

Distract (Manectric F); Lv. 44

Item: None

Ability: Lightning Rod | Moves: Refresh, Thunder, Rain Dance, Bite

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

Intimidate (Salamence M); Lv. 50

Item: None

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Refresh, Dragon Claw, Dragon Dance, Aerial Ace

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

Those pokemon above were all purified through the purification chamber through frequent rotation while I was battling at Mt. Battle. This next batch of Pokemon were the ones I manually battled with, opting not to use the Purify Chamber for.

Since these pokemon were purified by the traditional method, it only seems reasonable to return to the original source of purification from Colosseum.

Relic Forest

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

Flavor (Lickitung M); Lv. 40

Item: None

Ability: Own Tempo | Moves: Helping Hand, Double-Edge, Defense Curl, Rollout, 

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

Assurance (Chansey F); Lv. 40

Item: Lucky Punch 

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Sweet Kiss, ThunderBolt, SoftBoiled, Skill Swap

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

Bold (Tauros M); Lv. 38

Item: None

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Refresh, Earthquake, Tail Whip, Body Slam

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

Nap (Snorlax M); Lv. 46

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Refresh, Fissure, Curse, Body Slam

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

Vacation (Exeggutor M); Lv. 49

Item: None

Ability: Chlorophyll | Moves: Refresh, Psychic, Hypnosis, AncientPower

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

Reflection (Articuno); Lv. 52

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Haze, Heal Bell, Extrasensory, Ice Beam

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

Resurgence (Moltres); Lv. 52

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Morning Sun, Will-O-Wisp, Extrasensory, Flamethrower

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

Revival (Zapdos); Lv. 52

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Baton Pass, Metal Sound, Extrasensory, ThunderBolt

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

Survival (Dragonite); Lv. 58

Item: None

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Heal Bell, Hyper Beam, Dragon Dance, Earthquake

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

And now, we have 82 out of 83 Shadow Pokemon purified, leaving us with just one unfortunate creature:

Shadow Lugia, the Shadow Pokemon who is said to be impossible to purify. This especially seems to be true. No matter how long you keep it in your party, no matter how many battles it participates in, no matter how many times you call on it to snap it out of reverse mode or massage it with incense, you will never make any progress toward opening the door to its heart. Hence why I've represented its heart gauge up until now with [X / X] instead of [0 / 5]. To make matters worse, there aren't any Time Flutes or anything of the like around any longer. Even such a tool couldn't be used to purify it. Even if one were still around, Cipher already knew of the Time Flute's existence and surely would've factored it into Shadow Lugia's permanent corruption. 

So, how can we help this creature? Well, we do have one tool that Cipher couldn't have known about. The very same tool we've been using to purify most of the Shadow Pokemon we've snagged up until now: The Purify chamber! Of course, this isn't your every day shadow pokemon. If you just haphazardly toss it into any old set and surround it with a bunch of pokemon, you won't make any progress toward purifying it. If we speak with Prof. Krane, he'll suggest that we'll need to try focusing all of the Purify Chamber's full power on this one pokemon. And so...

We must start with nine perfect sets. That's full Tempo and perfect flow. Could this possibly be enough to finally reach out to Lugia's lost heart?

Placing Lugia into Set 1, something indeed seems to be happening...

With the full power of the Purify Chamber, Shadow Lugia's heart gauge is fully reduced! We did it! Shadow Lugia is finally ready to be purified!

We exit out into the hologram and initiate the purification ceremony.

Again, I apologize for the low quality. There are very few screenshots of this game on google so I've gotta work with the tools available to me. That includes taking photos off my own screen when I must!

And finally, as Lugia is purified, its appearance shifts away from the ominous and foreboding black and white color to its classic silver and blue!

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

Redemption (Lugia); Lv. 50

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Psycho Boost, FeatherDance, Earthquake, Hydro Pump

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

And now, all 83 Shadow Pokemon have been snagged and successfully purified, even the supposedly purification-immune Lugia! With this rather gargantuan task finally concluded, we can celebrate by talking to everyone in the lab. The people inside the room with you are all excited about what they've finally managed to accomplish. If you return to Prof. Krane and your mother, you'll find Jovi there with them as well! Jovi will explain that Mimi, her Minun, all of a sudden got really excited and that she could tell something really good must have happened to all the pokemon! Perhaps they're all linked in some way?

So, what's up next? Well, I think I'm gonna want to do a little bit more training with my main team before we push ourselves too hard with the postgame content. I think we're going to be headed back to Mt. Battle for some more training. I think I'm gonna be pushing to complete the next area of Mt. Battle before we advance further with the plot, as, much like Colosseum, we're about to run into some fairly tough opponents going forward from here. We're gonna need to make sure we're prepared.

[Aura]

Mt. Battle

Now that we've finished purifying all the shadow pokemon, it's time to focus on becoming the best trainer we can be! For now, that means pushing a little bit further up Mt. Battle! Let's get going!

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

Mt. Battle Area 7

Levels: 57 - 61

Yes, I said it when we finished Area 6, but between Area 6 and 7, there's a huge level gap as we've kinda grown accustomed to. I'm not really too big of a fan of how sporadic the levels are here in this game and it gets even weirder in the next area. It's nowhere near as smooth of a progression as in Colosseum.

The trainers in Area 7 are higher level than even the highest ranking among Cipher! The higher levels means more Exp but longer and tougher battles. Not only are the pokemon themselves harder to take out, but we're starting to see each trainer coming at me with more than the typical two or three pokemon. It actually takes a bit of grinding to be comfortable getting through here, even after beating the game.

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

My Team:

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

 Family (Jolteon M); Lv. 52

Item: BlackGlasses 

Ability: Volt Absorb | Moves: ThunderBolt, Bite, Double Kick, Thunder Wave

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

 Friend (Ursaring F); Lv. 52

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Pickup | Moves: Return, Brick Break, Torment, Earthquake

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

 Ally (Houndoom M); Lv. 52

Item: King's Rock 

Ability: Early Bird | Moves: Faint Attack, Protect, Fire Blast, Solar Beam

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

 Memory (Dusclops M); Lv. 52

Item: Quick Claw 

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Shadow Ball, Helping Hand, Will-O-Wisp, Confuse Ray

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

 Love (Dewgong M); Lv. 50*

Item: Mystic Water 

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Helping Hand, Surf, Safeguard, Ice Beam

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

 Medicham M, Lv. 52

Item: TwistedSpoon 

Ability: Pure Power | Moves: Shadow Ball, DynamicPunch, Mind Reader, Psychic

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

 Shine (Gligar M); Lv. 51

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Hyper Cutter | Moves: Iron Tail, Sunny Day, Faint Attack, Mimic

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

*Love was stored in the PC

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

Area 7 Leader Nocom

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

 

Houndoom Lv. 61 & Gardevoir Lv. 60

                

                 

My strategy here was pretty clear from the start. I went for Earthquake with Friend and Iron Tail with Shine which was ultimately pretty useless. Of course, due to the massive level gap, both foes got their attacks in, first. Gardevoir only went for Calm Mind while Houndoom was able to tear into Friend for a hefty chunk with Flamethrower. Friend was able to hold his ground, though, and Earthquake did the job against both foes.

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

 

Alakazam Lv. 61 & Typhlosion Lv. 60

                

                 

I went for Mimic with Shine but unfortunately Typhlosion was able to take out Friend before Shine could copy Earthquake, so the move failed and Alakazam was able to buy a free Calm Mind.

                

                 

Family came out in Friend's place and, with Family's Bite along with Shine's Iron Tail, the duo managed to take out Alakazam. Typhlosion wasn't too happy about that, though, and went for Flamethrower against Family, which he managed to survive.

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

Espeon Lv. 60

                

                 

I immediately went for ThunderBolt against Typhlosion, but Espeon was able to reduce the damage first by setting up Light Screen, which I had Shine mimic. Before long, though, Family was down.

                

                 

Since Special was getting walled, I decided to bring out some physical attackers! Shine set up Light Screen to protect my team from the barrage of special attacks while Medicham went for Shadow Ball to finish off Typhlosion.

               

                 

Espeon was able to finish off Shine with Psychic...

               

                 

But the victory was pretty shortlived. The following turn, it was helpless in the face of two Shadow Balls.

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

For clearing Area 7, you're awarded 1500 PC and TM04: Calm Mind!

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

Mt. Battle Area 8

Levels: 60 - 64

Remember how I said the levels here were sporradic? Well, in the case of Area 8, it honestly feels like the first and second half were flipped at some point. I say this because platform 75 has probably the most powerful trainer in this area with a team around level 64 and now including the legendary pokemon Regice and Articuno! That's right, we're already crossing into the realm of legendary pokemon! And these pokemon have some pretty deadly attacks, too. This trainer is all about using inaccurate moves in conjunction with status ailments to stop you from attacking and moves like Lock-On and Mind Reader to guarantee hits. That Articuno? It also illegally knows the move Sheer Cold, which it normally doesn't get until Level 85.

After that trainer, though, the levels suddenly drop all the way back down to 60 and start climbing up again to 62! It's odd, since that's the level the area starts at. Makes me think they only chose the Area Leader because they wanted her team to be designed around the TM you get for the reward...

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

Area Leader #8: Naday

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

 

Salamence Lv. 62 & Heracross Lv. 62

                

                

While I'd actually had some pretty miserable luck with the matchups in this area, I don't think I could've asked for a more perfect one here! With an Ice Beam from Love and Fire Blast from Ally, the foes should both go down! Well, except Salamence went for Protect so he lives another day. But Heracross didn't last!

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

Machamp Lv. 61

                

                

A Fire Blast and an Ice Beam and Machamp was wounded while Salamence was down.

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

Blaziken Lv. 62

                

                

Machamp just went for Bulk Up, so he wouldn't last much longer. I went for Surf with Love and Fire Blast with Ally for yet another KO on Machamp!

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

Gyarados Lv. 62

                

                

Went for Surf again and started charging up for Solar Beam on Gyarados. Unfortunately, Love wouldn't last and he went down to a Sky Uppercut from Blaziken.

                

                

Gyarados went for Dragon Dance. The next turn, Medicham took out Blaziken while Ally hit Gyarados with a SolarBeam which didn't really deal a whole lot, but certainly was more than two Faint Attacks.

               

                

Now, we could focus our efforts on finishing off Gyarados who had finished Medicham with Body Slam.

               

                

A Confuse Ray here and a Faint Attack there, it wasn't long at all before Gyarados ultimately succumbed.

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

Your reward for clearing Area 8 is TM08: Bulk Up and 1600 PC. By now, if you're playing along and brought Lugia, you may have noticed that you're not getting as many coupos. That's because, just like Colosseum, bringing legendary pokemon will dock the amount of pokecoupons you get by a certain percentage which is applied further for each individual legendary. So you may want to think twice before filling your team with Lugia and the Legendary Birds from Citadark Isle.

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

Anyway, I knwo this wasn't exactly eventful, but I wanted to go ahead and play through these two areas because I'd like my team to be at least on par with Level 60. I actually went through these two areas a few extra times to train my pokemon up that much more. Like I said, we've got some fairly tough opponents ahead of ourselves. But next time, we should be prepared to head over to the Orre Colosseum and finally take on the challenge we were presented by Eagun!

[Aura]

Orre Colosseum

Finally, it's time to pay our overdue visit to the Orre Colosseum! As we arrive, there's really nothing much here. We're standing outside the colosseum itself. There's a PC and receptionist on either side of the entrance and standing to the side is Eagun himself who has invited the strongest trainers of Orre to gather for a high-level Pokemon tournament. I suppose you can consider this the closest thing Orre has to an official Pokemon League? Instead of going up against the Elite Four, though, you're just going up against other qualifying trainers like yourself.

...And high level it is! As I've mentioned before, this colosseum is XD's answer to Colosseum's Battle Mode, and after giving it a couple of attempts, I've come to understand that's true in more ways than one! Thankfully, one of those similarities is not the level 50 limit. Instead, it takes more after the Battle Frontier or Colosseum's Battle Mode Mt. Battle where the levels scale to a minimum of 60. Also unlike Colosseum's Battle Mode, this colosseum is limited exclusively to double battles.

Other than that, though, the similarities are pretty apparent. You enter with the six pokemon in your party and, each round, you choose four pokemon to battle with Stadium-Style. And that's... where things get a little bit awkward for me. You see, I'm currently still only using my team from this game's story, so my options are actually pretty severely limited at the moment. I really don't have my best foot forward. While this team has been serviceable up until now, it's hardly what I'd call competitively viable. It's no secret that EV's are all over the place and the movesets of my pokemon are heavily compromised based on the limitations of the game itself. Still, I can scavenge together something strong enough to make things work at least temporarily.

To start with, I did make some adjustments which you may notice a bit looking forward...

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

My Team:

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

 Family (Jolteon M); Lv. 60

Item: BrightPowder 

Ability: Volt Absorb | Moves: ThunderBolt, Bite, Protect, Thunder Wave

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

 Friend (Ursaring F); Lv. 61

Item: Choice Band 

Ability: Pickup | Moves: Return, Brick Break, Torment, Earthquake

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

 Ally (Houndoom M); Lv. 61

Item: King's Rock 

Ability: Early Bird | Moves: Crunch, Protect, Flamethrower, Solar Beam

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

 Memory (Dusclops M); Lv. 61

Item: Quick Claw 

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Shadow Ball, Helping Hand, Will-O-Wisp, Confuse Ray

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

 Love (Dewgong M); Lv. 61

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Helping Hand, Surf, Safeguard, Ice Beam

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

 Medicham M, Lv. 62*

Item: TwistedSpoon 

Ability: Pure Power | Moves: Shadow Ball, DynamicPunch, Mind Reader, Psychic

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

 Shine (Gligar M); Lv. 61

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Hyper Cutter | Moves: Guillotine, Sunny Day, Faint Attack, Mimic

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

*Medicham was stored in the PC

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

First of all, I did some further grinding at Mt. Battle to bring my pokemon up to level 60. In the end, they all hovered around level 61, Medicham pushing a little but past and reaching Level 62. The only one who hadn't reached Level 61 was Family who was still level 60. In addition, I spent some of my PokeCoupons to buy some held items. Most notably, I gave the BrightPowder to Family to help it survive otherwise devastating attacks. I gave Friend a Choice Band, somewhat reluctantly as I've never really used one before, but his lack of attack power was leaving too many pokemon alive. I needed some solid damage output to justify her lack of bulk and speed. I also let Ally relearn Flamethrower from the Move Relearner because I was starting to feel the lack of accuracy on Fire Blast now that each hit was starting to matter a lot more. Flamethrower was doing enough damage thanks to Houndoom's fantastic Special Attack, so we're pretty good on that front. Similarly, I really started to notice just how insignificant Iron Tail was on Shine. So, I let him relearn Guillotine. I figured in the time it would take to get any substantial progress out of Iron Tail, I'd be able to get an OHKO instead by just spamming Guillotine. I've never really experimented with OHKO moves like this before, so I figured it might be pretty fun since this guy doesn't really do much anyway. He can still serve a purpose by hanging around and taking out pokemon who need to be blown over with a Faint Attack. Sunny Day and Mimic also provide some versatility for his moveset. Even though I complained about how terrible Gligar is in this game, he's actually proving to be a fun little utility to splash into this team and helps to relieve Houndoom of needing to set up Sunny Day. Sure, there are probably other pokemon who can do that job better, but this'll do for now. I should also mention, even though Medicham is probably my most versatile pokemon on this team, I decided to box him because of his level. I didn't want my entire team to be a level or two below just because of one pokemon.

As for the tournament here at the Orre Colosseum, it plays out a little bit differently than the colosseums you're used to up until this point. Instead of just having four rounds of opponents to cycle through, there are actually seven! If you fail to clear a round, the rounds will not rotate until you successfully clear it. Thankfully, this isn't like the Deep Colosseum where we have to do this in order to snag a rare Shadow Pokemon at the end or anything, this is pure optional postgame fun... which is exactly why we're going to stress over clearing every single one! For now, though, we're just going to be focusing on that first round since I wouldn't really say we're adequately prepared... let's just say this one round took me several tries because I really didn't have a proper out to many of these pokemon.

One additional note I should probably mention about the battles here, Shadow Pokemon are not permitted, of course, but the usual legendaries are banned from play as well. No Mewtwo, no Lugia or Ho-oh, no Groudon Kyogre or Rayquaza, you know the drill. It's a little unfortunate that you can't use the pokemon on the cover of the game in the final tournament, but it's just standard tournament rules, so it makes sense.

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

Orre Colosseum -- Round 1

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

Battle 1: Hunter Greel

     

Battle 1 isn't so bad. Greel's Slowbro and Breloom like to spam Focus Punch, so just keep peppering them with attacks and they'll end up going down. The big source of frustration, though, is Jynx's Lovely Kiss and Parasect's Spore. Thankfully, by leading with Family and Ally, I can take out all of the most problematic pokemon. His Gardevoir can't do much at all to Ally and his Houndoom can't take Family's ThunderBolt all too well. Just remember, since the battles here are like Battle Mode and not regular battles, you can't use items or call your pokemon, so there's no easy out to confusion and sleep! I'm also unsure, and rather doubtful, if Sleep Clause is present in this game, so switching out on Sleep may not be the best choice, either.

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

Battle 2: Rider Herlam

     

Now this battle is where I quickly learned a new level of hatred for the move Teeter Dance. Herlam's Spinda, Cacturne, and Smeargle all know the move. Slowking and Lickitung both capitalize on the confusion with moves like Yawn and Belly Drum, and Grumpig has Confuse Ray to unload whenever necessary. Since the entire team save for Cacturne has Own Tempo, they're all  immune to the effects of his own Teeter Dance, meaning it's bascially free confusion for both of your pokemon. This basically stops you from switching out to cure the confusion because he's going to spam it every turn, and if you don't take out that Cacturne ASAP, it'll start setting up Double Team on you and lord knows how lovely that always turns out. That Smeargle also brings with it that iconic combo of Lock-on and Sheer Cold, and you never want to leave Belly Drum unattended. Basically, what I'm saying is the only way you're gonna get through this fight is to either bring in your own Own Tempo pokemon, give some berries to your team, or just power through all the coin tosses and hope for the best. I stuck to the latter mainly because I figured tossing some berries onto my pokemon just wasn't going to do a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. I'd just get hit with another Teeter Dance or Confuse Ray anyway.

In all honesty, this battle just highlights to me exactly why I absolutely do not like the move Teeter Dance. The tradeoff of confusing your own ally would be fine if there wasn't such an easy way around it. Even then, it's still 100% chance to confuse both of your opponent's pokemon. In a single battle, it'll at least waste your turn if you go for it again on the next turn. Here, you still have a whole other pokemon that could just be Surfing away. There's no easy out to the move other than held items which might not even matter when you factor in the EV discrepency. Many pokemon really shock me with how fast they are compared to even my fastest pokemon.

I never actually lost to Herlam, but his battles did take me a long time to get past because of constant self-inflicted damage and misses. But my luck was never so bad against him that it led to my demise. This battle definitely led to a lot of my frustration with my losses against the upcoming opponents, though.

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

Semifinal: Navigator Lestor

     

Now this battle was a nightmare for one reason and one reason alone: Stantler. I don't know what kinda poke-steroids this guy pumped this monster with, but no matter what I did, I couldn't outspeed it, I couldn't kill it in more than a 3HKO, and it was able to OHKO most of my team as well! The best I could do was use Family to paralyze it, assuming Family could avoid being targetted for the turn. The rest of his team? Pretty standard. Family, Friend, and Ally could take care of them all with ease. However, while Stantler was in battle, I had to go all out against it, allowing those nobodies to pile on their support. Most of his pokemon like to bog youd own with parafusion, but thankfully there's no teeter dance so it's a bit more workable, and Togetic also likes to use Follow Me to steal your attention away from Stantler. Butterfree also knows Spore, but it's fragile enough to take out before it can use it. Just be wary that it does have a BrightPowder, so that sure kill might not be as guaranteed as you think.

Really, the goal to winning is just to paralyze Stantler. Once that's done, you can focus your attention on slowing his support while chipping away at Stantler's HP which will be much easier now that it's not outspeeding everything and its grandmother.

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

Final: Cipher Admin Lovrina

     

Yes, now you see that this is the place where you'll come to battle all of the one-off bosses from throughout the story. Or, rather, their competitive counterparts. Like the many familiar trainers in Pokemon Stadium, the teams you battle here may have very little to do with their actual teams in Story mode, but they generally try to stick to a central theme while still remaining competitively viable.

I'd lost to Lovrina once before, mainly because her Blissey caught me off guard after using Counter to take out Friend and forcing me to surrender since I was brought down to just Family who couldn't deal enough damage to overcome her leftovers while she refused to just end the battle with Seismic Toss, instead spamming Sing and Counter over and over. I found out by surprise, actually, that Milotic doesn't actually have a water attack at all. Instead, it just focuses on trapping you with Wrap while piling on Toxic, Confuse Ray, and Attract. Most of her team, as you can probably tell just looking at it, revolves around this same concept, so it's a rough, uphill battle to get any damage in at all.

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

 

Milotic & Wobbuffet

                

                

I chose to lead with Family and Friend, figuring these were my best pokemon to take out most of her team. Admittedly, that Shuckle had me nervous. I went for ThunderBolt to chip away at Milotic who quickly got to work setting up status moves on me. Then, I made the greatest noob mistake of my life by having Friend use Torment on Wobbuffet, as I usually do. The goal here was obviously to stop him from using Counter or Mirror Coat twice in a row to make his counters more predicatable. Of course, I was conscious about the Choice Band, so I figured I'd just switch out... only... I completely forgot about Shadow Tag (as per usual.) Now, my Ursaring was stuck spamming Torment until I was able to take out Wobbuffet. A huge yikes.

I decided to just focus my efforts on having Family take out as much as he could and continued using ThunderBolt against Milotic. There wasn't much Wobbuffet could do as long as I wasn't directly targetting him, so this wasn't much of an issue. Before long, Milotic went down putting me in the lead!

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

Misdreavus

                

                

I went for a Bite on Misdreavus but, soon, the confusion and Toxic proved too much for Family and he went down.

                

                

That was fine because now I could make some proper use out of Guillotine! It took a few turns, but I was actually able to connect it on Wobbuffet to take it out in one shot without risk of being countered! And now, Friend was free from that dreadful Shadow Tag!

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

Meganium

                

                

The first thing I did here was switch out to cure Family of her Torment curse!

                

                

And what better matchup here than Ally? I had Shine try and use Guillotine to take out Meganium for free so I could use Sunny Day without risk of SolarBeam or anything. Of course, Guillotine missed. The following turn, I used Sunny Day with Shine anyway while Ally took out Misdreavus with Crunch.

               

                

Lastly, with a solar-powered Flamethrower, Meganium was defeated!

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

After clearing Round 1, the receptionist tells you Eagun has a reward for you. Going over to speak with Eagun, he has a letter from Lovrina which tells you she's bestowing upon you the title of her #1 Fan Club Member... I suppose that's something?

Aside from the latter, Eagun also gives you TM06: Toxic! A move that's been shockingly absent from the game's main story! I suppose they figured the move was too good for single player but, honestly, I really wouldn't say it is. It just makes a lot of pokemon more useful since they can actively do something while building up their defenses. It sure as hell would've helped a lot against a lot of those bulkier pokemon we've had to deal with previously! I definitely would've taught it to Shine as well! But, at this point, there's no use crying over spilt milk. I might use this TM, I might not. I will say that we're probably going to be pulling pokemon from other playthroughs before coming back here.

After clearing our first round of the Orre Colosseum, we're met with an email from Belluh which is once again cut off. The writers of this game really liked that gag in colosseum, huh? Well, once again we'll need to head off to Agate Village to see what Belluh wanted to tell us about.

[Aura]

Agate Village

After receiving the email from Beluh, we return to Agate Village to see what it was she was trying to tell us about the pokemon behaving oddly. When we speak with her and tell her the email was cut off, she explains that the five pokemon around town have become completely silent, not making a sound. She asks that you investigate the matter and see if you can find out what's going on.

As you wander around town, there are five different pokemon to find. First, there's the old lady and her poochyena which you can find by crossing around behind Beluh's home. There's the berry man and his Taillow in the northwest. A bit further down, hugging against the right edge, you'll find a fairly hidden passage toward a lady with a Lotad. In the house nearest the entrance to the village, there's a Combusken. Speakinhg with all of these pokemon, just as reported, they're all completely silent and their partners are highly concerned over their odd behavior.

The final pokemon is Senilor's Wobbuffet in the next closest house to the entrance. As you check up on this Wobbuffet, you'll find that even Senilor has gone quiet in response to his closest friend suffering the same. Once again, this household has grown shockingly sad! Senilor's son tells us about a strange device they'd been given by an old man at the Pokemon Center. So, it seems we now have a lead! He said the machine was a Pokemon Translator, but ever since putting it on the Wobbuffet, Wobbuffet stopped talking and they couldn't get the machine back off.

We head over to the Pokemon Center to find the old man from before who had been suckered into wearing the Unhealthy Sandles from Dr. Kaminko. Uh-oh. To confirm our suspicions, indeed, he explains that he's the one who delivered the "Pokemon Translators" to all the people of the village which were given to him at Kaminko's House. It looks like we'll need to check in with Dr. Kaminko to see what to do about these machines.

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

Kaminko's House

As we run in to speak with Dr. Kaminko, he is very surprised to hear about the Pokemon Translators still being out in public hands! He insists that he had already stashed away them all knowing about this defect. He provides that there is a way to remove the machines from the pokemon by playing a recording of their cry from a Voice Case. He then searches around and digs up one of these Voice Cases to give to you.

He gives you Voice Case 1. In a bit of jank, you have to speak with the Dr. again and he'll play the cry on the voice case. This cry will match up with one of the pokemon in Agate Village. We'll need to bring it to the appropriate pokemon in order to get the machine to detach, then return to Dr. Kaminko for the next one.

  

This process will continue for the next three pokemon, ending on Wobbuffet who the method unfortunately doesn't work on, to Senilor's dismay. We return to Dr. Kaminko and explain that the Voice Case didn't work for Wobbuffet, much to his surprise. He then provides that there is another way to remove the machines but that he'll need to do some digging.

Just as we're about to leave, we receive an email from Megg at ONBS! She mentions that her Shroomish is having a similar issue. On telling Dr. Kaminko about this problem, he is shocked to hear that the problem is even present as far out as Pyrite Town!

He gives you the Voice Case for Shroomish which he just happens to have with him!

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

Pyrite Town

We make our way to ONBS and use our Voice Case to remove the translator from Megg's Shroomish, then report back to Dr. Kaminko!

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

Dr. Kaminko explains to us that, if these machines have reached Pyrite Town, it's also possible they've reached the likes of Gateon Port and Phenac City as well.

He then gives you the Cry Analyzer. When you speak with a pokemon, this odd machine will ask you a trivia question about the pokemon. If you answer correctly, it will play that pokemon's cry and remove the machine. With this, we should be able to remove Wobbuffet's translator as well as any pokemon suffering between the remaining two areas.

Across Orre, there are 13 pokemon struggling with this issue, so we'll need to check up on them all! All of these pokemon, aside from the ones we've already checked on, are scattered around Gateon and Phenac. So no, none of the pokemon at the HQ lab or the Delcatty at Mt. Battle are affected.

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

Gateon Port

In the first house close to the entrance, there is an Oddish. There's also a magnemite in the house in the center of the port which you'll need to use the rotating bridges to reach. The Herb Shop owner's Munchlax upstairs in the Mart is perfectly safe, but the two performing Krabby in the Krabby Club aren't so lucky.

Inside the Krabby Club, you'll even find Miror B. dancing on stage next to Razzle and Dazzle who are both worried about being upstaged by his charisma.

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

Phenac City

There are quite a few pokemon to be found at Phenac City. Immediately west, there's an Azumarill, in the center area, there's the jogger's Castform. In the Northeast, there's a Linoone and a Seedot to the north, just outside the Stadium.

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

Finally, returning to Agate, you may have noticed there's one pokemon that we haven't dealt with yet. If we check back up on the Lotad, its owner is extremely worried about the fact that Lotad still hasn't made any noise. The Cry Analyzer doesn't seem to work on it, either. However, after a little bit of waiting, it finally makes a noise, revealing that there was nothing wrong with it from the start and it was just completely vacant. It's at this point where the lady realizes she'd never attached any strange machine to her Lotad. Well, good to know Lotad was spared!

All that's left now is Senilor's Wobbuffet. Once again, the Cry Analyzer also isn't any help, so we'll have to return to Dr. Kaminko yet again.

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

Perplexed by the failure of the Cry Analyzer, Dr. Kaminko proposes one more purely theoretical solution. If a human with a strong enough bond to the pokemon were to mimic its cry, perhaps they would be able to get the translator to drop.

With this last string of hope, we return to Senilor's home one last time and explain the idea to Senilor and his son. After a bit, Senilor tries to communicate with Wobbuffett and the translator finally falls off! The two are overjoyed and now we can finally return to Dr. Kaminko to report our findings.

Dr. Kaminko explains that these translators were a product of his arrogance in his youth. He once thought that being able to communicate directly with pokemon would help humanity to understand them better, but ultimately came to the conclusion it was a wasted effort because humans and pokemon were able to communicate on a heart-to-heart level.

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

Returning back to Agate Village, we can finally speak with Beluh now that the problem has been resolved. She is surprised to hear that we not only saved the pokemon of Agate, but also all the pokemon across Orre! She then offers a suitable reward, one that I am more than thankful to accept!

Your reward for all your efforts is the Lucky Egg! Outside of this one quest in this game, the only possible way you can get a Lucky Egg is a 5% chance for every Chansey you catch in FireRed and LeafGreen. Let's not forget that Chansey is only available in the Safari Zone at 1% rarity! So yes, this is a greatly appreciated quest reward from this game and will make grinding to level 100 that much more manageable.

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

And with that, the postgame is mostly cleared up. We only have the rest of Orre Colosseum left and we're gonna do some gathering in order to train up these other pokemon. But next time, I think we're going to start our cleanup operation by retracing our steps around Orre to see what all has changed now that we're in the postgame! We'll also be covering the locations of all the Battle CD's so that we can make sure we have them all!

[Aura]

As promised, today we'll be doing a quick cleanup, retracing our steps throughout the areas as we visited them and see if there's anything new to discover. Along the way, we'll also cover any new items that are made available to us. Specifically, we'll be looking for Battle CD's! I've already collected the majority of them, but for the sake of cohesion, I'll be going over all of their locations here.

If you've been playing along, you may notice some of these Battle CD's in odd locations that you could've sworn you wouldn't have missed. This is because many of these CD's only appear after certain story flags have been reached, and not all of them have any sort of logical connection, either. Since so many flags feel completely arbitrary, I figured it would be best to simply go through all of these CD's at once.

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

We've already pretty thoroughly explored the HQ Lab. Everybody here is still congratulating us on, and thanking us for, purifying all the shadow pokemon.

If we check the bookshelf of the room across from ours and Jovi's, we can find Battle CD 33. Before, this was just the case and the Cooltrainer in here told us she'd let us borrow it once it was returned. Well, it seems while we were at Citadark Isle, someone returned the disc!

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

Kaminko's House

There isn't too terribly much to go over here, Dr. Kaminko tells us that Chobin has left to practice battling in order to show the world the power of Robo Groudon, but insists that it is unnecessary as the might of Robo Pokemon have already been shown to the world thanks to our usage of Robo Kyogre to reach Citadark Isle. Still, Chobin seems to love battling using Robo Groudon, so let's not try to stop him from having his fun.

 

After clearing the Cipher Key Lair, two Battle CD's appear in this house. One on the bookshelf behind Dr. Kaminko, and another on the bookshelf in Chobin's room. These are Battle CD 50 and 49 respectively.

In the basement, we can find that there are yet two more entries into Jovi's Diary. The first of the new ones shows that Jovi has noticed her big brother has started to seem more relaxed and concludes that maybe going on an adventure isn't as hard as she thought before. She then suggests that she wants to go on an adventure now, too!

The final entry in the diary is another written by Chobin who expresses relief that Jovi has finally left to go on her adventure, but once again the entry ends in Jovi's writing after she notices that Chobin wrote in her diary again. She once again says Chobin isn't allowed to write in her diary but, more importantly, has now confirmed that she has no interest in leaving poor Chobin to his peace.

  

Battle CDs 05, 11, and 29 can be found along the catwalks on the upper part of this garage. CD 05 is around from the start of the game. 11 appears after getting your Scooter upgraded to a Hover Scooter and 29 appears after clearing the Cipher Key Lair.

On the floor of the garage, Battle CD 23 can be found after getting your scooter upgraded as well.

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

Gateon Port we've also recently explored fairly thoroughly, so there's not too much to update on. We can find that Acri is struggling to finish her story now that it's been revealed that Mr. Verich was actually the head of Cipher. She reveals that she tried to change the protagonist of her story to Duking from Pyrite Town, but since Duking's started focusing more on Wild Pokemon, she admits it's not nearly as exciting. She then briefly considers using Miror B...

Speaking of Miror B., I've mentioned that we can now find him and his lackies at the Krabby Club, but if we speak to the others in the club, we can find that all the freeloaders who relied on Mr. Verich are upset that he's suddenly stopped showing up, and even the bartenders at the club are a bit dismayed without his patronage.

Once Miror B. starts appearing in the Krabby Club, we can have a rematch with Chaser Laken whose pokemon are now level 50 and finally evolved! Since our pokemon are in the early 60's, though, this battle is a piece of cake compared to what we've been through.

Back in the Krabby Club, you can find Battle CD 06 on the table usually reserved for Mr. Verich.

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

After receiving the Lucky Egg from the Pokemon Translator quest, Agate Village pretty much just reverts to the state it was before. All the rematchable trainers here can be battled as much as you want, but their teams are done changing.

You can receive Battle CD 14 from Senilor's Wobbuffet after the Snag Machine gets stolen by Team Snagem.

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

Cipher Lab

If you return to Cipher Lab after beating the game, you'll find the Hexagon Brothers are still here and seething after their constant humiliation at your hands.

I won't go into too much detail about these optional rematches, they use the same pokemon they did before, just fully evolved now at level 50. Since they don't have any Shadow Pokemon to snag and we're pretty over level for these fights, they're probably more of pushovers now than ever before.

As perhaps the most obtuse Battle CD location in the game, Battle CD 42 can be found in the room where Cipher was keeping Prof. Krane. It also only appears after defeating Gorigan of all people. I have absolutely no idea how this is connected as there's absolutely no reason for Gorigan to ever come to this facility, much less go so far inside. Whatever the case, you'll want to make sure to come all the way in here to get this CD.

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

Pyrite Town hasn't undergone a whole lot of change over the course of this game. Most of the interesting stuff happens at ONBS, but there's still some minor changes that we've yet to go over. Fateen naturally doesn't have any further advice to give you. Her dialogue seems to imply to me that she would've pointed you toward any Shadow Pokemon you may not have purified, but now all she sees is a bright future for you.

 

Battle CD 40 can be found in the round house neighboring the shop after Team Snagem steals the Snag Machine. Once you pick it up, the child in the house comments on how behind the times you are for being interested in Battle Sims when Wild Pokemon are the new big craze. He's then scolded by his parent who then apologizes for his child's rudeness and tells you that you can keep the CD. Battle CD 22 can be found in the bookshelf behind Duking's desk after the Cipher Key Lair. Silva comments about how the CD contains information for a battle involving a Plusle, which he gave to Duking because of Duking's attachment to his own Plusle. However, after becoming fixated on Wild Pokemon, Duking hasn't had much time for the Battle Sim, so Silva tells you you could have it. He also expresses interest in putting together a Plusle costume... good... for him.

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

ONBS Building

As soon as the location of Cipher's headquarters was discovered, ONBS scrambled to get the news out, so everyone here is very busy. The dialogue is a bit confused in places, with some NPCs wishing you luck on stopping Cipher while others congratulate you on reaching Citadark Isle and defeating them.

In the meeting room on the first floor, you can find Battle CD 24 on a bookshelf after completing the Key Lair. One of the employees tells you they hardly have time to go to the Battle Sim anymore and decides to let you keep it.

On the second floor, you can find Battle CD 21 on Secc's Bookshelf after the Key Lair. He explains that Cipher left the disc after the attack... why it doesn't show up after the attack until you clear out the Key Lair, I have absolutely no idea.

You might notice that Marcie isn't here again, implying that the workaholic is probably on site somewhere again, probably to Cameran's dismay.

After the snag machine is stolen, Battle CD 38 pops up in the storage room on the third floor. The employee in here humorously comments that the room is only for storing large things, so something small like that has no business being here, so you can have it.

Lastly, Battle CD 36 appears on one of the bookshelves behind Nett's Desk. He mentions that he's less fascinated by the contents of the disks, but rather the technology of the discs themselves. He's gathered all the analytics from the disc that he needs, however, so he allows you to keep the disc.

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

Realgam Tower

There isn't much to talk about here. Well, there's actually quite a bit, but we'll cover all that soon. For now, we're just here for the Battle CD's.

There aren't many Battle CD's actually available to us here. All we have are the ones available from the store in the Battle Sim room itself:

  

Battle CDs 02, 03, and 04 all cost 1000P each, so we can grab them easily enough and get going!

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

Phenac City

Again, we've pretty thoroughly explored the area here and nothing much has changed since our last visit.

  

Of course, when you first came here, a TM Case was forced into your hands and it came bundled with Battle CDs 01, 07, and 20. You can't normally beat the game without obtaining these items, so you'd be pretty hard-pressed to miss these.

     

In addition, each of the Hexagon Brothers left a Battle CD in their place after fleeing during Cipher's takeover of the city. They fled either after defeating each individual, or after defeating Snattle and forcing all of Cipher to flee at once.

Resix, Blusix, Purpsix, Greesix, Yellosix, and Browsix all drop Battle CD 19, 16, 08, 28, 27, and 32 respectively. If you failed to find them all during the Cipher takeover, make sure you have all these Battle CDs. If not, you'll need to look around the city for the ones you're missing. Most of the Hexagon Brothers were pretty easy to find, just scattered around the city, but Yellosix and Browsix can both only be found by returning to the Mayor's House after they come out of PRE Gym.

  

Alongside those, there's still yet 3 more Battle CDs! Battle CD 12 is found in the mayor's bookcase. You can find it earlier, but you can't take it until after saving the city and returning the Mayor to his office. Similarly, after the residents return, Battle CD 10 can be found in the south-eastern house. Lastly, Battle CD 15 is held by Dash's Castform and can be recovered after having the Snag Machine stolen.

We're still not quite done with Phenac City, though. Now we should head into Phenac Stadium!

If you haven't battled her yet, you can have a battle with Cooltrainer Equin here. However, where I had some confusion about this earlier by Bulbapedia's note that she cannot be battled "again for the rest of the game", I can now confirm that, indeed, if you battled her when she first appeared after saving the city, you cannot have a rematch with her here, even after finishing the game's story. If you want the most out of Exp, you probably wanna hold off on battling this trainer until postgame because her team will now be at level 50 rather than 22-23. But it's otherwise identical. What a strange trainer...

That's not all that's strange about this room, either. After defeating Greevil, Battle CD 44 spontaneously appears here of all places! You can find it just laying on the ground in the far back.

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

S.S. Libra

Nothing much is new here, but you can find Pofty and her cameraman covering the scene. Inside, the homeless worker comments about how he doesn't like the idea of this place becoming some tourist destination, so he suggests he should probably pack up and get going before that happens. It's a little sad, but I suppose such is the life he's chosen to live.

Inside the ship on the 3rd floor, you'd have been hard pressed to miss it, but you can find Battle CD 18 on the ground.

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

Outskirt Stand

Once again, there's nothing much to do here.

Rider Willie is available for a rematch, though! He now comes at you with a swarm of four level 50 Linoone!

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

Cipher Key Lair

On the scene here is Chief Sherles from Pyrite Town as well as Marcie and Cameran who are taking measures to detain everyone who remains inside the key lair. There isn't much left inside save for whatever you missed your first time around, though. Everyone inside still has the same dialogue they had before so there's not much need to poke around.

After defeating Gorigan and shutting down the factory, Battle CD 47 is left on the conveyor belt in the basement area, so you can feel free to snatch that one, too!

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

Snagem hideout

There isn't much of interest in the Snagem Hideout, but you can find some of the grunts still loitering around. Many of them mention that Gonzap and Waken along with a select group of grunts have left for the Orre Colosseum, so something tells me we'll be reuniting with them sooner or later.

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

Citadark Isle

After speaking with the navigator standing guard over Greevil's cruiser, he'll give you Battle CD 31.

And after defeating Greevil, you can find Battle CD 46 inside the giant dome, where the giant screen has now changed to depict Greevil sitting alone in the final area of the game. Now that we've caught up to the end of the game, I think it's pretty fitting that we end this off with a rematch with the game's final boss.

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

     

If you recall, Greevil's team was entirely comprised of Shadow Pokemon last time we battled him, which, coupled with their high level at the time, was a huge contributing factor for why this battle was so rough. Unlike other battles in the game, I don't believe Greevil's Shadow Pokemon flee after failing to snag them. If you fail to snag any of these pokemon, you might have to battle Greevil again to get another chance to snag them.

     

On the second battle onward, any Shadow Pokemon that was snagged will be replaced with a new one that isn't a Shadow Pokemon and is level 50. Rhydon, Moltres, Exeggcute, Tauros, Articuno, and Zapdos are replaced with Manectric, Swellow, Starmie, Granbull, Altaria, and Aerodactyl respectively. Since my team is higher level now, and these pokemon are significantly less threatening than the ones that came before them, this battle was actually extremely one-sided and underwhelming. I just swept his entire team with Family and Ally. I was planning to do a full-detail rematch battle here, but I didn't think his team would be so... laughable. His Altaria was able to survive and hit both of my pokemon with a super-effective Earthquake, but it only did about a third of our HP so we were more than capable of taking it and finishing the fight.

There's no special scene or anything with this rematch, it really just plays out like the end of the game all over again. It's a bit faster to get back into the action than Colosseum, but it's still pretty sloppy, I'd say. I really wish they'd come up with some story reason for why Greevil was back here instead of the odd time bubbles the final boss arenas in Orre seem to be trapped in.

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

With that, we've covered all the ground from the beginning of the game to the end and every Battle CD is accounted for! Well... kinda. As you may have noticed, there are still some gaps in the numbers, but that's only because some of the Battle CD's aren't unlocked until other Battle CD's are completed. Don't worry, though, none of these show up in obscure locations in the overworld or anything. The rest of the Battle CDs can be obtained no further than the Battle Sim room itself at Realgam Tower. And I think that's precisely where our playthrough will lead us next. That's right, we've still got our work cut out for us in this game even though we've got all the story and poststory done. This game does not kid around with its content!

Next time, it's finally time to give some attention to those minigames we've mostly been neglecting at Realgam Tower where we'll be spending a lot of time for the next handful of sessions. Battle Bingo or Battle Sims? I'm honstly not sure which one I should turn to first. But I think it's pretty fair that we take a brief break from all the battling and running around the world and try to have some fun with some nice distractions! We can get some pleasant rewards for our efforts as well!

[Aura]

Battle Bingo!

I apologize for the long wait for this update to the thread! It's been a pretty crazy month, but I should be able to get back into the groove of things at least for a little bit. Now, it's actually been a long time since I've played the game last and I never got around to writing the post for my last session, so unfortunately a lot of detail is going to be lost to time. I don't think there's too much of an issue here, though, because all I did in that session was play through the entirety of Battle Bingo! I've already summarized this mode in a previous post when we first arrived at Realgam Tower, so there's no need to go into detail about what exactly this mode is. Instead, I'll just be focusing on the boards and how the difficulty progresses. In the previous session, I played through every board the game has to offer and, let me tell you, this mode loves to pull some pretty cheap tricks on you.

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

Novice Level

Dragonair Card -- A simple card for learning the rules.

The first board we've already played through was the Dragonair Card. This one teaches you all the basics you need to know and the general rule of thumb to expect. It fails to teach you the fundamental flaws with this game that will quickly become apparent as we get deeper into this nightmare of a "puzzle" mode. As a recap, you start each game with two Master Balls and a pre-determined pokemon with a single move. Each pokemon starts with 2 EP. You can spend 1 EP to use a pokemon to flip over a tile and battle the pokemon on that tile. The pokemon you battle will be of the type on that card. If you win the battle, either by using one of your Master Balls to catch the pokemon, or defeating the pokemon in battle, the tile will remain flipped. You'll want to clear whole rows and collumns in order to get Bingos. For each Bingo, you'll earn 1 EP which you can place on any pokemon you currently own. The ? tiles can be one of three things: A Master Ball, +1 EP, or +2 EP. The EP tiles are essentially free spaces and the Master Ball allows you to catch an extra pokemon which, most of the time, feels pretty mandatory. But, there is a bonus if you manage to clear a card with unused master balls. It's possible, but unlikely you'll be able to do it your first try due to not knowing exactly what to expect when you flip the tile over. More on that later.

These first three novice level boards are pretty standard. If your pokemon has a type advantage over the type on the tile, it's basically guaranteed a win unless you get really unlucky with crits. In general, you're going to want to use your master balls to catch pokemon with type advantages over the most tiles on the board, while prioritizing the types that'll help you get the quickest bingos early on as you'll quickly find yourself desperate for EP if you're not careful. There's no way to know which ? tile marks the Master Ball and which ones give EP, so don't always expect these tiles to just be free spaces.

If you want to know what lies under the tiles on any of these boards, feel free to check out the bulbapedia page which details all of the boards. While playing through these boards, though, I made sure to avoid such references for an authentic experience. Trust me, it was rather frustrating later on. But it's not so bad just yet.

3-Type Card -- Three Pokemon Types are featured.

The second Novice level board is the 3-Type Card and this is where things start getting blind! This is more or less the same as the Dragonair Card, only the type matchups are a bit more advanced than the fundamental Grass Water Fire triangle. Still, Grass, Poison, and Ground do form a rock paper scissors relationship all the same, so the strategy remains the same as well.

4-Type Card -- Four Pokemon types are featured.

With the 4-type card, you have to start making decisions. You only get a maximum of 3 master balls, so you want to make sure not to waste them! This is also where the game leaves some hints of the type of curveballs that just might throw you off later on.

The topmost ground tile is a Cubone, a ground type, sure, but its move actually isn't a ground-type move: It's Focus Punch. This makes Cubone rely more on the defensive traits of its typing. More specifically: its immunity to electric attacks. The use of specifically Focus Punch in turn makes it entirely useless against other Ground types which it might otherwise stand a chance against in a pinch. I strongly recommend using your Master Ball to catch one of the other Ground-Types who know the move Earthquake.

Another curve ball you might have already noticed? Magnemite's dual typing actually covers some of its matchups with other pokemon on this board. Normally, you might be able to get away with using a Grass Type against an Electric type if your Ground-types are out of EP, but the Steel Type means that Magnemite now resists grass the same way your grass-types resist Electric. This battle might come down to RNG depending on whether or not Magnemite can Paralyze you or who gets a crit first. 

Thankfully, these curve balls don't really affect your decisions very much here since you're most likely to enter a battle with a pokemon with a type advantage anyway, but these are just bread crums for some of the greatest annoyances yet to come.

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

 x 2

200 PC

For clearing any of the Novice cards for the first time, you'll be rewarded with 2 Ethers and 200 Poke Coupons which you can exchange at Mt. Battle.

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

Regular Level

Charmander Card -- A card for practicing type matchups.

The first of the Regular levels is where the game starts to step up in difficulty. As you can see, the variety of types is much more complex, so you'll have to carefully plan out which pokemon to catch and which to defeat. Thankfully, there aren't many surprises here, so once you think you have your solution, you're probably already on your way through. Remember to pick the types with the most advantages over the other types!

Pikachu Card -- A card for advanced type matchups!

The Pikachu card is pretty much the last you'll see of the straight-forward cards. Again, carefully consider how much of an advantage each pokemon type will offer you and catch the ones you think will be most beneficial. This time, however, there are so many types that you may have to compromise a little bit. You're not necessarily going to have the type advantage all the time. Try to consider defensive matchups as well!

Rock vs. Flying Card -- Sudowoodo's time to shine?

What in the world is this nightmare? All the tiles are Flying types! Yes, welcome to what Battle Bingo likes to consider a challenge. It may seem simple enough on the surface. You just need Sudowoodo to use his Rock attacks to win all the battles, right? Well, when you flip over your first Flying type panel and find a Mantine that knows Surf... I think you can piece together what makes this so obnoxious. 

Indeed, this is an entirely blind panel in which it's left down to luck whether or not you actually chose the right pokemon for the job. Really, the only advice I can offer for a blind player is to simply use master balls on pokemon that you're otherwise going to lose against, or against pokemon that are strong against a variety of types and not resisted by Flying. All of the pokemon on this board are Flying-type, but only one actually has a Flying-type attack. You're just going to have to blindly feel your way around the battlefield. If that's not bad enoough, Sudowoodo's rock-type attack is Rock Throw which isn't even 100% accurate! Up until this point, accuracy has never been an issue, but now it's very relevant! It can, and will, cost you some battles with misses!

In my experience, I was managing alright until I got walled by the Skarmory. Make sure you catch that Charizard even if only just for this one matchup! Delibird is also a good pokemon to have in order to deal with Altaria and Tropius. 

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

400 PC

Your reward for clearing cards of the Regular level are a Max Ether and 400 Poke Coupons!

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

Expert Level

SOS Maikarp Card -- Can Magikarp win with Splash?

Didn't you want a card where you have a completely useless leading pokemon? No? Sorry, maybe next time. Obviously, Magikarp is completely useless so you'll need to catch other pokemon to use in its place. Magikarp's EP is best used to flip ? tiles or catch pokemon. Thankfully, the pokemon types here don't pull any obnoxious secondary type surprises like that last board, but there some more curve balls to watch out for: The pokemon's moves here don't all line up with their types. Marowak and Golem both have Rock Throw instead of Earthquake like you'd expect. But, two of the poison types, Gengar and Weezing, are immune to ground attacks thanks to Levitate, so that might not be a bad thing. Gengar is a pretty powerful force on this board because it's not only immune to ground, but it knows Psychic instead of the expected Sludge Bomb like the other poison types. This makes it strong against Victreebel as well, but not against the Cacturne... do you see the problem with only showing a single type of the pokemon yet? We've got grass types that aren't weak to poison, poison types that aren't weak to ground, ground types without ground attacks, and there's absolutely no way to tell them apart from others! This really is just a game of trial and error... but we're getting close to the end!

Waterproof Card -- What lurks beneath the water?

Yes, that's correct. We have yet another one. This time, stats also become a pretty big pain. For example, you'd think Ludicolo with Mega Drain would have an advantage over a Poliwrath with Brick Break. Mega Drain is super-effective and Ludicolo can take some Brick Breaks. Just two Mega Drains is all it takes to win, so all I need to do is either go first and take Poliwrath out before it can hit me a second time, or go second so that I can heal off the damage from the first Brick Break in order to survive the second. Simple, right? The problem, of course, these two pokemon just happen to be speed tied which means their turn order is chosen by RNG. That also means that there's a chance your opponent will simply get hit twice in a row and KO'd before you can even say a thing.

This card also has a lot of annoying pokemon to deal with. I recommend catching the Starmie and Kindgra as they're some of the toughest opponents to get over. Ludicolo is also pretty versatile here, able to take out a lot of what those two might struggle against. Keep in mind your starting Golduck also knows Brick Break, in case you run into something you can use that against.

Counter Card -- Battle Bingo's toughest card.

This board is just... dumb. You've got pokemon with abilities like Soundproof and Thick Fat as well as other pokemon with moves specifically chosen to be weak against those. Pokemon types that don't match their moves. Apparently, you're expected to use Hariyama against a Water tile because it's a Gyarados that knows Flamethrower and will kill your Grass-type but Hariyama has Thick Fat and knows Rock Slide. What, you didn't consider that as a possibility? Well screw you, start all over! Thought you'd use a Water-type against that Ground type? Lolnope, it's a Quagsire with Water Absorb because fuck you. Fire against Grass? What are you, an idiot? That's a Ludicolo with Surf! 

I get that the gimmick of this board is "coutnering" your weaknesses. But that doesn't work if you have no clue what pokemon you're going up against! If it was consistent on this card, that'd be one thing. But this same board also has a Vileplume with Petal Dance, a Lanturn under a Water tile with Surf, a Glalie with Ice Beam, etc! There's literally no way to deduce which pokemon are best used where, the entire card is designed to invalidate the one hint you have to work with so it's entirely left up to trial and error and feels like utter garbage. But, that's the toughest card, right? There's no more? Weeelll....

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

800 PC

Your reward for clearing cards of the expert level are an Elixir and 800 PC.

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

Extra Level

Psychic Card -- Houndoom's chance for glory?

Uh-oh! That's right, after clearing all of the cards of higher levels, you unlock one card on the extra level: The Psychic card. And it's yet another blind level where you're flooded with pokemon of a single type with a variety of secondary types. Your lead pokemon is a houndoom but your first tile you flip over could be a Slowbro just as easily as it could be a Medicham or Girafarig. You have absolutely no clue and this board is pretty relentless as well. In addition, we also now have mixed attacks and relevant abilities to make matters even worse! Girafarig has ThunderBolt, Chimecho has Shadow Ball, Claydol's Earthquake is near useless because you've got Lunatone, Solrock, and Chimecho all with Levitate while Xatu is a Flying type and Exeggutor resists it. Then Jynx and Slowbro are both strong against Claydol. But you would have no way of knowing any of this until after battling the thing. There's really no advice here other than trial and error to see what works.

2000 PC

But, your reward is 2000 Poke Coupons and a Max Elixir!

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

So, that's it, right? Weeeelll... remember way back when we got that Bonsly card for rescuing Bonsly and returning it to its trainer? Well, we were told we can use it to play a special game of Battle Bingo, so let's finally do that! If we use the Bonsly Card at the desk, the receptionist will be surprised and claim to have never seen one before. She'll then open up one final special board for you.

Special Level

Bonsly Card -- Bonsly makes its battle debut!

That's right! This card features a generation 4 pokemon in a playable form!

Even though Bonsly itself isn't obtainable in regular gameplay for obvious reasons, you can still use one in rental form here in the Bonsly Card! For all intents and purposes, she's just a generic Rock type with the move Rock Throw, but it's still a really cool novelty just to have this pokemon usable even in such a limited format! The board itself doesn't have too many terrible surprises, though there is an Abra with Fire Punch to watch out for. You might want to grab the Surskit with Shadow Ball to take it out, or just use Bonsly. This board isn't too terribly difficult, though coming off of all the obnoxious cards before it, taht Abra does sour the mood a bit, but as a novelty, this one was quite nice!

400 PC

Your reward for clearing the Bonsly Card is 400 Poke Coupons and a Max Revive.

In addition, you'll also receive this special Bonsly Photo which you can view from your Key Items pocket! They really seem to want to push this little guy. Who knows, maybe we'll try to put one on our team in Gen 4? That's still a surprisingly long time away, though...

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

As for battle Bingo, overall, I absolutely love the concept! The idea of type matchup puzzles that test your knowledge of them is really interesting, but I really don't like that this game boils so much down to luck. I get that it's Battle Bingo so luck should probably be expected to be involved, but to me it just feels terrible when you walk into an obvious beginner's trap like that Gyarados with Flamethrower. Or those boards where they completley hide the one resource you have to rely on by masking everything under a single type of tile. To me, that just sucks all the fun out of an otherwise really cool idea for a minigame.

I think the tricks presented in the higher difficulty cards would be okay as long as they just gave you a bit more information about the pokemon or followed a consistent pattern across the card. Don't make me just blindly guess which pokemon to choose and punish me for using a pokemon that looks like it would have an advantage based on the only given information!

Anyway, after clearing all of the Battle Bingo cards, you unlock 1-Panel mode which allows you to replay any of the cards you've previously completed but with the added rule that you can only select tiles adjacent to the one you just cleared instead of tiles adjacent to any previously cleared tile. This makes things significantly more challenging as you have a lot less freedom of choice, but it also rewards you with extra poke coupons, so it might be worth a shot if you're sick of Mt. Battle! I'm not going to be doing this since the cards themselves are all still the same and you don't unlock anything for clearing them again, but you can feel free to challenge yourself with them if you feel the need!

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

Well, with Battle Bingo out of the way, we can focus on the Battle SIMs in the other room! Next time, we'll start taking a crack at those Battle CDs!

[Aura]

Battle Sim CDs

So, there are a lot of Battle CDs as we've already addressed, so going through all of them at once will take a while. Instead of doing them all in one post, I'll be breaking these up into sections of at least 10 at a time. I might do more in the interest of time, but for now, I think it's for the best to pace myself here to cover all of the Battle CDs in the game. We're gonna be in this room for a little while, so we may as well get comfortable!

I don't see any need to go into too much detail about exactly what pokemon are involved, just the basic strategy I employed to solve the puzzles. If you want more details on the battles themselves, you can check out the Bulbapedia pages for Battle CDs 01-10 here.

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

 Battle CD 01: Flying Vs. Flying [Single]

Predict the Opponent's moves to win!

This is a Battle CD we've completed earlier, but I figured I'd detail it again here since it'll be grouped with the others. This Battle CD came bundled with the Disc Case, so it's impossible not to have this one by the time you get here.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Poplet

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

Tropius Lv. 50

                    

                    

All Tropius can do is spam Fly, so all you have to do is spam Gust in order to take him out before his attacks can land. Don't bother getting distracted by your other attacks. Gust is all you need!

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

Your prize for completing the challenge is a Super Potion! Not very impressive, but it is only a one-star challenge, so it looks like we're going to have to climb our way up to start seeing more valuable rewards!

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

 Battle CD 02: Skill over Power [Single]

Use the foe's power to your advantage!

This CD can be purchased from the store right here at Realgam Tower from the get-go!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Habtel

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

Drowzee Lv. 50

                       

                     

Drowzee knows only two moves: Strength and Confusion. Neither is capable of doing a whole lot to you, so you've got plenty of room for error here. Your Wartortle also only has two moves: Counter and Mirror Coat. I think it's pretty clear what the goal is. The devs were even nice enought o let your Wartortle hold a Persim Berry to cure it if it happens to get confused! This challenge might give you a bit of a hint toward how to predict the opponent's moves in seemingly unpredictable situations. You can check the details of a CD before playing it. If you do, you can view the movesets and stats of all pokemon involved in the battle, including your opponent's. It seems as though when you're expected to predict your opponent's seemingly random moves like this, the game likes to iterate through their list of moves in order. In this case, Drowzee knows Strength, then Confusion. So it'll use Strength, then Confusion on the next turn. The following turn it'll start over with Strength again and so on. Once you catch onto that pattern, Drowzee will go down after only a few turns of alternating between Counter and Mirror Coat! An easy win!

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

And your prize is yet another Super Potion!

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

 Battle CD 03: Exploit Seams! [Single]

Hit foes while they're locked into moves!

This was another CD that could be purchased at the counter in this room from the beginning, so it should be readily available!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Kupol

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

Vileplume Lv. 50

                     

                     

Despite being listed as a one-star difficulty challenge, I thought this one to actually be a bit tricker than the last few. That's mainly because, this time around, you actually have to pay close attention to the speed stats of the pokemon involved. Quagsire here gets outsped by Vileplume, and it's going to use SolarBeam which will undoubtedly take you out. You'll need to make sure to open up with Dig so that you can be underground by the time the beam is launched. Repeat and Vileplume should go down no problem.

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

Skarmory Lv. 50

                      

                     

Skarmory makes things a bit more difficult. Quagsire can't do much to it since Dig won't affect it and its best attack is Strength. It's also outsped by Skarmory, so you're not gonna get a chance to attack without taking a Sky Attack to the face. This time, you're going to want to take the charge-up turn of Sky Attack to switch into a pokemon better suited for the job!

                      

                     

Thankfully, Ludicolo can outspeed Skarmory! So not only is this a safe switch-in on the charge-up turn, but you can still avoid the incoming Sky Attack by using Dive on the first turn Ludicolo is out! If you did it right, you'll dodge an attack right away and hit Skarmory for some decent damage! Now you're right back into action. Just keep spamming Dive and Skarmory will be flushed!

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

Your prize this time is a Great Ball! I guess that's a bit more exciting than a Super Potion!

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

 Battle CD 04: Plusle and Minun [Double]

The best of friends in play and battle!

Yet another Battle CD available for purchase from the start at the counter!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Basin

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

 

Miltank Lv. 50 & Tropius Lv. 50

                

                

Now this one was a little interesting. Once again, you'll need to have taken a peek at your opponent's moves in order to figure out the best course of action. This'll be pretty consistent, so make a habit of doing that! Miltank only knows Earthquake while Tropius knows Swords Dance and Earthquake. If you take a single Earthquake in this battle, you're done for. Neither Plusle or Minun has the strength to survive such a strong attack. You need to make sure to do enough damage to wipe out the attackers! Thankfully, Plusle and Minun power each other up with their Plus and Minus abilties! Minun's Helping Hand and Plusle's Magnet can further amplify the power of Plusle's electric attacks! All of this combined will give you enough of oomph to get the job done! Obviously, you're going to want to start by taking out that Miltank since it's guaranteed to use Earthquake. ThunderBolt and Helping Hand will do. Tropius, on the other hand, is going to take the opportunity to set up Swords Dance, so we should be good for another turn.

               

                

This is where things get a little bit tricky, though. You might be tempted to instead try to split up the two pokemon's moves to target both opponents, but that won't end well for you as you won't do enough damage. You need to team up on one pokemon and Plusle is the one with all the attack power. Let Minun support Plusle instead! Unfortunately, ThunderBolt isn't enough to take out Tropius, even with Helping Hand! You're going to need to use Thunder! Don't be baited into trying to set up Rain Dance, though. Minun is slower than Plusle so you need Helping Hand's priority in order to properly assist! Thunder won't do enough damage, either, without the Helping Hand anyway, and you can bet that Tropius isn't going to keep using Swords Dance! You're just gonna have to cross your fingers and hope Thunder doesn't miss.

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

Your prize this time is an... antidote. Okay, that kinda just feels like a downgrade!

  

In addition, after clearing Battle CDs 02, 03, and 04, you'll unlock the ability to purchase Battle CDs 09, 13, and 17 from the counter as well! 

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 Battle CD 05: Offense is the Greatest Defense! [Single]

But can defense be the greatest offense?

This CD was found on the catwalks above the garage in Kaminko's House.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Kelson

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

Medicham Lv. 50

                     

                    

This battle was an interesting one. The title is a bit misleading as the actual solution to the puzzle is hinted more by the subtitle. Medicham will iterate through its moves once again, going for Fire Punch, Ice Punch, and Thunder Punch. Your move choice throughout all three of these attacks don't really matter since these attacks are going to do next to nothing against Blissey's immense bulk. Just make sure you don't use Protect against its third attack because when Medicham uses Hi-Jump Kick, you'll want to make sure you can use Protect to guard or you'll be taking some massive damage and probably be KO'd. But, with a clever use of Protect here, you'll not only evade the attack, but this will cause Medicham to crash and lose a ton of health, likely KO-ing itself if you've been chipping away at its health with Egg Bomb. Otherwise, it'll surely start iterating through its moves again, knocking itself out the next go around. For the most efficient win, just use Egg Bomb the first three turns and Protect on the fourth. That should be more than enough for the KO!

And your Blissey has a Lum Berry to protect against status problems. But to minimize your chance of losing to RNG further, you can use Protect to guard against one of the first two punches. Preferably Ice Punch since Freeze is more detrimental to your ultimate goal.

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

Your prize here is a mere Parlyz Heal.

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

 Battle CD 06: Dreams Come True [Single]

Wishes make dreams become reality.

This was the Battle CD left behind on Greevil's table back at the Krabby Club.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Mestol

Primeape Lv. 50

                    

                   

Now this is a pretty fun combo matchup. This Primeape is built to wreck your team pretty harshly with Brick Break and Earthquake, so you'll need to line up your moves properly in order to protect yourself. If you just jump in carelessly, you'll probably end up getting Sneasel and Pikachu KO'd immediately with Snorlax stuck unable to deal enough damage before he's downed. You'll need to use all three of your pokemon together in order to give Snorlax a fighting chance! Sneasel is the only pokemon on your team who outspeeds Primeape, so you'll need to fix that by using Icy Wind to reduce its speed. Since Brick Break breaks barriers, it's no use trying to set up Reflect to reduce its damage output. Instead, reducing its speed is all you can really hope to accomplish here. Sneasel will go down right away, but that's okay because it's done its job.

                    

                   

Now, we bring in Pikachu who can now outspeed Primeape thanks to Sneasel's Icy Wind. This buys us a new move to use! We'll need to choose wisely, but the title and subtitle of the challenge gives us a not-so-subtle hint about which move to choose. You'll want to use Wish before Pikachu inevitably gets taken out with an Earthquake.

                    

                   

Finally, with Snorlax, you're going to want to avoid the temptation to use Belly Drum or Curse. You don't really have the HP to spare in this scenario. Just go for Shadow Ball and you'll do plenty of damage already! All you need to do is survive one more turn, and with your Wish coming true, you've got your solution! One more Shadow Ball should do the trick!

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

Your prize for this one is an Ice Heal... yay...

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

 Battle CD 07: Machamp's Macho Romp [Single]

The stronger the foe, the hotter it gets.

This was another of the Battle CDs that came alongside the CD caase.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Jorg

Aggron Lv. 50

                    

                    

This seems like a pretty advantageous matchup until you notice that your Machamp is actually only level 20, 30 levels below this Aggron. You're gonna need to be pretty tactful in order to survive here. Thankfully, Aggron's moves are pretty predictable as it's only going to be iterating through its moveset again. Spend the first two turns setting up Swords Dance, then hit him with an Earthquake right when he goes underground with Dig! The 4x effective hit combined with the bonus for hitting him underground and the attack boosts from Swords Dance will be enough to take him out in spite of the 30 level gap! Just goes to show how much these multipliers matter!

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

Your prize is another great ball. It's better than a Burn Heal!

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

 Battle CD 08: Zangoose vs. Cradily [Single]

Taking the battle to a defense-only foe.

This CD was dropped by Purpsix in Phenac City. If you didn't battle him there and grab it when he ran off, you should still be able to find it where he was standing before defeating Snattle.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Holit

Cradily Lv. 50

                    

                    

Your Zangoose has a Scope Lens and Slash. That alone should tell you the strategy here regardless of your opponent. You can try to use Rock Smash to reduce Cradily's defense, but he'll only build it right back up with Barrier. Your best bet is to build up your attack with Swords Dance and use Slash over and over. It may be Not Very Effective, but all you need is that one crit to bypass his defenses and ruin his day!

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

Your prize is a Super Potion!

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

 Battle CD 09: Color Change Carnival [Double]

Duke it out with Kecleon!

This Battle CD can be purchased from the counter after clearing the first three purchasable Battle CDs.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Cliks

Kecleon Lv. 50

               

                

All of your pokemon are only level 25, so this Kecleon isn't going to have a problem taking you out! It also knows Aerial Ace and ThunderBolt so it can easily pick you off one by one! Don't get overwhelmed by your options, though. Just focus on what makes the most sense and keep the priority of your moves in mind as well. Hitmonchan's Mach Punch always goes first, it'll hit Kecleon for super-effective damage. Aerodactyl can then follow up with a Wing Attack for further super-effective damage! Kecleon will take out Hitmonchan first, so Aerodactyl will stick around. Aerodactyl can also outspeed Kecleon, so it can get another attack in the following turn!

               

                

We can send Hariyama in and go for Vital Throw to ensure that our attack is last. This way, Aerodactyl can hit Kecleon with AncientPower to turn its typing back to Rock with a super-effective hit, making Vital Throw also super-effective when it ineivtably lands. Kecleon will be too distracted trying to defeat Aerodactyl with ThunderBolt to stop Hariyama's attack.

               

                

At this point, the round is basically over. If Kecleon is still alive, just send out Girafarig and finish the fight with a Psychic and Earthquake. By now, Kecleon should be unable to keep up regardless of who he targets.

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And, for the record, Kecleon's target in the beginning really doesn't matter much. If he takes out Aerodactyl first, you can simply send out Girafarig and follow up with a Psychic and Crunch for the same effect as Aerodactyl's attacks.

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

Your prize for this one is a Full Heal! It's certainly more exciting than any of the rewards we've gotten so far, but still nothing to write home about.

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

 Battle CD 10: Friends from the Moon [Double]

A perfect combination of pals?

This CD can be obtained from the bookshelf in the south-easternmost house in Phenac City.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Horoh

Aggron Lv. 50

               

                 

This was a very interesting matchup. Aggron is hyperfocused on taking out your Clefairy, which happens to be the only pokemon on your side with offensive capabilities. So, you're going to need to use Clefairy's Protect and Clefable's Follow Me to keep her alive. Obviously, Clefable doesn't have enough HP on her own to sustain such a strategy, so she'll need to use the turns Clefairy is protecting to heal with Moonlight. Of course, you'll also need to set up Sunny Day while Clefairy is protecting so that you can get those SolarBeams off! If you're lucky, Aggron might even miss with an Iron Tail, buying you a free turn of damage! Even if Clefable goes down, don't give up hope! RNG is actually more in your favor for this fight, so keep going!

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

Your reward for this one is yet another Full Heal!

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

So, yeah, none of the prizes are really all that interesting just yet, but at least some of these battle challenges have actually been pretty satisfying to solve! I figure they're only going to get more frustrating as the difficulty rises, but for now, I'm actually enjoying these! Next time, I think we'll work on Battle CDs 11-20!

[Aura]

Battle Sim CDs 11-20

Today we'll be stepping into the next chapter of Sim CDs! Things will be proceeding the same way as before, but we're going to begin reaching three-star difficulty challenges that are significantly harder than their predecessors, so be prepared! Once again, you can check the bulbapedia article for futher details about the CDs.

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 Battle CD 11: One-Hit wonders [Double | 1 Turn]

Wipe out all pokemon in a single shot!

This was another CD found on the catwalks in Dr. Kaminko's garage.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Logan

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Shedinja Lv. 50 & Shedinja Lv. 50

                    

                  

Now this was actually a really silly and kinda funny matchup. I think just by looking at this setup, you can probably guess exactly what's going to happen. Cacturne has to set up Spikes and Magcargo has to use Rock Slide. You only get one turn, unfortunately, so both opponents have to get hit by the attack. But, if successful, both Shedinja will inevitably go down when they get hit.. then the fun begins.

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One by one, Logan will send out Shedinja after Shedinja, but they'll all immediately be hit by Cacturne's Spikes and go down the moment they pop out. It's pretty funny to watch this happen, though it does take a little bit, so if you miss either of the two Shedinja with Rock Slide, I can imagine it being a little annoying to get your second try. Given that Rock Slide is a little bit inaccurate, that's unfortunately more likely than you might wish. With only one turn, though, you can't really get that any more consistent. Thankfully, I was able to get it right the first time, so no need to worry.

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Your prize is a Full Heal!

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 Battle CD 12: Heracross Bide-a-thon [Single]

Who can hold out the longest?

This was the CD from the mayor's bookcase.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Ival

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Swellow Lv. 50

                     

                     

Both of these pokemon are holding a Salac Berry which will increase their Attack when their HP is low. Swellow will iterate through its moves. The trick here is to Endure the Aerial Ace which will take you out turn one. This will give you the opportunity to eat your Salac Berry and be able to outspeed Swellow. However, avoid the temptation to attack the next turn because Swellow will endure. If it endures a hit, it'll eat its own Salac Berry and you'll be unable to finish it off before getting taken out yourself. After it uses Endure, it'll go for another Aerial Ace and that's your chance to finish the game with Reversal!

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Your reward for this one is a Hyper Potion, alright, that's a pretty okay reward!

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 Battle CD 13: What is Porygon Anyway? [Single]

Try transforming into different types.

This was one of the Battle CDs we unlocked at the counter after clearing the first set.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Astor

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Spinda Lv. 50

                     

                     

I'm really not sure why this one was a 2-star challenge because the solution is pretty obvious from the title and subtitle alone. Porygon has a signature move called Conversion which allows it to change type to the type of one of its other moves. Since it only knows one move of a different type, it should always convert to the Flying type of its Aerial Ace. It just so happens that Spinda only knows Brick Break, so using Conversion to turn Porygon into a Flying type turns its weakness into a resistance to fighting and allows it to gain STAB when using Aerial Ace to counterattack! A few turns later and Spinda will go down!

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Strangely, despite being a really easy puzzle, this one provides us with probably the best reward so far: An Ultra Ball! It's still not anything too terribly special, but it's nice to have!

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 Battle CD 14: Whomp that Wobbuffet! [Single]

Counter or Mirror Coat?

This was the CD we obtained from Senilor's Wobbuffet in Agate Village during the Lucky Egg quest!

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Vs. Sim Trainer Hector

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Wobbuffet Lv. 50

                     

                     

This was a pretty obnoxious round. On the surface, I expected it to be just like a similar challenge earlier, that Wobbuffet would simply iterate between Counter and Mirror Coat, so I'd just have to alternate between Sludge Bomb and Magical Leaf. As it turns out, that's incorrect. Wobbuffet will choose his attacks randomly, so there's always a chance you'll get countered no matter which move choice you have. Instead, it turns out this is a battle of patience. I think the solution you're supposed to recognize is that Counter and Mirror Coat only deflect damage based on a single hit from moves like Bullet Seed and DoubleSlap, so you're supposed to use those moves in addition to Roselia's Sweet Scent to reduce Wobbuffet's evasion so that your attacks can hit more frequently. Part of what makes this annoying, however, is that Wobbuffet has Leftovers meaning he'll heal off a lot of the damage you deal, so you'll need to hope for a lot of 4-5 hit attacks in order to really build up damage. That said, there's an alternative strategy that's much faster if you're lucky enough to pull it off--poisoning Wobbuffet with Sludge Bomb. It doesn't know Safeguard so you do have the freedom to set this up! On my winning run, I opened up with six Sweet Scents to minimize Wobbuffet's chance of evading my attacks, and then started throwing out Sludge Bombs. My main goal was just to deal a hefty chunk of damage because I still had another pokemon to use, but I ended up poisoning Wobbuffet instead! Since he has Leftovers, he can't have a Lum Berry to heal the poison, so it's a valid strategy to go for, I'd say.

                     

                     

It wasn't too long before Wobbuffet countered a Sludge Bomb and took out Roselia, leaving me with Skitty. Since Wobbuffet was poisoned, I took the time to throw out some Charms to reduce Wobbuffet's attack. I'm pretty sure this doesn't actually affect the damage output of Counter, but I did it anyway because why not? As long as I didn't attack, Wobbuffet couldn't hurt me and his death was inevitable thanks to poison dealing more damage than Leftovers heals. My move selections at this point really didn't matter so long as I was careful not to use my stronger attacks. But, if you didn't manage to poison Wobbuffet, you can instead opt to use DoubleSlap and finish Wobbuffet off with Faint Attack once its HP gets low. Just remember that you only have so much PP for the attack.

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Your reward here is a Hyper Potion!

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 Battle CD 15: A Salute to Meteorologists [Single | 4 Turns]

Castform has Future Sight, too.

This CD was given to us by the Castform in Phenac City.

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Vs. Fun Old Man Leez

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Torkoal Lv. 50

                     

                     

Here we have another pretty fun one! Just a peek ahead at the pokemon, and minding the time limit, and you should be able to piece together what you can expect. Pay extra attention to the moves this Torkoal knows, though, because he can really screw you up if you aren't patient. You'll want to start off with a Future Sight. This attack will land at the end of the second turn after it's used. This timing is going to be important for this battle to work!

                     

                     

You might think you want to set up Rain Dance, but Torkoal is slower than you and will always open up with Sunny Day which will waste your first turn. Start with Future Sight so that you don't have to take a solar-powered Overheat the turn you set it up!

                     

                     

Once you've done that, you can then set up Rain Dance the following turn to reduce the damage of the incoming Overheat. Finally, you can finish off Torkoal with a Water-type Weather Ball!

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Shedinja Lv. 50

                     

                     

This Shedinja is here to time you out if you did things in the wrong order. If you did it right, Shedinja should go down the moment it's sent out when Future Sight connects. Yes, Future Sight will connect through Wonder Guard even if it isn't super-effective. This is because damage is calculated based on the pokemon that was out before, Torkoal. Though I'm unsure of it works when Future Sight is used while Shedinja is out, but that's irrelevant to this challenge. If Shedinja is still around, you won't be able to kill it in time and you may as well give up. Remember, you only have 4 turns and it'll take 2 turns for a Future Sight to connect. None of Castform's other attacks can attack Shedinja through Wonder Guard. To add insult to injury, Shedinja even knows Dig to protect itself further!

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Gyarados Lv. 50

                     

                     

If you've done everything right, you should have one more turn remaining by the time Gyarados, it should be raining, and the solution should be obvious. Gyarados' Dragon Rage will probably deal enough damage if you've taken any unnecessary damage, but if you did things right, Gyarados should be unable to finish you off with it. Then, you can take it out with a rain-powered Thunder to ensure your victory!

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Your reward is a Revive! Still an item you can just buy in shops, but it's better than most of the rewards so far! A fairly expensive item, to be sure. And this challenge required some extra thought, so I'm glad it got a more fitting reward.

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 Battle CD 16: Slowpoke Family Feud [Double]

Sharpedo, please don't thrash about!

This CD was dropped by Blusix in Phenac City. If you didn't battle him there, it can still be found where he was standing, so take a look around Phenac!

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Vs. Sim Trainer Ifong

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Slowpoke Lv. 50 & Slowbro Lv. 50

                

                

Sharpedo's only move is Thrash, so it's bound to confuse itself by the end of the match. Your goal is to have Misdreavous use Skill Swap to move the ability Own Tempo onto Sharpedo. The only problem, Slowpoke and Slowbro have two possible abilities: Own Tempo or Oblivious, and the preview of the pokemon involved only shows you stats and movesets. It doesn't show you the pokemon's ability. That's troubling because now it's your job to figure out which of these pokemon has Own Tempo. In order to do this, you can either rely on luck, or use Confuse Ray to see if it fails. You may need to keep your Misdreavus alive by using Pain Split to heal it off of the opponent's HP. Once you've found the pokemon with Own Tempo, you can swap it with Misdreavus' Levitate using Skill Swap, and then swap again with Sharpedo's Rough Skin. Now, Sharpedo can thrash to his heart's content without ever worrying about getting confused.

An interesting fact about this one, the Slowpoke can't actually damage Sharpedo directly since they only know Confusion to hurt Misdreavus and that can't affect Sharpedo since it's a Dark type. As a result, you can feel free to use Pain Split on Sharpedo to help keep Misdreavus alive for longer if you've already passed Own Tempo onto it. If Sharpedo can't get confused, he can't take any damage until he starts using Struggle. By that point, the battle should be over.

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Slowking Lv. 50

                

                

Since you can't control which target Thrash goes after, there's no point in really strategizing who to take out first. Eventually, they'll all go down anyway. You can use Confuse Ray and Pain Split to speed up the process a bit, though. 

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Your prize for winning this battle is a Full Heal.

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 Battle CD 17: The Rattata that Roared [Single | 4 Turnns]

Can a Lv. 5 prevail over a Lv. 100?

This is the third of the CDs made available after clearing the first set of CDs purchased at the counter.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Geplin

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Shuckle Lv. 100

                     

                     

By reading the title and subtitle, I was honestly expecting a completely different strategy revolving around the classic Endure and Endeavor strat. Nope, this battle instead opts for some more fixed damage stuff, so let's have at it! Shuckle only knows Bide, so technically this battle could be won with a lot of patience under normal conditions, but here we're given a time limit of 4 turns so we've gotta figure something else out. It just so happens, though, that our Rattata is equipped perfectly to do just that. You'll want to open up with Toxic to build up as much free damage as possible. Then, you'll want to set up Substitute so that you can take a hit without any problems. On the third turn, hit Shuckle with a Super Fang to halve its HP. Its Bide will unleash and take you out unless you've set up Substitute. By this point, Toxic damage should be built up enough for Shuckle to go down by the end of the fourth turn, even if you miss. A fairly easy win despite the intimidating circumstances of pitting a Lv. 5 against a Lv. 100.

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Your reward is an Energy Root... because you haven't got enough herbs from running into Munchlax for the 31st time.

  

In addition, after clearing CDs 09, 13, and 17, CDs 25, 26, and 30 are all available for purchase at the counter.

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 Battle CD 18: Farfetch'd Substitute [Single]

Watch it Flail when in trouble!

This was the CD we found aboard the S.S. Libra

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Vs. Sim Trainer Havek

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Farfetch'd Lv. 40

                     

                     

Now we get to be on the receiving end of Substitute! Thankfully, we know from experience that Farfetch'd's defenses are trash-tier. One big detail about Substitute you'll have to recognize here is that it'll break in the middle of an attack like Fury Swipes as long as you do enough damage. So, hitting Farfetch'd's Substitute with two hits of Fury Swipes will always break it. Any further hits will damage Farfetch'd himself... and that's the strat. Just spam Fury Swipes until you get lucky enough for Farfetch'd to go down. He will KO you with Flail if you ever relent, so make sure to stay on the offensive! If his HP ends up low but he doesn't get KO'd, you're done for. He'll outspeed you and eat his Leichi Berry to increase his attack. He'll KO you even from full health and if you aren't proactively attacking with Fury Swipes, he'll be left with 3 HP at the end of the battle. Make sure that doesn't happen!

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Your prize here is a guard spec... thanks...?

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 Battle CD 19: Volcanic Reaction [Double | 2 Turns]

A fiery ordeal of invasive flavor!

This was the CD dropped by Resix in Phenac City. If you don't have it, you can still find it by going to where he was in Phenac.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Gepherd

 

Muk Lv. 50 & Manectric Lv. 50

                 

                

This is our first 3-star difficulty challenge and it shows! There are lots of red herrings here and, I'll be honest, I was fooled for quite a while and had to look up the solution. Granted, I felt pretty silly for having taken the bait I did here. The 2-turn limit for this challenge is really strict, so there's only one combination of moves that'll get the job done. The real scary part isn't so much these two foes, but the one that comes after them that is immune to all of your strongest attacks... except for one who isn't out just yet. Since you don't have enough time to switch and take out Manectric and Muk, you'll need to use Explosion with Golem in order to quickly send out your next pokemon. This Explosion will also be enough to take out Muk and Manectric, so that's taken care of easy enough. Rhydon will manage to hold on with a little bit of HP remaining. Now you just have to make sure you can do enough damage to the next pokemon to win the battle next turn.

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Gengar Lv. 60

                

                

Flareon is the star player here, but you'll need to do more than just send him out. Flareon is faster than Rhydon and, if Rhydon carelessly used Earthquake, it'll take out Flareon who has no protection against it. In addition, Flareon's Overheat on its own isn't enough to take out Gengar, even in conjunction with Rhydon's Flamethrower. Instead, you'll need to preemptively use Flamethrower on Golem so that, when Flareon takes its place, Flamethrower can hit Flareon and trigger his Flash Fire ability. From there, Flareon's Overheat should do enouogh damage to take out Gengar in one hit!

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This was a pretty tough puzzle with lots of red herrings including an entire pokemon, Swellow, which was unrelated to the solution at all! Your prize? ...a burn heal. This terrible reward has to be intentional coming off of rewards like Revives, Ultra Balls, and even Full Heals.

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 Battle CD 20: Let Slip the Houndoom! [Double | 4 Turns]

Time for a quick-change artist!

This CD came bundled with the Disc Case, so you should have it by default.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Acel

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Wobbuffet Lv. 50 & Banette Lv. 50

                

                 

So this is an odd one. Your Salamence here is completely useless. It knows no relevant moves to the battle at all! It can't even damage the opponent! You'll have to get rid of it if you want any chance to win within the time limit, but Wobbuffet's Shadow Tag stops you from switching! You're going to need to take it out with Dusclops' Ice Beam so that you can start dishing out some real damage!

                

                 

Now that Salamence is out of the picture, you've got 3 turns to wrap this battle up! What a convenience, though, the foe happens to have three pokemon! You can have Houndoom and Dusclops gang up on Banette to avoid getting countered by Wobbuffet.

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Wynaut Lv. 50

                

                 

Houndoom's Crunch will be enough to take out Banette, leaving Wynaut to take the blunt of Shadow Punch before it even has the chance to counter. Next, you can have Dusclops use Shadow Punch on Wobbuffet. It should be able able to take one counter. If you're lucky, Wobbuffet will go for Mirror Coat like it did for me, and not counter at all. Meanwhile, Houndoom can take out Wynaut. Since Wynaut is getting defeated by this attack, there's no fear of Mirror Coat.

               

                 

Next, Houndoom and Dusclops can gang up on Wobbuffet. The collective attack should be enough to win, but if not, Wobbuffet can only possibly counter one of their attacks. The other can simply finish the job on the following turn.

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Your reward for this challenge is... an awakening?? Really?? I do promise these rewards start being worthwhile soon! I suppose this was one of the first Battle CDs you got, so it makes sense the reward would be a bit unimpressive...

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Anyway, that's the first 20 Battle CDs cleared! 30 more to go! Next time, we'll be taking on Battle CDs 21 - 30!

[Aura]

Battle Sim CDs 21-30

Once again, here's the link to the bulbapedia page. You know the drill by now, so let's jump right in!

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 Battle CD 21: Focus Punch Face-Off! [Double]

Everybody loves that Focus Punch!

This was the Battle CD obtained from Secc's office. Where he was beaten up by Cipher! I'm not gonna let that joke pass me by!

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Vs. Sim Trainer Bixby

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Swellow Lv. 50 & Meowth Lv. 50

                

                

This battle is all about keeping the heat off of Breloom from the start. You'll want to start with Clefable using Follow Me to distract the foes. The in-game hint suggests using Spore to put the opponent to sleep, but I found the better solution is to use Substitute here since there's no actual promise that Meowth won't throw a Pay Day at Breloom to stop his Focus Punch. Even if the Substitute breaks, damage for the substitute won't cause you to lose your focus! Once Substitute is up, you can use Focus Punch to take out Swellow and Follow Me to keep the substitute from getting broken. Now, things are looking pretty.

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Mankey Lv. 50

                

                

Mankey is a curious case here. I decided to go for Moonlight on Clefable to heal off some of the damages and hopefully take another hit while Breloom went in for the DynamicPunch to take out Mankey. Both Meowth and Mankey targeted Breloom, but Meowth's Pay Day couldn't actually do enough damage to break the substitute so Mankey's Focus Punch was wasted. After that, Breloom's Focus Punch connected and took out Mankey.

               

                

It was now 2 on 1 and Meowth was unable to target both opponents, so we both simply had to go for Focus Punch. He'd disrupt one of our focuses but the other would take him out immediately. Done and done.

I suppose the fact that I didn't even use Spore which was apparently part of the intended solution just goes to show how OP of a move Substitute can be.

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Your reward for winning this challenge is TM01: Focus Punch! Finally, a prize that's actually worthwhile!

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 Battle CD 22: Banette and Plusle [Single]

A surprisingly good pair of friends.

This was the CD obtained from Duking's office in Pyrite Town. Of course, it involves Plusle.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Abono

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Gyarados Lv. 50

                    

                    

This is a bit of an odd one. There's no real way to predict the Gyarados' strategy without just assuming that it's scripted. Gyarados will keep using Dragon Dance until he gets one off successfully, and then proceeds to use Earthquake to sweep your team. So, all you have to do is simply have Banette use Snatch to steal each one to max out your Attack and Speed before taking Gyarados out with a Shadow Ball. I find this strategy especially odd because, when faced with an opponent that knows Snatch, why would anyone continue to use Dragon Dance? Especially after the second or third successful snatch?

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Zangoose Lv. 50

                    

                    

Regardless, the next opponent is a Zangoose which is unfortunately immune to our Shadow Ball. The best thing we can do here is go for Grudge since Zangoose will just take us out immediately with his own Shadow Ball.

                    

                    

From here, Zangoose will try to set up Swords Dance. Again, not really necessary at all, he could easily take out a lone Plusle, but the solution here is pretty obvious factoring in Plusle's available moves. Use Encore to trap him into Swords Dance and then assault him with Charge and Thundershock a couple of times! He'll be unable to lay a finger on you, so you're good to go!

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Your reward for this battle is a Rare Candy. Fair enough!

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 Battle CD 23: Aerodactyl Vs. Kyogre [Single]

Wait out the storm!

This CD was found on the ground floor of Kaminko's garage.

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Sim Trainer Agora

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Kyogre Lv. 50

                    

                    

Now this was actually a very interesting puzzle to me! The subtitle implies that your goal is to wait out the rain before making a move, but obviously, with Gen 3 Torrent, the rain will never relent. The "storm" you're waiting out actually refers to Kyogre's moves: Hydro Pump and Thunder. This requires some knowledge of the pokemon, though. Aerodactyl has Pressure, so Kyogre's usage of these moves is limited. He gets 3 uses of Hydro Pump and 5 uses of Thunder, so your goal is to survive for a total of 8 turns before you can go on the offensive. Thankfully, you're well equipped to do so! Just alternate between Protect and Substitute. If you're lucky, Kyogre might even miss a Hydro Pump against your Substitute, allowing you to buy even more time! But don't count on it, start with Protect because you can only use it every other turn and Substitute can only be used a finite amount of times before you have to use Rest to heal up. Your Aerodactyl does have a Chesto Berry, but that won't protect him from the incoming Thunder. Once you've starved Kyogre of PP, you've basically won. All Kyogre has now is Double-Edge which you resist. It can still do a hefty chunk of damage, though, so watch your HP and use Rest when necessary! Other than that, you can just spam AncientPower and hope for stat boosts to win faster. Eventually, Kyogre will take himself out with recoil from Double-Edge, though, so watching your health is the only thing that really matters.

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Your reward is a Mental Herb.

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 Battle CD 24: Batter Down Protection [Double | 5 Turns]

Break the string of Protect!

This CD was obtained from the locker room on the first floor in ONBS.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Dalix

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Scizor Lv. 50 & Hitmonlee Lv. 50

                

                

Now, I'm actually pretty sure I didn't win this challenge the intended way. What ended up happening was I switched Manectric out on turn one while Plusle went for Charge to increase the power of Spark.

                

                

From here, I had Ninetails use Imprison. Since Ninetails knows Protect, this jams the move Protect for the remainder of the time limit. I think what I was supposed to do next was use Baton Pass to bring Manectric back out in Plusle's place under the effect of Charge, then Ninetails can take out Scizor with Flamethrower while Manectric's Magnet-boosted Charge would be enough to take out Hitmonlee. Instead, I just attacked Hitmonlee with Plusle which left him with a sliver of HP, making the rest of the battle a bit awkward.

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Muk Lv. 50

                

                

With some luck, I was able to make up for lost ground, though. On turn four, Plusle was able to take out Hitmonlee and Ninetails used Flamethrower to damage Muk which resulted in a lucky burn!

               

                

The burn would offer some extra chip damage which I'd need to win the battle. Plusle went for Helping Hand and Ninetails went for another Flamethrower. This coupled with the burn damage from the previous turn was enough to leave Muk with 16 HP, causing him to go down to 0 by the end of the 5th turn. Had I baton Passed into Hitmonlee, I think I would've stood a better chance with two turns against this Muk. I can't really guarantee it'd work out very well, though without putting it into practice, but I was able to win the challenge and that's good enough for me!

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 x 5

Your reward here I'd say is actually really nice: Five Lum Berries!

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 Battle CD 25: Vigoroth Twosome! [Double]

They're good at heckling, too!

This CD is purchasable after clearing the second wave of over-the-counter CDs.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Cord

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Ninjask Lv. 50 & Clefable Lv. 50

                

                

Both of your Vigoroth are identical. They know Taunt, Encore, and Facade. You're going to need to use these moves strategically in order to balance damage taken and received so that you can come out on top! The opponent's strategy is to set up with Ninjask while Clefable distracts you with Follow Me, then he'll use Baton Pass into Ursaring to completely wreck your shit with Earthquake. Your first order of business here is to shut down that Clefable with Taunt. You may as well also hit it with a Facade since Ninjask is protecting this turn. The following turn, Ninjask will go for Swords Dance, so you'll want to use Encore to lock it into that while Clefable can only choose Pound. Both of your vigoroth outspeed Clefable which makes Taunt significantly more useful on it. Keep that in mind. Now that Ninjask is locked into Swords Dance, you're pretty secure. Hammer it with a Facade while using another Taunt to keep Clefable from using status moves. Now that Ninjask's HP is low, you can double down on Facade against him. One will be enough to take him out, and the other...

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Ursaring Lv. 50

                

                

...The other Facade will hit the Ursaring as it comes out. This is pretty important as this Ursaring is definitely the most terrifying pokemon to deal with here. Its Earthquake will tear through most of your HP, but as long as it didn't get the stat boosts passed on from Ninjask, it's managable. Its Earthquake will also do a hefty chunk of damage to Clefable, so that's a plus! Anyway, you're not going to be able to take another Earthquake from Ursaring, so double down on him to take him out before he gets out another one!

               

                

Finally, it's two-on-one with Clefable. You can use Encore to lock him into Cosmic Power or Follow Me and even use Taunt to force him into using Struggle and hurting himself with recoil. It's not really necessary though since he's otherwise completely helpless and doing so actually just lets him attack. Just beat down on Clefable until the game is over!

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Your reward for this win is a White Herb!

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 Battle CD 26: A Slaking Pair [Double | 8 Turns]

They're tough if they aren't Truant...

This was another CD unlocked for purchase after clearing the second wave of over-the-counter CDs.

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Vs. Sim Trainer Coki

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Kecleon Lv. 50 & Blissey Lv. 50

                

                

The natural follow-up to a challenge with two Vigoroth is a challenge with two Slaking, right? Slaking is a terrifying beast and these have Choice Bands to make them that much worse! The trick here is to offset the Truant turns with the opponent's Protect turns. You've got plenty of turns to make it work, so let's figure it out! Right off the bat, both Kecleon and Blissey are going to use Protect, so you're not going to be able to make any progress as it is. Instead, you'll need to switch one of your Slaking out while the other one stays in to try and attack, with futility.

                

                

Exploud only knows Roar, so you're going to need to use that.

                

                

Meanwhile, since your active Slaking is still locked out of attacking by your opponent's Protect, you can swap him out for the other Slaking whose attacks are now free from the threat of protect!

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

Dusclops Lv. 50

                

                

Roar will bring out Dusclops whose Protect will again be offset. We can go ahead and take care of Blissey here with Double-Edge. This'll deal some pretty heavy recoil damage due to Blissey's immense health, but Slaking's bulk is enough that it ultimately won't matter all that much. We'll also switch Exploud out in order to work around Dusclops' Ghost type and Protect. Remembeer, both Slakings have Choice Band so they can't alternate between Double-Edge and Shadow Ball.

                

                

Out comes Kecleon again along with our other Slaking. There's no need to change up anymore. The newly switched Slaking can use Shadow Ball to take out Dusclops. The other Slaking will be loafing around on this Kecleon's Protected turn.

               

                

To play it safe, you may want to switch out the Shadow Ball Slaking just in case Kecleon catches you off guard with some monstrous critical hit. It's only using Scratch, though, so I doubt it'll be able to actually take you out. A Double Edge on your first free turn should be enough to take it out. If it happened to delay using Protect like some sort of tactical genius, that's fine because you can just stagger your switch for a turn with Roar and switch Exploud out on the next turn to secure the win. The 8-turn time limit is actually extremely generous for this battle.

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

Your prize is an Ultra Ball.

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

 Battle CD 27: Big Bang, Sorry [Double | 2 Turns]

Surviving SelfDestruct is the key!

This was the CD dropped by Yellowsix at Phenac City. If you don't have it yet, you can still find it where Yellowsix was standing so go back there and look around!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Barsto

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

 

Graveler Lv. 50 & Dusclops Lv. 50

                

                

Now this is another really fun round! You already know this Graveler is going to use SelfDestruct, but they're going to start by stalling a turn with Protect giving you a chance to setup. And setup you will! Porygon2 has a few moves to work with, but only one will help you win this battle. Hitmonlee has a few moves that look useful, but if you're going to win this battle in 2 turns, you'r egoing to need to turn SelfDestruct against them. This means you need to be able to take a hit! The only way you're going to do that is if you've got a pokemon who'll resist it! Thankfully, Porygon2 knows Conversion 2 which changes it to a type that resists the previous move used against it. Since the opponents are using Protect on turn 1 and SelfDestruct turn 2, there's unfortunately not much use we can get out of this from their moves. Thankfully, we don't need them at all! Hitmonlee also knows the move Tackle which just so happens to be a Normal type move! If we use Conversion 2 with Porygon2 and have Hitmonlee hit it with Tackle, we get a Porygon2 that resists Normal attacks. If we're really lucky, he'll become Ghost type and be completely immune, but it's pretty likely you'll get a Rock or Steel type one as well. From here, your job isn't quite over. You've still got that 2-turn limit. We need to be able to take out Dusclops this turn. Thankfully, HItmonlee knows Foresight. While this is normally used to allow Ghost-types to be hit by your Fighting- or Normal-type attacks, in this case, it's going to be used to throw off their SelfDestruct strategy! Using Foresight makes Dusclops now vulnerable to SelfDestruct! When Graveler uses SelfDestruct, now everything on the field gets wiped out except for Porygon2 who resists the attack thanks to that Tackle and Conversion 2 from earlier!

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

Your reward here is a Timer Ball!

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

 Battle CD 28: Bomb Squad [Double]

Prevent the opponent's Explosion!

This CD was dropped by Greesix in Phenac City. If you don't have it, go look around there and you'll find it on the ground.

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

Chaser Frego

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

 

Ariados Lv. 50 & Xatu Lv. 50

                

                

Once again, we have a CD that sort of plays off of the concept of the previous one. Last challenge was about surviving SelfDestruct, this one is about preventing Explosion! That's a little easier said than done, you'll want to take a quick peak at the pokemon ahead. Even then, I can see this puzzle stumping you if you don't know a lot about pokemon. Once again, the CD only tells you about stats and movesets. It doesn't provide any insight on abilities. But, if you are familiar with what abilities are on the table, you should be able to recognize what the strategy is here. You'll need to take out Ariados and Xatu on the same turn so that the next two pokemon will arrive at the same time. How will we do that? Well, Feraligatr just happens to know Surf! With Furret's Helping Hand, we can ensure that both foes go down at the same time, though perhaps you can get it done a bit faster by using stronger attacks first, all that's important is that they both go down on the same turn.

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

 

Electrode Lv. 50 & Psyduck Lv. 50

                

                

The reason you need to take them both out at the same time is because of this! The very next pokemon to come out will be Electrode! This thing will easily outspeed everything on the field and detonate immediately with a Choice-Band powered Explosion. There is absolutely no survivng that! That's why you need Psyduck to also get dragged out before the Electrode gets a chance to attack. Psyduck has the Damp ability which prevents Electrode's explosion from going off! Now we can focus on defusing the tension by singling out Electrode and taking him out while he can't make a move.

               

                

Now, it's just a matter of picking off that Psyduck! Easy!

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

Your reward here is another Timer Ball!

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

 Battle CD 29: Madcap Magikarp [Double | 5 Turns]

Splash is all any Magikarp does.

This was yet another CD that came from the catwalks over Kaminko's garage.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Dacel

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

 

Magikarp Lv. 48 & Magikarp Lv. 49

                

                

You've got 5 turns to take out three Magikarp! Sounds easy, right? Well, it is until you notice your pokemon's movesets. The only harming moves on your team are Fissure and Sheer Cold. Yikes. So, we'll need to be a bit creative in our approach. Smeargle knows Mind Reader and Baton Pass, while Spheal only knows Sheer Cold. We also have a Poliwhirl that knows Mind Reader and Mimic. Thinking things through logically, we're going to need to mimic one of these moves early on, so let's swap Spheal out with Poliwrath and go ahead and set up Mind Reader on that Lv. 48 Magikarp. It's important we target the Lv. 48 one, because OHKO attacks don't actually affect pokemon higher level than you. Smearlge happens to be Lv. 48, so his Fissure can only take out the Lv. 48 Magikarp.

                

                

From here, we can have Poliwhirl use Mimic to copy Smeargle's Fissure which will take out that Lv. 48 Magikarp in one shot!

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

Magikarp Lv. 50

                

                

We're now down one Magikarp but have two more to go! Our Poliwhirl now knows Mind Reader and Fissure. Since Poliwhirl is Lv. 50, he can take out the Lv. 50 Magikarp and the Lv. 49 one, too! But we're already two turns in! We don't have enough time to set up two Mind Readers and follow them both up with Fissure from one pokemon, do we? Well, that's where Smeargle's third move comes into play! Poliwhirl can use Mind Reader on the Lv. 50 Magikarp while Smeargle can use Mind Reader on the Lv. 49. From here, Poliwhirl can use Fissure to take out the Lv. 50 while Smeargle can use Baton Pass to switch out to Spheal!

               

                

To my surprise, Mind Reader actually passes like stat changes with Baton Pass! This was a fact I genuinely did not know until this challenge, mainly because I can't think of one pokemon besides Smeargle who can actually learn these two moves together.

[After looking into it, indeed, this is an extremely rare move combo, but it is easily accessible for Ninjask who can learn both moves by levelup. In addition, it can also naturally be accomplished with Mimic, Metronome and the like as well. There was also an event Mr. Mime distributed in Gen II who knew Mind Reader and could learn Baton Pass by levelup.]

Anyway, now that Mind Reader is passed onto Spheal, we can finish this battle up with a Sheer Cold on that Lv. 49 Magikarp!

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

Your reward here is an Elixir!

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

 Battle CD 30: Shedinja and Raticate [Double | 4 Turns]

Find that winning combination!

This is the last of the over-the-counter CDs purchasable after clearing the second wave. No more CDs can be purchased from the counter, but that still doesn't mean we have all the Battle CDs in the game just yet!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Ekeol

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

 

Meditite Lv. 50 & Medicham Lv. 50

                

                

I think I've come to understand that Shedinja just makes for a really fun pokemon to use in these Battle Puzzles and this one is no exception! Shedinja knows Mimic while Raticate knows Endeavor. I think you can see where this is going already. We use Endeavor with Raticate to weaken Medicham or Meditite. They're going to use Detect to protect from it, but that's fine, we're just doing it to copy the attack with Mimic. Now, we can hit Meditite and Medicham both with Endeavor from Shedinja to reudce their HP to 1! Meanwhile, we can have Raticate retreat underground to ensure his safety while Shedinja goes for Sandstorm! (Don't carelessly go for this turn 1 like I made the foolish mistake of because you'll only succeed in knocking yourself out. Oops!) 

This is the most devastating Sandstorm you'll ever see. It nukes the field exterminating everything with 1HP even with Meditite and Medicham hiding behind Detect. The only one safe from the devastation is Raticate who took shelter underground. (In all seriousness, Raticate's move choice is entirely irrelevant after that initial Endeavor so it can kinda just do whatever it wants as long as it doesn't use Toxic on Shedinja. Also, no, you can't use Toxic to speed up the process at all because both Meditite and Medicham have Pecha Berries. Sorry!

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

Your reward for this one is another Ultra Ball!

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

And that's it for the first 30 Battle CDs! Only 20 remain in the game! We're getting there slowly but surely! I've gotta say I'm actually enjoying these battle challenges a lot more than I thought I would. I was expecting them to be really obtuse and frustrating to go through, but so far only a few of them have felt even remotely unfair. For the most part, they're very predictable and easy to figure out just from looking at the details. The puzzles I've gotten stuck on are usually simply because I failed to notice something and not because of some unfair trick the game pulled on me. I also love how creatively this game uses double battle mechanics to solve puzzles, too! You don't usually think about things like turning your opponent's moves against them or KOing your own partner to switch them out quickly, so it's interesting to explore these obscure or unrealistic situations here and, when you recognize the solution to the puzzle immediately, especially a difficult one, it feels so good to see it all in action! I'm actually more excited than I thought I'd be to see the rest of the challenges! Next time, we move on to Battle CDs 31-40!

[Aura]

 

We're nearing the end of the Battle CDs! Today we're tackling CDs 31-40! The full details of each of these CDs can be found here. Let's waste no time!

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

 Battle CD 31: Donphan Doldrums [Double | 2 Turns]

Being too tough can be a problem.

This was the Battle CD obtained from the navigator at the dock of Citadark Isle.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Hiplog

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

 

Magneton Lv. 50 & Rhydon Lv. 50

                

                

I actually made this one a lot more complicated than it needed to be at first. The solution is very simple, to the point where I'm not even really sure I'd agree this challenge earned its 3-star difficulty rating. The big puzzle factor is that your opponent has six pokemon and you only have two turns to tear through them all. At first, I thought I'd need Starmie because it was the only pokemon on the team that knew a move that was super-effective against the Victreebel at the end. Instead, it turned out that Earthquake was all that was needed to take care of Victreebel. Other than that, all the other pokemon are weak to Earthquake, so the solution proved very simple after this discovery.

                

                

Your first move for Starmie is pretty irrelevant, I believe as long as you avoid the urge to KO the Rhydon with Waterfall (you'll see why soon enough). I personally like to switch to a pokemon like Electrode which I know will go down to an Earthquake. Your defensive presence really has no bearing in this battle. The important part of this first turn, though, is that Donphan goes for Earthquake to tear through everything around it.

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

 

Manectric Lv. 50 & Magcargo Lv. 50

                

                

Next, you'll want to bring out Metagross who also knows Earthquake. We couldn't simply switch him in because he will go down in one hit to Donphan's Earthquake. Now, we simply use Earthquake with both of our pokemon to win. Metagross' Earthquake does enough to take out the fragile defenses of Manectric and the quad-weak Magcargo, but is weak enough that it won't KO Donphan even if he took some hits from the first turn.

 

Aggron Lv. 50 & Victreebel Lv. 50

                

                

The reason it was important that we didn't have Starmie KO Rhydon on turn 1 is because that would've allowed Aggron to come out last turn and he would've had a chance to use Protect which would save him for this turn and stall out our 2-turn timer. This time, Aggron and Victreebel both came out in the middle of a turn, so they don't get a chance to use a move before Donphan's Earthquake goes off, once again killing everything around it!

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

Your reward here is a Full Restore! Okay, that's a pretty solid prize!

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

 Battle CD 32: Survive Big Booms! [Double | 5 Turns]

How will you take out the Shuckle?

This CD was dropped by Browsix during the attack at Phenac City. If you don't have it, go to where Browsix was during the attack and you'll find it on the ground.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Feltsa

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

 

Gengar Lv. 60 & Electrode Lv. 50

                

                 

This was a puzzle I'll admit I had to look up a guide for. The solution I found was rather disappointing, so I don't blame myself too much for having to resort to a guide. You should see what I mean shortly. To start off, both Electrode is going to SelfDestruct right away. Gengar doesn't have to worry about taking any damage. You could keep your pokemon alive with Protect, but you have a 5-turn limit and that Gengar is a ticking timebomb. Its Explosion is going to be important for the winning strategy here and we've only got one more turn before it explodes. So, instead of just passively keeping our active pokemon alive, we're going to make a switch.

                

                 

This switch is going to be Dusclops, who is also immune to Electrode's imminent SelfDestruct. Alakazam will stay in, though, and go for Protect to keep himself around. This will fully nullify Electrode's SelfDestruct, making it seem like a bit of a waste. Don't worry, though. The main move we need to exploit is Gengar's Explosion.

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

Shedinja Lv. 50

                

                 

Despite what the subtitle seems to imply, this Shedinja is by far the worst part of this matchup and the biggest source of frustration for me and this puzzle. Nothing on your team can take it out easily even though you'd certainly expect Dusclops to at least have Shadow Punch. You can't Counter it or have Gengar's Explosion take it out. The only way you can get rid of this thing is to use Aggron's Mimic to copy its own Shadow Ball. Honestly, it's a whole layer to the puzzle I really feel like shouldn't be there when a similar effect could've been obtained with another combination of pokemon that works more consistently. Regardless, this Shedinja is what we have to deal with and he'll throw a wrench into every strategy you can think of, making the solution honestly feel rather arbitrary to me. Now that Alakazam and Dusclops are here, Shedinja is going to go for Shadow Ball to take out Alakazam before he can do any damage.

                

                 

That's alright, though, because our main goal is to get Aggron out and ready to go. Alakazam's move selection is pretty irrelevant as long as he doesn't take the bate of attacking Gengar with Psychic. Now this is where the solution becomes iffy. The whole reason this Shedinja is here is because he throws off the main strategy that immediately comes to mind. If Aggron uses Counter, he'll Counter the last attack used. It just so happens that Shedinja's Shadow Ball is the last attack to go off and if Aggron ends up countering that, even if he was about to counter the entire Explosion, he'll target Shedinja and try to counter its Shadow Ball instead, which will then be avoided because of Wonder Guard. This is why that initial switch to Dusclops is important because, with a pokemon that is weak against Shadow Ball, you can bait your opponent into using Shadow Ball on Dusclops instead of Aggron. This solution... doesn't work to me. I'd much rather a more consistent strategy like using Follow Me or Torment or some other means to ensure Shedinja can't use Shadow Ball for at least one turn. Just... hoping the opponent takes the bait doesn't feel like a consistent enough strategy to work for a challenge like this. Regardless, Shedinja does go after the super-effective hit, so Aggron gets his chance to counter Gengar's Explosion!

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

Shuckle Lv. 50

                

                 

With Counter at the ready, poor Shuckle won't even know what hit her. Gengar has a 10-level advantage on Aggron and was holding a Silk Scarf. Even with the quad-resistance, that's a lot of damage! But Aggron can take it and dish it out, too! With Counter, the damage gets doubled and applied in the direction the attack came from, which means bye bye, Shuckle!

               

                 

Now, since this game decided to go the most awkward route possible of dealing with this Shedinja, we're going to have to awkwardly spend the last two turns of our timer using Mimic to copy Shedinja's Shadow Ball and shoot it back at it to take it out. And finally, that's the end of the challenge! What an awkward mess.

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

Your reward here is a revive, a fair reward I suppose.

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

 Battle CD 33: Cutie Pokemon Concerto Side A [Single]

A frolicking battle with cute Pokemon.

This was the CD we borrowed from the Cooltrianer in the residential wing of the Pokemon HQ Lab.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Hezzy

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

Smoochum Lv. 5

                    

                    

It's a Little Cup Battle! The use of Johto Pokemon also adds a bit of nostalgic flare with Pokemon Stadium 2! I actually really like this one because there's no weird gimmicks or puzzle. In fact, the game recognizes that this isn't much of a puzzle either. Going forward, the rest of the CDs starting with this one are labelled with the difficulty rating of "----" rather than any sort of star value. In other words, these are just no-holds barred themed battles! Carefully consider the moves of your pokemon and your opponents before making your decisions. Here, Smoochum is going to open up with Fake-Out, so you may want to take the opportunity to switch into Cyndaquil, but knowing the pokemon coming up, I figured Chikorita might not actually be of much use anywhere in this battle, so I decided to go ahead and stay in, using Light Screen and Ancient Power to take out Smoochum. It was actually quite easy to overcome her.

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

Elekid Lv. 5

                    

                    

Elekid came next and I'm pretty confident I would've been able to take him out, too, had it not been for some absolutely garbage RNG. Despite staying alive with my Sitrus Berry and Synthesis, Elekid kept making me Flinch with Rolling Kick so I couldn't do a thing to it with Chikorita. Kinda rude, not gonna lie. But that's fine, because the next pokemon is pretty much a hard counter to this Elekid.

                    

                    

All you've gotta do with Cyndaquil is spam Dig and Elekid won't stand a chance. If necessary, you can follow-up with Quick Attack for a quick finish, just be wary of the possibility of Static taking effect.

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

Magby Lv. 5

                    

                    

By the time Magby is out, the battle is already won. Just keep using Dig and Magby will probably go down to Cyndaquil as well.

                    

                    

If Magby manages to take Cyndaquil down, then Totodile can come along and make quick work of Magby with Water Gun!

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

 

Your prize for clearing this challenge is a Nugget, perhaps the best reward so far, and Battle CD 34. More specifically, Battle CD 33 is a dual-sided CD with Side B being "Battle CD 34." After clearing Side A, you unlock Side B which swaps the pokemon on both sides. So, can you win with the other team? Usually, Side B is a harder variant. Let's see how it goes!

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

 Battle CD 34: Cutie Pokemon Concerto Side B [Single]

A frolicking battle with cute pokemon.

This is Side B of Battle CD 33. You'll need to clear Battle CD 33 in order to unlock this one.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Hezzy

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

Chikorita Lv. 5

                    

                    

Bulbapedia actually has the movesets incorrectly listed. One thing you'll notice if you take a peek at this CD is that the pokemon movesets are altered a little bit. While things are mostly the same, your pokemon have more coherent strategies to work with That's good because this Chikorita is actually a little scary to handle right away as you don't really have an out to it, though your pokemon are also notably missing their held items while your opponent retains theirs. Of course, you've gotta open up with your free Fake Out, but after this, Chikorita is pretty rough.

                    

                    

I decided to retreat into Magby to deal with Chikorita, but Chikorita still has AncientPower. I made the mistake of trying to set up Double Team in an effort to keep Magby around for longer, but it didn't go through and I wound up getting hit with a second AncientPower. But, with a  stroke of luck, Chikorita wound up getting Burned, so she couldn't recover as easily. Still, I definitely should've gone for Ember. Not only would it have done more damage, it would've offered an extra chance for that pleasant burn.

                    

                    

With Maby down but Chikorita burned, I brought Smoochum back out and went for another Fake Out followed by a series of Confusions. I was able to confuse Chikorita to slow her HP recovery before eventually finishing her off.

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

Cyndaquil Lv. 5

                    

                    

The rest of the battle is pretty simple. With Smoochum, I went for Confusion again but only ended up getting hit with Ember and taken out.

                    

                    

With Elekid, though, I was able to spam Shock Wave. Cyndaquil kept trying to dig, but I was faster so I could always respond with a simple Protect.

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

Totodile Lv. 5

                    

                    

I don't think I need to explain the strategy for this matchup. Simply using Shock Wave was enough to take out Totodile with no problem.

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

And the reward was another Nugget!

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

 Battle CD 35: Metronome Cup [Double]

Waggle that finger and try your luck!

This CD was found in the basement of the Pre Gym in Phenac City! You can find it in the desert area.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Docol

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

 

Geodude Lv. 5 & Machop Lv. 5

                

                 

This is a pretty fun one, though the odds are pretty stacked against you since Geodude and Machop both have significantly higher stats than Cleffa and Togepi. This is another Little Cup battle, but this time every pokemon involved only knows the move Metronome! That means that there is literally no strategy here beyond pressing the A button a lot and hoping for the best. Still, Metronome battles can be exciting to play every once in a while! Though I'd definitely never do a Metronome only randomizer run. If you don't win, just try, try again. Eventually, the moves used should line up and you'll get some good moves. Really, all it takes is just one good move to take out each opponent.

                

                

I had some pretty crappy luck for a bit, thanks to my pokemon consistently getting stuck into useless two-turn attacks. Eventually, I was able to take out Geodude with a Needle Arm, but Togepi didn't last much longer. All seemed lost when Machop used Yawn and put Cleffa to sleep, but Machop just couldn't get any damaging moves off before I was able to wake up and finish him off with a Volt Tackle (which nearly KO'd myself with recoil!)

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

Your reward for this game of chance is an X-Attack. Not too terribly exciting after our recent rewards, huh? Well, there it is!

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

 Battle CD 36: The King of Fighting Types Side A [Single]

A clash of macho Pokemon!

This was the disc found on the bookshelf in Nett's Office at ONBS

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Caben

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

Poliwrath Lv. 50

                    

                    

Every pokemon in this battle knows only two moves: DynamicPunch and Focus Punch. On the surface, this seems like a very heavily luck-based battle and, to a certain extent, it is. The game is essentially rock paper scissors. If you go for DynamicPunch, you can interrupt your opponent's Focus Punch and deal devastating damage. But, you have a 50% chance of missing. If they go for Focus Punch, you'll get hit for sure if you miss. But there's an extra layer of depth to it you may not catch onto right away. The faster pokemon has the advantage, because if they choose Focus Punch, the only way the attack can be stopped is by connecting a DynamicPunch. If both players go for Focus Punch, the faster pokemon will connect first, causing the slower one to lose their focus. This is especially significant because the Blaziken you start with in the beginning has the most speed in the entire battle, so you'll want to spam Focus Punch for the most chance of success. To further assist you, all of your pokemon have BlackBelts while your opponents don't. This extra layer of depth, I think, helps to justify the luck aspect since you can dramatically improve your odds of success based exclusively on which choice you make. Indeed, I was able to take out Poliwrath fairly easily with just Focus Punch.

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

Hitmonchan Lv. 50

                    

                    

Unfortunately, Hitmonchan was next and was able to connect a DynamicPunch, stopping me in my tracks and causing me to go down.

                    

                    

With Breloom, I was now outsped, so I had to switch to DynamicPunch to take out Hitmonchan. With DynamicPunch connected, I just had to wait for him to hit himself or take another DynamicPunch and Hitmonchan was down.

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

Hariyama Lv. 50

                    

                    

Where Blaziken was the fastest in the battle, Hariyama here is the slowest. So anything you use against it should be okay going for Focus Punch. Once again, though, Hariyama wound up hitting me with a DynamicPunch causing Breloom to go down. It's worth noting that, if you're lucky, you can get Breloom's Effect Spore to trigger on a hit like this, but I had no such luck.

                    

                    

Up next was Machamp who just needed to connect a Focus Punch or two to finish the deal. Hariyama missed a couple of times, so the battle was over!

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

 

Your reward was a PP Up! Yeah, it wasn't the most exciting challenge to talk about, but it was a different type of battle that was kinda fun to run through! As expected, you'll also unlock Side B.

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

 Battle CD 37: The King of Fighting Types Side B [Single]

A clash of macho Pokemon!

This is Side B of Battle CD 36. You'll need to complete that battle before unlocking this one!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Caben

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

Blaziken Lv. 50

                    

                    

The shoe is now on the other foot! Your opponent is the one with the type advantage! But things are a little bit different this time around. Each pokemon now has a full set of moves, but they all also still have access to DynamicPunch and Focus Punch. If I'm being totally honest, the extra attacks kinda just bog down this originally interesting concept. At the very least, for some of these pokemon, they do supply more consistent damage options, though. In fact, you start out with a pretty unfair advantage against Blaziken as one of Poliwrath's new moves is Surf! With Surf, you can dowse Blaziken easily. Though, while low on HP, Blaziken might hit you with a powerful Reversal which will take you out, but...

                    

                    

All you've gotta do is bring out Hitmonchan and Mach Punch to regain the upper hand! Now you've got the new fastest pokemon!

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

Breloom Lv. 50

                    

                    

With Breloom, you have a few options, but the safest is to assume he'll go for Spore, so just check him with a DynamicPunch and it might even be enough to knock him out! Let's just hope you don't end up hitting yourself after taking a DynamicPunch from Breloom.

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

Machamp Lv. 50

                    

                    

Last but not least, it's the big guy Machamp! I'll go for DynamicPunch again, because I'm greedy, in an effort to turn his massive attack against his bulk. Then proceed to go for a Focus Punch, now with further increased odds of success. Unfortunately, I'm unable to finish him off, but I am able to bring him down to the red zone.

                    

                    

Thankfully, I have the perfect tool for finishing the job. Hariyama can simply use Fake-Out to dish out the finishing blow.

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

The prize is yet another PP Up!

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

 Battle CD 38: Fossil Fandango Side A [Double]

Pokemon from an ancient era rise again!

This CD was obtained from the storage room at ONBS.

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

Vs Sim Trainer Burg

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

 

Lileep Lv. 50 & Anorith Lv. 50

                

                 

There isn't much at all that Lileep can do to stop us, so we're going to want to focus our attention on Anorith first since it knows some dangerous offensive attacks. Thankfully, it's Rock and Bug so it's weak to our AncientPower. If we're lucky, we can even get some stat boosts that will further help us with the rest of the battle!

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

Cradily Lv. 50

                

                 

Once Cradily joins the fray, things get a little scarier. We need ot continue using AncientPower to chip away at its HP, but there's not really much these two can do. It won't take long, though, before Cradily uses Bullet Seed to tear right through your pokemon. Kabuto didn't stay out for very long against Cradily.

                

                 

Your entire team is weak to Cradily, so you'll need to focus your energy on taking it out. With Kabutops' Aerial Ace, that becomes much more dooable. Soon, though, Omanyte will follow in the way of Kabuto.

                

                 

That means Omastar can come out. Between Omastar's Ice Beam and Kabutops' Aerial Ace, Cradily couldn't hold up much longer.

               

                 

And now it was only a matter of finishing off Lileep in much the same way.. It couldn't do much of anything.

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

 

Your reward for winning is a Max Elixir! Of course, you also get to unlock Side B!

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

 Battle CD 39: Fossil Fandango Side B [Double]

Pokemon from an ancient era rise again!

This is Side B of Battle CD 37. You'll need to complete that challenge first in order to unlock this one!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Burg

 

Omastar Lv. 50 & Kabutops Lv. 50

                

                 

In a bit of a twist, Side B has your opponent send out their pokemon in a different order. This time, we've gotta deal with Omastar and Kabutops from the getgo! We'll start by having Lileep use Bullet Seed on Omastar in an effort to protect Anorith from Waterfall. However, the attack doesn't do quite enough and Anorith went down to exactly that.

                

                 

But now we can pull out the big guns! With Cradily, I can use Bullet Seed to finish off Omastar while Lileep can use Bullet Seed to get started on Kabutops!

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

Kabuto Lv. 50

                

                 

With another Bullet Seed, Kabutops was down.

                

                 

This just left two pokemon at my mercy. Well... one, after Lileep's Bullet Seed hits Kabuto.

               

                 

Omanyte did manage to finish the job against Lileep, but...

               

                 

Well, it was too little too late. Omanyte was done for.

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

Surprising no one, the reward is a Max Elixir.

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

 Battle CD 40: Kanto Vs. Hoenn Side A [Single]

Which region will boast superiority?

This CD was obtained from the bookshelf in the house neighboring the shop in Pyrite Town.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Cabel

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

Sceptile Lv. 50

                    

                    

As you can probably guess from the title, this is a matchup between the starters of the Kanto Region and the starters of the Hoenn region. Since Sceptile is part Grass, Venusaur can make quick work of it simply by using Sludge Bomb. However, Sceptile also has Aerial Ace, so you may wanna play your cards carefully a bit with this matchup. It may be wiser to switch into Charizard, but I went through just fine with Venusaur. Sludge Bomb did more than enough damage on its own.

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

Blaziken Lv. 50

                    

                    

Naturally, leaving Venusaur out here at the mercy of Blaziken wasn't exactly on my schedule today, so I called Venusaur back.

                    

                    

I went for the obvious switch into Blastoise who resisted the incoming Blaze Kick. From there, I avoided the temptation to go straight for Hydro Cannon figuring the cooldown period. However, Earthquake didn't quite do as much as I was hoping and Blaziken was able to hit me with a couple of Sky Uppercuts before finally going down.

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

Swampert Lv. 50

                    

                    

Here is where I let loose with my Hydro Cannon, figuring I had nothing to lose. Hydro Cannon did a healthy chunk of damage to Swampert, but I would be unable to survive the incoming Earthquake, A fair trade, I'd say.

                    

                    

I could've brought out Charizard to avoid Earthquake, but I didn't wanna get stuck in a constant switching loop, switching simply wasn't necessary at this point. Instead, I'd just focus on blasting Swampert with Frenzy Plant to finish the battle.

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

 

And the prize was a Rare Candy as well as the unlocking of Side B! Unfortunately, Side B counts as Battle CD 41 which isn't in the 10 CDs I planned to do today. I suppose you can consider this a cliffhanger! Next time, we'll be finishing off these battle challenges with Battle CDs 41-50, starting with Side B which is presumably a more difficult counterpart to this challenge! Let's just wait and see!

[Aura]

Today will be the final time we spend doing these Battle CDs! We've finished every CD from 01-40 so we only have ten more to go! One of these we've actually already finished earlier to get our hands on the Sunny Day TM, but we'll include that one here as well for the sake of cohesion, just like the first one. Here is the link to the Bulbapedia page on Battle CDs 41-50 for you to check up on further details! All of the remaining battles are just themed battles with no time limit, so from here on out there's no real need to focus on any pre-determined turn-for-turn moves, you've just gotta rely on your own battling instinct to make it to the end!

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

 Battle CD 41: Kanto Vs. Hoenn Side B [Single]

Which region will boast superiority?

This is the other side of Battle CD 40. You'll need to complete that one before unlocking this version!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Cabel

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

Charizard Lv. 50

                    

                    

Honestly, the strategy here is surprisingly simple. Just like before, all you've really gotta do is follow the opponent's types, just try to be mindful that you're not totally in the clear just because you have a surface-level type advantage. Your opponent still has options to fight even if they're against the type of pokemon they're weak to.

                    

                    

Your main goal is to bait your opponent into using their ultimate attacks against pokemon that resist them so that they're locked into recharging for the next turn while you dish out your counterattack. In this case, it's as simple as anticipating Charizard's Blast Burn on Sceptile and switching into Swampert who can take the Blast Burn and retalliate with Muddy Water. An alternative solution would be to switch into Blaziken and use Rock Slide, but that's a riskier approach since Charizard could technically also go for Aerial Ace, which is strong against Blaziken. Once you've switched into Swampert, you should be able to easily take care of Charizard with a few Muddy Waters.

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

Venusaur Lv. 50

                    

                    

With Charizard out of the way, next comes Venusaur. Obviously, she's gonna go for Frenzy Vine, so it's time for another switch!

                    

                    

Once again, you have some options here. You could switch back into Sceptile and use Aerial Ace, but with Venusaur knowing Sludge Bomb, you're probably better off relying on Blaziken and Blaze Kick. However, this actually didn't do as much damage as I would've liked and I did nearly go down, but I was able to come out on top!

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

Blastoise Lv. 50

                    

                    

Blastoise was next, and I figured the same strategy would work again!

                    

                    

I brought out Sceptile to take a Hydro Cannon but was instead met with an Earthquake! That was scary considering he now wasn't locked into recharging! But, I could only push onward with Leaf Blade! I didn't quite get the KO and Blastoise hit me with a Mirror Coat that wiped me off the board!

                    

                    

I brought Swampert back out. He wasn't doing too hot after the matchup with Charizard, but he was still raring to go! All it took was a Hyper Beam to seal the deal!

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

Your reward here is another rare candy!

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

 Battle CD 42: Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres Side A [Single]

The Dream Team of the legendary birds!

This CD appeared in the room Prof. Krane was held in the Cipher Lab, but only after defeating Gorigan! Make sure to go back and find it if you don't have it as it's very easily missed!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Dilson

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

Articuno Lv. 85

                    

                    

Once again, the theme here is pretty obvious. You're using the legendary beasts while your foe is using the legendary birds. Your pokemon also have a 5-level handicap so it's a bit of an uphill battle. Still, since your opponents are all Flying-types, you do have the overall advantage when it comes to type matchups and that's really where victory matters! One thing to keep in mind, however, is the fact that all pokemon involved in this battle have Pressure for their ability. Most of your best moves are low PP and not exactly the most accurate moves ever, so try to make them count! If you take a peek at your opponent's moves, you'll probably know this Articuno knows Mind Reader and Sheer Cold. I think you know where this is going.

                    

                    

You'll first want to switch into Raikou, because you don't want to waste Suicune's attacks on a pokemon it isn't strong against. This is where Articuno will use Mind Reader, so you'll want to switch again to avoid an OHKO.

                    

                    

In comes Entei who can immediately turn the tides with Fire Blast!

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

Zapdos Lv. 85

                    

                    

Zapdos can be a bit of an annoyance here. We'll retreat Entei into a pokemon better suited for this matchup.

                    

                    

Raikou can take the incoming ThunderBolt and return a Thunder of its own! We don't really have an easy out to this thing, so this is the best bet. After an awkward back and forth, though, I wound up running out of PP for Thunder thanks to a miss and Zapdos' Light Screen, so I had to resort to Bite until Raikou went down.

                    

                    

I decided to bring Entei back out to finish the matchup with Fire Blast.

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

Moltres Lv. 85

                    

                    

Now I had a solid advantage. Moltres would be easy for Suicune to pick off. Entei can just make things even easier. I went for Swagger to hopefully stunt Moltres' attacks while I chip away at its HP with Stomp. Unfortunately, its Wing Attack was able to get through the confusion and take Entei out.

                    

                    

But now, all I needed was to connect a Hydro Pump or two to seal the deal and it was done!

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

 

Your reward is a Full Restore and Side B!

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

 Battle CD 43: Aritcuno, Zapdos, and Moltres Side B [Single]

The dream team of the legendary birds!

This is Side B of Battle CD 42. You'll need to finish that one first in order to gain access to this side.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Dilson

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

Raikou Lv. 85

                    

                    

This one is even more of an uphill battle. The legendary beasts now have the level advantage on top of Raikou's inherent type advantage! Still, you have some tools at your disposal to make extra use of that obnoxious Pressure ability that held us back before.

                    

                    

By alternating between Substitute and Protect, we can keep Articuno alive until Raikou runs out of PP for Thunder and resorts to Bite instead! Bite can't do enough damage to break the Substitute, either, so we can get some free turns at this point! In addition, due to Thunder's inaccuracy, there's also a chance you'll be able to sneak in some further free turns due to misses! Life is good when the game is friendly enough to let you use Substitute.

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

Entei Lv. 85

                    

                    

For Entei, I could stall out a bit with Protect as well, but he would be able to get a Fire Blast in soon, so after that, I just retreated.

                    

                    

I chose to follow up with Moltres figuring I wouldn't get much use out of it against Suicune. I could use Protect to hopefully drain some more of Entei's PP while mixing it up with Wing Attack to take Entei down.

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

Suicune Lv. 85

                    

                    

Once again, some Protect followed by a Wing Attack before succumbing.

                    

                    

I decided to pull out Articuno for some further PP Leakage, but it was no good with Suicune outspeeding me. I was only able to use Protect to get another turn out.

                    

                    

It was now all up to Zapdos to finish the job! But with a pretty solid type advantage, I think we're doing well for ourselves! A Light Screen and a couple of ThunderBolts later and Suicune was down!

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

Our reward, of course, is the same as Side A: A Full Restore!

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

 Battle CD 44: Regirock, Regice, and Registeel Side A [Single]

A dream team of legendary Pokemon!

This CD appears at the back of Phenac Stadium in the postgame. It's another easily missed CD, so go grab it!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Cuki

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

Regirock Lv. 75

                    

                    

This is just the same as the previous CD, except this time it's the legendary golems of Hoenn as opposed to the legendary birds of Kanto. the level gap is gone, though! We're now on even ground! Regirock's Earthquake is a really scary thought, but when it comes out, it immediately exploded! It's a good thing I went for Protect first! An easy KO!

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

Regice Lv. 75

                    

                    

Regice is perhaps the most obnoxious pokemon on here. We don't really have much of a choice but to chip away at its own HP with Thunder while it builds up its already high Special Defense with Amnesia. Don't be baited into using physical attacks, though, because it will wreck you with Counter!

                    

                    

Eventually, Raikou was defeated so I brought out Entei who could use Swagger and Protect to get some more damage past Regice's Special Defense wall. Eventually, Regice finally went down.

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

Registeel Lv. 75

                    

                    

Registeel was kind of a joke at this point. It did have Earthquake, which was a little scary, but... I had Fire Blast so it was all good.

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

 

Your reward for winning this is a Salac Berry and, of course, Side B!

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

 Battle CD 45: Regirock, Regice, and Registeel Side B [Single]

A dream team of legendary Pokemon!

This is Side B of Battle CD 44. You'll need to complete that one before unlocking this one!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Cuki

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

Raikou Lv. 75

                    

                    

This one I actually felt was pretty simple to figure out. Just be wary that your opponent has Pressure but the legendary golems actually have Clear Body instead, so you're once again on the receiving end of the PP leakage. I started out simply using Amnesia and then pelting Raikou with a few Ice Beams to take it out. Real simple.

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

Entei Lv. 75

                    

                    

Anticipating a Fire attack, I immediately took the chance to retreat into the perfect matchup.

                    

                    

With Regirock, all it took was a simple Earthquake to shatter Entei's hopes and dreams. It even tried to protect itself with Swagger, but I was able to attack through the confusion so it only boosted my attack!

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

Suicune Lv. 75

                    

                    

While this in particular wasn't the most suitable matchup in the world, the rest of my team was really well-equipped to deal with Suicune. I went for Earthquake but was predictably outsped and taken out with a Hydro Pump.

                    

                    

From here, I brought out Registeel to set up Toxic and start stalling with Amnesia and Curse. He was eventually taken out, but the clock was already ticking.

                    

                    

The true test was Regice, who would simply need to use Counter while anticipating a Facade. In the meantime, Suicune slowly succumbed to its poison until it was in kill range for Regice's ThunderBolt.

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

Your reward? Another Salacc Berry, of course!

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

 Battle CD 46: Operation Zero [Double]

A battle against Mew!

This CD appears on Greevil's chair inside the dome on Citadark Isle during the postgame.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Bynds

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

Mew Lv. 50

             

                

This battle is a 6 on 1 with Eevee and its Eevolutions against the Mythical Pokemon Mew! Though I suppose at the time, there was no differentiation between Mythical and Legendary pokemon. Regardless, this seems a bit unfair, so Mew's got a pretty hefty level advantage being at Level 50 while your entire team is handicapped at Level 30. Still, with 6 on 1, this battle is still strangely in your favor. To start with, I mistakenly assumed Mew would open up with ThunderBolt on Vaporeon, mainly because I'd overlooked the fact that it also knew Brick Break!

             

                

Because of this assumption, my first move was to switch Jolteon in over Vaporeon thinking I'd be able to take advantage of Volt Absorb. Turns out I couldn't have been more wrong as Mew went on to use Brick Break on Eevee! RIP!

             

                

I decided to go ahead and bring out Umbreon. A bit of a risk in hindsight, I probably should've sent out Flareon first. But, this decision ultimately worked out for me. I went for Thunder Wave with Jolteon and Confuse Ray with Umbreon to cripple the poor Mew. From now on, it was pretty helpless. Mew was able to get a Psychic off on Jolteon to take it out, though Jolteon's impressive speed helped it to be tremendously useful in bringing Mew down to our level!

             

                

Espeon came to take Jolteon's place (what an iconic duo!) and here's where the fun began.

             

                

That's right, both of these guys have Substitute! Since Mew was paralyzed, we could outspeed it. Since we could outspeed it, we could always guarantee a Substitute as long as we had the HP to support it. All it took was for Mew to hit itself in confusion or get stopped with paralysis before we could use Helping Hand to support the other's Bite, or just follow up with two independent Bite attacks for bonus chances of making Mew flinch and consequently buying us yet another free turn! Seriously, I can't believe how broken of a move Substitute is and how much I've slept on it this whole time. Eventually, Mew succumbed to the barrage and I was able to win the battle!

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

Your reward actually doesn't involve a Side B this time, but it does involve an incredibly valuable item: The Sacred Ash! Though I'm not exactly sure what good this item will do you at this point in the game...

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

 Battle CD 47: The Ultimate! Latias and Latios Side A [Double]

They both hold Soul Dew.

This CD was found on the Conveyor Belt in the basement of the Cipher Key Lair after Miror B. made off with the Shadow Dragonite.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Kilf

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

 

Latias Lv. 77 & Latios Lv. 77

                

                

We're not done with the legendary battles just yet! This time we're up against Latias and Latios! They're both holding Soul Dew so their Special Attack and Defense are boosted. I actually wasn't sure what the effects of Soul Dew were during this battle, so I just battled like normal, but it may be that Lugia's Aeroblast would actually do more damage than Ice Beam when you factor in STAB and the boost to Special Defense on the defender's side. Regardless, this matchup is pretty simple. For one reason or another, both Latias and Latios are pretty bent on taking out Ho-oh first, so Ho-oh can stall out with Protect while Lugia reduces their speed with Icy Wind. This should buy you enough time to take out Latias (the one with ThunderBolt), by ganging up on it with Lugia and Ho-oh. Don't bother with Ho-oh's Reflect as neither of your opponents even have any physical moves. If they did, I doubt they'd use them, either.

               

               

By the end of the round, it's a one-on-one between Lugia and Latios. Latios can try its best to hold on, but Lugia's Ice Beam was enough to win the day.

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

 

Your reward is a Max Revive and the final side B in the entire list of Battle CDs!

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

 Battle CD 48: The Ultimate! Latias and Latios Side B [Double]

Neither holds Soul Dew

This is Side B of Battle CD 47. You'll need to complete that challenge in order to unlock this one!

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Kilf

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

 

Lugia Lv. 77 & Ho-oh Lv. 77

                

                

Leave it to the game to strip Latias and Latios of their Soul Dew before handing them over to you! To add insult to injury, they even gave a Sharp Beak to Lugia and Charcoal to Ho-oh! These ultimately don't matter, though. The strategy is simple: Just focus your attacks on Lugia first, then worry about Ho-oh. Latias has Helping Hand, but Latias also has ThunderBolt which is much more useful for fighting these Flying-types! You can still follow up with Latios' Dragon Claw, too, and throw some Protects in for good measure.

               

               

Eventually, the battle comes down to Latias vs. Ho-oh. At this point, you're just using Recover to heal off any damage Ho-oh deals and hoping to paralyze it with ThunderBolt. Once you do, you can get a lot more hits in until it decides to use Thunder Wave to paralyze you back. Soon enough, you should be able to take Ho-oh out.

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

Your reward is another Max Revive!

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

 Battle CD 49: Legendary Pokemon Challenge 1 [Double]

Can you beat this combination?

This CD was obtained on the bookshelf of Chobin's room in Kaminko's House. This is also the CD we completed earlier for its reward.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Corbin

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

 

Groudon Lv. 50 & Shiftry Lv. 50

                

                

Once again, the solution to this puzzle is so simple it's almost funny. Just put Groudon to sleep with Sleep Powder from Jumpluff and Protect with Ninjask to defend yourself from an incoming Fake Out, then Protect with Jumpluff and Substitute with Ninjask while you watch Shiftry Explode and take out Groudon with him leaving your pals unscathed.

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

Your reward, as we've claimed before, is TM11: Sunny Day

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

 Battle CD 50: Legendary Pokemon Challenge 2 [Double]

Can you beat this combination?

This CD was obtained from the bookshelf in Dr. Kaminko's room of Kaminko's House.

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

Vs. Sim Trainer Dibit

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

 

Kyogre Lv. 50 & Kingdra Lv. 50

                

                

This battle doesn't go quite as cleanly as the previous one, but the strategy is still pretty simple. I started by confusing Kyogre with Lanturn's Confuse Ray while Quagsire went for Amnesia to boost its Special Defense. I then Protected with Lanturn while going for Earthquake to deal some massive damage against both foes. The following turn, I tried using Lanturn's Thunder to finish off Kyogre, but Kingdra took Lanturn out first.

               

               

Quagsire's Earthquake was able to take out Kingdra this time, though, so it was now a 1-on-1 with Kyogre who was still confused. Another Earthquake would do the trick!

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

As you've probably guessed, the reward for clearing this challenge is TM18: Rain Dance!

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

In addition to the bragging rights of simply completing all the challenges, you also receive 15,000 Poke Coupons for clearing every single Battle CD in the game! Considering the powerful TMs and held items these coupons can be used to buy, I'd actually say this is pretty worth it! None of these challenges were especially difficult to complete. The trickiest part is probably just gathering up all the CDs. But with a simple guide to point you to all of their locations, this is an easy 15,000 Poke Coupons which you'd otherwise have to grind for at Mt. Battle. Still, I have a feeling that by the time we're done we're going to have plenty more Poke Coupons to go around. Good lord, I don't even think we've spent them all in Colosseum! Still, if you find yourself needing a lot of Poke Coupons, while I wouldn't necessarily call this a "quick" method, it's certainly a "faster" method than just grinding out for hours on end at Mt. Battle...

...Speaking of gridning out for hours on end at Mt. Battle, though, I suppose there's not much avoiding it. Our next destination is to reach the very top of Mt. Battle with our faithful team! We've only got a few more areas to go, so we should be able to make the push! Next time, we return to Mt. Battle to make our way to the summit once again!

[Aura]

Mt. Battle

Now that we've finished all of the Battle Sim challenges, I think it's about time we work up some sweat with some real battling! Today, we're going to focus our efforts on fighting our way to the top of Mt. Battle! This is perhaps the last time we'll be using our story team in this game, at least in its cohesive form, so this may get a little sentimental. Now, our levels aren't quite on par with the final area, but this is supposed to be some level of challenge and it's the perfect place to train, so why not just throw ourselves into the deep end to "finish" our training? We're going to be headed straight up to where we left off: Area 9!

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

Mt. Battle Area 9

Levels 63 - 67

The level progression is once again all over the place, so don't feel too overwhelmed when the beginning opponents seem really tough. It might just be an intimidation tactic to scare you off.

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

My Team:

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

 Family (Jolteon M); Lv. 63

Item: BrightPowder 

Ability: Volt Absorb | Moves: ThunderBolt, Bite, Protect, Thunder Wave

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

 Friend (Ursaring F); Lv. 63

Item: Choice Band 

Ability: Pickup | Moves: Return, Brick Break, Torment, Earthquake

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

 Ally (Houndoom M); Lv. 64

Item: King's Rock 

Ability: Early Bird | Moves: Crunch, Protect, Flamethrower, Solar Beam

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

 Memory (Dusclops M); Lv. 64

Item: Quick Claw 

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Shadow Ball, Helping Hand, Will-O-Wisp, Confuse Ray

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

 Love (Dewgong M); Lv. 63

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Helping Hand, Surf, Safeguard, Ice Beam

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

 Medicham M, Lv. 62*

Item: TwistedSpoon 

Ability: Pure Power | Moves: Shadow Ball, DynamicPunch, Mind Reader, Psychic

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

 Shine (Gligar M); Lv. 64

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Hyper Cutter | Moves: Guillotine, Sunny Day, Faint Attack, Mimic

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

*Medicham was stored in the PC

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

Vs. Area 9 Leader Ragen

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

 

Skarmory Lv. 65 & Gligar Lv. 65

                

                

I don't think I could've asked for a more clean start to this battle. Family was able to take out Skarmory with ThunderBolt while Love could take out Gligar with Ice Beam. So simple!

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

 

Metagross Lv. 67 & Regirock Lv. 67

                

                

This is where things got a little more iffy. I protected with Jolteon in anticipation of an Earthquake, but Love couldn't do a whole lot in anticipation. He went for Surf but it really didn't accomplish a whole lot. Regirock's Earthquake did more damage to his own Metagross than Surf, and Metagross was no longer looking so hot. Love didn't live to the end of the turn, though, as Metagross finished him off with a Meteor Mash.

                

                

Out came Ally who would be able to easily finish off Metagross while Family went for ThunderBolt on Regirock for the final blow as well.

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

Aggron Lv. 67

               

                

It really didn't matter what this Aggron tried to do to defend itself, it would be outsped by both Family and Ally to be torn apart with Flamethrower and ThunderBolt!

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

 

Reward: 1,700 PC & TM40: Aerial Ace!

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

Mt. Battle Area 10

Levels 66 - 70

Just like before, Area 10 is where Mt. Battle starts to get really serious. Not only are the levels on the high end of the spectrum, with the highest [static] levels in all of Orre, but everyone's teams are hovering around 5 or 6 pokemon and they mostly have pretty cohesive strategies as well! Believe it or not, I found platform 91 to be the most difficult in the entire area. This was a Rain team built around outspeeding your pokemon with Swift Swim and showering you with rain-powered Hydro Pump. It's actually really rough to push through this crowd and I even found myself losing a couple times here. Thankfully, there's no penalty for losses at Mt. Battle other than being sent back to the reception desk. Interestingly, the trainer on platform 93 holds a special team themed after the protagonist of Colosseum: Umbreon, Espeon, and the three legendary beasts. I feel like it's missing Plusle, Sudowoodo, or Togetic to complete the full team, but I suppose they wanted to keep things cohesive. The trainer on platform 95 had a bit of an obnoxious team built around Gyarados and Lightningrod, but it can be shutdown pretty easily by confusing and/or burning the Gyarados as soon as you recognize the strategy. The newscaster on platform 96 also has a similarly annoying strategy with a Togetic that uses Follow Me to distract you from the Ninjask setting up for a Baton Pass. You might want to use multi-targeting moves to take out Ninjask before he can set up too much. It's a terrifying sight when she gets that Miltank or Ursaring out with all those stat boosts! Lastly, the Supertrainer on platform 99 has a team that loves to explode. You can mostly rebel against this team simply by using Protect or Ghost types. Just make sure to keep at least one pokemon safe to deal with the Shedinja at the very end!

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

Mt. Battle -- Summit

And now we've finally made it to the summit of Mt. Battle! We are at the top of the world! And it's finally time to come face to face with the strongest trainer in all of Orre once again: Battlus! Yes, even though his name is Battlus but he was called Somek in Colosseum, this is the same character with the same Japanese name (Batorasu). They just localized it differently between Colosseum and XD. It's an odd change, but I definitely like the name Battlus better!

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

My Team:

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

 Family (Jolteon M); Lv. 66

Item: BrightPowder 

Ability: Volt Absorb | Moves: ThunderBolt, Bite, Protect, Thunder Wave

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

 Friend (Ursaring F); Lv. 66

Item: Choice Band 

Ability: Pickup | Moves: Return, Brick Break, Torment, Earthquake

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

 Ally (Houndoom M); Lv. 66

Item: King's Rock 

Ability: Early Bird | Moves: Crunch, Protect, Flamethrower, Solar Beam

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

 Memory (Dusclops M); Lv. 66

Item: Quick Claw 

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Shadow Ball, Helping Hand, Will-O-Wisp, Confuse Ray

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

 Love (Dewgong M); Lv. 65

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Helping Hand, Surf, Safeguard, Ice Beam

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

 Medicham M, Lv. 66

Item: TwistedSpoon 

Ability: Pure Power | Moves: Shadow Ball, DynamicPunch, Mind Reader, Psychic

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

 Shine (Gligar M); Lv. 64*

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Hyper Cutter | Moves: Guillotine, Sunny Day, Faint Attack, Mimic

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

*Shine was stored in the PC

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

Vs. Mt BtlMstr Battlus

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

 

Salamence Lv. 70 & Metagross Lv. 70

                

                

Once again, I'm really not sure I could've asked for a more convenient start. Strangely, Salamence went for the move Earthquake right off the bat, which was good for me since he had no regard for the Steel-type Metagross right beside him. The move did more damage to Metagross than it did either Love or Memory. I was able to follow up with an Ice Beam on Salamence to take him out! Metagross wasn't quite out of the picture just yet, but I went ahead and hit him with a Confuse Ray, so he wouldn't be too much trouble.

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

Slaking Lv. 70

                

                

Slaking managed to be sent right into an Earthquake by Metagross! A rough start to be sure. Love didn't have much left to do but to use Surf while Memory tried to shut down Slaking with a Confuse Ray, we know just how devastating confusion is for a pokemon with Truant! Slaking was unfortunately able to attack through the confusion and hit Love with a Hyper Beam, though, so that was our first casualty.

                

                

I think it was a blessing in disguise, though, because it let me bring out my fiercest pokemon against his team: Ally! With Flamethrower, I could easily finish off Metagross while Memory applied Will-O-Wisp to Slaking for some consistent damage. It's a bit of a sitting duck at this point with half of its available turns eaten up by confusion. The burn will also reduce any damage he manages to get off, so all's well that ends well.

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

Dusclops Lv. 70

                

                

Metagross was replaced by a Dusclops of his own, but with a Helping Hand and Crunch, this phony was out of commission. Slaking was done loafing around, but wound up hitting itself, so no luck there!

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

Latias Lv. 70

                

                

While the sight of a Legendary pokemon might seem scary on the surface, in reality, there's nothing this Latias could really do. Ally was still able to outspeed it, so Helping Hand and Crunch was all I needed to take care of it. This was another Truant turn, so Slaking could do nothing but sit back and take some more burn damage.

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

Latios Lv. 70

                

                

By this point, Slaking was near his own death. Another Helping Hand and Bite was enough to take out Latios.

               

                

By this point, Slaking was going to go down to his Burn Damage regardless of whether or not he attacked through confusion. He was able to get an Earthquake off, but it didn't do nearly enough to make a difference before he finally went down.

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

And with that, Battlus has been defeated once again! Although his team was much more impressive this time around, the battle was still surprisingly underwhelming. It feels like they just threw together a bunch of the scariest pokemon in the generation without much thought as to how they'd work together. Nothing is there to cover for each pokemon's weaknesses. I mean, just by having a Houndoom, I was able to sweep through 2/3 of his team! Battlus may have the strongest pokemon, but I really wouldn't consider him the most challenging opponent in the game. This victory also goes off with a bit less fanfare. You don't get your little victory lap back through Mt. Battle. Instead, you're just given your prize of 2,000 PC and warped back to the entrance. You don't even get a TM or anything!

Over all, this victory kind of leaves me wanting more... but perhaps that's by design, because there actually is yet another challenge for us to face, but that's going to require a bit of time set aside. Remember the marathon run of Pokemon Colosseum's 100 trainer challenge in battle mode? Well, this game may not seem like it, but it does actually have a little something for you if you manage a similar feat here. Before we take on the challenge, I think I want to start making preparations for what remains of Gen 3 which means finally bringing my teams together and starting work on boosting their competitive potential to their absolute peak! Let's hold it out for Pokemon XD's final stretch!

[Aura]

So, it's been a few days since I've made a new post in this thread. Why is that? Well, aside from having fixed a bunch of the broken images across the beginning of my Gold playthrough (I recommend you check them out as I've updated the formatting a bit to be a bit cleaner overall), I also haven't been neglecting the game. I've just been spending a lot of time on and off just... grinding. Why? Because we're transitioning into another competitive phase of Generation 3! With the inability to simply transfer pokemon from a previous gen, it's more necessary than ever to grind up not just a team, but a variety of pokemon to choose from so that we can experiment with!

Now, we've got a handful of pokemon already prepared thanks to Battle Mode in Colosseum if need be, but I didn't want to just stick to a bunch of pokemon from Ruby and Sapphire only. Especially considering these teams most certainly will not be at their peak. Now, there's much stricter regulations on the use of Legendary pokemon. The pokemon Groudon and Kyogre, who my Ruby and Sapphire teams are built around, are not legal. Neither are Rayquaza, Mewtwo, and any mythical pokemon you may have access to. The Legendary Golems, Beasts, and Birds are legal as well as the Eon duo if you're interested in using those!

But, just like Pokemon Stadium 2, I wanted my teams in this field to reflect my adventure over the course of Gen 3 as a whole. And so, I wanted to train up some pokemon from my playthroughs of Fire Red, Leaf Green, Emerald, and XD. If you recall, I've been putting off grinding and team building for a long time. That's because it's not really until XD that you gain access to some of the most convenient tools for grinding in the entire generation.

First of all, Pokemon XD's Mt. Battle is the best place to grind up pokemon levels. This is where you'll face the most high-level pokemon in one area. They're all trainer battles, so you gain a multiplier for that. The pokemon levels climb as high as 70 at the very top, which is conveniently the lower bound of the Battle Frontier in Emerald. You get a lot of Poke Coupons for defeating area leaders. Since most of our pokemon are going to be traded into XD from other regions, they're all also going to have foreign Trainer IDs, which means their Exp gain will be boosted further! Also, since all of these battles are double battles, they can end a lot quicker as well and you can gain more Exp at once by defeating opponents with multi-targeting moves like Surf or Earthquake.

Finally, thanks to the Pokemon Translator quest, we have a free Lucky Egg without having to painstakingly try and catch 100 Chansey at the Safari Zone in search of one. The Lucky Egg, as previously described, can be held by a pokemon to further boost their Exp gain! This does stack with the foreign ID boost so we've got that going as well!

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

In order to prepare, I made my way to Phenac City in order to do some trading with the other games. I've combed through my teams and ultimately decided on two teams. One focused on double battles and one focused on single battles. Both of these will be important for the Orre Colosseum and Battle Frontier respectively. I didn't just want to limit myself to 6 pokemon since they'll need to be used for both and double battles aren't so simple that you can just use a single-battle team in them. I had some more quirky ideas I wanted to toy around with.

After having my teams planned out, I went ahead and did some trading to get the pokemon I wanted!

  

From Pokemon Leaf Green, I brought over Regen the Starmie and Venus the Venusaur! Regen's high speed and variety of attack types would come in incredible use in Single Battles to quickly deal with pokemon with low special defenses. Confuse Ray might also help me out of pinches every now and then. Venusaur is a fantastic bulky wall, capable of taking just about any attack and dishing out some powerful hits with Sludge Bomb or Frenzy Vine. If all else fails, he can also set up Toxic and Leech Seed on a particularly stubborn foe.

 

You may recall my many complaints about my team from Fire Red being... laughably bad. I honestly was considering not bringing any pokemon from Fire Red and just having Regen and Venus represent the Kanto journeys together, but Gray the Steelix I felt actually deserved a spot on the team. He's bulky and defensive, making him great for Double Battles. I do feel his moveset will need to be adjusted a bit, but I think that STAB Earthquke will do a lot for Double Battles. It's also always nice to have a Ground-type to switch in on Electric attacks.

    

You really didn't have to pull my sleeve at all to get me to bring a bunch of pokemon over from Emerald. I was constantly tossing these guys around because I've never been more proud of a team in this whole playthrough except for maybe Silver. Ultimately, I settled on these three. Hill the Ninjask was unquestionably going to be on the team regardless of any other decisions I made. This thing can singlehandedly set you up for a clean sweep. I demonstrated just how powerful its Baton Pass can be against Steven in Emerald and I don't intend to hold anything back going forward into these more difficult battles. Next came Ozone the Swellow who I mostly brought out because I felt I couldn't get the most out of his Guts ability with the options I had in my Emerald team. I think I can make much better use of Ozone in conjunction with another pokemon I wanted to make better use of. That may foreshadow a pokemon I'll be listing later on, I think you can guess where I'm going with this through some critical thinking. Lastly, there's Cliff the Magneton. While not quite as bulky as his Silver counterpart, Magnanimus, who carried me though so much of Stadium 2, Cliff is a near identical Magneton build but with ThunderBolt in place of Thunder and Reflect in place of SonicBoom. His beautiful defensive typing makes him a prime candidate for Single Battle format where I can witch into him and set up some stall tactics with Thunder Wave, Swagger, and Reflect.

 

Lastly, I brought over Faith the Espeon from Colosseum. I thought it was a really cool idea to bring forward a pokemon from the previous adventure in Orre, especially one of the starters. Faith is incredibly fast and can set up Light Screen and Reflect which can help me out of a lot of scary situations in double battles. It also knows Psych Up to steal good status changes from other pokemon, including its allies like Hill!

    

Lastly, from XD, I'll be using four pokemon. Family the Jolteon is among my fastest Electric types, capable of jumping in real quick with Thunder Wave making him a great counterpick to a really fast foe. He also knows Protect which can aid in its usefulness when paired with Steelix for double battles. Ally the Houndoom, likewise, is an incredibly fast Fire type. He's been extremely useful throughout my playthrough of XD, though he unfortunately won't get much use out of Solar Beam without Shine. I don't feel quite justified in teaching him Sunny Day just for that, though. I'd like to keep his moveset as it is for now. Memory the Dusclops is going to be able to see a bit more use this time around, I think. Using Will-O-Wisp on Ursaring in XD wasn't too terribly useful because Ursaring typically couldn't survive long enough to get much use out of the burn due to his low speed. I'm thinking that Memory and Ozone will be a match made in heaven, with Memory using Will-O-Wisp to burn Ozone while Ozone prepares to wreak havoc with Facade. It'll be a fun tool to play around with. Worst case scenario, I might have to drop them both in favor of someone else. Finally, there's Medicham. I'm not too sure how useful Medicham will be, but I figured he'd be a nice option to Baton Pass into. With some boosted attack and speed, coupled with Pure Power, his Shadow Ball could be devastating. DynamicPunch as well, but that brings with it some mixed results. With some decent luck, though, I should be able to make things work there!

And so, we have our teams gathered together! Now it's all about grinding which is what I've been doing these last few days! I've got my teams mostly trained up to or around Level 70 while I battled my way back through the final areas of Mt. Battle a couple times to get them all on par with each other. By the time I was done, here's the results!

Note: I'll be using the mugshots for Emerald Brendan and Leaf for these. There is no way to actually participate in any mode outside of multiplayer with these models in this game, I'm just doing this for the sake of variety so that you can more easily tell the teams apart at a glance.

Further Note: These movesets and item choices may not be final. I may make adjustments accordingly, I'm specifically thinking about changing up Steelix's moveset to include other moves in place of Sandstorm and Rock Slide. These are just their current moves.

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

Double Battle Team

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

 Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 70

OT: Wes [Colosseum]

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Synchronize | Moves: Psychic, Light Screen, Reflect, Psych Up

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

 Gray (Steelix M); Lv. 69

OT: Red [Fire Red]

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Rock Head | Moves: Earthquake, Double-Edge, Sandstorm, Rock Slide

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

 Hill (Ninjask M); Lv. 69

OT: Emerald [Emerald]

Item: Lax Incense 

Ability: Speed Boost | Moves: Substitute, Protect, Swords Dance, Baton Pass

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

 Ozone (Swellow M); Lv. 68

OT: Emerald [Emerald]

Item: Scope Lens 

Ability: Guts | Moves: Aerial Ace, Steel Wing, Endeavor, Facade

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

 Family (Jolteon M); Lv. 69

OT: Xander [XD]

Item: BrightPowder 

Ability: Volt Absorb | Moves: ThunderBolt, Bite, Protect, Thunder Wave

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

 Memory (Dusclops M); Lv. 70

OT: Xander [XD]

Item: Quick Claw 

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Shadow Ball, Helping Hand, Will-O-Wisp, Confuse Ray

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

Single Battle Team

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

 Venus (Venusaur M); Lv. 70

OT: Leaf [Leaf Green]

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Toxic, Frenzy Plant, Leech Seed, Sludge Bomb

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

 Regen (Starmie); Lv. 70

OT: Leaf [Leaf Green]

Item: BrightPowder 

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Surf, Confuse Ray, Blizzard, Psychic

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

 Hill (Ninjask M); Lv. 69

OT: Emerald [Emerald]

Item: Lax Incense 

Ability: Speed Boost | Moves: Substitute, Protect, Swords Dance, Baton Pass

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

 Cliff (Magneton); Lv. 70

OT: Emerald [Emerald]

 

Item: Quick Claw 

Ability: Sturdy | Moves: ThunderBolt, Swagger, Reflect, Thunder Wave

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

 Ally (Houndoom M); Lv. 70

OT: Xander [XD]

Item: King's Rock 

Ability: Early Bird | Moves: Crunch, Protect, SolarBeam, Flamethrower

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

 Medicham Lv. 70

OT: Xander [XD]

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Pure Power | Moves: DynamicPunch, Psychic, Shadow Ball, Mind Reader

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

I'm excited to see these teams put into action! Next time, we'll be putting that double battle team to the test because we'll be doing the marathon run of Mt. Battle from battle 01 to 100! You actually do get a special reward for reaching this accomplishment, so I figured I should probably take it as an opportunity to get some extra grinding in while we're here. If anything, this should actually be easier than the one in Colosseum since the opponent's level doesn't scale, but we could still get some unfortunate luck toward the end that could null the entire run. I won't make any promises for when I'll get this done, but it should be soon!

[Aura]

Mt. Battle 100 Trainer Challenge

I made a plan and I'm sticking to it! As I've been alluding to pretty much from the beginning of this playthrough, there is just one more task we've yet to accomplish here in Mt. Battle. One that the game doesn't tell you much about and you'll really only find through the use of guides or word of mouth. Much like in Battle Mode in Colosseum, XD, too, has a 100 Trainer Challenge utilizing Mt. Battle, though this one is a bit more seamlessly integrated into the game's world. Rather than having a separate mode where you climb Mt. Battle all the way from the bottom to the top with level scaling and the like in either Single or Double Battle format, this one takes place right in the same world as story mode! It's technically made available for you to take on at any point in the game that you want, though it's obviously recommended that you wait to do this until you've completed the game as, again, there's no level scaling and the trainers at the top of the mountain cap at level 70.

As a consequence of this challenge being taken on in story mode rather than a separate battle mode, several factors actually make this challenge significantly easier than in Colosseum. Most immediately obvious, your pokemon will gain Exp as you climb! Gaining levels means a greater advantage over your opponents! You'll probably gain a few levels as you take out the many pokemon on the lower levels, but most of your leveling will be coming from the last few areas near the mountain's summit. This is not only where the highest levels are, but trainers up here also use a lot more pokemon each. Consequently, you're going to feel like you're zooming through in the beginning, but your time spent in each area will get much longer as you get closer to the top, even if your team is level 100 across the board. Speaking of which, since there's no level scaling, this means you can come in with pokemon of any level while Battlus' team will remain at level 70 no matter what. Depending on how strong your team is, this could be a good thing or a bad thing. More likely, though, you're probably going to want to do some training before committing to the entire marathon.

I should mention that I have no idea how the game will treat you if you allow a pokemon to evolve during the challenge. I'm sure it would be fine, but I can't entirely rule out that a pokemon evolution would count as a party change, so I'd urge you to make sure you're using pokemon that you're not going to want to evolve.

Additionally, you have access to the Call command which can help you to boost your pokemon's accuracy or, more prominently, wake them from their sleep. You also have access to any items. So, if you get cheaply frozen or confused, you can simply use a Full Heal or Yellow Flute to fix it! Although, you know me, I try to avoid using items as much as possible. This time around, I even abstained from using the Yellow Flute which I normally make an exception for. This was mainly because I wasn't certain about the restrictions. While you aren't allowed to change your party pokemon if you want credit for completing the marathon, you are permitted to swap out held items with whatever you happen to have on hand. Perhaps you might find some use out of that. I regularly swapped between Lax Incense and Exp Share on my Shedinja to help it level equally with the rest of my team as it would be pretty tiring setting up Baton Pass in all those battles I'd never need it for.

Lastly, you usually have the advantage of numbers. Not just level, but number of pokemon as well. The game doesn't stop you at every battle to choose three out of six pokemon to battle with Stadium Style, and all the battles aren't 3 v 3. Most of the time, your foe will have 1-4 pokemon while you'll always have a fully healed team of 6 pokemon at the ready. Most of the time, you have a rather harsh advantage over your opponent.

Now, some downsides that might make this mode a little bit tougher in some ways.

For one, again, level scaling is a blessing and a curse. Your opponent won't scale up to your level, but they also won't scale down either. The lack of level scaling mostly makes things easier since the majority of the lower floors now hold pokemon as weak as level 9. However, it can also make the upper floors tougher. I strongly recommend giving yourself a bit of an edge by starting with pokemon around level 70 so that, by the time you reach the top, they'll be around level 77 or 78. But, if you're looking for an especially thrilling climactic battle, be my guest and start around level 60 or 65. Just be prepared for some really tough battles at the end.

Also, being in story mode means you're forced to take on the challenge in double battle format, regardless of your competitive preferences. Considering Single Battles generally seem preferred, you might not have pokemon well equipped for competitive double battling. Try to be mindful of the combinations of pokemon you lead with!

Lastly, the pokemon combos in area 10 can actually be pretty tough. Without a significant level advantage, you might actually be caught off guard. I recommend going through the final area a few times before starting the marathon, just to make sure you're comfortable taking on the mountain's toughest foes. If you can handle Area 10 comfortably, you can comfortably take on the entire challenge. Just be aware that one string of bad luck really can put you in an incredibly awkward spot. Be prepared to invest a lot of time into this challenge.

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

So now, let's talk the rules of the challenge! These aren't explained anywhere in the game, so try to be careful and stick as close to what's known as possible. The last thing you want to do is complete the entire marathon and not get your reward because you broke one of the rules!

The rules are very simple, though.

1. You must battle all 100 trainers.
2. You must never swap out your party pokemon with pokemon from the PC.

These are the only rules I can find confirmation on, but there's a few more guidelines I'd recommend following, just to be on the safe side.

1. Start a "New" challenge, do not "continue" from Area 1. I'm not sure if starting a new challenge differs at all from continuing, but I wouldn't be shocked if this does.
2. Do not save at all. In Pokemon Colosseum, in order to receive Ho-oh, you had to complete the marathon in a single sitting. I'm unsure if this rule still applies to XD, but considering it's in place to prevent cheating via soft resetting, I'd assume it does.
3. Do not access the PC at all. While all evidence seems to point that accessing the PC is probably okay as long as you don't mess with your team, I wouldn't be surprised if accessing the PC at all set of a flag that prevents you from getting your reward. Is this the case? Probably not. More likely, I'd assume the game checks the party you finish each battle with and compares the Pokemon IDs to the one you started with. Still, you can never be too careful with such a huge time sink!
4. Do not evolve any pokemon during the marathon. Again, I'm sure this probably wouldn't cause any problems, but it's dangerous to make assumptions! You certainly wouldn't want to lose your chance because your Dragonair evolved partway through the climb!

With those rules out of the way, let's get into our actual challenge!

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

My Team:

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

 Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 70

OT: Wes [Colosseum]

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Synchronize | Moves: Psychic, Light Screen, Reflect, Psych Up

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

 Gray (Steelix M); Lv. 69

OT: Red [Fire Red]

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Rock Head | Moves: Earthquake, Double-Edge, Toxic, Rock Slide

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

 Hill (Ninjask M); Lv. 69

OT: Emerald [Emerald]

Item: Lax Incense 

Ability: Speed Boost | Moves: Substitute, Protect, Swords Dance, Baton Pass

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

 Ozone (Swellow M); Lv. 68

OT: Emerald [Emerald]

Item: Scope Lens 

Ability: Guts | Moves: Aerial Ace, Steel Wing, Endeavor, Facade

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

 Family (Jolteon M); Lv. 69

OT: Xander [XD]

Item: BrightPowder 

Ability: Volt Absorb | Moves: ThunderBolt, Bite, Protect, Thunder Wave

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

 Memory (Dusclops M); Lv. 70

OT: Xander [XD]

Item: Quick Claw 

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Shadow Ball, Helping Hand, Will-O-Wisp, Confuse Ray

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

I decided to go with my Double Battle team for this marathon because, obviously, this was all going to be in double battle format, so it just made sense! I also wanted to try out some of my strategies to see if they'd work. I did make one minor adjustment in that I used the TM I won at Orre Colosseum to teach Gray Toxic over Sandstorm. This definitely proved to be more useful. I considered using the Tutor to learn Swagger as well, but I really prefer to use Swagger only if I can also paralyze the opponent to add that extra layer of protection from their boosted attack. (Yes I'm aware I could use Swagger on a special attacker, but I usually like to confuse physical attackers to turn their strength against them. Special Attackers can usually be dealt with by a solid physical hit or two. As I climbe dmy way up the mountain, I was actually surprised at how good the synergy was with this team! Granted, the real test is definitely going to be the Orre Colosseum, but I was able to develop quite a few fun strategies while making my way through the ranks. Of course, we have some standard Earthquake synergy with Gray and Hill or Ozone, but Family also has Protect and, in a pinch, Faith can set up Reflect to reduce damage and Memory can just flat-out take two or three without any sort of buffs. Memory's Helping Hand is incredibly useful for picking off huge threats when paired with Gray, Ozone, Faith, or Family's strong attacks. While it's still more of a theoretical, I love the idea of pairing Faith with Hill and setting up Reflect/Light Screen before using Psych Up to borrow Hill's stat gains before he's KO'd or Baton Passes.

Though it may be due to level advantage, I have found that Family and Faith are capable of outspeeding just about anything that comes their way while Ozone can outspeed mostly everything and occasionally surprises me with his ability to take a hit I thought would knock him out. I typically want to baton pass into Ozone under the cover of Substitute, but Will-O-Wisp from Memory can also do the trick in boosting his strength. Will-O-Wisp also has really nice potential in damage control over an anticipated Explosion or Earthquake. Of course, I probably don't even need to begin explaining how broken Substitute is on Ninjask, so Hill is always going to get a free pass.

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

As for my experience with the actual battles? Nothing really came to mind, with this team, it was a pretty clean climb from the beginning to the end with absolutely no problems or interruptions!

...is what I would like to say, if Florida didn't decide to start storming partway through my first attempt.

If you've been following along with my status updates, you're probably aware that last night was my first attempt at this marathon. I'd spent a good 5 hours climbing my way up to the summit only for a power surge to strike and shut off my Wii while I was on platform ninety-freaking-eight!!

Needless to say, I was beyond frustrated and wouldn't be returning to the game for the rest of the day. I hadn't been saving out of fear of invalidating my run, so I had even lost all the level progress I'd made on my pokemon. They'd reverted back to the original state I'd last left them in before starting the challenge. Curses!

Well, today's another day, so I decided to start all over again. You'd better believe my heart started racing as soon as I heard the crack of thunder outside my window again, but I persisted! Thankfully, no power surge this time. I was safe and able to climb beyond my record at 98 and reach Battlus on platform 100!

As for the battles themselves, since this is all in story mode, there's no need for me to cover the individual area leaders again like in Colosseum where Battle Mode had entirely separate trainers. Still, I figured I should probably show something, so why not show off my rematch with Battlus? This time around, things were a bit more interesting.

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

Vs. Mt. BtlMaster Battlus

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

 

Latos Lv. 70 & Salamence Lv. 70

                

                 

I decided to take my chances and lead with Memory and Hill to try and set up with Baton Pass early on. With any luck, I'd be able to set up a clean sweep using Gray! Unfortunately, my stall tactics didn't see too much value. I tried to slow the assault by Confusing Salamence with Memory's Confuse Ray, but it just didn't work out and, even with the help of Protect and Substitute, Hill was eventually overwhelmed. This was not without merit, though. While Hill was distracting the two, Memory was dishing out damage against Latios who was now pretty vulnerable.

                

                 

To take Hill's place, I brought out Family. Immediately, I went for a Helping Hand and ThunderBolt combo in anticipation of an Earthquake from Salamence. Due to my level advantage, this was indeed enough to take out Salamence in one shot.

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

Metagross Lv. 70

                

                 

Metagross took Salamence's spot. Another Earthquake user, fair enough. This time, I went for Protect while Latios started trying to take down Dusclops with Ice Beam. It was too little too late, though, and Latios soon went down to one last Shadow Ball.

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

Dusclops Lv. 70

                

                 

Battlus' own Dusclops was next. There was no way it could hold out, though it wasn't going to last much longer. I decided to retreat Family knowing I'm about to lose Memory pretty soon.

                

                 

I was expecting an Earthquake, so I was completely caught off guard when both Dusclops and Metagross went for Shadow Ball on Dusclops to take him out! Woops!

                

                 

Out came Gray next who immediately went for Earthquake while Ozone went for what he knew best: Aerial Ace! Collectively, this would be enough to deal with Dusclops while Metagross was only able to chip away at Gray with Earthquake.

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

Slaking Lv. 70

                

                 

Slaking took Dusclops' place and immediately went for a Hyper Beam on Ozone, kicking him out of the picture.

                

                 

Not wanting to send Family into a potential Earthquake, I sent out Faith. Metagross did go for Earthquake, and this didn't quite take out Faith who was now able to set up Reflect while Gray went for Double-Edge to hit Slaking. This turn, Slaking was loafing so all I had to worry about was Metagross' Earthquake which did finish Espeon off this time.

                

                 

Now came Jolteon. I started out with a Protect and Earthquake combo which was enough to finish the fight against Metagross.

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

Latias Lv. 70

                

                 

As soon as I saw Latias, my priority was to paralyze it to slow it down. Another Double-Edge from Steelix was all it took to shut down Slaking for good.

               

                 

At this point, it was just a matter of ganging up on Latias with Double-Edge and Bite until it ultimately submitted.

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

And with that, the ultimate challenge of Mt. Battle was completed!

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

Battlus is delighted to have battled with such a strong trainer. This time, he even acknowledged me for having completed the entire marathon without once changing my pokemon and comments that only a person who cares a great deal about his pokemon could accomplish such a feat. He then proceeds to explain that he has three pokemon with him which he was taking care of with the intention of giving away to trainers like you. For that reason, you are now given your choice between three pokemon:

  

Chikorita, Cyndaquil, or Totodile. The Johto Starters!

Now, these aren't just any Johto Starters, though. They each know a special Egg Move as well as the ultimate attacks of their respective types; Frenzy Plant, Blast Burn, and Hydro Cannon; which are normally only able to be learned by the Kanto starters! Unfortunately, this becomes a bit less special right around the corner, but, at least for the moment, these are moves unique to just these three reward pokemon!

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

 Chikorita Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: AncientPower, Tackle, Growl, Frenzy Plant

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

 Cyndaquil Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Reversal, Tackle, Leer, Blast Burn

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

 Totodile Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Crunch, Scratch, Leer, Hydro Cannon

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

Is this decision worth it? ...No, not really at all. Like I said, the novelty of the ultimate elemental attacks in Gen 3 is pretty nice, but its novelty wears off right around the corner as we step into the next generation. This is also at the tail-end of Generation 3 in a game that already features Gen 4 pokemon, so the devs likely already knew about the intentions to make these moves more accessible. While the Egg moves are pretty cool in theory, there's nothing special about them. They're just egg moves that you can easily breed onto any old Chikorita, Cyndaquil or Totodile. As for Pokedex completion? Good lord, you do not want to go through that hassle. Just play Pokemon Colosseum where you can snag Bayleef, Quilava, and Croconaw, and then just trade them over to RSE and breed them! Honestly, the idea of doing this whole challenge three times just for pokedex completion by getting all three of these is real scary by comparison! Well, there is... one even scarier method of getting these three in the national dex without the use of XD or Colosseum but it's even more diabolical. I'd probably rather do the Mt. Battle Marathon 9 times before that! But that's a discussion for the generational cleanup.

As for my choice of reward? I gave it some genuine thought as this is a pokemon I might like to give a cameo appearance sometime in the future. I decided on Cyndaquil. Reversal actually helps to cover one of Cyndaquil's weaknesses. Admittedly, Totodile's Crunch is not a bad choice at all, either. Chikorita can get some use out of Crunch, for sure, but, recalling Quilliam's bulk and speed in Stadium, I just felt that Cyndaquil would probably be a really good pokemon to run with Reversal. If I ever want the other two, I can always go through this again. It's not like it was particularly difficult. In fact, it'll only get progressively easier the stronger my pokemon become. It's just a huge time sink and, really, I just don't think it's all that interesting of one to delve into. But, hey, I got the reward and I now have the bragging rights!

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

Anyway, with Cyndaquil by my side, I think it's time to make preparations for our final destination in XD. We're finally returning to the long-awaited Orre Colosseum!

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

HALL OF FAME

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

My Team:

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

 Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 77

OT: Wes [Colosseum]

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Synchronize | Moves: Psychic, Light Screen, Reflect, Psych Up

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

 Gray (Steelix M); Lv. 79

OT: Red [Fire Red]

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Rock Head | Moves: Earthquake, Double-Edge, Toxic, Rock Slide

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

 Hill (Ninjask M); Lv. 77

OT: Emerald [Emerald]

Item: Lax Incense 

Ability: Speed Boost | Moves: Substitute, Protect, Swords Dance, Baton Pass

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

 Ozone (Swellow M); Lv. 78

OT: Emerald [Emerald]

Item: Scope Lens 

Ability: Guts | Moves: Aerial Ace, Steel Wing, Endeavor, Facade

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

 Family (Jolteon M); Lv. 78

OT: Xander [XD]

Item: BrightPowder 

Ability: Volt Absorb | Moves: ThunderBolt, Bite, Protect, Thunder Wave

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

 Memory (Dusclops M); Lv. 78

OT: Xander [XD]

Item: Quick Claw 

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Shadow Ball, Helping Hand, Will-O-Wisp, Confuse Ray

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

       

For completing the 100-win streak challenge, all pokemon in your party are awarded an Earth Ribbon as well! Let's get excited for that one, too!

[Aura]

Orre Colosseum

Okay, so, a small update on my plans for this area, as, going into it today, it seems I've greatly underestimated the challenge presented here. Rather than merely being at a disadvantage with my current team, winning felt like an objective impossibility here. Up until this gen, I've generally been pleasantly surprised with how well my team was able to handle competitive battling with only minor adjustments here and there. That definitely isn't the case this time around.

You see, I haven't really gone into detail about this aspect of competitive battling until now because, quite frankly, I didn't think it would matter so much. I figured whatever EVs my pokemon managed to obtain over the course of the adventure would be enough. That it wouldn't matter where the EVs are distributed as long as I got them all. I figured, for competitve battling this stuff probably mattered a lot, but the games themselves would probably be lenient enough that it wouldn't be necessary to worry about them too much. I was sorely mistaken and this has ended up costing me a lot of seemingly wasted time to the point where I'm not sure if I really want to go through the effort of building it all up again. I'm going to try not to leave this stuff untouched, but I might end up treating this the way I have Round 2 of Pokemon Stadium, Stadium 2, and Colosseum's Lv. 100 divisions. There's definitely precedent for me leaving behind more highly competitive fields of battle and this might also be no exception... but I'm not going to make that decision just yet, because I've already promised that I'd try at the Battle Frontier facilities and I want to get all of those symbols! Because of how much is hidden behind the requirement of a highly competitive team, I just might put in the effort of building one myself! However, this is going to involve a lot of breeding and, beyond that, a lot of grinding pokemon all the way from Level 5 to 100 all while carefully monitoring their EV growth. That shouldn't be too difficult at all, but there's a lot that goes into it.

So, today, rather than update you on our in-game progress, I'm going to offer a bit of a crash-course in EV-training which I've been promising we'd talk about since we got the Macho Brace back in Ruby.

I suppose I should start by explaining what EVs are. EV stands for Effort Value and it basically shows how much "effort" your pokemon is putting into that particular stat. A pokemon only has so much "effort" that it can put into its stat spread, so "EV Training" is essentially teaching your pokemon where to focus its training.

So, the short of EV training is actually a very simple premise: Every pokemon specalizes in different stats. Defeating a pokemon that specializes in a particular stat will make your pokemon better at that stat. So, if you want your pokemon to be better at defending, defeating a lot of defensive pokemon will help your pokemon to become a better defender. Likewise, defeating a lot of attackers would make them better at attacking.

But things get far more complicated than this when it gets down to how to properly EV train your pokemon. To start with, this is something you should probably keep in mind from the moment you get your pokemon, either through catching or hatching. As soon as you first obtain a pokemon, it'll have 0 EVs in every stat. Each time you gain Exp, you'll also secretly gain EVs in the background. There's no in-game way to check your EVs, so you'll have to keep count yourself. EVs in each stat start at 0 and cap out at 255, and every 4 points will increase that stat by 1. So, by maxing out your EVs in a stat, you should gain a whopping 63! You can already imagine the difference between a pokemon with 0 EVs and a pokemon with 255 EVs in a stat. However, it's a bit wasteful to simply max out your EVs in any one stat because, as I mentioned, you only get an extra stat for every 4 EVs and every pokemon only has a total of 510 EVs to distribute across all of its stats. This is enough to max out two stats, but if you aren't careless, you can get an additional stat point in one other stat by allocating only 252 EVs to each of the stats you want to max out. Having 252 EVs and 255 EVs have absolutely no difference, so feel free to be a penny pincher. However, if keeping track of exactly how many EVs you have sounds like a bother, then feel free to ignore that extra stat point. The difference probably isn't ever going to matter much at that level even if you technically will be at a minor disadvantage. At the end of the day, that 1 extra HP probably isn't going to save you very often from a KO. 1 extra Speed probably isn't going to help you outspeed something, 1 extra Attack isn't going to turn a 2HKO to an OHKO, etc.

I'm not currently training any pokemon, but we'll use a pokemon to demonstrate! Something that's known for hatching from an Egg, how about...

A Togepi? This theoretical Togepi is newly hatched and we want to EV train it! Planning should start from the moment it comes out of the Egg! In fact, you should probably realistically start your planning as far back as choosing its parents! Let's go into more detail.

To plan our pokemon, we should take a look at its base stats! There's plenty of resources to use for this, but my favorite is Bulbapedia. You can usually find a pokemon's bulbapedia page simply by googling its name, or by going to Bulbapedia and typing the pokemon's name into the on-site search bar. It's how I've been gathering most of the sprites used in this thread, so Bulbapedia is certainly an invalued resource for me! Anyway, you might assume that "Base stats" refer to a pokemon's starting stats, but that's not actually correct. Rather, base stats reflect the distribution of stats a pokemon earns as it levels up. In the base stat section of bulbapedia, you can find that Togepi's highest stats are its Defense and Special Defense which are both tied at 65. On the right, you can find its minimum and maximum stat potential at level 50 and 100. At Lv. 50, Togepi will have a minimum defense stat of 63 and a maximum defense stat of 128. Now, this variance is affected by a lot more than EVs, so let's start by discussing what all goes into these.

First, you have the pokemon's IVs, or Individual Values. These are what you have the least control over here in Gen 3. They're randomly generated once the pokemon is encountered or hatched and the only way to check them is to go to the Legendary Top Pokemon Breeder in Emerald's Battle Frontier. Even then, you'll only gain a vague ball park idea of what your pokemon's IVs look like. This vagueness is unfortunately pretty common for in-game helpers in these earlier pokemon game. More recent games are more open about these details, but this ambiguity is rampant for a while. You're just gonna have to settle on some random NPC describing your pokemon's entire IV spread with adjectives ranging from "average" to "outstanding," and only elaborating on your pokemon's highest IV stat which ranges from "relatively good," to "flawless." The most help he'll give you, really, is which stat your pokemon has the most IVs in and a ballpark idea of how good it is in that stat.

If a pokemon's IV in a stat is 31, then it'll be "flawless." Since you don't have any real control over these IVs, there's no point getting into the technical aspects of how they work, all that's important is that better IVs means higher stats! So ideally, you'll want a pokemon that's described as "outstanding" overall with a "flawless" stat in your preferred area. Since Togepi's highest base stats are Defense and Special Defense, I would ideally want high IVs in these stats. High IVs for the other stats are also more than welcome as they're probably not going to get a whole lot of attention elsewhere.

Aside from IVs, something we have a bit more control over, is our pokemon's Nature. Just like IVs, we don't have any way to guarantee we'll get the nature we want, but if the pokemon's mother is holding an Everstone when the egg is formed, it'll have a 50% chance of passing its nature onto its child.

Why is nature important? Well, obviously, it affects the pokemon's stats! Now, you might need to weigh it against how good your IVs are, but in general, you're going to want a pokemon with a beneficial nature to its stats and moveset. Most natures increase one stat and decrease another. Some natures are neutral and allow the base stats to remain unaffected. For our Togepi, we would want to avoid natures that decrease its highest stats like Lonely or Naughty, which both increase Attack while decreasing defense and special defense respectively. Preferably, we would want a nature that increases one of its highest stats and decreases a stat it won't rely on, like Bold or Calm which increase Defense and Special Defense respectively while only paying for it with a drop in Physical Attack which is already Togepi's lowest stat and the least likely to be used since you can simply opt not to put any physical moves in its moveset.

For a full list of Natures and how they influence stats, I once again refer you to Bulbapedia.

Let's say our Togepi's nature is Lonely or Naughty and its IVs are described as "average" and "relatively good." This is the worst case scenario and those choice adjectives from our friendly pokemon breeder are a polite way of saying this thing's stats are absolute garbage and it will die if something so much as growls at it. If you've ever caught a pokemon and were shocked by how low its damage output is, or how much damage it takes, it's probably got pretty bad rolls in one of these two departments and it's never a good feeling. In this case, we're going to want to release our garbage Togepi and let nature run its course while we try to breed for a better one.

On the contrary, if our Togepi is Bold with IVs described as "outstanding" and "flawless," we are holding the messiah of Togepi and should treasure it for the blessing from God that it is. No other Togepi will have as much potential as our own unless they share a similar description. This would be the one we want to train.

But, more realistically, you're probably not going to breed for your perfect Togepi. Even if you do manage to get one, you'll probably still end up with some other frustrating limitation like having Hustle instead of Serene Grace. You're more likely going to be breeding for just a tolerable one. You might settle on a nature like Adamant which increases physical Attack and decreases Special Attack just because you like the IVs, or you might settle on middling IVs because you like the nature. Just try to make sure its nature isn't negatively impacting the stats you want to focus on or you're going to have some disappointing results, and try not to compromise too much on its IVs because bad IVs can shoot your pokemon in the foot before it even sees its first Rattata.

     

     

I recommend breeding a whole collection of Togepi and keeping track of which one is the best out of the litter, then deciding if you're happy with the result or if you want to carry on breeding. This can clutter up your PC boxes real badly, though, so make sure you release the bad ones! Don't worry, there aren't any ecological concerns in pokemon. Pfft. Your pokemon will live a happy and healthy life in the wild! Just... don't think about it too much. What's more important, your ethical dilemmas or winning a pokemon battle!?

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

So, we now know what we're after.

A Togepi with a beneficial nature, the Serene Grace ability, and preferably an IV spread that's at least in the "impressive" and "outstanding" category. Depending on how long it takes to get good results, though, we may compromise on what we want in some of these areas a little bit. Make sure you have your priorities straight, you want your Togepi to be the best Togepi you've ever raised!

So now let's get into the breeding process! In order to make a baby, we're of course going to need some parents! You might want to look at Togepi's Gen III learnset to see if there are any particular egg moves you might want. Breeding in Gen 3 mostly works the same as in Gen 2, so I probably shouldn't have to go over how Move inheritance works. The differences lie mainly in nuances like inheriting nature from its parents with an Everstone. To my knowledge, the obnoxious IV check for breeding from Gen 2 is gone and you shouldn't have to worry about questionable inbreeding, but don't quote me on that. I've yet to put these ideas into practice.

I've already covered how nice of a move Substitute is, so maybe we might want to breed this onto our Togepi? We can see that it gets Substitute as an Egg Move from Skitty. If we can get our hands on a Male Skitty with Substitute (this is an egg move for Skitty, too, so this is actually chain breeding), and a female Togetic, we should have a chance to get our Togepi with Substitute!

  

The father will need to be a Skitty with Substitute, while the mother will need to be a Togetic. Preferably, the Togetic should have a beneficial nature and an Everstone to increase the odds of the baby inheriting its beneficial nature! The baby Togepi will have a 50% chance of inheriting its mother's nature if it's holding an Everstone.

Of course, we'll need to find a place to actually breed these pokemon, so...

In Pokemon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, you'll need to take your pokemon to the Pokemon Daycare on Route 117 just west of Mauville City.

In FireRed and LeafGreen, the Day Care on Four Island is where you'll want to go, though I don't recommend doing your breeding here if you can avoid it. Of course, the Day Care south of Cerulean doesn't work for breeding since it can only accept one pokemon at a time.

If you're trying to breed two pokemon, make sure to check with the Day Care Lady! If they say the pokemon would prefer to play with other pokemon rather than each other, do not waste your time trying to breed them as they will never breed! There are many reasons this might happen. Your pokemon might not be different genders, they might not be in the same egg group, or they might fall into that unfortuante issue that arbitrarily stops pokemon from breeding from Gen 2 that has managed to plague its way into Gen 3's breeding mechanics as well... God I hope not.

     

Once we've collected a few eggs from this couple, we'll naturally need to hatch these eggs! This is the main reason I recommend breeding in Emerald over any other game in Gen 3 because this game introduces a new mechanic to make breeding more painless!

A pokemon with Flame Body or Magma Armor as its ability will now reduce the amount of steps it takes to hatch eggs as long as it's in your active party! In Emerald, Slugma has both of these abilities and can be found really easily in the wild!

If you don't have a Slugma, you can find them most commonly on Route 113 just west of Fallarbor Town.

     

With Slugma in your party, all your eggs should hatch much faster! If you're playing in any other Gen 3 game besides Emerald, though, this won't work and you'll be stuck spending a lot longer going back and forth.

 

The longest straight line in all of Gen 3 is also in Hoenn, another point for Emerald! It spans from Verdanturf Town all the way to Route 118 east of Mauville City. You'll want to get the Mach Bike and run back and forth along this straight line. Considering its location right outside the day care, I'm pretty certain this was an intentional design decision! 

     

And once you have your army of Togepi, you can check them all to see which one is the best!

Again, you'll probably want to check in with the Pokemon Breeder at the Battle Frontier to see what its IV spread is looking like before making your final executive decision.

 

If you're unhappy with your selection, you can always just go back and breed for even more Togepi. Heck, in the process, you might even hatch a shiny! Make some shiny hunters jealous!

Eventually, you should settle on a Togepi you're satisfied with. Either through perserverance until you get that perfect result, or out of frustration and a lack of patience and just settling on what the best one you have so far which you hatched like four hours ago.

Now that we have our alpha Togepi, we can finally start the training! ...Kinda. Well, first, we need to figure out what EVs it needs and how best to distribute the 510 we're alotted! Now, there's a lot of nuance to these decisions, but for the sake of example, we're going to keep things simple and just focus on putting 252 EVs into Togepi's two best stats: Defense and Special Defense. That'll leave us with the four remaining EVs to put into HP, and two extra EVs for leniency. If you accidentally go one or two EVs over 252 in a stat, or if you accidentally KO the wrong pokemon somewhere, you'll still be able to get 4 EVs onto another stat.

With that out of the way, training time? Again, kinda. First, we need to pump our baby full of drugs! ...Don't quote that out of context.

     

You know those vitamins we've been hoarding since Ruby and Sapphire? Here's where they come in handy! But Vitamins work a little bit differently than in Gen 2. For starters, you'll notice there's one new one that wasn't in GSC: Zinc! In Gen 2, Calcium increased both Special Attack and Special Defense since it just increased Special in Red and Blue. But, with the reworked EV system in Gen 3, Calcium now only increases Special Attack while Zinc increases Special Defense. Previously, you would simply stuff newly hatched pokemon with as many vitamins as they'd take in each stat. But EVs change up the way these items are used significantly! It takes a much more strategic approach now!

Now, a vitamin will give a pokemon 10 EVs in its respective stat, but it will only work if the pokemon has less than 100 EVs in that stat. In other words, a newly hatched pokemon can only take 10 vitamins in a given stat. You can't just stuff your pokemon with a whole bunch of vitamins anymore because each vitamin will eat up 10 of its EVs which means 10 less to distribute across its other stats. Make sure you're only using vitamins for stats your pokemon needs!

 

In the case of our Togepi, we'll want to give him 10 Iron and 10 Zinc in order to boost his Defense and Special Defense EVs to 100 each. Great! Now how are we going to get the other 152? Yes, that's right, it's finally time to get into the training!

........

kinda.

So, as mentioned before, each pokemon specializes in a stat. That is, every single pokemon species offers a number of EVs in particular stats, usually based on what it's best at. It's not too important to familiarize yourself with what pokemon provide what EVs. What's more important is to focus on what areas help you boost what EVs. Thankfully, it seems the developers were kind enough to leave specialized areas around Hoenn specifically for this purpose! This is where we ditch Bulbapedia in favor of Smogon's EV Training guides! Specifically, since we're doing our breeding in Emerald, we may as well focus on the Emerald EV Training Guide as it's simply the most convenient place to grind EVs. These guides will point you to where to look for the best locations to grind each stat! They'll also provide some extra detail that I might overlook, so take a look around there if you're interested in maximizing efficiency!

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

For HP, you'll want to head to Rusturf Tunnel!

Here, you can find Whismur at 100%. Each one will provide one HP EV.

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

For Attack, you'll want to head to the first floor of Mt. Pyre where you'll find Shuppet at 100%!

Every Shuppet provides one Attack EV

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

For physical Defense, you'll want to head to the Magma Hideout on Jagged Pass! Here you'll find Graveler, Geodude, and Torkoal!

 

Every Graveler and Torkoal you KO will net you 2 EVs in Defense,

while every Geodude will net you one.

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

For Special Attack, you'll want to head to Route 113 where you can find Spinda and Slugma at a total of 95%! Be careful to run away from any Skarmory, though, as they'll give you 2 EVs in Defense instead!

 

Every Spinda or Slugma you KO will give you 1 EV in Special Attack.

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

For Special Defense, you'll want to make your way inside the Abandoned Ship on route 108. It's a bit out of your way, but in this tiny little pool, you'll find Tentacool at 99% and Tentacruel at 1%.

Every Tentacruel you manage to take out will earn you 2 EVs in Special Defense

And every tentacool will earn you 1.

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

For speed EVs, you might want to go to Route 118 where you can find a large assortment of speed EV pokemon! Just watch out for the 1% Kecleon which will give you Special Defense instead.

 

Linoone and Manectric will both earn you 2 EVs for their defeat.

  

Zigzagoon, Wingull, and Electrike will each earn you 1.

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

Alternatively, for more consistent 2 EV boosts in Speed, you could head to the inner caves of Meteor Falls. This requires Waterfall to reach, but Surfing here gives you a 90% encounter rate for Golbat! Just watch out for those Solrock which aim to pester you with Attack EVs.

Every Golbat gives you 2 EVs in speed!

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

But, wait a minute. 1 EV? 2 EV? Do you really expect me to knock out 152 Tentacool just to max out Togepi's Special Defense? Well, yes it's true that these EV yields are pretty low, but there are a few more measures we can take!

Remember the Macho Brace? Well, now we can finally get into how it's used! Remember how I said it'll help pokemon get stronger faster but won't necessarily help them become stronger overall? Well, this is where we finally get into what it actually does! The Macho Brace doubles the EV gain any time the pokemon holding it gains any EVs! So, give it to your Togepi and now he only has to take out 76 Tentacool! Even fewer if you happen to encounter any Tentacruel! But, we can get that number even lower with some really good luck.

If you're lucky enough, at some point, you may have returned to the Pokemon Center to find that one of your pokemon has contracted Pokerus! This sounds like a scary medical condition, but it's anything but! Pokerus is a virus that spreads rapidly among pokemon that battle together. But it's actually mutually beneficial with the pokemon it infects! It has no negative repercussions but will double the pokemon's EV gain permanently! This boost even stacks with the Macho Brace, turning any 2 EV yield pokemon into an 8 EV yield pokemon! There is a catch that, the moment your internal clock strikes midnight, Pokerus will disappear from any pokemon in your active party, so make sure you try to spread it to at least one pokemon that you can keep in your PC so that you can always spread Pokerus to any pokemon that needs it!

The other catch is that Pokerus is incredibly rare. It's about as common as encountering a shiny pokemon at random. I wouldn't recommend actively seeking it out, but if you ever find yourself with Pokerus, definitely take action as quickly as possible! That is a valuable treasure! As you get into the more modern age of pokemon, you'll be able to use Wi-Fi to trade with people online and get pokemon infected with Pokerus more easily, but for now, we're stuck with whatever we find ourselves. Unfortunately, I have yet to encounter Pokerus in this playthrough. If you contract it, you'll know by two ways. Either the nurse will tell you when you heal your pokemon at a pokemon center, or you'll check the pokemon's status and find that big purple label that says "PKRS" like the pokemon is poisoned.

In my lifetime, I believe I've only contracted Pokerus randomly twice. Once in Heart Gold and another in Black 2 and I've been playing Pokemon since I was too young to even read. So yes, this is definitely something to treasure!

Thankfully, the effects of Pokerus are permanent. After Pokerus goes away, a pokemon that has previously been infected with it will be marked on their status screen. The only thing they lose when they lose Pokerus is the contagious aspect.

So, if you're lucky enough to get a pokemon with Pokerus and give it a Macho Brace to hold, you'll only need to take out 38 pokemon in order to max out your EVs. And again, this can be shortened further if you encounter pokemon that yield 2 EVs instead of 1!

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

 

So, with our theoretical baby Togepi stuffed up with Iron and Zinc, we can give him a Macho Brace, have him contract Pokerus if possible, and take him on a tour to build is EVs!

                    

                    

We can have it gain Defense EVs against Graveler, Torkoal and Geodude in the Magma Hideout

                    

                    

And then bring it to the Abandoned Ship to fight Tantacruel and Tentacool!

...Okay, wait, this level 5 Togepi's gonna take on these strong foes? Well, thankfully not. EVs are rewarded to any pokemon that gains Exp for the battle. It doesn't matter whether or not Togepi actually delivered the killing blow.

                     

               

All you have to do is switch Togepi out for a pokemon that can take these guys out with ease! It'll still gain the EVs, don't you worry!

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

This is a lot of work to train up just one single pokemon, so I hope you understand now just how serious of a commitment training up an entire team really is! But, once you've finally finished all your preparations, you can start to level your pokemon up!

You should be able to notice the difference in stats while grinding, but you should most certainly be able to tell a difference if you compare your newly EV trained Togetic to one you just casually evolved and grineded to the same level arbitrarily. It's important to ensure your pokemon shines in the areas it needs to! Try to plan out exactly what you want the pokemon to do before you even start breeding so that you at least have an idea of what you're looking for! While it takes a lot of time, the result really can be worth it!

...but now it's time to put my money where my mouth is. I suppose I'm gonna have to start planning my real competitive Gen 3 team, huh? We'll have to get there sooner or later! Let's go!

[Aura]

Okay, further update... I unfortunately think I'm really just going to have to drop the competitive side of Gen 3 for now. Maybe one day I'll revisit these games to play through the more competitive aspects, but... the more I delve into all of this, the more time I'm realizing all of this is going to take. I'm starting to realize the amount of time it will take to plan my team, chain breed TMs around to as much as possible, the limitations I'm stuck with as a consequence of my decisions... It's all extremely frustrating and I'm finding myself extremely overwhelmed before even beginning.

I promised multiple times that I'd revisit the Battle Frontier and try to get all the silver medals, and I do intend to revisit the Battle Frontier, but I don't intend to stress over getting the medals anymore. It's really, really unfortunate, but all the odds just feel stacked against me at the moment. 

Under normal circumstances, there are a lot of workarounds I could utilize.

     

To start with, the rare berries: Pomeg, Kelpsy, Qualot, Hondew, Grepa, and Tamato Berries which you might recognize as just being PokeBlock ingredients back in Ruby and Sapphire, were actually given an effect in Pokemon Emerald! They reduce EVs by 10 in HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed respectively. This is a huge boon for competitive play as it gives you more freedom over errors in EV training. You can easily correct mistakes. If you accidentally KO the wrong pokemon or enter an unexpected trainer battle or something, you can simply rectify the unwanted EVs with these berries!

...unfortunately, as you might be able to piece together, with the internal battery of my GBA games run dry, these berries are in extremely limited supply. Normally, I'd be able to plant them all over Hoenn and have a healthy, constant supply of them. That just isn't the case, though. If I theoretically had an unlimited supply of these berries, I would most certainly use them to retroactively EV train all of the pokemon I've just trained up for the Orre Colosseum so that they can battle properly at the Battle Frontier. The only way I'd be able to do that, aside from going through the extra mile of replacing my internal battery, is by getting some sort of cheating device or flash cart and at that point... no. I know it's understandable, but allowing cheating even to such a minor extent opens up a whole can of worms that I can't turn a blind eye to. The fact of the matter is, this is just a part of the experience. Part of what makes creating a strong team so satisfying is the amount of time you dedicate into training every member up specifically for what they do.

And then we have TMs... this is where things get especially frustrating for me. While I'm confident there's some good collection of pokemon I can breed for through chain breeding combined with the leftover TMs I have across all of my playthroughs... I'd really have to scrape the bottom of the barrel. Chain Breeding sounds extremely useful for spreading TMs around until you realize that the pokemon's first stage needs to be able to learn the TM. Most first stage pokemon can't learn nearly as many TMs as their final stages. For example, if you want a Salamence with Earthquake, you have to use an Earthquake TM on it because you cannot breed a Bagon that knows Earthquake as an Egg Move. This wouldn't be a problem, because I do have an Earthquake TM from Ruby version... but Salamence isn't the only pokemon I'd want to use it on. Earthquake is a very important move for a lot of pokemon in competitive play. This same limitation applies to other pokemon that rely on the move: Metagross, Slaking... I can't tell you how disheartening it is to be excited about using a pokemon I haven't used yet only to realize that it literally just... won't work.

Now, I can get multiple Earthquake TMs. The issue is, it requires the ability Pickup. And leveling a Pickup Pokemon all the way to level 91. And even then, every time Pickup triggers, I only get a 1% chance of getting an Earthquake TM. Now, normally, I would simply accept this as just a part of competitive play in Gen 3, but... let's not forget I'm doing a marathon here. I can't just bring this entire thread to a screeching halt because I want to grind out a Linoone to nearly level 100 just so that I can begin to search for a 1% TM that I can give to my pokemon. 

Now, there are a lot of really good TMs that are easily renuable. Thanks to Mt. Battle, it's very easy to get Shadow Ball and the standard elemental attacks. Protect, Safeguard, Reflect, Light Screen, and the like are all easily obtainable, too. 

Still, I'm really torn on this decision because I feel like we've only gotten a taste of the competitive side of this game through the Battle Factory and the idea of using my own builds is really exciting to me! I just honestly can't say it seems realistic in any capacity. There's just so many inconsistencies.

So, what I think I'm going to do is fairly simple: I'm going to try and do my best with what I have access to. I still have a decent chunk of pokemon across these games that I've never actually used in battle thanks to my journey to complete the pokedex. Surely, some of them will prove useful. Even if I may not have a totally competitively viable team, I might be able to scrounge together something playable that will at least get me through to the Silver Medals in the Battle Frontier. But I'm also going to try not to stress too much about it, either. I'll try to breed my best team and get to work.

In the mean time, though, I have a replacement battery for my GBA ordered and it should arrive by August 4th. Unfortuantely, that means we might go on a bit of a hiatus for this series. However, I think I'm going to do my best to do a generational cleanup. And since Gen 3 was such a huge gen, there's a lot to cover in this one! We're probably going to start with, what might seem completely out of nowhere, a revisit to the Pokemon Contest Hall! I've done a Beauty contest in Ruby, but I want to try and at least win a Master Rank contest in each category! My original plan, in fact, was to utilize one pokemon from each game! This will take some additional planning, but I'd love to make it work! So, next time, I think we'll get started on our new life as a Pokemon Contest star!

[Aura]

Pokemon Emerald -- Competitive Planning & Prep

Okay, so, once again we're going to have a change of plans. After reflecting on my decision I'd made on the previous post, I've come to realize I was honestly being rather melodramatic about the whole situation. I was going through my five game files and, while I won't exactly be able to create my dream team, I think I seriously underestimated how many good moves I still had access to. I'm going to have to be a bit creative with my approach, but I've gone ahead and planned out specifically seven pokemon that I intend to use across the Battle Frontier. At most, I really only need three different pokemon, but I'd like to get a handful of different options set up just in case I find myself needing them. Since I'm still unsure how hard I'm going to commit to the Orre Colosseum in XD, I'll be focusing almost exclusively on Single Battle format. That's what I was most easily able to find information on the competitive meta for.

If anyone like @maid lover , who I'm singling out merely because he requested I ask if I needed any advice, wishes to provide any advice for the competitive double battle meta, feel free to respond to this post or send me an Ecchi Text! Until then, I'll go ahead and get things going by discussing my new plans for the competitive side of Gen 3 and getting to work on gathering materials!

Let's begin by covering the collection of Seven Pokemon I've chosen based simply off of some brief dabbling on Smogon. Keep in mind, I do mostly want this to be my own experience, and this is a rather budgeted team. Most of my best TMs have already been used for Single Player, which leads to many complications. For example...

       

...most of my pokemon with Earthquake are female or can't pass the move on through breeding for one reason or another.

 

The only Male pokemon I have with Earthquake are Marco the Swampert from Ruby and River the Whiscash from Emerald. Between these two, I'm limited to passing Earthquake onto exclusively pokemon in the Monster, Field, and Water 2 Egg Groups as well as any that can chain breed through those. This might sound like a rather diverse group of pokemon, but when we try to narrow it down to competitively viable options, our choices are especially narrow. Keep in mind that the first stage has to be able to know the move you're trying to pass down. Even though Gyarados might be in Water 2 and capable of learning Earthquake, Magikarp cannot, so you cannot breed a Magikarp with Earthquake as an egg move. We're basically limited to passing Earthquake exclusively down to Ground types as far as I can tell. There are still some viable options, though. For example, Dugtrio seems to be a rather popular choice and it is in the Field Egg Group capable of inheriting Earthquake from Marco, but for the most part, I'm trying to keep things as simple as I can while still scrounging together a vaguely competitive team. I tried to ensure all of my pokemon have some decent synergy with each other and, for the most part, I think I've pieced together a pretty solid team with these plans.

    

     

I should also probably briefly mention that I won't be using any of the legal legendaries, unfortunately. While I'd love to make room for at least one of these really cool pokemon, the fact remains that they can't be bred for, so I'm restricted to whatever TMs I have on hand to give to them and anything I give to them can't be further passed down through breeding. In addition, coming through my save files across all of Gen 3: Ruby, Sapphire, Colosseum, Leaf Green, Fire Red, Emerald, and XD... across them all, every single legal legendary I've captured either has a useless or counter-productive nature. I must have had absolutely rotten luck as most of them reduced their speed, defenses or special attack. In general, whatever was most useful for the pokemon seemed to consistently be the dropped stat. No speed for Zapdos, no Sp. Attack for Suicune, no bulk for Registeel. I genuinely could not believe how terrible these natures turned out to be. While there are still some legendaries I've never actually caught, such as the Regis from Sapphire, I think I'm rather content in turning away from the idea that any of them could be good.

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

 Metagross [Adamant: +Atk/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 252 Atk, 128 HP, 128 Spd

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Earthquake, Meteor Mash, Rock Slide, Explosion

Across my brief research into the Gen 3 meta, one of the two names that kept coming up in terms of prominent pokemon in competitive play, Metagross and Salamence were the top contenders as powerful sweepers. I quickly came to understand that the most important part of Gen 3 battling is being able to set up faster than your opponent and gain an advantage on them. It seems more defensive strategies may become more viable later on, but thanks to the introduction of abilities like Intimidate, it's really easy to setup.

Since I only have one Earthquake TM left (from Ruby), I had to choose between Metagross and Salamence. I felt Metagross was the better general choice to go with. Its Clear Body would protect it from the prominence of Intimidate and its Steel Typing keeps it from losing HP to Tyranitar's Sand Stream. Overall, I plan for this to be the central powerhouse of the team, but there is one other I wanted to raise as well, though I'm a bit less committed to it.

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

 Slaking [Adamant: +Atk/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 252 Atk, 252 Spd, 4 Def

Ability: Truant | Moves: Double-Edge, Shadow Ball, Brick Break, Aerial Ace

The presence of Aerial Ace on this set will probably raise some eyebrows. Again, I only have one Earthquake TM and I wanted to give that to Metagross. Still, I really enjoyed using that Choice Band Slaking during the Battle Factory and wanted to relive the glory days a bit here. This Slaking isn't quite as good, though, without Earthquake and I honestly doubt he'll see much play. I decided to go for Aerial Ace on the off chance that I might run into an annoyingly evasive opponent. Really, though, there aren't a whole lot of alternatives to Earthquake, so it was the best choice. Alternatively, I briefly considered going for another STAB Normal-type move like Body Slam that wouldn't cause any recoil, but I figured I'd mostly just be using Double-Edge, so I figured I'd at least go for some extra type coverage.

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

 Skarmory [Careful +Sp. Def/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 252 HP, 252 Sp. Def, 4 Spd

Ability: Sturdy | Moves: Spikes, Roar, Drill Peck, Toxic

Skarmory is apparently a really prominent defensive wall. Setting up with Spikes is also apparently a lot more useful in this gen because this is apparently where the ability to stack spikes came into play (I knew I wasn't just making that up!) By stacking multiple layers of Spikes, the spikes will deal more damage, but can still all be cleared out at once by a Rapid Spin. In addition, any amount of Spikes can be helpful for sweeping! Roar is mainly there to protect Skarmory from Magneton but can also be used to scare away other threatening opponents. Mor importantly, it's a fun way to drain the opponent's HP if you've already got Spikes set up. Apparently, Whirlwind is generally preferred over Roar simply due to the fact that Roar is a sound-based move and thus can potentially be jammed by the Soundproof ability, but I didn't think that was too significant of a tradeoff, especially when forced to make the choice between Whirlwind and Drill Peck. In Gen 3, Skarmory can inherit either of these moves as Egg Moves, but they're mutually exclusive. Skarmory can only inherit Whirlwind from the Pidgeot line and can only inherit Drill Peck from the Fearow and Dodrio lines. I felt Drill Peck was the optimal choice because, not only could I replace Whirlwind with a functionally identical move, but Drill Peck gives Skarmory some ability to fight back besides just roaring away. I can deal some decent damage with this move when backed into a corner.

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

 Blissey [Bold: +Def/-Atk]

EVs: 252 Def, 128 HP, 128 Spd

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Thunder Wave, Seismic Toss, Counter, SoftBoiled

Blissey seems to form a frightening duo with Skarmory. Where Skarmory is excellent for taking physical hits, Blissey is perfect for soaking up special attacks. Thunder Wave can help me slow down particularly fast opponents. If I'm lucky, I can even get them to stop attacking for a turn or two. Seismic Toss allows Blissey to deal some damage in spite of Blissey's miserable offensive stats. Counter, likewise, can harshly punish a foe for daring to exploit Blissey's low physical defense. Odds are, it's not going to be taken out by a single attack. SoftBoiled helps Blissey to recover a bunch of its lost HP.

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

 Ninjask [Jolly: +Spd/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 252 Atk, 252 Spd, 4 Def

Ability: Speed Boost | Moves: Baton Pass, Substitute, Swords Dance, Silver Wind

How could I resist? I've fallen in love with Ninjask. What better way could I support my physical teammates? I was actually surprised to find that Smogon rates Ninjask not at OU (Overused), but at UUBL(Underused Ban List) tier for Gen 3. Essentially, they've judged that it isn't good enough to deal with the OU metagame, but it's too good to be allowed in the the UU Metagame. Anyway, the biggest mistake I've found in my build for Hill is apparently a common one that was actually quite a popular build for a while. Apparently, it's generally preferred that Ninjask should be able to fight in a pinch. There is the obvious benefit in that your loss isn't assured simply by being brought down to your last pokemon, but also, Ninjask's attacking abilities are apparently not to be taken for granted. Especially if you can get a Swords Dance or two off behind a Substitute, Ninjask can apparently deal a surprising amount of damage with its STAB attacks. Silver Wind was the recommended move to go for and I don't exactly have the experience to argue, so here's the build I'm willing to experiment with.

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

 Starmie [Timid: +Spd/-Atk]

EVs: 252 Sp. Atk, 252 Spd, 4 HP

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, ThunderBolt, Rapid Spin

Starmie was a pokemon I had to go with. Out of the team I'd thrown together for my initial attempt at the Orre Colosseum, Regen was the only pokemon that was able to hold its own decently well. I took that as a sign that I really had to bring the potential of this pokemon out. Starmie here has a lot of potential as a specially-oriented sweeper. With Rapid Spin, I can also shut down any Spikes setup and it'll be incredibly difficult to outspeed Starmie. Especially if I manage to baton pass in with some Speed boosts. While Hydro Pump is a bit inaccurate for my liking, it's apparently a necessary pay-off because it gets some rather important OHKOs against physical attackers that you just can't get with Surf, the next best thing. Ice Beam and ThunderBolt are both there for type coverage. If I can set up Spikes with Skarmory before bringing Skarmory out, it can also help Starmie get OHKOs a lot more consistently.

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

 Breloom [Adamant: +Atk/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 52 HP, 252 Atk, 204 Spd

Ability: Effect Spore | Moves: Spore, Focus Punch, Mach Punch, Substitute

Breloom is just a curious pokemon with a lot of hidden potential I've yet to delve into. It's decently fast and capable of using the rare move Spore. First of all, without Sleep Clause in effect, Spore is incredibly powerful. Beyond that, even with Sleep Clause, if I can hit the foe with Spore, Focus Punch is guaranteed to land the following turn unless the foe switches into a Ghost-type. I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who'd freely switch into a pokemon that'll die to Focus Punch, but it'll deal a hefty chunk of damage to be sure. Especially, again, with Spikes set up ahead of time!

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

       

So that's my team plan so far! I know it's rather messy and not very well planned out, but I'm hoping that some of the more standard strategies present here will be enough to carry me to victory! With my plans together, we of course have to gather our materials and make sure this recipe is even possible, or it'll quickly become a recipe for disaster!

Before we even put any work into planning our breeding, we need to make sure it's even possible to get the moves I want onto these pokemon. So, let's look into it!

For TMs, I mostly tried to limit myself to easily accessible TMs that can be bought from stores or that I know I haven't used before.

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

 

In Ruby, I have a single Earthquake TM. As already discussed, I plan to use this for Metagross.

  

 

In XD, I have a TM for Roar and Aerial Ace which I plan to use on Skarmory and Slaking respectively.

  

 

And in Emerald, I have the TMs for Toxic and Focus Punch which I plan to use for Skarmory and Breloom respectively.

  

  

For Slaking's Shadow Ball and Starmie's Ice Beam and ThunderBolt, these TMs can easily be obtained from XD's Mt. Battle. I've got plenty of Poke Coupons, so I may as well use 'em!

 

Meanwhile, Brick Break can simply be purchased at the Dept. Store in Celadon!

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

After confirming I have all the TMs I need, I also need to confirm I have the Move Tutors that I need available! Unlike in Gen 2, Tutor moves can't actually be passed down through breeding in Gen 3, so I have to be very careful how I use these moves. Thankfully, I was rather conservative with these for the most part, though I am paying a bit for being so wasteful with Rock Slide and Swords Dance.

 

In Emerald's Sootopolis, I can teach Slaking Double-Edge.

 

In Fire Red, I can bring Metagross to Mt. Ember to teach it Explosion.

 

I can bring Blissey to the 2nd floor of Silph Co. to learn Thunder Wave!

 

I used the Fire Red tutor already, but in Leaf Green, I still have the Seismic Toss tutor in Pewter Museum to teach Blissey in Leaf Green!

  

On the third floor of the Celadon Dept. Store, in either Fire Red or Leaf Green, I can bring Blissey to learn Counter!

   

Between FireRed and LeafGreen, there are two Substitute Move tutors for Ninjask and Breloom to split! (Unfortunately, I can't simply pass Hill's Substitute on to a new baby Nincada...)

  

Unfortunately, for Swords Dance and Rock Slide, I've already exhausted the tutors from Fire Red and Leaf Green, so I'll just have to rely on the renewable ones at the Battle Frontier in Emerald. Since I only have 63BP in Emerald, I'll have to choose which one I want more. Thankfully, affording them both shouldn't be too difficult since I just need to get by with a team of three pokemon.

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

Finally, we just need to confirm that we can actually breed for the Egg Moves we need. This will require some additional pokemon as well as... a lot of Ditto.

So, starting with Gen 3, it's pretty important to keep a collection of Ditto if you want to breed for a competitive team. Specifically, you're going to want one Ditto for every stat-altering nature. Or, at the very least, one for each nature you're going to need. This sounds like a complicated task, but it will make breeding a lot more painless. Unfortunately, you can't breed for Ditto. Ditto can only be used to breed for other pokemon. So, in order to amass this collection, you're going to need to catch a bunch in the wild.

Ditto is most commonly found in Emerald's Desert Underpass. You'll find them here at 50% rarity. You can get Repeat Balls from Rustboro City's PokeMart to make these things easier to capture once they're registered in your pokedex.

If you don't have Emerald, you'll need FireRed or LeafGreen to get Ditto. You can find them most commonly there at 25% in the basement of Cerulean Cave. That said, if you're interested in competitive battling, I highly recommend Emerald version since breeding is so much faster in that game and there's so much more to do with your competitive team.

   

Specifically, I'm going to need an Adamant, Timid, Jolly, Bold, and Careful Ditto to make the breeding process proceed as smoothly as possible.

Once we have our Ditto Collection, we can look into the pokemon we'll need to gather. This should be the easiest step. Of course, we're going to need the parents of our pokemon. In the event the pokemon needs to inherit a particular egg move, we'll need to make sure we have a male with that Egg Move and a female of the desired species. Otherwise, we can simply rely on Ditto. Thankfully, we don't have to worry too much about this since we have our Ditto collection to lean on! We can breed with Ditto until we get a female with the desired nature, just make sure to give the Everstone to the Ditto of the nature you want to inherit! It doesn't matter if Ditto is the mother or father, the game will always treat Ditto like the mother when checking for inheritance of nature. Unfortunately, the same doesn't apply for Egg Moves...

   

In Emerald, I already have Steve's Beldum, Core, and Shurm the Shroomish which I used for the HM Flash. Additionally, there's Hill the Ninjask whose currently in XD. That's three down right out the gate!

    

From Ruby version, I have a Slaking and Skarmory ready to breed. In addition, I also have a Male Beautifly and Dodrio which I can train up at Mt. Battle until they learn Silver Wind and Drill Peck respectively. These can then be inherited by Ninjask and Skarmory.

 

Originating from Leaf Green, we still have Regen in XD which we can breed for our competitive Starmie.

 

Finally, from XD, we can bring in Lucky the Chansey!

Conveniently, I was able to assemble all the pokemon we needed just from what was already traded into XD, Emerald, and Ruby. Even more conveneintly, I only needed to trade exactly 6 pokemon from XD to Emerald. Slaking, Skarmory, Beautifly, Dodrio, Starmie, and Chansey.

  

Naturally, I trained up Rump the Beautifly (A wonderful name, I'm aware. Unintentional, though. It was derived from Wurmple's name, I believe) and Drodo the Dodrio at Mt. Battle so that they learned the moves they'd need to pass on. Rump learned Silver Wind at level 34 and Drodo learned Drill Peck at level 47. Nothing too rough!

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

With all of our materials assembled and/or confirmed, it was finally time to get started on planning everything out!

Let's start with the first pokemon on our list: Metagross! Simple enough, really. Even though the Beldum line is genderless and can't breed with most pokemon, any pokemon is capable of breeding with Ditto as long as it isn't in the "undiscovered" egg group (The undiscovered egg group includes every legendary or mythical up to Gen 3 [shhh spoilers], and every baby pokemon).

  

All I need for this one is Core the Beldum and an Adamant Ditto holding an Everstone!

I've already explained the breeding process earlier, so I won't detail it here, but in the end, we should be able to get an Adamant Beldum. Naturally, I'll want to breed for a healthy handful to get the best IVs I can.

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

Next is Slaking! Slaking needs a handful of TMs. Slakoth is capable of inheriting Shadow Ball, Brick Break, and Aerial Ace, but unfortunately not Earthquake. That's okay, though. What isn't okay is that I don't have any pokemon in the Field Egg Group that actually know any of these moves. While I'm sure I could probably chain breed it around somewhere somehow, I shouldn't have any issues gathering the TMs I want on this guy. Ditto will have to suffice.

  

Once again, this should be as simple as pairing Slaking with an Adamant Everstone Ditto.

This should be able to result in an Adamant Slakoth ready for training! If only there were an ability I choose from instead of Truant...

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

Up next, we have Skarmory. This is the first pokemon we'll need an Egg Move for, so it'll be a little bit more complicated!

  

We do have a female Skarmory from Ruby, but it doesn't have the appropriate nature. So first, we'll need to breed this Skarmory with a Careful Everstone Ditto and hatch eggs one by one until we find a female Skarmory with a Careful nature.

It's important that this Skarmory is a female so that it will be able to be bred for a thrid generation Skarmory.

  

Now, we can have this new Skarmory breed with Drodo the Dodrio who knows Drill Peck! We'll need to make sure to give the Everstone to Skarmory this time so that the child will be able to inherit its Careful nature!

The end result should be a Careful Skarmory that knows the move Drill Peck! Of course, I'll need to make sure it has the Sturdy Ability! Keen Eye doesn't seem to be too terribly useful in competitive play. Sturdy probably isn't, either, but it's certainly better!

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

Blissey is next! Another very simple one!

  

All I need to do is breed Lucky the Chansey with a Bold Everstone Ditto!

The result, of course, should be a Bold Chansey! I'll definitely want to make sure its ability is Natural Cure because I won't be getting much use out of Serene Grace at all.

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

Ninjask is another pokemon with an Egg Move!

  

I'll start by breeding Hill with a Jolly Everstone Ditto!

The goal here is of course to get myself a female Jolly Nincada. This Nincada will inherit the move Protect from Hill, but that's ultimately not going to matter.

  

This Nincada should be able to breed with Rump the Beautifly in order for the child to inherit Silver Wind!

This should allow for a Jolly Nincada that knows the move Silver Wind!

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

Starmie is next! Another simple one!

  

I'll just need to breed Regen the Starmie with a Timid Everstone Ditto. I'm actually unsure of a genderless pokemon is capable of passing on Egg Moves or not... I guess there's only one way to find out!

The result here should be a Timid Staryu. We'll want to make sure it gets the ability Natural Cure, though!

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

Finally, Breloom!

  

I already have Shurm the Shroomish. I just need to breed him with an Adamant Everstone Ditto.

The result, of course, will be a Shroomish. This one will end up inheriting the move Flash, but that should be okay. I can just take it to the Move Deleter.

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

       

Of course, we won't just go with the first pokemon that fits the criteria. We're going to want to breed for a handful of each of these pokemon to take to the legendary pokemon breeder at the Battle Frontier in order to check their IVs and make sure we can get the best of the best from each litter!

After all is said and done, we should have our squad of pokemon ready to enter phase 2: EV Training!

Of course, all of this is going to take quite a while to get done, so I can't promise any consistent updates for a little while. I can promise, however, that I will be working on this off and on over the next few days. I hope to get to the Battle Frontier soon!

I know I said I'd do the Pokemon Contests in the meantime, but, as I was looking through my games to decide on Contest builds, I realized I definitely should be prioritizing these competitive battles over something like Pokemon Contests. The pokemon I train here could end up following me into future generations as well!

Anyway, by the time I make my next post, we should have our final selection of pokemon ready for phase 2! If anything unexpected or unplanned happens, I'll try to update you then!

[Aura]

Gen 3 Competitive Training Phase 2 Planning: EV Training

So, I've gone through and done all my breeding, finally resulting in a collection of 7 newly hatched pokemon! It wasn't too difficult to make thing work, actually. While I've got a pretty fat chance of getting a perfect IV spread across my pokemon, just breeding for a good nature, ability, and picking out the one with the best IVs thanks to the breeder at the Battle Frontier, I think we've got some pretty solid pokemon! Nothing totally competitively viable, mind you, but enough to make it by, at least for now.

I followed pretty much the pathways I'd been describing up until now. I've been mostly using Ditto and Everstone to pass on the appropriate nature and, if an Egg Move is needed, I'd breed until I got a female with the appropriate nature, then pair them with a male who has their egg move. Additionally, I've actually come to learn that a pokemon can still inherit egg moves from their father, even if their mother is a Ditto. For some reason, I'd always assumed this simply wouldn't work. Still, it's not too terribly useful since pokemon have to inherit egg moves from particular species and rarely themselves. It's really only useful for passing on TMs to a new copy of the same pokemon. The pokemon has to be the father though. You still can't get a female to pass on moves. But, this does allow genderless pokemon to pass TMs onto their own offspring! I came to realize this because my Staryu ended up inheriting Regen's Psychic, Surf, and Blizzard... it's just a shame I won't be using these moves on its final set.

Anyway, there were some minor frustrations. Namely, there's so many factors beyond my control. The offspring's gender, Ability, and IVs are entirely randomly generated on birth and, outside of RNG manipulation, there is no way to adjust the odds in your favor. You really do need to just breed a handful of pokemon and choose the best ones. Beyond that, since the Everstone isn't guaratneed in this gen, that's another 50% chance of having to completely throw out your pokemon. Needless to say, these multiple layers of RNG can make breeding rather time consuming.

If you're breeding for a mother to inherit an egg move, you have to make sure you get the 50% chance of inheriting the nature from Ditto as well as a variable (usually 50) % chance that the offspring will be female. This leaves you with a 25% chance of any egg being correct which generally means rougly one in every four eggs will be a female with the appropriate nature.

Additionally, even if you're at the final layer of breeding, you might also need a particular ability. Thankfully, pokemon can't naturally have more than two different abilities, so abilities are always at least 50%. But, this can make for an additional 25% chance which is especially frustrating because this is where you're going to want to breed several of the pokemon. 1 in 4 eggs may not sound like a whole lot of wasted time, but 6 in 24 should really start to put things into perspective.

In spite of these complaints, though, I can certainly claim that breeding in Gen 3 is far more pleasant than in Gen 2. My pokemon never refused to breed for totally arbitrary reasons like in Gold where I was about to rip my hair out trying to breed for the Little Cup. This experience breeding actually wasn't terrible at all. In fact, I think I'm much more keen on the idea of creating a new competitive team at the end of each gen. After all, we're rapidly approaching the big boom of the competitive scene for Pokemon in the timeline, so competitive battling is only going to become a bigger part of pokemon history. I think it's actually pretty important to dig into it at least a little bit each gen. Every game does have at least something in the postgame to put your competitive energy towards, so I'm interested in doing this more often, especially as things get more and more convenient with each gen!

   

Thankfully, the majority of the pokemon I was breeding for only have one ability, so that final layer of breeding wasn't too rough most of the time.

 

Chansey and Skarmory were surprisingly painless. It didn't take too terribly long to get a handful of Natural Cure Chansey and Skarmory, while I'd originally planned for a Sturdy build to protect against OHKO attacks, I've realized that Smogon actually recommends the Keen Eye ability. I'm not really sure why, I can't imagine accuracy reduction is too terribly common in competitive play. The only thing I can imagine is that Keen Eye might nullify the effects of BrightPowder and Lax Incense, but I'm not certain on that. The only reason I'm hesitant to make that assumption is that, while BrightPowder and Lax Incense say they reduce the accuracy of the opponent, it doesn't play a stat reduction animation like if you use Sand-Attack and the effects aren't permanent until switch, or tied to a single opponent's pokemon. Anyway, point is, I ultimately realized that the ability of Skarmory didn't really matter to me too much here in Gen 3. Sturdy isn't nearly as useful as it is in later gens, though it isn't without its uses, especially with in-game challenges where OHKO moves like Sheer Cold and Guillotine are much more prominent. So, Skarmory was allowed to have whatever ability it wanted as long as its nature was good.

To my surprise, the pokemon that gave me the most trouble by far was Staryu. Not only did it take forever for each egg to appear (even though this from a foreign Starmie and a native Ditto which should make Eggs appear more commonly), it also took forever to hatch the eggs. Additionally, it felt like the game was making fun of me at points. The Staryu were consistently either not Timid or had Illuminate, a completely useless ability in-battle. Often times, as an extra slap to the face, I would have a Staryu that wasn't Timid and had Illuminate two or three times in a row. (Yes, don't worry, I made sure my Ditto was holding an Everstone. I got plenty enough Timid Staryu to emphasize that I hadn't forgotten one, either. It was just that next to none of them ended up with Illuminate. Thankfully, my struggles ultimately paid off becase, among my entire Staryu collection, Cancer proved to have some of the best IVs of all the pokemon on my team with a perfect score in speed! I'm really excited to see how this one will fare in the ring!

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

Anyway, with our pokemon all hatched and chosen out of the batch, it's finally time to start working on phasse 2: EV training! I'll be taking these little guys all over Hoenn to start training up their EVs and getting them prepared for their biggest opponents yet!

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

My Team:

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

 Toll (Beldum); Lv. 5

 [Adamant: +Atk/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 252 Atk, 128 HP, 128 Spd

IVs: "Better than Average" | "Outstanding" Sp. Def

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Take Down

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

 Trample (Shroomish F); Lv. 5

[Adamant: +Atk/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 52 HP, 252 Atk, 204 Spd

IVs: "Quite Impressive" | "Outstanding" Sp. Atk

Ability: Effect Spore | Moves: Absorb, Tackle, Flash

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

 Buzz (Nincada M); Lv. 5

[Jolly: +Spd/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 252 Atk, 252 Spd, 4 Def

IVs: "Better-than-average" | "Outstanding" Spd

Ability: Speed Boost | Moves: Scratch, Harden, Leech Life, Silver Wind

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

 Cancer (Staryu); Lv. 5

[Timid: +Spd/-Atk]

EVs: 252 Sp. Atk, 252 Spd, 4 HP

IVs: "Better-than-average" | "Flawless" Speed

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Harden, Surf, Blizzard, Psychic

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

 Beast (Slakoth M); Lv. 5

[Adamant: +Atk/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 252 Atk, 252 Spd, 4 Def

IVs: "Quite Impressive" | "Outstanding" Atk

Ability: Truant | Moves: Scratch, Yawn, Slash

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

 Cat (Chansey F); Lv. 5

[Bold: +Def/-Atk]

EVs: 252 Def, 128 HP, 128 Spd

IVs: "Quite Impressive" | "Outstanding" Atk

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Pound, Growl, Tail Whip

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

 Axe (Skarmory F); Lv. 5

[Careful +Sp. Def/-Sp. Atk]

EVs: 252 HP, 252 Sp. Def, 4 Spd

IVs: "Quite Impressive" | "Flawless" Sp. Def

Ability: Keen Eye | Moves: Leer, Peck, Pursuit, Drill Peck

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

I can't guarantee I've chosen the best pokemon properly. After all, I have zero experience with competitive battling in Gen 3. Especially paying any attention to IVs. Generally, I just kept hatching and collecting eggs until I had five babies to choose from (after immediately releasing any that had the wrong nature or ability), then withdrew the parents from the daycare and continued hatching the rest of the eggs to see how many more candidates I had to work with. Then, I took them to the Battle Frontier for IV checking. I just kept the ones with the best-sounding adjectives. If two shared similar descriptions, I'd compare their stats directly and choose the stat spread that looked better. I'm aware that starting stats might not necessarily correilate to final stats, but hell if I know what to do about that. I'm sure as heck not gonna train a Slakoth all the way to level 90 to see if its IVs are good enough to use. 

So, that might explain why some of these IV spreads might seem rather odd, such as my Shroomish with its highest IV stat in Sp. Atk even though its final moveset is a purely physical build. Its stats were simply higher than the others. I generally prioritized a higher General IV spread comment over a higher individual stat. Consequently, this may mean that I've passed on higher relevant stats for higher irrelevant stats, but since the game only checks a single stat and gives you minimal information on it, I really have no way of knowing which pokemon would actually be better. We're a long way away from this sort of thing actually being consumer-friendly, so we should probably get used to just not knowing these things. Soon, though, we'll be able to streamline our breeding process to at least guarantee perfect IVs in a single stat.

[maid lover]

Well, hello there. Just saw the newest post, and since I've been named, here I am, I guess? While I have close to none experience when it comes to doubles meta, I have a few ideas that MIGHT be worth a shot.

I haven't been playing pokemon for a few months though (I know, crazy), so I may not be in top shape. Although, by coincidence, I've had my time to play on showdown gen 3 random battles and gen3 and especially gen 5 OU, where I did decently well. While I earned my spot on the ladder, and I also got #1 on random battle gen 3, this doesn't make me the best in the world (I mean, I wish it would, but no), and pvp and console are two very different things.

But enough of me and my desire to be a protagonist, let us talk about the idea I had in mind.

I'd like to start by saying that while I've never ever EVER had the chance or opportunity to use the move explosion, it must be noted that it's one of the best moves in the gen 3 meta, which is not often, but always overlooked. If I ever decide to try doubles in the battle frontier in the future, that will most certainly be a strategy I will use.

Explosion has various incredibly strong points in its favor, those being:

-its incredibly massive power, which is not 250 but 500, making it the most powerful move to ever exist in pokemon. This is because in gen 2 and 3, I'm not sure when this trend stopped, but bulbapedia can answer this, explosion will half the defense of its target. This allows special attackers to run it anyway, because even with a - atk nature, the damage would still be catastrophic.

-explosion lets the opponent skip a turn. This is confusing, so let's break it down real quick. If you're faster and you explode, the opponent will not be able to attack or switch, because players actions must always happen before pokemon's actions, meaning, "my pokemon just exploded, now I switch it", what about the opponent? Sucks to be him, he doesn't get to attack. The problem about this, is that I am 100% sure this doesn't work in doubles past gen 4, but what about gen3? I never tried, but I guarantee 1000% it works in singles, so keep it in mind. This is the only reason why gengar loves using explosion in gen 3, because thanks to his high speed it can help you keeping tempo while doing a still very, very good chunk of damage. This also allows gengar to run a physical move, making it hard to wall. 

-it's a normal move, which means in doubles, you can pair it with ghosts and have some fun. 

And our gengar friendo is a ghost, that has levitate, which means, gengar can take absolutely no damage by both of the strongest moves in the game, those being explosion, and of course, the well renowned earthquake.

I would like to recommend a core using both gengar and choice banded metagross, because of how much damage that thing can deal with both eq and explosion and gengar immunities. Keep in mind that gengar can also explode, go will o wisp and burn pokemon, put to sleep and has access to some of the best special attacking moves in the game, aka psychic and thunderbolt, while also being able to use the special elemental punches. Also gengar has access to absolutely massive special utility, making it a crazy good offense support. 

A good set for the dead friendo could be

-tbolt

-ice punch

-fire punch/psychic/giga drain/protect

-hypnosis/WoW/expl/taunt/ perish song

Equipped with either a brightpowder or a lum berry, but maybe even a move boosting item like a magnet could work.

The beauty about elec and ice combo is that it has absolutely no weakness, and allows you to hit almost everything for super effective damage, that's why literally every single electric in the game has been using hidden power ice since forever. 

Metagross on the other hand has a monstrous physical defense and can even take one earthquake, (perhaps two in doubles?) but it's a little bit slow. I would use it with a few speed evs, OR maybe with agility. Agility metagross is CRIMINALLY underrated and can absolutely demolish a team in a 1v6 if you know what you are doing.

I would use a similar set

-explosion

-earthquake

-meteor mash

-protect/rock slide/shadow ball/psychic/agility/idk

Possibly equipped with a choice band or a lum berry, depending on your needs. 

Another big thing about doubles is intimidate since it affects both opponents, making them several times weaker and nullifying their eventual choice band. The beauty about this ability is that you can use it more than once. However, you have to be prepared for clear body users (metagross friendo) which can nullify it. The thing is, in gen 3 there are no clear body pokemon that don't take double damage from earthquake, from what I remember, this means, gyarados can shine, and since you would be spamming earthquake, with it, it also works marvelously with gengar. The thing about the mean fish is that he can also use a few supports moves, mainly thunder wave, which incredibly helps your metagross, and the most important stat in doubles, is speed. You could also try setting up dragon dance but it would be risky, since setupping in doubles can mean a KO. Also gyara takes no damage from EQ, making it work well with both gengar and metagross, making it a decent glue to stick the team together. 

Possibile gyara set

-thunder wave

-earthquake

-Return/hyper beam/bounce(idk if it learns it in gen 3)

-DD/Substitute/protect/taunt

 

That could be a decent core to build with, and to be honest, I find the idea really fun, and original, since literally everyone uses sun or rain teams in doubles. But obviously, that's up to you to decide. Other very decent partners for the core could be:

-glalie, which is SUPER underrated, it can go explosion, taunt, toxic, maybe even spikes, while having decent stats and access to a decent mixed moveset, and ice beam and earthquake more importantly 

-aerodactyl, another EQ partner which takes no EQ damage abd less explosion damage, while being crazy fast. Aero also learns taunt and rock slide which hits both opponents with a 30% flinch chance each, which is just insane

 

Pokemon that are always storng in doubles

-Tyranitar, he is by far with no doubt the absolute strongest pokemon in gen 3 meta, it literally works everywhere just because of its ability. But tyranitar can also use dragon dance to sweep, support with moves like pursuit and thunder wave, deal massive damage, and do literally everything you want. You can never ever go wrong using it

-clefable, she's a very good support with moves like follow me, thunder wave and lots of others

-gengar (Duh)

-raichu, follow me, thunderbolt, surf (if you use a glitch) and others

-latios/latias

 

I'm sure there's more but that's all that comes to mind right now. To be 100% honest, writing this was the part that took the longest, because I didn't think that much about the core, it just seemed ok, but perhaps it may not be ideal, since I didn't test it, and it was the first thing that came to mind, also I'm trash at doubles, I tried playing in gen 7 vgc on showdown but only hit 1450 by luck I think? Yeah, it wasn't great. Keep in mind that protect is the most useful move in doubles, so I'd use it on almost everyone on the team. 

[Aura]

Thank you, @maid lover for the many suggestions! Unfortunately, I don't think getting my hands on moves like Earthquake is going to be particularly manageable without doing a whole extra playthrough of a previous game and consciously avoiding using the TM there. It's a tragedy I've been struggling with as far back as planning my initial set that most of the pokemon that benefit most from Earthquake... can't even inherit it as a baby by nature of having intentionally weak first forms like Magikarp and Beldum. 

Double Battles do seem to be filled with all sorts of cool interactions! Unfortunately, my plans to simply use the pokemon from my previous playthroughs fell flat, so that's kinda out of the question. Once Gen IV rolls around, though, I should be able to have more flexibility with competitive builds thanks to berry farming!

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

Gen 3 Competitive Training Phase 2: EV Training

Well, it's been a while, so here's a small update on my progress so far with my EV Training!

I'm still not quite finished EV Training all seven pokemon, and I have some fairly sad news:

I accidentally trained up my Shroomish with the wrong EV stats! I was looking at the stat distrubituion for Nincada on accident when training her up. I don't think it's a terrible stat distribution, especially for the extremely casual approach I'm taking to competitive builds here, but I'm hesitant to use up valuable Move Tutors and TMs for this little guy. I might have to make due with a simpler moveset for her. I'll definitely need to be more careful about this process as a simple mix-up like that could potentially render a pokemon entirely useless!

Thankfully, I had 7 pokemon planned out, so I shouldn't have too much of an issue dropping Trample. I can always breed for another one, anyway! It's just an unfortunate circumstance, really.

That said, I've started the process of EV training on a few pokemon and, during this process, I've come to the revelation that, since I don't really need a full team of six pokemon to enter any of the facilities at the Battle Frontier, I just might go ahead and get started after training up my first three pokemon! I didn't put a whole lot of thought into which three pokemon I trained up first until I got to the third I plan on using to supplement the other two. So...

   

These are the three fully EV-trained pokemon! Granted, their EVs may not perfectly line up with exactly what I have written out in their plans due to some level of human error. It's difficult to make sure you keep track of every single KO and increment the EV numbers by the correct amounts every single time. I'm sure there are multiple instances of me simply forgetting whether or not I've incremented the EVs for a KO, or mistakenly marked a 2-EV pokemon down as only giving 1 EV. Still, I don't think the human error will make too much of a difference with my plans for this series. It's not like I've just haphazardly been training them up like I have been with my story pokemon. Does this team of three have enough synergy to hold up for the Battle Frontier? Honestly, I'm kinda doubting it. Toll the Metagross doesn't have a whole lot of speed, but I'm hoping that I can offset that by baton passing from Buzz the Ninjask. Cancer the Staryu is there to Rapid Spin Spikes away where applicable and to offer some fast, special attack power to bush off any bulky pokemon who may wall Buzz and Toll.

Now, the ultimate way to ensure that your pokemon are fully trained is to bring them to the market in Slateport City. There, you can bring them to a woman who will check their EV growth and, once they've obtained their maximum amoung of EVs, they'll receive an Effort Ribbon! I'm pretty confident those 2 extra unused EVs actually count for this, so you might have a perfectly EV trained pokemon that still doesn't yet qualify for the Effort Ribbon. Just make sure it's still holding its Macho Brace and go KO one more pokemon for good measure. Just in case, make sure that pokemon offers EVs for a stat you need!

  

Anyway, I still have these three to continue EV training, but for now, I think I'll be focusing on my first group of three who will be transitioning into phase 3 of training!

In addition, while EV training, I did stumble across a very pleasant surprise!

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

 Wisp (Shuppet F)

 

Item: None

Ability: Insomnia | Moves: Knock Off, Screech, Night Shade, Curse

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

That's right, I encountered a shiny Shuppet just randomly in the wild! I decided to name it Wisp after its ghostly blue color. I caught it in a nest ball!

If you haven't noticed, this event has led me to add a new section to the parent post of this thread: A Shiny Dex! This section will keep track of every shiny pokemon we obtain over the course of our adventure and what they'll look like in every iteration they can possibly exist in, as well as their potential evolutions. These are really monumental occasions to me, so I think it's a lot of fun to give them such special attention! Stastically speaking, it's to be expected we'll encounter at least one random shiny without having to intnetionally seek any out each gen, but it's also entirely possible we'll end up skipping a gen with that sort of luck as well. Especially after getting two shinies this gen! Gambler's fallacy dictates we might not get another random shiny in Gen IV, but it is another series of five games, so who's really to say?

Anyway, I don't really have any plans to make use of this Shuppet, but I might end up EV training it just for the novelty. It depends on how I'm feeling. Its Naughty Nature doesn't seem particularly bad for it. I'd definitely prefer Adamant but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth. I haven't checked its IVs just yet, though. It's very rare to get a shiny pokemon at all, let alone a competitively viable one!

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

Phase 3 is really quite simple. I just have to train the pokemon up to a minimum of Level 60! I may have erroneously mentioned that level 70 was the minimum of level scaling at the Battle Frontier, but I was completely wrong! The battle frontier does indeed scale down to level 60, likely so that the pseudo legends like Salamence and Metagross are indeed legal in the format. But I digress.

Part of phase 3 ensures I put the final touches on the pokemon build as well. I've already bred the egg moves I want, but I also need to make sure these pokemon learn the moves they need. This will likely involve a lot of trading back and forth. I can use this opportunity to pump a bunch of drugs into the remaining 3 pokemon as well as they pass from trainer to trainer... don't look at me like that, it's perfectly ethical!

  

The most prominent part of Phase 3 is, of course, training up to Level 60 which can easily be accomplished in XD's Mt. Battle, make no mistake! This Ninjask will also be significantly easier to train since it knows Silver Wind, too!

  

The final step will be to do whatever still remains necessary to fully evolve these pokemon, such as giving a Water Stone to Starmie. In the end, we should have our team of three fully EV-trained pokemon ready to take on whatever challenges life throws at them! So, this is where my attention will be next time! Let's put the finishing touches on our first group of three so that we can give them their debut in the Battle Frontier!

[maid lover]

@Aurawell that should not be a problem, in theory. You could always recurr to the good old cloning glitch so that you can have all the tms you want. It may not be ethical or ideal, but it's either that or levelling up a pokemon with pickup to level 90 and pray.

I wish you the best of luck in the battle frontier 

 

[Aura]

On 8/14/2021 at 1:37 PM, maid lover said:

@Aurawell that should not be a problem, in theory. You could always recurr to the good old cloning glitch so that you can have all the tms you want. It may not be ethical or ideal, but it's either that or levelling up a pokemon with pickup to level 90 and pray.

I wish you the best of luck in the battle frontier 

 

Ah! In all honesty, I actually had no clue there was such a simple pokemon duplication glitch! I did exploit MissingNo. back when playing through Gen 1 or 2, so I don't really have an excuse for not exploiting this glitch here other than simply... not having known it existed. By this point, however, all of my Earthquake TMs have already been used up. While I figured there was probably a duplication bug somewhere in the game, I had just assumed it would require some sort of exploit involving shutting the game off while in the process of saving. As it turns out, it's actually merely exploiting a logical error on the part of the programmers, exploiting their anti-cheating attempts at the Battle Tower.

I might briefly touch on this bug later on, but if anyone is curious, this page on bulbapedia covers various pokemon cloning glitches that can be used to duplicate pokemon.

If you're interested in duplicating pokemon with this glitch, do be warned that you can potentially permanently overwrite pokemon you care about if you aren't careful about what party slots you keep your pokemon in, so try to make sure you empty your party first!

Anyway, I would lament this a bit more, but I don't think I'll be stressing too much about it. I've pretty much already cut my losses on the Orre Colosseum at this point. Thinking on it, I think I'm pretty satisfied having (somehow) managed to clear the first set with my main team from XD. Since I can't really go out with the bang I expected to using an all-star team of pokemon from across the generation, I decided I should instead focus my efforts on the Battle Frontier as the big finale it deserves to be! And, I do have pretty good confidence that I should be able to make things work with my current plans as-is. I'll be briefly dabbling in double-battles throughout the Battle Frontier, but for the most part, it's all going to be fun and games on that front.

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

Battle Frontier

It feels like it's been so long since we've been able to spend any significant amount of time here besides just checking IVs real quick before flying away. Yes, with our first three pseudo-competitively-viable pokemon, it's finally time to start digging our heels into the real meat and potatoes of the Battle Frontier! Now, I don't plan to just use three pokemon for the entirety of the Battle Frontier. I definitely intend to finish off the other three remaining pokemon excluding the Shroomish which I've accidentally butchered. Okay, again, it's probably fine as it is, but I really don't want to waste an entire Move Tutor on a pokemon that isn't in peak shape. Besides, I don't really think Trample will be necessary in the long run anyway. It's probably more convenient to focus on a single cohesive team of six pokemon. That said, depending on how rough the gimmicks of later facilities turn out to be, I may have to backpedal a bit and add some extras in here and there. That Cyndaquil I earned form XD could be pretty nice...

Anyway, last time we played at the Battle Frontier, I went through the Battle Factory. That one allows you to use pre-trained rental pokemon, so it was by far the most accessible at the time. Now, however, with my newly trained team of pokemon, I can start to branch out! I figured it's only natural to reach into one of the other two facilities that are similar to the Battle Tents we've challenged previously. So, the Battle Palace is where we're headed!

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

Battle Palace

The Battle Palace is the southwesternmost facility at the Battle Frontier, easily distinguished by its ornate design and the meadow of flowers, trees, and water that surrounds it.

Battle Palace Interior

The Battle Palace's rules are identical to those of the Battle Tent in Verdanturf Town, just with the additional standards of the Battle Frontier mixed in. Since it's been a while, I'll go ahead and elaborate on what these rules are. In addition, you can click here to view the bulbapedia article on the facility to see more detailed information on it.

The battles in the Battle Palace are special in that you are not allowed to issue direct commands to your pokemon. They'll all have to battle on their own natural instincts. That said, these pokemon aren't just banging rocks together like you might expect. While there is heavy RNG involved here, a pokemon's preference for moves is determined by its nature. Simply put, this facility categorizes every move in the game into one of three categories: Offense, Defense, and Support. Offense is rather self-explanatory, Defense moves are generally moves that benefit the user directly, such as increasing their own stats or healing and protecting themselves from attacks. Support moves are generally more tactical moves such as weather and moves that reduce the foe's stats or inflict status ailments.

Each nature gives a pokemon a different weight to its preferences. For example, a pokemon with an Adamant Nature has a 38% chance of wanting to use an Offensive attack and both Defense and Support moves have a 31% chance. On the flipside, a pokemon with a Hardy nature has a 61% chance of wanting to use an offensive attack while it has a 32% chance of wanting to use a support attack and a meager 7% chance of wanting to use a defensive attack. But that's not all!

Once a pokemon's HP is below half, they'll be put under pressure and this will often cause their move preferences to shift. While a Hardy pokemon will remain unfazed, an Adamant pokemon will become much more aggressive, with a 70/15/15% chance for Offense, Defense, and Support respectively.

Moveset preferences are very important in this regard because, if a pokemon decides it wants to use a move of a category and it doesn't have any moves of that category it can use, it will instead be unable to move that turn. This can be incredibly frustrating if you have a bad nature for the facility. Ideally, you'd want a team of three pokemon that have natures that compliment both their desired stats as well as their movesets. But, since I'd prefer my pokemon to be good across the board, I'm sticking to my guns here and using the only three pokemon I have! These aren't the most efficient sets I could go for, but they proved functional enough thanks to their EV training!

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

The hallway leading to the battle hall within the palace is decorated with tall grass, flowers, water, and even wild(?) pokemon roaming around! This whole place seems rather pleasant, honestly.

 

My Team:

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

 Buzz (Ninjask M); Lv 60

 

Nature: Jolly [O:35/D:5/S:60 | O:35/D:60/S:5]

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Speed Boost | Moves: Swords Dance [D], Substitute [D], Baton Pass [D], Silver Wind [O]

Buzz's Jolly nature is fantastic for its stats, but unfortunately incredibly counter-intuitive to its battle purpose. I was honestly rather worried going into battle with this thing as it would really only start setting up if its HP was below 50% which is certainly not ideal for a Buzz. It mostly wanted to use supporting moves which it didn't have access to, so most of the time Buzz couldn't do much but spam Silver Wind. Still, it was surprisingly effective at what it was trying to accomplish! Basically, I could only use this thing against opponents that couldn't do much to its typing. Namely grass- or bug-types. It would be able to get some easy damage off with Silver Wind and take a hit or two before it starts to set up for Baton Pass, or even just Baton Pass out of the blue! Baton Passing at just about any point as long as it isn't the very first turn it attacks is usually great thanks to Speed Boost guaranteeing at least a +1 to speed. Ideally, I'd usually like to get a Swords Dance or two up before Baton Passing into Toll and sweeping the rest of the battle. That is, while struggling through a handful of awkward turns of just standing around.

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

 Toll (Metagross); Lv 60

 

Nature: Adamant [O:38/D:31/S:31 | O:70/D:15/S:15]

Item: Persim Berry 

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Rock Slide [O], Explosion [O], Meteor Mash [O], Earthquake [O]

Toll's moveset is heavily weighted toward offensive moves, so it'll generally be spending roughly 2/3 of its time doing nothing until its HP is dropped to half. Then it'll start attacking much more consistently. I gave it a Persim Berry to help prevent confusion from messing with my game plan. Honestly, the original plan was to give it a Lum Berry, but as it turns out, I don't actually have any Lum Berries in Emerald. Next time I link up with XD, I'll definitely make sure to transfer some over!

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

 Cancer (Starmie); Lv 60

 

Nature: Timid [O:62/D:10/S:28 | O:30/D:20/S:50]

Item: Cheri Berry 

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Rapid Spin [O], Hydro Pump [O], ThunderBolt[O], Ice Beam[O]

Now this was a build that was complimented quite nicely by its nature! Granted, it gets a bit worried after its health gets low, but 30% isn't much worse than what the others rely on for their attacks! Besides, Cancer would generally like to get the kill as quick as possible without getting its hands dirty anyway... wow, it's really unfortuante that that's the name that stuck, huh? I should probably explain that this Starmie is named Cancer because I was naming all the hatched Staryu after constellations. This one just happened to have the best... IVs... wow, the hole just keeps getting deeper, huh? Anyway, not much to say about this pokemon's role. It's really just there to supplement Toll with some wonderful type coverage and special attacks to get around whatever physical walls might've managed to stop Toll's onslaught of destruction. Occasionally, Cancer can benefit from a Baton Pass from Buzz for a nice speed boost but for the most part, it's fine on its own. I gave it a Cheri Berry to prevent it from being paralyzed and having its speed cut. Embarrassingly, I actually gave this thing a Choice Band at first, mistakenly thinking the item doubled the power of attacks and not the attack stat. The Choice Band actually only boosted the damage dealt by... Rapid Spin. Yikes.

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

Battle Palace - Round 1 [Battle #7]

Vs. Black Belt Shizuka

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

Shelgon Lv. 60

                    

                    

Right away, I knew this wasn't the best matchup since Shelgon could know a handful of moves that wouldn't be pleasant for Buzz, so...

                    

                    

I retreated into Cancer. Shelgon didn't end up attacking, so Cancer was able to take it out with a critical Ice Beam!

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

Quilava Lv. 60

                    

                    

At this point, Cancer unfortunately still had a Choice Band equipped, so I was currently locked into Ice Beam and couldn't do much to Quilava.

                    

                    

I retreated back into Buzz since he was the least important of the other two. The expectation was that Quilava would get a free KO here and I'd send Cancer back out to try another attack. However, Quilava's Flame Wheel failed to KO Buzz thanks to his Focus Band, so he was able to use Baton Pass the following turn to get the heck outta dodge!

                    

                    

With Cancer back out, I was able to finish off Quilava with a Hydro Pump!

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

Linoone Lv. 60

                    

                    

Cancer landed another Hydro Pump on Linoone but wasn't quite able to take it out before getting KO'd.

                    

                    

Luckily, Toll was there to save the day and end the battle with a Rock Slide!

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

Battle Palace - Round 2 [Battle #14]

Vs. Hex Maniac Jazmine

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

Weepinbell Lv. 60

                    

                    

The smart choice here would've been to simply retreat into Toll to take out Weepinbell since it was obviously going to hit me with a Sludge Bomb, but I decided to take a chance with Buzz anyway. Buzz was actually able to survive a hit and get a Swords Dance off, but he was unfortunately poisoned. I went for another attack hoping to Baton Pass a nice attack boost onto Toll. Instead, Buzz went for Silver Wind which did some nice damage thanks to Swords, but it wasn't quite enough to OHKO Weepinbell and Buzz ultimately succumbed to his poison. To add insult to injury, this Silver Wind even gave me those beautiful stat boosts which were all gone!

                    

                    

So no juicy stat boosts for Toll to inherit, but Toll's got more than enough power to blow this guy over with Meteor Mash!

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

Solrock Lv. 60

                    

                    

This matchup was extremely short-lived thanks to another Meteor Mash.

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

Wobbuffet Lv. 60

                    

                    

Wobbuffet is usually an incredibly terrifying pokemon to face off against, but in this particular instance, it's actually pretty trash tier. The issue is that, since Wobbuffet's moves are chosen according to RNG rather than its trainers' commands AI, it can't reliably use Counter or Mirror Coat to deflect your attacks, nor use Destiny Bond to bait you into taking yourself out. It was able to Encore Toll to trap it into using Meteor Mash, but due to its inability to reliably counter my Meteor Mash, this strat was pretty much moot from the start and he simply went down in a few hits.

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

Battle Palace - Round 3 [Battle #21]

As we reach our 21st battle, our guide sends for the Battle Palace's Frontier Brain: The Palace Maven Spencer

 

Shortly after, an old man arrives in the battle hall along with two pokemon: A Dusclops and Azurill. These two pokemon, however are not a part of Spenser's team. That said, this is our first time facing off against a more standard frontier brain. Factory Head Noland restricted himself to a random assortment of rental pokemon. The only catch was that his pokemon were from a stronger pool than yours. Outside of the Battle Factory, however, these battles are much more calculated. The other Frontier Brains come at you with their own teams of three pokemon, independent of the typical pool of pokemon the generic trainers pull from. Consequently, these teams will always be the same, so you may find a good strategy in building a team that specifically counters their own. Keep in mind, I'm going into these battles blind, so I have no clue what pokemon these frontier brains are going to use against me until I battle them.

Regardless, we have to defeat the Palace Maven if we wish to earn the symbol of the Battle Palace! And we didn't come this far to back down!

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

Vs. Palace Maven Spencer

Crobat Lv. 60

                    

                    

Naturally, I wasn't going to get much done with Silver Wind against a Crobat, so I retreated Buzz.

                    

                    

Toll was the obvious switch-in. I had to stall a turn since Crobat tried to use Fly to deal with Buzz. The next turn, however, Toll decided to... explode... uh-oh. Well, that definitely took out Crobat no problem, but I'd better hope the rest of my team is capable of dealing with whatever else Spenser has up his sleeve!

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

Lapras Lv. 60

                    

                    

The next foe was a Lapras. As the user of Explosion, I was forced to choose my pokemon first. Naturally, this wasn't a good matchup for me, so I retreated once again.

                    

                    

Cancer's Thunderbolt did wonders against Lapras! But Lapras wasn't holding back with its own Ice Beams and my heart was in my throat at this point, just praying I don't get frozen, critted, or otherwise RNG'd to death. Unfortunately, the latter just had to happen as Starmie just barely failed to finish off Lapras with ThunderBolt.

                    

                    

It was now all up to Buzz. Depending on what Spencer's last pokemon was, that could mean a lot of things. Thankfully, Lapras was low on HP so all I had to do was hope I got the Silver Wind and... I got it! Lapras was down! Now I just needed to cross my fingers that the last pokemon was something I could handle!

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

Slaking Lv. 60

                    

                    

Slaking was a horrifying reminder of just how cruel this game can be... had I not lost Toll to its own Explosion, I would have the perfect out to this thing. Unfortunately, all I had to work with was Buzz. But I wasn't about to give up yet! I was going to fight to the bitter end! Buzz was actually able to take a single Shadow Ball from Slaking and took the chance to set up a Swords Dance. He then used up the following turn to set up another Swords Dance, so he was sitting pretty with +4 Atk! Would that be enough? Honestly, I had no idea, but it really was all up to Buzz! He unfortunately got stunted of his attack, but to my relief, so did Slaking! On the final turn, he went for one more Silver Wind and it was just barely enough to win the battle!!

...nah, it actually only did half of Slaking's health and he just wiped the floor with me with another Shadow Ball. Well that was... tragic. Yes, RNG can be a cruel mistress to be sure. But I decided to give this challenge one last attempt before putting the game up for the night!

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

With this team, making my way back up to the frontier brain wasn't actually all that tough. Though I didn't have quite as good of luck the second time around, I did eventually fight my way back up to Spenser for a well-deserved rematch!

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

Battle Palace - Round 3 [Battle #21]

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

Vs. Palace Maven Spencer [Attempt #2]

Crobat Lv. 60

                    

                    

Naturally, the battle started out in much the same way, I started with Buzz and immediately retreated into Toll.

                    

                    

But this is where the similarities end, as it seems RNGsus felt pity for me for this entire battle. Toll was able to blast through Crobat with a couple of Meteor Mashes. Thanks to the Persim Berry, I was even able to avoid the impending threat of Crobat's Confuse Ray! I even got an Atk boost off of one of the Meteor Mashes!

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

Slaking Lv. 60

                    

                    

Spenser sent his Slaking out next. Toll was able to endure an Earthquake form the beast and was able to follow-up with a Meteor Mash which ended up being a critical hit! This was able to OHKO the Slaking cleanly! I never expected to deal with a Slaking so easily without cheese!

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

Lapras Lv. 60

                    

                    

And as if I wasn't blessed enough as it were, the game even decided to make the final matchup incredibly quick as Toll immediately went for Explosion to wipe Lapras clean off the face of the planet! With that boosted attack power? What devastating force! Lapras never even stood a chance!

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

 

With this defeat of Palace Maven Spenser, I was rewarded with the Spirits Symbol! The honorary symbol of the Battle Palace!

MVP: Toll

I have a feeling I know a certain someone whose going to be consistently showing up in the MVP slot across the Battle Frontier. Toll was an insane force to be reckoned with throughout this entire challenge, and it was even able to take out Spenser's entire team! There's no telling what this thing can do with the freedom to choose my moves! Especially when I can more cleanly set up with Buzz... hoo boy I'm getting antsy just thinking about goign forward with these guys! But we've got more friends coming and next time, we'll be heading back to the grind to finish our EV training to get those friends back on board! Since I've done some trading around, I've already stuffed them all with a bunch of vitamins so EV training shouldn't take quite as long for them. I might be able to get all three EV trained and leveled up in time to finish with style!

[Aura]

EV Training: Final Steps

  

Once again, I went back to EV training the remainder of my team in Emerald! I normally wouldn't mention this, but...

While EV Training my Skarmory in Rusturf Tunnel, I ended up stumbling across yet another shiny pokemon! I really can't make this up, this is our third random shiny in the span of just these last two games! Gambler's fallacy is now screaming at me that I'm not going to run into any random shinies in Gen IV...

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

Echo (Whismur F); Lv. 6

Item: None

Ability: Soundproof | Moves: Pound, Uproar

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

  

Naturally, I brought my last three competitive pokemon into Mt. Battle to grind them all up to level 60. It took quite a while thanks to Slaking's Truant and Blissey and Skarmory having defensive builds, but we got there eventually!

...Also, my power went out for a few hours because a tree fell over onto a powerline near my house, so that was a fun time. Thankfully, I didn't lose much progress as I'd just started my grinding session. Still, perhaps this is a sign that I really should be doing my grinding on the GBA...

Regardless, I now have my next three pokemon, so let's introduce them now!

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

 Beast (Slaking M); Lv. 60

 

Item: Choice Band 

Ability: Truant | Moves: Shadow Ball, Aerial Ace, Double-Edge, Brick Break

Once again, I'm fresh out of Earthquake TMs, so Aerial Ace will have to do. I figured it might have some niche uses against opponents spamming Double Team or something. Ultimately, if it was an option, I'd definitely have Aerial Ace replaced with Earthquake in a heartbeat, but beggars can't be choosers. This Choice Band set allows for Slaking to basically hop in and OHKO just about anything before switching out on its offturn... where applicable, anyway.

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

 Cat (Blissey F); Lv. 60

 

Item: Pecha Berry 

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: SoftBoiled, Seismic Toss, Counter, Thunder Wave

This pokemon quickly worked its way into my heart. Blissey's Counter is one of the most terrifying things to have to work around. I gave it a Pecha Berry to help protect it from Toxic, though Natural Cure provides an extra layer of protection where necessary. SoftBoiled helps keep it alive and Seismic Toss lets it pressure the opponent into attacking. Thunder Wave gives it extra utility in that I can switch into it against a fast opponent to slow them down with paralysis. I might experiment with running BrightPowder or a Quick Claw with this set to make it a bit more practical, but I think this'll have to do for now. Cat's EV spread allows it to take even some of the most powerful attacks, physical or special, even Explosion! With a carefully timed Counter, I could even catch an Explosion and throw it right back at whatever pokemon comes out in its place! Because Cat's defenses are so good, I figured I didn't really need to run a Focus Band on her. Note, items may change frequently depending on what combination of pokemon I'm using, but in general I'd like to avoid two pokemon sharing the same held item even though that's not actually banned across everything.

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

 Axe (Skarmory F); Lv. 60

 

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Keen Eye | Moves: Toxic, Roar, Spikes, Drill Peck

Another very defensive build, Skarmory can help out the team by setting up Spikes which can soften foes up to make things easier for sweepers like Toll and Cancer. Toxic and Drill Peck can put pressure on unwanted opponents. Roar can help me escape from threatening pokemon like Magneton as well as enforcing a revolving door of pokemon so that I can rack up a lot of damage with Spikes, especially if they try to counter my Roar by switching back into the pokemon that was out before. It's a bit of a quirky but very fun build to play with!

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

Battle Frontier

Now it's time for the real focus of what we're doing today! That's right, we're going to be taking on our next Battle Frontier facility! We've done the Battle Factory which used the rental battle rules from the Battle Tent in Slateport, and the Battle Palace which used the Battle Hall rules of Verdanturf's Battle Tent. I figured it's only fitting we do the last facility today that was represented by a Battle Tent in Hoenn: The Battle Arena!

Battle Arena

This facility is distinguishable by its traditional Japanese architecture which makes it resemble a Dojo, and for good reason!

The Battle Arena uses "Set KO" rules which I'll once again briefly summarize, but you can find more detail on the bulbapedia page.

In the Set KO tourney, the pokemon you send into battle are always sent in the order you selected them. That is, 1st always goes 1st, 2nd always goes 2nd, and 3rd always comes out last. Switching is not allowed and moves that force switching such as Buzz's Baton Pass or Axe's Roar will always fail. For this reason, I can easily rule those two pokemon out of my choice team this time around.

The most significant point of note, however, is the turn limit. Each matchup of pokemon is given a three-turn limit. If neither trainer can KO the opposing pokemon in three turns, the winner of the matchup is determined by a judge's decision based on three categories: Mind, Skill, and Body.

Mind focuses on which moves you select. Choosing a damage-dealing attack like Earthquake will earn you one point. Meanwhile, choosing a defensive move like Protect will subtract one point from your Mind score.

Skill focuses less on your intent and more on the results. If a move is successfully used, you'll earn a point in the Skill category. If an offensive attack is super-effective, you'll earn two points instead while not-very effective attacks will deduct a point form your score. Otherwise, you'll lose two points. Protect, Detect, and Fake Out, however, are an exception to point deduction on your part.

Body focuses on how much percentage of HP each pokemon lost over the course of the matchup. Naturally, you want to deal as much damage as possible while receiving as little damage as possible.

As you can tell by the three categories, this battle style heavily emphasizes very offensive builds and discourages stall tactics. Ideally, your team should be full of fast, strong attackers with wide type coverage across their movesets, and should be ordered so that they can compliment each other's blind spots.

Also, particularly of note, there is only one format at this facility. There is no double battle format, so be prepared specifically for single battles with no switching!

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

 

My Team:

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

FIRST

 Toll (Metagross); Lv. 60

 

Item: Lum Berry 

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Rock Slide, Explosion, Meteor Mash, Earthquake

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

SECOND

 Cancer (Starmie); Lv. 60

 

Item: Cheri Berry 

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Rapid Spin, ThunderBolt, Hydro Pump, Ice Beam

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

THIRD

 Beast (Slaking M); Lv. 60

 

Item: Choice Band 

Ability: Truant | Moves: Shadow Ball, Aerial Ace, Double-Edge, Brick Break

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

I was originally planning on using Cat since Cat could actually take advantage of the pressure offered by the ruleset. I ultimately decided to go with Slaking in the end, however, figuring that, if he was going last, he'd probably only be dealing with the final matchup the majority of the time. I was confident in Toll's ability to handle even a bad matchup so long as it wasn't simply unlucky, and if something could overcome Toll, it probably wouldn't be able to hold up to Cancer's special attacks. I figured I could consistently get two KOs pretty well overall. Slaking could effectively just be a free KO on the last turn. That said, I really don't recommend a choice band Truant set for this tourney. Since you can't switch, locking yourself into a single move could be a death sentence if you're unlucky with your opponent's next pokemon. Overall, I don't think Slaking was a very good choice for me to run, but I still went for it regardless!

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

Battle Arena Round 1

Battle #7 - Expert Jordan

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

Gligar Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 1: Toll vs. Gligar

Turn 1: Gligar managed to dodge Toll's Meteor Mash by digging into the ground.

Turn 2: Meteor Mash connected and got the OHKO on the Gligar!

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

Seaking Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 2: Toll vs. Seaking

Turn 1: Toll went for Earthquake while Seaking went for Agility. Earthquake didn't quite get the KO.

Turn 2: Gligar had managed to soften Toll up, making Seaking's Bubblebeam a bit scarier than I expected, but I was still able to survive the hit and return with an Earthquake for the KO!

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

Lairon Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 3: Toll vs. Lairon

Turn 1: Lairon used Protect to avoid Toll's Earthquake.

Turn 2: Lair on successfullyused Protect again... alright. Keep in mind, this is actually better for me than it is for Lairon since using Protect reduces his Skill score and neither of us are dealing any damage to each other, so we're tired for body as well.

Turn 3: Lairon finally abandons Protect, but my Earthquake takes it out before it can do anything to me! A clean sweep!

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

Battle Arena Round 2

Battle #14 - Psychic Zach

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

Metang Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 1: Toll vs. Metang

Turn 1: Toll's Earthquake didn't quit eget the KO on Metang, who went for Meteor Mash which was naturally resisted.

Turn 2: Toll's Earthquake was enough to cleanly finish off Metang.

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

Plusle Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 2: Toll vs. Plusle

Plusle is always an odd pokemon to see in a Single Battle... there's really no reason at all to use it over Pikachu unless you just really like its design.

Turn 1: Plusle's ThunderBolt did manage a decent chunk of damage against Toll, but there was absolutely no way Plusle would survive the impending Earthquake. Even if it got a lucky paralysis, my Lum Berry would've patched that right up!

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

Wigglytuff Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 3: Toll vs. Wigglytuff

Turn 1: I went for Meteor Mash for a nice chunk of damage. Wigglytuff took the hit and rebounded with Sing. It missed, but the miss ultimately didn't matter since I still had my Lum Berry.

Turn 2: An Earthquake was all it took to seal the deal!

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

Battle Arena Round 3

Battle #21 - PKMN Ranger Meghan

Yup, you might've expected me to run into the Frontier Brain at Battle #21, but the Battle Arena is an exception to the perceived standard of three rounds necessary. You actually have to go through four rounds at the Battle Arena in order to challenge the Frontier Brain of the facility. So, we've still got a whole round ahead of us!

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

Snorlax Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 1: Toll vs. Snorlax

One thing that hasn't changed since Gen 1 is that Snorlax is still a terrifying opponent to run into. He's just as bulky as always and always capable of dishing out dangerous hits! This actually had me quite nervous about this battle...

Turn 1: I went for Meteor Mash and crossed my fingers that I wouldn't miss. (You wouldn't know it looking at the battles I've specifically noted here, but I've been missing quite a lot with Meteor Mash. It's just par for the course, though, because it is an 85% accurate move.) I was hoping for some lucky stat boosts to make Snorlax easier to KO. Meanwhile, Snorlax hit me with a Shadow Ball that, predictably, dealt a solid chunk of my HP.

Turn 2: A repeat of the previous turn, we traded blows with Meteor Mash and Shadow Ball but still nobody went down and still no stat boosts for me, unfortunately.

Turn 3: I couldn't chance a miss here, so I went for Earthquake to secure the KO! But Toll wasn't in very good shape...

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

Tauros Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 2: Toll vs. Tauros

Turn 1: This matchup didn't last long at all. Tauros outsped Toll and took him out with an Earthquake. Toll did a good job, but this was up to more than just it!

                    

                    

MATCHUP 3: Cancer vs. Tauros

Turn 1: I went for Hydro Pump but missed! Tauros proceeded to hit me with a Swagger which definitely hurt since I only have a Cheri Berry on this pokemon... I would curse my luck here, but honestly, that's just the downside of running a Starmie.

Turn 2: I did manage to attack through confusion to hit Tauros with a solid Hydro Pump but was immediately hammered by a violent thrash. Starmie held on but couldn't last much longer.

Turn 3: I went for Ice Beam but ended up hitting myself in confusion, allowing Tauros to seal the deal with his last Thrash. I now had a pit in my stomach as, while Beast could make quick work of what remained of this Tauros, I had no clue what Meghan's last pokemon would be. If it was a Ghost-type, I may as well kiss my win goodbye. (This is exactly why I heavily advise against a Choice Band in this facility!)

                    

                    

MATCHUP 4: Beast vs. Tauros

Turn 1: I went for Brick Break to claim an easy KO, though not before taking a Thrashing from Tauros.

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

Exploud Lv. 60

To my relief, the final pokemon was another Normal type, so Brick Break was still the best choice. But victory still wasn't assured!

                    

                    

MATCHUP 5: Beast vs. Exploud

Turn 1: This was a Truant turn, so Beast had to take the brunt of Exploud's Hyper Voice before getting a chance to counterattack.

Turn 2: With a Brick Break, Beast was able to get the KO and win the round! This battle was way too close for comfort. Not only could my loss have been assured if she had sent out any given ghost-type, but the Exploud she did send out was still able to nearly KO me due to Truant!

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

For Round 4, I briefly considered swapping Beast out with Cat. Cat might not have as much offensive prowess, but in a worst case scenario, she could believably earn a favorable victory by decision thanks to Counter and Seismic Toss. Ultimately, I decided to stick with Beast. Worst case scenario, I'd just have to paly through the four rounds again.

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

Battle Arena Round 4

When it came time for the 28th battle, I was told that I'd earned the right to challenge the Arena Tycoon. The Tycoon herself then comes into the arena and looks us up and down. After flat-out telling us we looked weak, she decides she's interested to learn how we got so far and decides to accept our challenge!

Arena Tycoon Greta

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

Heracross Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 1: Toll vs. Heracross

Heracross was definitely a scary matchup for Toll, but there's no backing down here!

Turn 1: I went for Meteor Mash and, with a little bit of luck, I was able to get a Stat Boost off of it! Heracross hit me with a Megahorn, though, which was not pretty for my HP at all. If he landed another, Toll would be done for already! In addition, Heracross ate its Salac Berry, making it a bit faster than before as well.

Turn 2: I went for Meteor Mash again. Thanks to the speed boost from the Salac Berry, he outsped me and went for Reversal! This just barely didn't KO me, so I was able to land another Meteor Mash for a KO and another lucky stat boost to boot!

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

Umbreon Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 2: Toll vs. Umbreon

Turn 1: The way I saw this one, Toll was nearly down and Umbreon was potentially a very serious threat. It was quite possible it knew Protect, but I took a gamble and went for Explosion. This turned out to be the right move because Umbreon went right down!

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

Shedinja Lv. 60

                    

                    

MATCHUP 3: Cancer vs. Shedinja

Now this one is just cruel. I can't believe they gave Greta a Shedinja! Do you realize how close I was to being guaranteed a loss here? Had I swapped Beast for Cat the way I'd preivously considered, I'd have sealed my own fate with that Explosion as Toll would be my only hope of getting past Wonder Guard. Since Wonder Guard would make all of my moves useless, there would be no way to win against this thing by decision, either. What a horrifying thought... thankfully, I did still have hope since I still had Beast with me! I guess going with your gut isn't always a dumb idea!

Turn 1: There was literally nothing Cancer could do to Shedinja. Hydro Pump was useless against its Wonder Guard and Shadow Ball took Cancer out.

                    

                    

MATCHUP 4: Beast vs. Shedinja

Thankfully, Beast's Aerial Ace actually came in useful! I could take out Shedinja with ease. Granted, even without Aerial Ace I could've just used Shadow Ball, but let me have this one!

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

 

And with that, Arena Tycoon Greta was defeated and we earned our third symbol: The Guts Symbol!

MVP: Toll

As thankful as I was to have Beast in that final battle, I can't in good conscience list him as the MVP. Toll pretty much single-handedly swept through the entire tournament and whenever he went down was when I'd start clenching my teeth. I simply can't overlook his incredible utility!

[Aura]

Battle Frontier

We're actually already rapidly approaching the latter half of the Battle Frontier! We've got four out of seven facilities remaining! Now that we've finished all three facilities represented by the Battle Tents across Hoenn, each of the remaining facilities have entirely new rulesets that we've yet to experience! So, what order should we do them in? Well, I suppose it's only logical to start from the entrance. Perhaps the most enticing building of all of these, to me at least, is the giant Seviper-shaped tent near the center of the frontier. So let's make our way there!

Battle Pike

The Battle Pike is pretty hard to miss and has always been the most memorable set piece int he Battle Frontier to me. It's a giant Seviper-shaped tent pitched on top of a small penninsula... does it count as a penninsula if the water surrounding it is only one tile wide? I suppose so. Anyway, the entrance to the tent is the Seviper's mouth, you'll need to climb up its tounge!

The inside of the pike is really ornate and filled with curtains! And there's a reason for it and it relates to the Battle Pike's rules! As always, here's a link to the bulbapedia page for more detail.

The Battle Pike's "Choice Battle" rules are modeled like a sort of game show in which you must test your luck by choosing one of three paths through the tent. As you pass through the curtains after making your choice, you'll find yourself presented with a different type of room in which various things can happen. There are a handful of possible events you can run into:

• A Single Battle with a trainer with 3 pokemon.
• A Single Battle with a trainer using pokemon from the next tier up; followed by healing.
• A Double Battle against two trainers with 1 pokemon each.
• A winding maze of statues you'll have to navigate while being pestered by wild pokemon that all like to inflict status ailments on you. Since you can't access your bag, these pokemon unfortunately can't be caught.
• An empty room with a single NPC who will do nothing but comment on how nothing seems to be happening. Free passage!
• An empty room where you'll startle a Gentleman's Kirlia or Dusclops on entrance. The startled pokemon will use a move: Toxic, Ice Beam, Thunder Wave, Hypnosis, or Will-O-Wisp which will in turn inflict a status ailment on a number of your pokemon depending on how deep in the challenge you are. If your pokemon is immune to the status ailment either due to their type or ability, they won't be affected even if they're one of the selected pokemon. Interestingly, electric pokemon cannot be paralyzed by this event even though they normally can be in-battle. This can potentially be the most deadly room as it can severely cripple your team, especially if you're about to challenge the Pike Queen soon! Better hope you can stumble across one of the healing rooms!
• A room with a Gentleman who will heal one of your pokemon.
• A room with a Gentleman who will heal two of your pokemon.
• A room with a maid who will heal all three of your pokemon.

In order to complete a round at the Battle Pike, you'll have to make your way through 14 rooms. Every odd numbered room you'll choose one of three curtains to enter and every even numbered room will house one of the above events. So, you'll have to endure seven events and your pokemon will not automatically be healed after each battle like they normally are. Depending on your luck, you could have a nightmare of a time, but overall, the RNG seemed pretty friendly to me. One thing you'll notice is that only 3 of these 9 rooms actually have any trainers at all!

Beyond already having pretty good odds, you can seize some level of control over your luck as well. If you speak to the maid in front of the curtains, she'll offer up a hint about what's behind one of the three curtains. Each hint can correlate to two types of rooms. You'll want to be wary about this as you make your way through. For information on the hints, check out the bulbapedia page linked above!

Once you start your challenge by selecting your three pokemon, you can't access your bag or switch your team order around. Held items that are consumed will remain consumed until the end of the challenge as well, but don't be discouraged from using those berries! Being able to have a Lum Berry on your pokemon can be especially helpful with the prominence of status conditions here!

Ideally, you're going to want a pokemon in the lead that's fast so that you can flee from wild pokemon. You may want to give it a Cheri Berry to specifically heal off paralysis as well. In addition, pokemon that are immune to particular status ailments are really nice. Berries that heal status conditions are very nice to have here as they can add an extra layer of protection from especially awkward situations.

From what I've heard going into this facility, it's commonly considered to be the easiest facility in the entire Battle Frontier and is commonly the only symbol that more casual players can manage to earn and, aside from the perceived low difficulty, there's one major reason that'll quickly become apparent.

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

 

My Team [Round 1]:

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

 Toll (Metagross); Lv. 60

 

Item: Lum Berry 

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Rock Slide, Explosion, Meteor Mash, Earthquake

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

 Axe (Skarmory F); Lv. 60

 

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Keen Eye | Moves: Toxic, Roar, Spikes, Drill Peck

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

 Beast (Slaking M); Lv. 60

 

Item: Choice Band 

Ability: Truant | Moves: Shadow Ball, Aerial Ace, Double-Edge, Brick Break

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

Room 2: Wild Pokemon

This room is honestly the single worst room to have to go through. You'll typically have to fight 3-4 wild pokemon as you wind your way through the statues and, if you fail to flee from any of them, they can inflict status ailments on you and consume your berries! At the very least, if you get status ailments from the gentleman's pokemon, you'll get a chance to find a healing room before getting into battle! Toll wasn't able to flee from pokemon consistently, so it had to fight its way through some of them.

 

I haven't gone into detail about how the wild pokemon appear in these rooms, so I figure this is a good time. You'll always have a chance of running into Seviper and Milotic here.

   

As you progress through the rooms, the most common encounter will iterate between Dusclops, Electrode, Breloom, and Wobbuffet. Wobbuffet's Shadow Tag is especially scary but you'll only encounter it after 60 whole playthroughs of the Battle Pike. If you're just after the symbols, you'll only have to worry about Dusclops.

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

Room 4: Full Party Heal

A free heal is a relief. Unfortunately, it couldn't restore the Lum Berry that was so rudely consumed by a Milotic in the previous room, but even if you don't need the heal, it's just a free room with benefits!

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

Room 6: Status Problem

 

The Gentleman's Kirlia used Will-O-Wisp and burned both Toll and Beast! The absolute worst targets to burn!! And with the Lum Berry used up, there was no healing the burn off of Toll without a healing room.

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

Room 8: Full Party Heal

Thankfully, the next room I stumbled into just happened to heal my party again! The burn was entirely inconsequential!

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

Room 10: Double Battle!

 

Vs. Kindler Caden & Youngster Conner

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

 

Magnemite Lv. 60 & Aron Lv. 60

                

                

Thankfully, this was a very easy matchup for my team, just an Earthquake from Toll was all it took to take care of both my foes!

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

Room 12: Full Party Heal

Again, the heal wasn't necessary, but a free room is a free room!

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

Room 14: Wild Pokemon

Armed with the knowledge that Toll couldn't consistently flee, this room was much easier to break through! And after clearing this room, I was already done with very little resistance! Perhaps now you can see why this facility is considered so simple?

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

 

My Team [Round 2]:

For Round 2, I decided to make some adjustments to my pokemon entry. I didn't like that Toll wasn't able to consistently flee from the wild pokemon, so I went for Buzz as a lead instead. Buzz could also soak up a lot of status conditions and baton pass into Toll when needed. I still stuck with Axe, though, because I figured its Steel type might come in handy and I would definitely like a defensive pokemon to switch into if something went awry with Toll. I would've used Cat, but since you don't heal automatically between battles here, I didn't want Cat to have to rely on chipping away HP with Seismic Toss and Counter.

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

 Buzz (Ninjask M); Lv. 60

 

Item: Focus Band 

Ability: Speed Boost | Moves: Swords Dance, Baton Pass, Substitute, Silver Wind

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

 Toll (Metagross); Lv. 60

 

Item: Lum Berry 

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Rock Slide, Explosion, Meteor Mash, Earthquake

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

 Axe (Skarmory F); Lv. 60

 

Item: Leftovers 

Ability: Keen Eye | Moves: Toxic, Roar, Spikes, Drill Peck

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

Room 2: Free Room!

Nothing to see here!

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

Room 4: Free Room!

I won't look a gift horse in the mouth!

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

Room 6: Status Problem

 

Buzz and Toll got Frozen by the Gentleman's Dusclops! That's rough, but it could definitely be worse since Toll still has his Lum Berry this time!

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

Room 8: Status Problem

The game thought Axe would feel left out, so the next room was another Gentleman's room where his Duclops used Will-O-Wisp and burned Axe! Now every party member has a status ailment! How lovely...

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

Room 10: Full Party Heal

Thankfully, immediately following was a Full Party Heal! This healed all my status ailments and thus helped me to preserve my Lum Berry further!

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

Room 12: Status Problem

Perhaps the worst possible area to get a status problem is Room 12 on your second round... the status problem is applied to all three pokemon in the party! Thankfully, this one was Kirlia's Toxic! It only affected Buzz since Toll and Axe are both Steel Type!

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

Room 13

As you enter room 13, the maid who normally offers a hint tells you that she senses a really bad omen and warns that something terrible will happen to you soon. What could have her so rattled?

As we enter the final room, we'll run into what at first seems to be a full party heal room, but the maid inside will mourn your decision to wander into this particular room, suggesting that you would've received healing if you had chosen one of the other rooms, but as you've chosen this one, she leaves and retrieves ther mistress.

Room 14: Pike Queen's Room

That's right, after just two playthroughs, you're already ready to take on the Frontier Brain of the Battle Pike! Pike Queen Lucy introduces herself as "the law" here and decides to test your luck by battling you right away. Hopefully, you're prepared for the battle!

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

Vs. Pike Queen Lucy

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

Seviper Lv. 60

                    

                    

Thankfully, my luck was pretty sound during this round having not done any battles and healing off most of my status conditions. The only sign of fatigue I had was that Buzz was badly poisoned, but that was only from the previous room, so I hadn't even accumulated any damage from walking around!

                    

                     

Immediately, I went for a Substitute which blocked Lucy's Swagger. I then went for Swords Dance and she went for Swagger a second time to my surprise! On the third turn, I used Baton Pass to pass my speed and attack buffs, as well as my substitute, onto Toll!

                    

                     

This was an especially good switch because Seviper went for Poison Fang this time, which Toll was immune to, buying me yet another hit with the Substitute! Somehow, her Seviper outsped Toll, apparently it has a Quick Claw, and hit it with Crunch, finally breaking that Substitute. But, it was too little too late and I was able to crush it with Earthquake!

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

Milotic Lv. 60

                    

                    

Milotic was nearly KO'd by an Earthquake, but it was able to hold on and hit Toll with Surf. It didn't do quite enough to take Toll out, so I was able to finish it off with another Earthquake!

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

Shuckle Lv. 60

                    

                    

Her last pokemon was Shuckle and, though I didn't know it at the time, the battle was already won here. This Shuckle had literally no way to damage Steel-types except wasting all of its PP to use Struggle. This is because it relies on Toxic and Sandstorm to whittle your health down and Steel types are immune to both of these methods! All it could do was stall with Protect for as long as it could, but I eventually got a Meteor Mash through and sealed the deal!

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

 

And with that, I'd successfully defeated the Pike Queen Lucy and earned the Luck Symbol! We are now over half-way done with the Battle Frontier with four facilities down and only three remaining! Next time, I think we'll be taking on the Battle Dome!

Yes, it's very clear why this is commonly considered the easiest facility. Not only does it only take two runs in a row to get a challenge, but I was able to do both while only getting two battles total--including the frontier brain herself! While there is a lot of potential to get RNG screwed here, the reality is that there's so many rooms that don't involve battling at all. Even the status problem room which is very intimidating on the surface level, is still more or less a free room. Only around 1/3 of the possible rooms offer any sort of challenge. One of those even heals your team afterward!

I think one way they could've made this facility a bit more interesting is if you were guaranteed to always fight a trainer in the final room. Often, that last room is going to be incredibly anticlimactic.

MVP: Buzz

While Toll was a solid contender for the MVP slot this time around, Buzz allowed me a lot of extra confidence in my ability to march forward. He unfortuantely didn't get to shine as much as he could've since I actually didn't enter a maze room with him at the helm, but his stat boosts most certainly contributed to my victory over Lucy! I can't say how well I would've been able to hold up against Milotic without the Baton Pass.

[Aura]

Battle Frontier

We're edging closer and closer to the end of Generation 3 and I'm starting to get sentimental! But there's no time for reminiscence just yet, we've still got work to do! Our next facility is the Battle Dome! Not to be confused with the one from Neopets... is anyone even going to get that reference? Is it even funny? Well, it was funny enough for me when I was a kid! The Battle Dome is easily identifiable on this map from its name alone: It's the large dome-shaped building in the northwest, of course!

Battle Dome

The music here sounds like something out of Megaman X! It seems like we've come full circle from the Megaman-esque music from the Battle Factory!

Now, if I'm being honest, this is perhaps the most challenging facility we've had to handle so far. In fact, to finish this challenge, I lost my chain three times! Granted, I can only be so upset over them in hindsight since they were mostly due to risks I chose to take that simply didn't play out to my liking. In all seriousness, it's fun to blame RNG for your losses but never fun to admit that your own strategy involved some level of luck as well. Really, though, my losses were just the consequence of poor decision making, so I can't hold it against the facility. These facilities definitely don't feel free anymore!

The rules in the Battle Dome are actually very straight-forward compared to most facilities so far. This facility offers "Tourney Battle" rules which are somewhat akin to that of Pokemon Stadium but on a more controlled scale. You enter with three pokemon and are placed on a tournament bracket with 16 other trainers. You'll have to win through four battles in a row to win rein supreme as the champion of the tournament.

However, the "stadium" element I suggested earlier comes in just before each battle. Between rounds, your receptionist will give you the chance to look at the info on your next opponent. You'll be able to see what three pokemon they're using and a few lines that describe what they battle like. The first line will describe how skilled the trainer is, the second summarizes the types of moves their pokemon tend to prefer, and the third summarizes the EV distribution of their pokemon. For example, a trainer card might say something along the lines of  "A sure-finalist team," "Has a tough winning pattern," and "Prioritizes Offense over Defense." It's important to note, though, that these are only summaries of their party as a whole and do not accurately describe every pokemon on their party. Even if they prioritize defense, that Zangoose might still be just as offensive as any other Zangoose. If you're on any round past the first one, you can also look at the tournament bracket to see what move they used last to win each round.

If you're resourceful, you can use all of this information to your advantage when deciding what pokemon to use because, you guessed it, the similarities to stadium start up once again as, before each battle, armed only with the knowledge you've gathered, you have to select two of your three entered pokemon to go into battle with. And, I'd like to add that limiting yourself to only two pokemon as opposed to three leaves a lot more room for anxiety than you expect! You can't very well cover yourself with the typical "Rock paper scissors" strats I like to use in standard tournament rules. Once again, you've gotta make sure your pokemon are ready to take on any situation because you're always going to have some weaknesses with only one pokemon to back your lead up. If there's ever a point where you come to realize how important raw power paired with speed and bulk is, it's here.

I suppose I should go ahead and explain how I'll be formatting this. Normally I only detail the final battle in each challenge, but since each battle in the tournament actually technically affects how much information my opponent is "supposed" to know about me, I figured I'd show all of my opponents and what moves I used to win, to give an idea of what my experience was like, but I'll only be going into detail about the final opponent in each challenge. Speaking of challenges, to avoid confusion, I should also address that I normally refer to individual challenges as "rounds," as they do get progressively more difficult each time you try to add another set of wins to your streak. 

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

 

My Team:

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

 Toll (Metagross); Lv. 60

 

Item: Lum Berry 

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Rock Slide, Explosion, Meteor Mash, Earthquake

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

 Cancer (Starmie); Lv. 60

 

Item: Cheri Berry 

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Rapid Spin, ThunderBolt, Hydro Pump, Ice Beam

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

 Cat (Blissey F); Lv. 60

 

Item: Pecha Berry 

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Thunder Wave, SoftBoiled, Seismic Toss, Counter

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

My Card:

   

PKMN Trainer Emerald | Metagross, Starmie, Blissey

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

The best candidate to be champion!

Willing to risk total disaster at times.

Emphasizes Speed.

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

Challenge 1

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

Round 1: Guitarist Antonio

Won using Earthquake.

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

Round 2: Kindler Nash

Won using Earthquake.

I think you're going to catch onto a trend here... I might be exposing myself a bit with how lazy I get with these easier battles...

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

Semifinal: Triathlete Arthur

Won using ThunderBolt.

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

    

Final: Battle Girl Kelly | Sandslash, Metang, Ponyta

A sure-finalist team.

Prefers Offense over Defense

Emphasizes Attack over Sp. Attack

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

Won using: Bounce, Rock Slide & Rock Slide

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

               

                

I lead off with Cancer since it was strong against 2/3 of Kelly's team. I missed the first turn but managed to KO Sandslash with a Hydro Pump the following, not before it was able to set up a SandStorm, though.

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

               

                

Taking Sandshrew's place was Metang, so I simply went for Hydro Pump to get some damage up. Metang could only try to slow me down with Scary Face, but I ended up finishing it off the following turn with a ThunderBolt for the game!

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

Challenge 2

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

Round 1: Triathlete Carlo

Won using Earthquake.

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

Round 2: Aroma Lady Sofia

Won using Meteor Mash.

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

Semifinal: Triathlete Jamal

Won using Ice Beam.

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

   

Final: Triathlete Emilia | Primeape, Castform, Pidgeot

A sure-finalist team.

Emphasizes Offense over Defense.

Emphasizes HP.

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

Won using: Shock Wave, Counter, & Counter

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

               

                

I can go ahead and say right now that being up against a pokemon with Counter is one of the most stressful things in this format. One wrong move could spell your L. Out of this party, it was very clear this Primeape was the pokemon with Counter, and I wasn't about to take any chances, so I went ahead and allowed Metagross to go for Explosion to get it out of the way. I was pretty confident in Cancer's ability to handle the other two.

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

               

                

Cancer came out against her Castform. I went for Hydro Pump and missed, getting countered with a Powder Snow that slowed me down. From there, I hit Castform with a Hydro Pump which almost knocked it out. It ate its Petaya Berry and increased its Special Attack to deal a bit of extra damage with Shock Wave, only it wasn't nearly enough to make up for the deficit and I finished it off the following turn with Ice Beam.

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

Challenge 3

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

Round 1: Triathlete Emilia

Won using Counter.

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

Round 2: PKMN Ranger Meghan

Won using Rock Slide.

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

Semifinal: Psychic Lukas

Won using Explosion.

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

   

Final: PokeManiac Xander | Camerupt, Lairon, Marshtomp

A weaker-than-average team.

Uses strong and straightforward moves.

Emphasizes Attack and Sp. Attack

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

Won using: Iron Tail, Earthquake, Earthquake

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

               

                

I led off with Toll and Xander opened with Marshtomp. Literally the only opponent I didn't want to face with Toll, but you get what you get and I figured it was definitely the logical choice, I suppose. For the first two turns, Marshtomp hid behind Protect while I tried to hit it with Earthquake. The third time, it survived my Earthquake and dished out one of its own before going down to yet another Earthquake of mine on the next turn.

               

                

With a single Earthquake, Xander's Camerupt was a joke for Toll.

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

Challenge 4

You may have noticed we've yet to see the frontier brain! Well, that's actually because it takes 5 challenges to face off against him. That's actually part of what makes this facility so much more difficult than the others. In order to get the silver symbol, you have to go a bit further than the other facilities. Each challenge, the pokemon you face off against get stronger and more threatening. 

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

Round 1: Cooltrainer Julia

Won using Explosion.

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

Round 2: PokeFan Taylor

Won using ThunderBolt.

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

Semifinal: PokeFan Jaren

Won using Explosion.

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

   

Final: Dragon Tamer Graham | Nidoqueen, Skarmory, Sceptile

The dark horse team this tournament.

Prefers tactics that rely on luck.

Neglects defense.

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

Won using: Steel Wing, Sludge Bomb, Leaf Blade

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

               

                

I led off with Toll and Graham led with Skarmory. Rock Slide was the obvious choice here, this pokemon is actually the primary purpose for this move in the first place. However, I missed the first turn. Skarmory set up an Agility, so I went for Rock Slide the following turn, which was immediately countered by Skarmory! I had no idea Skarmory could even use Counter! Well, with that newfound knowledge, I figured my best bet was to retreat into someone who could better handle the matchup.

               

                

With Cancer, I could comfortably finish Skarmory off with a ThunderBolt without fear of being Countered again!

               

                

Up next was his Nidoqueen which managed to survive a Hydro Pump thanks to her Focus Band and dealt a solid blow with Sludge Bomb. Cancer held on, though, and finished her off with an Ice Beam!

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

Challenge 5

Here is the big one! This is an especially interesting challenge considering you can see the Dome Ace Tucker himself right there on the tournament bracket! But we're going to have to battle our way to the finals to get the chance to face off against him. It might seem like a lot of battles to get there, but when you consider that each challenge is only four battles, you're actually battling him for your 20th win as opposed to your 21st like the standard. It's no Battle Pike, and the battles are tougher, but it's a pleasantry!

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

Round 1: PKMN Ranger Meghan

Won using Explosion.

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

Round 2: Lass Shea

Won using Hydro Pump.

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

Semifinal: Youngster Johan

Won using Meteor Mash.

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

   

Final: Dome Ace Tucker | Swampert, Salamence, Charizard

The invincible superstar!

Has a tough winning pattern.

Emphasizes HP and Attack.

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

Won using: Overheat, Overheat, & Ice Beam

As we enter the final round, the commissioner of the Battle Dome, Dome Ace Tucker, enters the arena and does a little performance for the crowd before leaping into the arena for our battle.

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

Vs. Dome Ace Tucker

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

Salamence Lv. 60

               

                

I was on the fence about whether to lead with Toll or Cancer. In hindsight, Cancer probably would've been the safer bet, but I really didn't want him to lead with Swampert and wipe Cancer out with an Earthquake right away. Because Cancer was so valuable for this battle, I figured I was better off leading with Toll and doing the best I could with him. Tucker wound up leading with Salamence and, naturally, outspeeding me. I went for Rock Slide to do the best I could, but Toll could only last so long against this beast. These two are rivals in the competitive field for a reason.

               

                

At this point, I honestly thought all was lost, but I carried on regardless. With an Ice Beam, I was able to take out Salamence well enough, but I was terrified of what was to come.

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

Charizard Lv. 60

To my surprise, Tucker's second pokemon was Charizard!

               

                

This was a much more comfortable matchup for Cancer. I went for Hydro Pump. All I had to do was cross my fingers for a hit and, sure enough, Hydro Pump did connect granting me victory over the Dome Ace himself!

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

 

For defeating the Dome Ace, we're awarded the Tactics Symbol! And we now only have two symbols remaining!

MVP: Cancer

While Toll definitely did a lot of the KOs, Cancer was a fantastic help for picking off what he couldn't. Especially in that final battle!

You may have noticed that I didn't actually use Cat a whole lot. If I'm being honest, that's not really because Cat wasn't necessarily a good fit for this facility per se, it's just that... remember how I said I lost three times? Well, every single loss was one where I selected Cat and wound up with Toll or Cancer KO'd leaving me with my back against the wall. If I'm being honest, my nerves kept getting the better of me and I'd make stupid choices like going for Seismic Toss when they were obviously going to attack into my Counter. I kept getting trapped in my head running through all the what-ifs rather than just going with my gut. Getting five rounds in can do a lot of that to ya! Perhaps the worst example was a situation I actually could've gotten through except for the fact that I was walled with confusion four turns in a row and no longer had time to take out the Tentacruel due to Toxic buildup... in my fifth challenge. You can imagine my pain there knowing I don't even have the hope of a lucky crit.

From what I've heard, the next facility we'll be taking on sounds to be the single most challenging in the entire frontier, so I'm actually rather nervous about how well I'll be able to perform. The facility I'm referring to is, of course, the Battle Pyramid, which is the only facility I've heard described as "a nightmare," so that'll be fun. Looking forward to a busy day of feeling my way around in the dark!