All the Pokemens

November 3, 2021

Today, we have a rather short update, but we've got some fairly significant progress towards the completion of our little project here!

First of all, in anticipation of our next dungeon, I went ahead and purchased a new friend area: Waterfall Lake. This area is only used for two pokemon we've yet to run into, but we might in this dungeon!

This time, we're going to be taking on the last of these optional side dungeons: Waterfall Pond. This dungeon is available after clearing the main story. However, in order to access the dungeon, we'll need the HM for Waterfall which we got from the locked chamber on floor 15 of Solar Cave. This was the one that didn't require a pokemon to cross water. Waterfall is a slightly weaker version of Surf that has an extra PP. Surf is generally better, but the difference between the two is incredibly minor, so it isn't too terrible of a downgrade to just swap the moves out. We can always teach Surf with the HM again after we get back, and giving Waterfall to Allia can help free up a space in our inventory.

I came along with Allia, Nature, and Grim the Duskull who we recruited in Darknight Relic. I have my reasons for bringing him along.

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Waterfall Cave

The items available in this dungeon are incredibly rudimentary: Poke; Geo-Pebbles; Ceri, Oran, and Pecha Berries; Blast, Heal, and Warp Seeds; and Max Elixirs.

The traps are also fairly simple: Sticky and Grime Traps; PP-Zero and Seal Traps; Mud Traps; and Warp Traps. Sticky Traps are an annoyance but they aren't too much of a hassle. Just come prepared with a Cleanse Orb or two.

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Waterfall Pond [B1F - B2F]

For the first two floors, you can find a variety of Water-type pokemon. The types of pokemon you'll run into here shouldn't be too much of a surprise. They're of course pokemon that live in rivers and ponds. You'll also quickly find that this is another locaition where you can recruit some pokemon you could potentially start as. In this case: Mudkip, who requires Peanut Swamp alongside Barboach. Lotad and Poliwag both require Tadpole Pond. Lastly, Goldeen requires Rub-a-dub River to recruit.

Be mindful of Poliwag's Water Absorb ability, especially if you have a new recruit with you. Barboach's Magnitude can also wreak some havoc on your team, so make sure to take them out first!

While exploring this dungeon, I was able to recruit a Mudkip which I named River!

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New Recruit: Team Recover

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River (Mudkip); Lv. 28

Item: None

Ability: Torrent; Moves: Water Gun, Growl, Foresight, Take Down

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Waterfall Pond [B3F]

On B3F, Wooper will join along. Like the other Water/Ground types, Wooper also requires Peanut Swamp to recruit.

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Waterfall Pond [B4F - B5F]

Mudkip and Lotad bow out on B4F, making room for Surskit who can be recruited with Tadpole Pond.

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Waterfall Pond [B6F]

On B6F, Poliwag, Goldeen, and Barboach leave in favor of Totodile and Corphish. Of course, Totodile requires Rub-a-dub River while Corphish requires Turtleshell Pond.

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Waterfall Pond [B7F]

On B7F, Wooper is gone but, in Blue Rescue Team only, you can run into Magikarp! Magikarp, of course, seems incredibly useless on the surface. However, once you get it out of the dungeon and evolved, it becomes a powerhouse! Granted, I'm not sure how worthwhile Gyarados really is. Be mindful that he is a Size 4 pokemon, so at that point you might want to bring in a legendary like Kyogre instead. But, if you want Magikarp, you can recruit it with Waterfall Lake.

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Waterfall Pond [B8F]

Squirtle takes Surskit's place on B8F. Another starter! Squirtle requires Turtleshell Pond to recruit.

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Waterfall Pond [B9F - B10F]

Poliwhirl joins in on B9F. As an evolved pokemon, it has a -19% recruit rate.

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Waterfall Pond [B11F]

Totodile is gone on B11F.

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Waterfall Pond [B12F]

Magikarp will no longer appear on B12F, and instead you'll start to find Masquerain. Masquerain is a fully-evolved pokemon, so it can't be recruited.

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Waterfall Pond [B13F]

B13F bids farewell to Corphish and Squirtle and brings along Lombre and Marshtomp. Both of these pokemon have a -19% recruitment rate.

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Waterfall Pond [B14F]

Poliwhirl is gone on B14F.

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Waterfall Pond [B15F]

And Quagsire and Whiscash join on B15F, neither of whom can be recruited.

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Waterfall Pond [B16F]

In Red Rescue Team only, Feebas will join the fray on B16F as a counterpart to Magikarp. Like Magikarp, Feebas can be recruited with Waterfall Lake as well. Unfortunately, it's not quite as easy to evolve as Magikarp since you'll need an item we don't have access to just yet. Just like Gyarados, Milotic is a Size 4 pokemon, so it's probably not really worthwhile to commit so hard to a new recruit, but the option is there if you want it.

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Waterfall Pond [B17F - B18F]

On B17F, Lombre will leave and Poliwrath will join in. Poliwrath can be a bit annoying. Once again, Water Absorb is a bit of an annoyance in a dungeon full of Water-type recruits. In addition, it can soak up quite a bit of damage. Of course, he can't be recruited, either.

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Waterfall Pond [B19F]

On B19F, Marshtomp bids farewell as well.

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

And that's the end of the dungeon! It doesn't serve much of a purpose aside from allowing you to obtain more water pokemon, perhaps to get a decently strong pokemon capable of using the Water-type HMs you've received recently? It's probably not a very difficult dungeon for a reason. After Darknight Relic, this was a nice, relaxing dungeon to go through. And thankfully, I think our next destination will probably be pretty easy for us as well. Next time, we'll finally be able to progress through one of the multitude of plot threads we've opened up.

November 5, 2021

Once again, there wasn't much in the way for us as far as missions go, so we can finally turn our attention toward our various plot threads, beginning with the Northern Range so that we can investigate the mysterious TM Thief from the other day.

In order to trigger this story event, you must accomplish two things:

First, you must have access to the Southern Island Friend Area, which is available at Wigglytuff Club for 9,500P during the postgame.

Secondly, you must have obtained the HM for Surf from floor 20 of Solar Cave. While it's generally best to obtain this HM with a pokemon capable of traveling over water, you can also obtain it by having an enemy Claydol wander over it to pick it up. Though the Surf HM thankfully isn't required to reach the dungeon like Dive for Stormy Sea, it is a requirement for the dungeon to become available in the first place.

Once these two requirements are met, you should see the previously covered cutscene in which a mysterious thief makes off with a variety of TMs from the Kecleon Shop and heads off towards the Northern Range. It's up to us to seek this thief out and recover the stolen goods!

It's worth noting that this dungeon is filled with Flying-type pokemon, so I decided to leave Nature at home and bring along Bite and Grim. This is a super-mobile team capable of traveling over water as well!

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

Northern Range

We've once again got a pretty standard array of items available to us: Poke; Def., Pecha, and Warp Scarves; Gold, Heal, and Joy Ribbons; Persim, Power, Racket, and Stamina Bands; X-Ray Specs; Gravelrocks; Iron Thorns and Silver Spikes; Cheri, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries; Blast, Heal, Hunger, Quick, and Reviver Seeds; Max Elixirs; and assorted TMs and Wonder Orbs.

In the trap department, we've got lots of fun ones: Pokemon Traps; Explosion and Self-Destruct Traps; Sticky and Grimy Traps; Summon Traps; Warp and Gust Traps; PP-Zero and Seal Traps; Poison, Spin, Slumber, Slow, and Mud Traps; and then petty Chestnut Traps.

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Northern Range [1F - 5F]

The pokemon available on the first floor are Hoothoot, who can be recruited with Flyaway Forest, Beautifly, Ninjask, Dodrio, and Jumpluff. Only the former of which is actually recruitable. The rest are all fully evolved pokemon. Among them, Ninjask is probably the most annoying since it likes to boost its stats before coming into range of any of your attacks. But some gravelrocks can easily put a stop to it before it becomes too much of an annoyance.

Right off the bat, you can see that, not only are there a lot of Flying-types, but most of them are fully evolved as well! And it's quite true. Most of the pokemon in this dungeon are unfortunately unrecruitable. The few that are recruitable just happen to be around in dungeons we've already visited. So there's really nothing super special about this dungeon in terms of new recruits.

On the 4th floor, you'll run into a random weather effect. In my case, cloudy.

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Northern Range [6F]

On the 6th floor, Hoothoot is replaced with Spinarak. Spinarak can be recruited with Secretive Forest.

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Northern Range [7F]

Beautifly is gone on the 7th floor but in comes Swellow! Thankfully, Swellow isn't quite high enough level to utilize that dreaded Endeavor. Of course, it can't be recruited.

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Northern Range [8F - 11F]

On the 8th floor, the dungeon shifts to this slightly smoother design compared to the rough stone we've been traveling over before.

Many of the pokemon from earlier disappear here, but Pidgeotto joins in. Pidgeotto, too, is fully evolved and can't be recruited.

On the 11th floor is another random weather effect: Fog for me.

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Northern Range [12F - 13F]

Starting on the 12th floor, you'll start to find Ledian in place of Spinarak. Their SuperSonic can come at really unfortunate times. Not to mention Reflect and Light Screen can make them take a while to kill, so don't underestimate them.

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Northern Range [14F - 16F]

The next pokemon to join in is Xatu! Unfortunately, not the friendly Xatu who likes to share his wisdom with us. He can't be recruited either!

Another random weather effect is ready to meet you on the 15th floor. In this case, Snow.

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Northern Range [17F]

On the 17th floor, we've reached the snow-capped peaks of the mountains!

You'd think that'd mean a notable shift in the types of pokemon we encounter, but no, more birds. This time, Fearow takes the place of Pidgeotto.

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Northern Range [18F]

Another unrecruitable, Togetic, joins on the 18th floor.

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Northern Range [19F]

On the next floor, Hoothoot's evolution, Noctowl, joins the fight. But again, fully evolved, so no recruits.

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Northern Range [20F]

The 20th floor brings along Seviper who can be recruited with the Wild Plains.

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Nothern Range [21F - 24F]

For the remainder of the dungeon, Xatu ceases to appear.

It might seem a little late, but this deep in, you could potentially start to see Spike Traps in addition to the other traps you've been stumbling over the whole way up.

Furthermore, specifically on floors 23 and 24, you can start to find Link Boxes!

On floor 23, I recruited a Seviper! While I'm pretty sure I already have one, I figured the extra teammate might come in handy. We're at the end of the dungeon anyway and literally no other pokemon are recruitable, so we may as well let him tag along. I named him Toxin.

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New Recruit: Team Recover

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Toxin (Seviper); Lv. 25

Item: None

Ability: Shed Skin | Moves: Glare, Screech, Bite, Lick

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

On the 25th floor, you'll reach the end of the dungeon where you'll come face to face with the thief from before!

The thief introduces himself as the Eon Pokemon Latios! And as a Legendary Pokemon, he refuses to back down just because he's been cornered!

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Team Recover

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Allia (Feraligatr); Lv. 35

Item: Stamina Band

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Dig, Scary Face + Surf, Ice Beam

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Bite (Vibrava); Lv. 38

Item: Special Band

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Dig, DragonBreath, Sand-Attack, Crunch

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Grim (Duskull); Lv. 35

Item: [Sticky] Def. Scarf

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Curse, Pursuit, Confuse Ray, Foresight

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Toxin (Seviper); Lv. 25

Item: None

Ability: Shed Skin | Moves: Glare, Screech, Bite, Lick

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

Vs. Latios

Believe it or not, it actually wasn't a mistake to enter this fight with a full party. Latios cannot actually be recruited the same way as the other legendaries we've faced, so you may as well come at him at your full strength.

This battle was actually quite a joke thanks to Allia's Ice Beam and Bite's DragonBreath. With these two moves, we can hit Latios with super-effective hits from any range. In addition, Grim's Confuse Ray can send Latios wandering off in random directions, giving us the edge to swoop in with some free pot shots while he recovers from confusion! It wasn't long at all before the dungeon was cleared.

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

Even after defeat, Latios seems insistent on not giving up. It seem she must have an important cause to fight with such resolve, but he's pushing himself too far and winds up falling unconscious.

So, we bring Latios back to Pokemon Square where he can explain what's going on. Not only can we make him atone for his crimes, but perhaps we can help him with the apparent larger problem at hand.

Kecleon of course has a few choice words for this thief, but Alakazam insists we hear his story out.

Unable to fly due to his injury, Latios has no choice but to explain why he's so desperate. He explains that his sister, Latias, fell into a place called Pitfall Valley, a location that seems shocking even to Alakazam. That might be a little more unnerving if this weren't the guy who inexplicably got his butt kicked by Groudon.

When asked about Pitfall Valley by Nature, Kecleon insists that the place is said to be incredibly dangerous, that it's a place that cannot be escaped from. I suppose even Rescue Badges aren't capable of teleporting you out of this place?

Latios continues to explain that Latias had been struck by a falling meteorite and fell into Pitfall Valley where a rescue seems utterly hopeless...

Nature suggests that the meteorite Latias was struck by may have been a chunk of the meteor destroyed by Rayquaza. In which case, even though it was for the greater good, we just might be able to consider ourselves partially to blame for this tragedy, so we might have a duty to perform this daring rescue... but how can we achieve a rescue from such a dangerous place?

Latios goes on to explain that he went to Pitfall Valley in an attempt to rescue Latias, but couldn't get very far before being forced to retreat. Out of desperation, he turned to stealing TMs from Pokemon Square in an effort to become stronger.

Alakazam quickly recognizes a major flaw in Latios' plight. He intended to navigate his way to the depths of Pitfall Valley, but... with no way out, he would only become trapped in the valley alongside his sister.

Of course, this has crossed Latios' mind already, but he asserts that he would rather die by his sister's side than allow her to remain alone to her own demise. This assertion is immediately dismissed by Alakazam as foolish. Surely Latias wouldn't wish for Latios to become trapped as well. Thinking about it from this perspective, it's almost selfish for Latios to sacrifice his life just because he misses his sister. No, there's certainly a better solution: A rescue.

When asked about how a rescue from a place like Pitfall Valley could be possible, Alakazam suggests that we use the Teleport Gem.

Obviously, the Teleport Gem got destroyed in the explosion at the end of the story. However, the tiny fragments still hold enough power to teleport us a short distance. While we can't use it to get to the sky anymore, we should be able to use it to get outside from the depths of Pitfall Valley!

With this idea in mind, Nature jumps at the opportunity to accept the rescue request! It's a job only we can do, of course! With that, Pitfall Valley is now available!

November 9, 2021

Once again, there was still no pair of missions to take care of yet, so I went off to our next destination. After having heard Latios' plight and learned of the danger his sister Latias was in, I think there's no dungeon we should be making our way toward besides Pitfall Valley.

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Pitfall Valley

This dungeon is where Latias found herself crashing after being struck by a meteorite. It's said to be so deep that no pokemon can escape from it, but with a shard of the broken teleport gem we used to get to Sky Tower, we should be capable of breaking that limitation and performing a rescue that would otherwise be impossible.

The dungeon itself more or less just feels like a more difficult version of Northern Range. There are a lot of Flying-type pokemon, so I once again left Nature behind. I opted to enter the dungeon with only two teammates due to a small misunderstanding. I saw that this dungeon only allowed you to enter with a team of three pokemon and assumed that meant I couldn't have more than three pokemon on my team, that is, I'd be unable to recruit any pokemon. As it turns out, I was mistaken and actually was capable of recruiting pokemon with a team of three which I'd soon find out on accident.

Just a heads up, I strongly recommend packing some extra Max Elixirs and Reviver Seeds. You might need 'em.

The items here seem to be identical to the ones in the Northern Range. They include Poke; Def., Pecha, and Warp Scarves; Gold, Heal, and Joy Ribbons; Persim, Power, Racket, and Stamina Bands; X-Ray Specs; Gravelrocks; Iron Thorns and Silver Spikes; Cheri, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries; Blast, Heal, Hunger, Quick, and Reviver Seeds; Max Elixirs; and then an array of TMs and Wonder Orbs.

The traps you encounter are also much the same save for the addition of Pitfall Traps. The traps include Sticky and Grime Traps; Pitfall, Warp, and Gust Traps; Summon and Pokemon Traps; Explosion and SelfDestruct Traps; Chestnut Traps; PP-Zero and Seal Traps; Spin, Poison, and Slumber Traps; and Mud and Slow Traps. Be wary that, while Pitfall Traps can helpfully progress you to the next floor, they can potentially instantly KO one of your allies if they're unfortunate enough to step on one before the leader.

While venturing into this dungeon, I brought Allia and Bite.

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Pitfall Valley [B1F - B3F]

For the first three floors, you'll find Swellow, Pidgeot, Ledyba, and Farfetch'd. None of these are too scary, but be wary of the range on Swellow and Pidgeot's Quick Attack. Of course, Ledyba's Supersonic can also be a pain. But all of these guys are pretty easy to pick off. Swellow and Pidgeot of course cannot be recruit. Ledbya can be recruited with Mist-Rise Forest and Farfetch'd with Wild Plains.

I failed to get a screenshot, but on the 3rd floor, you'll run into a random weather effect. In my case, it was Fog.

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Pitfall Valley [B4F - B6F]

Starting on the fourth floor, the pokemon you can find are doubled with the addition of Hoppip, Spearow, Raticate, and Butterfree. Hoppip can be recruited with Beau Plains and Spearow with Ravaged Field. Raticate and Butterfree, nautrally, cannot be recruited. These guys don't change the game much at all.

You'll find a random weather effect on B6F. Snow for me.

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Pitfall Valley [B7F - B8F]

The first four pokemon will stop appearing on the seventh floor to make room for Doduo and Swablu. Doduo can be recruited with the Safari while Swablu can be recruited with Flyaway Forest.

On B8F, I was able to recruit a new teammate! Cover the Swablu!

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New Recruit: Team Recover

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Cover (Swablu); Lv. 24

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Sing, Fury Attack, Safeguard, Mist

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Pitfall Valley [B9F]

On B9F, Hoppip will give way to Yanma who can also be recruited with Mist-Rise Forest.

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Pitfall Valley [B10F - B12F]

The second wave of enemies is now gone starting with B10F, with the unrecruitable Masquerain taking their place.

On B10F, you'll find another random weather effect. It's a Sandstorm here!

And on B11F, the dungeon's aesthetic shifts from the desert-like tileset to a cave theme.

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Pitfall Valley [B13F - B14F]

On B13F, the party's thinning as Doduo and Swablu leave the fray and only Scyther joins to fill their gap.

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Pitfall Valley [B15F]

On B15F, Masquerain disappears and is replaced with Skiploom, a -19% recruit, and Aerodactyl who can be recruited with Ancient Relic. Aerodactyl, of course, is just as obnoxious here as in Sky Tower. It can take a beating, baiting you into using your strongest attacks and tanking their already-low PP with its Pressure ability. Then it's got its own powerful attacks to dish out against you. If you aren't prepared, these guys can seriously mess you up. And you're going to be seeing a lot of these annoying beasts. Max Elixirs are your friends here.

B15F is also home to another random weather effect. Hail for me.

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Pitfall Valley [B16F - B18F]

Yanma is gone! Unfortunately, that really just means we'll be running into Aerodactyl even more consistently now.

On the 17th floor, I was able to recruit another new member: a Scyther! I named it Sickle. It might seem odd for me to accept another teammate now, but Sickle here is not only much higher level than Machete, but Machete is evolved, meaning I technically don't have a Scyther on my team anymore. May as well fill out our friend areas as much as we can!

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New Recruit: Team Recover

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Sickle (Scyther); Lv. 32

Item: None

Ability: Swarm | Moves: Slash, Wing Attack, Agility, False Swipe

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Pitfall Valley [B19F - B20F]

Scyther ceases to appear on the 18th floor, leaving you stuck with even more Aerodactyl!!

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Pitfall Valley [B21F - B25F]

And if you thought the game might let up, think again! For the last five floors, Aerodactyl is the only pokemon that can spawn, meaning every pokemon that appears will be an Aerodactyl. Just be thankful there aren't any Monster Houses in this dungeon. What a nightmare that would be! I can't stress enough how important it is to bring Max Elixirs into this dungeon because you really will need them here. Or at least some Warp Seeds or Warp Orbs and the like to get them away from you. The good news is this is absolutely the best place to come to recruit Aerodactyl for your team!

Just like before, you'll start to find Link Boxes in the last few floors as well. Considering the Aerodactyl walls, you might need these to re-link your moves.

In addition, you'll start to run into Spiked Tiles as well, so keep your eyes peeled for those, too.

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

Thankfully, no boss lies at the end of the dungeon, so you're home free once you've braved the endurance round of Aerodactyl.

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

We've finally reached the depths of the valley and found Latias! We check on her and find that she's thankfully unhurt! Well, she's injured from the meteorite, but she's managed to stay safe for the rescue!

Using the fragment of the Teleport Gem, we're able to successfully escape from the valley!

Back home, we get a genuinely sweet reunion between the two siblings which just makes your heart happy to see! The fact that they animated these two hugging is just the sweetest thing to me!

And it seems I'm not the only one getting emotional over it.

Latios offers an emotional thank-you speech for us considering the hopeless situation we saved his dear sister from. But it's nothing, really. This is exactly why we became a rescue team in the first place! Not to mention, as I suggested earlier, justified or not, the accident was arguably caused by our intervention in the first place, so it was only right that we perform the rescue.

With no way to pay us for our rescue, Latias and Latios offer their service instead. They wish to lend their power to us as members of our rescue team!

Of course we can't say no to an offer like that! And not one, but two legendary pokemon for free? I can't think of any better reward!

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New Recruits: Team Recover

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East (Latios); Lv. 30

Item: None

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Memnto, DragonBreath, Safeguard, Helping Hand

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West (Latias); Lv. 28

Item: None

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Water Sport, DragonBreath, Safeguard, Helping Hand

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Since every legendary we've recruited so far has had a 4-star size, you might've been under the impression that these two could never be on the same team together. Fortunately, Latios is actually a 2-star size pokemon, a size that's quite rare, actually, while Latias is regularly sized at 1 star! These two can easily fit on a team together with room to spare! You might actually get quite a bit of use out of them!

Since you have to buy their friend area, Southern Island, in order to gain access to the Northern Range in the first place, these story recruits unfortunately don't mean any potential free friend areas.

And with that, we've resolved our first post-game plot thread! It was a brief introduction to what we can expect out of these postgame threads. Next time, it seems like we've gotten the most pressing concerns out of the way, so we can set some time aside to finally start investigating that strange Spinda's mirage pokemon quest. Next time, it's off to Fiery Field!

November 12, 2021

Last time, we finished up the plot thread following the story of Latios and Latias and recruited the both of them! Now, it's time to look into Spinda's plight to seek out the mirage pokemon. Xatu told us to head northwest to the Fiery Field for answers about the clear wing we were given. I went into a little bit of prep work first.

Before continuing onward, I went ahead and bought the Crater from the Wigglytuff Club.

The Crater allows you to recruit Magcargo, Magby, Numel, and Torkoal who could all previously be found in Mt. Blaze. Needless to say, these generic Fire-types are going to be found a lot here in a dungeon called Fiery Field.

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

In addition, I also taught East Fly by HM and Dragonbreath by Gulpin in place of Memento and Psywave.

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

Fiery Field

This dungeon is unlocked as a part of the Spinda storyline. In order to open the way here, you'll need to visit Xatu at the top of the Great Canyon after receiving the Clear Wing from Spinda. In order to get here, you'll need the HM for Surf from Solar Cave as well. Since Allia knows Surf already, she can cover that requirement with ease.

The big threat here, however, is the special game rule. This is our first time seeing anything like this. The game will autosave upon entering the dungeon. I originally assumed that this meant you couldn't return to the base after departing, sort of like the Fugitive story arc. However, I found out the hard way that this save actually serves a completely different purpose: It prevents you from save scumming if you happen to fail. If you turn off the game without autosaving and before successfully exiting the dungeon, the game will treat it as though you were KO'd and you'll lose your items and money. A really harsh punishment, for sure. I found this out the hard way when I started my first run by stepping on a sticky trap as my literal first step...

The dungeon's items change up in some notable ways later on, but for now, we've got some interesting items throughout the majority of the dungeon. Among them are Poke; Bounce, Pierce, Racket, Special, and Zinc Bands; Def. and Sneak Scarves; Diet and Joy Ribbons; No-Stick Caps; X-Ray Specs; Gravelrocks; Iron Thorns; Silver Spikes; Sticks; Apples; Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries; Allure, Blast, Blinker, Eyedrop, Heal, Hunger, Quick, Reviver, Sleep, Stun, Totter, and Warp Seeds; Calcium, Iron, Protein, and Zinc; Max Elixirs; TMs and Wonder Orbs.

Among these items, you may have noticed, are the vitamins Calcium, Iron, Protein, and Zinc. These items work similarly to the way they do in the main series: They'll permanently increase the respective stats and, going forward, these are likely to be your main source of stat growth at this point in the game and they're incredibly useful!

The traps include Explosion and Selfdestruct Traps; Sticky and Grime Traps; PP-Zero and Seal Traps; Warp Traps; Spin Traps; Mud Traps; Slow Traps; and Slumber Traps.

I brought Allia, East, and Grim along for this adventure. In hindsight, it probably would have been helpful to bring Davy Jones instead of East and Grim, but I honextly expected this dungeon to be really easy thanks to Allia, so I figured it was a good opportunity to bring some teammates I wanted to level a little.

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Fiery Field [1F - 3F]

For the first three floors, you'll run into Vulpix, Numel, Slugma, and Ursaring. Vulpix can be recruited with Darkness Ridge while Numel and Slugma can be recruited with the Crater. Ursaring can't be recruited but is the source of all of your terror for these first few floors. I could never have predicted this in the slightest, but these demons from hell are capable of wreaking havoc with their Fury Swipes which does an absurd amount of damage, even at their lower levels. I'm talking each individual hit from Fury Swipes dealing around 250 damage. If they hit you with just one of these, they can tear through your reviver seeds like candy. Stay as far away from these monsters as you possibly can. It's not a bad idea to use any Blowback or Warp Orbs you might have if they happen to get in close. Remember that you can switch leader to whoever is closest to them to use these items, too. You'll quickly find in this dungeon that, though you're not dealing with a bunch of Pressure pokemon like before, you will still be running low on PP a lot just because of how much you'll be relying on your attacks to take care of the bulkier pokemon you can find here. Try to pace yourself and use moves where you need them because you will need them here.

It's worth noting burns are pretty inevitable. You might feel pressured to use items to heal burns, but I'd honestly say don't bother. Burn damage won't be fast enough to overpower the damage you recover from walking and you're probably better off using that inventory space to carry Oran Berries to heal damage off manually to make up for the inhibited HP recovery.

On the first floor, I recruited a Slugma!

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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Heat (Slugma); Lv. 28

Item: None

Ability: Magma Armor, Flame Body | Moves: Yawn, Ember, Harden, Rock Throw

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Fiery Field [4F]

On the 4th floor, Magmar will join the fray.

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

Fiery Field [5F]

Vulpix and Numel are gone on the 5th floor and Charmander will join the squad. Charmander can be recruited with Mt. Cleft.

This floor is also sunny which will power up the fire attacks of your opponents and weaken your water attacks. Thankfully, Allia's Dig is unaffected!

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

Fiery Field [6F - 7F]

On the 6th floor, Ursaring is gone (thank God!) as well as Slugma. They're replaced with Magby who can be recruited with the Crater. The dungeon will mellow out for a little while, but you're not quite in the clear just yet.

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

Fiery Field [8F]

Magmar is gone on the 8th floor, leaving only Charmander and Magby.

It was here where I picked up a TM for Shadow Ball which I didn't hesitate to teach to Grim over Leer.

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

Fiery Field [9F]

Charmander is gone on the 8th floor and replaced with Torkoal who wants nothing more than to build up his defenses and waste your time. Needless to say, I'd much rather deal with Charmander here. Torkoal can be recruited with the Crater as well.

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

Fiery Field [10F - 14F]

On the 10th floor, we're met with a refreshed party of foes! Now we can find Flareon, Rapidash, and Ditto. Among these new pokemon, only Ditto can be recruited. You can do so with the Decrepit Lab.

On the 10th floor, it's sunny again!

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

Fiery Field [15F - 16F]

On floor 15, Torkoal is gone but we're now met with some more annoying pokemon: Camerupt and Quilava. Camerupt is really bulky and its Magnitude can cause a lot of problems. Quilava likes to hit you with Smokescreen which makes it just as efficient as Torkoal at walling you. Of course, Camerupt can't be recruited but Quilava has a -19% recruitment rate.

The weather is Sunny yet again on the 15th floor.

On the 16th floor, Heat leveled up and learned Amnesia which I taught him over Harden.

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

Fiery Field [17F - 20F]

Flareon and Rapidash are gone on the 17th floor and replaced with Machoke and Magcargo. Once again, don't underestimate Magcargo's bulk and Machoke is, though admittedly much less unhinged, still capable of dishing out massive damage just like Ursaring, so make sure to keep your distance from them as much as possible.

The weather is sunny again on the 20th floor.

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

Fiery Field [21F]

Ditto is gone on the 21st floor.

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

Fiery Field [22F - 24F]

On the next floor, Camerupt is gone and replaced with Combusken and Charmeleon. A good trade, I'd say, but not totally free. Watch out for Charmeleon's Rage.

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

Fiery Field [25F]

Quilava is gone on the 25th floor.

And the weather is sunny here again.

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

Fiery Field [26F - 29F]

For the next handful of floors, you're only going to be dealing with Combusken and Charmeleon.

On the 29th floor, the items you'll find are changed up significantly.

The only items from previous floors that are available are the TMs. In their place, you can find Fire Stones!

Fire Stones probably don't need an introduction, but they're an evolution item capable of evolving a handful of pokemon!

->

The Fire Stone can be used to evolve Vulpix into Ninetails, Growlithe into Arcanine, and Eevee into Flareon!

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

On the 30th floor, we'll run into the Legendary Volcano Pokemon Entei! As seems traiditon with these legendary encounters, he doesn't seem too happy to see us. It looks like we'll have to fight first and talk later!

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

Team Recover

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

Allia (Feraligatr); Lv. 36

Item: Stamina Band

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Dig, Scary Face, Surf, Ice Beam

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

East (Latios); Lv. 30

Item: Joy Ribbon

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Helping Hand, Safeguard, Fly, DragonBreath

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

Grim (Duskull); Lv. 36

Item: Def. Scarf

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Pursuit, Confuse Ray, Curse, Shadow Ball

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

Heat (Slugma); Lv. 29

Item: Used TM [Sticky]

Ability: Magma Armor, Flame Body | Moves: Yawn, Ember, Rock Throw, Amnesia

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

Vs. Entei

This fight is, naturally, incredibly terrifying. I'm low on all my supplies and, over the course of the adventure, I've lost all my Reviver Seeds and used up a lot of my support items. I decided to open up by setting up a Dig attack to deal some damage to Entei on his approach. Unfortuantely, due to PP-Zero traps, Surf and Scary face aren't linked anymore so I couldn't rely on that. In all honesty, this fight was a little bit scary to approach.

After some back and forth, and some incredibly scary close encounters, we were ultimately able to prevail thanks to the combined efforts of Grim's Curses and Allia's Scary Face.

Upon his defeat, Entei calms down and asks us why we've come to the three fields.

We present Entei with the Clear Wing and he seems to not only recognize it, but understands exactly what to do with it.

Entei blasts the Clear Wing with fire which causes it to change color into a fiery Red Wing!

He returns the newly formed Red Wing to us and tells us the way to our next destination: The Lightning Field! We'll need to bring the Red Wing there to find out what comes next in our quest.

And with that, we've received the Red Wing and the way to Lightning Field is revealed! Next time, we can try to make our way there! But if I'm being honest, I'm not entirely sure how confident I am in going there just yet... This dungeon turned out to be a lot more challenging than I initially expected, and I was already thinking the Lightning Field would be more difficult. I might need to take a detour and get a little stronger before I return to this quest, but I'm not sure what exactly I'm going to do... maybe a little bit of grinding? Missions? I'll figure something out.

November 13, 2021

Alright, well, after mulling over the concerns I had in the previous post, I've decided I'm going to have to make another executive decision. Going forward, I'm going to be a bit more liberal about my use of save states in this and other Mystery Dungeon games. At least, for the postgame content.

I've come to understand that this, much like the Battle Frontier, is meant to be a long-term game that you might play over the span of an entire year. Imagining playing the game without any guides seems to heavily suggest that. You're not meant to do much of anything on your first visit to a dungeon. I think it's expected that, between dungeons, you go out of your way to do a bunch of missions so that you can replenish your used supplies as well as gain some extra exp and find gummis in earlier dungeons to further boost your new recruits' IQ. As it turns out, beyond Stormy Sea, Gummis cease to appear in dungeons. The game doesn't tell you much at all about the sealed chambers and where they can be found, it seems like you're expected just to stumble across them and waste a key opening it just to find out you don't have a pokemon that can even reach in there and grab the item, so you have to come back again later just to be able to progress.

Over the course of this thread, I've mentioned time and time again that I like to throw myself at RPGs while underleveled so that I can justify the use of more interesting strategies. However, doing so comes with a huge risk of loss and, in Mystery Dungeon, the penalty for failure is just too great. Not only do you have to travel to the depths of the dungeon again, but you lose all of your items and money as well. Normally, you can save scum to work around this, but in these Three Fields dungeons, the autosave at the start guarantees that you suffer the consequences of any failures, further penalizing you for going in not fully prepared.

I understand this might be exciting to a lot of players, but I personally find it incredibly stressful under the circumstances. I am trying to get the genuine experience out of these games, but I'm also trying to explore everything they have to offer. If I'm being honest, I think the "genuine experience" for me playing Mystery Dungeon would be to simply stop playing around this point. The game just gets incredibly stressful with the knowledge that I won't be able to continue without a rescue if I die, or that I'll lose everything I've invested into the journey just because of some unexpected BS like Ursaring's Fury Swipes. It's hard to properly use Escape Orbs to save yourself from a bad situation if you have no idea what's coming in the first place, and these more difficult dungeons have only shown me that it just gets harder and harder to judge how many hits a pokemon is going to take or how long you can last against them. You never really know where your PP is best used and often experimenting with that just seems to lead to your own death.

I think if I use save states more frequently, I can alleviate a lot of that stress and power my way through the rest of the game. Granted, I'll still need to go back to previous dungeons to replenish supplies and the like. I just want to be able to finish the game without having to devote whole days to grinding. This has been a thought in the back of my mind ever since I started to notice how low my supplies were getting, and catching up in Red Rescue Team is sounding like more and more of a headache. I think when it comes time to doing the sequel, I'm going to make my primary playthrough on emulator and my secondary playthrough will only promise to go up to the end of the main story on official hardware.

With all that said, let's go ahead and continue with our story!

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

In the previous post, Entei told us to travel west from Fiery Field to the Lightning Field. Of course, with a name like "Lightning Field," we can guess that a Water-type is probably not the best suited for the dungeon, so I changed up my team.

Since Allia will be taking the bench, I decided to teach East Surf over Fly. Thankfully, you don't have to worry about overriting HM moves in this game through some special NPC. You can freely overrite them like any other move. I do intend to teach Fly back after the fact, though.

Just like Firery Field, Lightning Field requires a quicksave before entering, so you're fully committed to any losses inside.

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

Lightning Field

In order to gain access to this dungeon, you'll need the HM for Surf and you'll also need to have completed Fiery Field at least once before. This dungeon is a part of the Mirage Pokemon story thread.

The items here aren't anything too surprising. More or less the same as Firey Field: Poke; Bounce, Pierce, Racket, Special and Zinc Bands; Def., and Sneak Scarves; Diet and Joy Ribbons; No-Stick Caps; X-Ray Specs; Gravelrocks; Iron Thorns; Steel Spikes; Sticks; Apples; Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries; Allure, Blast, Blinker, Eyedrop, Heal, Hunger, Quick, Reviver, Sleep, Stun, Totter, and Warp Seeds; Max Elixiers; Vitamins; and assorted TMs and Wonder Orbs.

Much like Fiery Field, the items are mostly consistent save for the final floor before the boss. Can you guess what item is there? It's a puzzle, I'm sure.

Your traps are all pretty standard too. I'm sorry if it bugs you that I keep reordering these traps. I don't lik ethem being ordered alphabetically the way Bulbapedia does, but I keep going back and forth on how they should be grouped together. I'm trying to keep more dangerous traps to the left, but I'm also trying to group together traps with similar effects which causes me to go back and forth on the order a lot of the time. Sometimes I just get lazy with the ordering as well.

You've got Warp Traps; Sticky and Grimy Traps; PP-Zero and Seal Traps; Spin and Slumber Traps; Slow and Mud Traps; and Explosion and SelfDestruct Traps.

I decided to journey in this time with a team that fully resisted Electric-type attacks. Nature will be tagging along this time, he hasn't gotten much screentime in a while and he'll be pretty useful here.

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

Lightning Field [1F - 5F]

For the first three floors, you'll be running into Mareep, Electrike, and Magnemite. Mareep and Electrike can both be recruited with Thunder Meadow while Magnemite requires the power plant which you're not only automatically given near the beginning of the game, but you also should already have a Magnemite unless you parted ways with it. Still, the Magnemite here are significantly stronger than the one you got from the story, so if you're seeking evolution, you might want to recruit one here, too.

If it wasn't for online guides telling me the weather effect was random, I might've assumed the Rain here was pre-scripted, but on the 5th floor, you'll encounter a random weather effect which just so happened to be rain for me.

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

Lightning Field [6F]

On the 6th floor, Mareep is gone and replaced with Pikachu! Pikachu is another starter pokemon, though it's the only starter pokemon that is technically an evolved pokemon. Unfortuantely, that means Pikachu has a -19% recruitment rate. If you want to recruit one outside of your starter, you'll probably want to find a Pichu.

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

Lighting Field [7F]

On the 7th floor, Electrike is gone and replaced with Flaaffy, a -19% recruitment rate evolution to Mareep. In addition, you can find either Plusle or Minun here depending on your version. Both can be recruited with Thunder Meadow.

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

Lightning Field [8F - 10F]

Magnemite is out on floor 8 and replaced with the unrecruitable Jolteon.

Another random weather effect is present on the 10th floor.

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

Lightning Field [11F]

On the 11th floor, Pikachu is now gone.

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

Lightning Field [12F - 13F]

Cacturne joins on the 12th floor! He's unrecruitable, though.

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

Lightning Field [14F]

Flaaffy is gone on the 14th floor.

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

Lightning Field [15F]

Jolteon is gone on the 15th floor as well and is replaced with Electrode who is equally unrecruitable. You can find Elekid, too, who can be recruited with the Power Plant which you should already have access to thanks to the story.

Floor 15 has another random weather effect.

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

Lightning Field [16F - 17F]

The unrecruitable Ampharos joins on the 16th floor.

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

Lightning Field [18F - 19F]

And on the next turn, Cacturne is gone.

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

Lightning Field [20F - 21F]

Plusle and Minun are both gone on the 20th floor and replaced with the unrecruitable Magneton. Tropius also joins and he can be recruited with the Jungle. Be wary of the bulk of these new pokemon, and Magneton's SonicBoom is also a ranged attack, so be especially wary of his approach.

Floor 20 has random weather.

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

Lightning Field [22F]

Electrode and Ampharos take their leave on 22F.

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

Lightning Field [23F - 24F]

Elekid also leaves on 22F, with only Magneton and Tropius remaining.

It was on 24F where Magneton's range with SonicBoom became dreadfully apparent to me after Nature got unfairly sniped from across the screen right after we'd stepped on a SelfDestruct trap... if I'm being honest, this is the exact type of BS that makes this game so stressful to me when trying to play without savestates. This deep in the dungeon, I would hate to have to use an Escape Orb and lose so much progress. But I suppose it's all part of the experience. You're supposed to just try, try again. It's unfortunate that I just don't have the time to play the game like that anymore.

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

Lightning Field [25F]

Floor 25 introduces the unrecruitable Manectric.

And, once again, another random weather effect is here.

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

Lightning Field [25F - 28F]

You'll start to encounter Raichu on floor 28.

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

Lightning Field [29F]

On the 29th floor, Magneton is gone leaving you with some more bearable opponents.

The only items you'll find on this floor are ThunderStones!

->

The ThunderStone is used to evolve Pikachu into Raichu and Eevee into Jolteon! This might be an important stop for you if you started with either of those two.

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

On the 30th floor, we come face to face with the ruler of the field: Raikou.

Of course, we can only expect that he isn't too fond of our presence and wants to fight us. Really, what is it with these legendary pokemon?? The only one who hasn't wanted to beat us up on sight was Latias and that was only because she had a broken wing.

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

Team Recover

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

East (Latios); Lv. 31

Item: Stamina Band

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Helping Hand, Safeguard, DragonBreath, Surf

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

Bite (Vibrava); Lv. 39

Item: Joy Ribbon

Ability: Levitate | Moves: DragonBreath, Crunch + Sand-Attack, Dig

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

Vs. Raikou

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

I opened up by immediately switching leaders to Vibrava so that I could hit Raikou with Dig on his approach.

This led to a bit of a scare where he nearly KO'd East in a single hit, so I used a Totter Seed to confuse him. My original plan was to rely on Nature's typical Toxic, Leech Seed, Sleep Powder combo to stun-lock him, but with Nature being unfairly eliminatied, we had to turn to relying on our seeds! It's worth noting, I'd run out of Reviver Seeds thanks to some unfortunate misses here and there.

Anyway, thanks to the confusion, we were able to get Raikou to wander away a bit so that we could get some pot shots at him and East set up some Helping Hands to boost my DragonBreath further.

In the end, when he got close again, we used a Sleep Seed to put him to rest while we ganged up with some heavy damage.

It wasn't too much longer before Raikou wound up getting completely KO'd.

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

Raikou provides his obligatory response to his loss and decides to hear us out.

He responds to the Red Wing in much the same way that Entei did, zapping it with his powerful electricity for us to transform it once again.

The Red Wing is upgraded now to the Sunset Wing! Raikou then tells us to take the wing and travel Northeast from here to the last of the three fields: The Northwind Field and to seek out the last of the legendary beasts: Suicune. He implies that it'll take some level of luck to see Suicune which already is a pretty scary thought considering the difficulties I've had so far.

With that, we receive the Sunset Wing and the way to Northwind Field is revealed! We can make our way there whenever we so choose. This time, however, regardless about how we feel about using safe states, we're definitely going to want to restock on items a little bit. I've just used up the very last Reviver Seed I had in storage during this dungeon, so I definitely need some time to recover. So next time, we might end up devoting a day to restocking our inventory and doing some minor missions here and there.

November 19, 2021

As I've alluded to recently, this time my session was focused almost exclusively on gathering up lost resources. My top priority was finding Reviver Seeds, but I also would like to find a few Gummis because the lack of IQ on my newer recruits has started to become a bit of a pain when it comes to navigating around traps and the like. Above all, I'd really like to get a Blizzard TM for Allia as I've been really hurting for a good room-wide attack on something outside of Articuno.

My process for this was rather simple. I simply started completing missions. I emptied my mailbox and began completing missions, starting with the lower level ones and moving my way up to the more recent postgame dungeons. I'd occasionally throw out things like obnoxious escort missions. These escort missions get kind of absurd the later in the game you get. Often if you have to travel through floors with random weather effects, your escortee's low level means they'll only be able to take a handful of hits from the sand or hail unless you're regularly feeding them Oran Berries. That's on top of the threats of random traps and pokemon with long-range attacks.

Between missions, I'd also check in with the Kecleon Shop to see if they were selling any good TMs or Reviver Seeds.

Anyway, this is a short update as a result of not making much progress at all, but I've definitely gotten myself to a bit more comfortable of a position. Here's some of the accomplishments I made along the way:

First, I purchased a few friend areas. If I'm going back through older dungeons, I may as well try to get some new recruits.

Bountiful Sea

This is one of many friend areas that's home to pokemon that live in the sea. Specifically, it appears to be some sort of undersea reef.

Tentacool, Slowpoke, and Shellder are the pokemon we've seen so far that can be recruited here. All of them were at the Stormy Sea.

Ancient Relic

This friend area is home to many pokemon from ancient times. Curiously, this does not include most fossil pokemon who are instead found in sea-based friend areas.

The pokemon we've met that can be recruited here are Aerodactyl from Sky Tower and Pitfall Valey and Baltoy from Mt. Steel and the Desert Area.

Frigid Cavern

As its name suggests, Frigid Cavern is an icy cave.

The pokemon we've met who can be recruited here are Swinub from Sinister Woods and Snorunt from Frosty Forest.

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

We also got some good use out of these friend areas by recruiting new members from two of them!

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

New Recruits: Team Recover

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

Tent (Tentacool); Lv. 25

Item: None

Ability: Clear Body, Liquid Ooze | Moves: BubbleBeam, Acid, Constrict, SuperSonic

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

History (Aerodactyl); Lv. 25

Item: None

Ability: Rock Head, Pressure | Moves: Wing Attack, SuperSonic, Agility, AncientPower

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

I have to say it's pretty nice to have an Aerodactyl on my side!

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

My missions also brought me back to Lightning Field where Bite wound up reaching Level 40! This is significant because it boosts his recruitment rate further to 7.5% rather than the standard 5% from level 30.

I decided I'd go ahead and give recruiting Raikou a try with Bite since I did have that extra percentage boost, but it's worth noting that the Legendary Beasts are significantly harder to recruit than the birds. I'll explain shortly why that is and why we probably won't be going out of our way to recruit them, or at least not anytime soon. Long story short, I unsurprisingly failed to recruit Raikou.

In the end, while I wasn't able to get everything I wanted, I was able to gather a handful of gummis from Stormy Sea and various other early dungeons alongside some keys and Reviver Seeds! One of these keys are going to be pretty important for what's coming next in the story, so this is definitely an important find. I also now have six Reviver Seeds, four of which I gathered from dungeons, one from a Kecleon Shop in a dungeon, and another from the Kecleon Shop in Pokemon Square. With all of this in addition to a few extra levels, I'm pretty confident in my ability to take on the next dungeon! With some new restocked supplies, next time, I think we'll make our way to the last of the three fields: Northwind Field!

November 21, 2021

NOTICE: This is the first post since the official release of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. As a result, resources I usually use from Serebii and Bulbapedia may experience difficulties. Some images may not update properly. I will try to fix this ASAP. Here's hoping this isn't a repeat of the travesty that happened during my XD playthrough...

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

It's finally time to head off toward Northwind Field! I would recommend bringing a key with you before entering this dungeon. I actually forgot to do this my first time through, so I had to make a second trip.

I also went ahead and purchased a new Friend Area: Final Island. This strange island floating over the face of the sea is an odd sight and home to a single pokemon we've yet to meet. However, it's the current most expensive Friend Area in the game and, since I want to purchase them all, I decided to go ahead and get it now while I could afford it.

Just like the other two fields, the game will require you to save before entering, so it's especially important that you come prepared!

I decided to go into the dungeon with Allia and Storm, expecting a lot of Ice, Water, and Flying types given the dungeon's theme.

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

Northwind Field

The items are pretty standard among the fields: Poke; Bounce, Pierce, Racket, Special and Zinc Bands; Def. and Sneak Scarves; Diet and Joy Ribbons; No-Stick Caps; X-Ray Specs; Gravelrocks; Iron Thorns; Silver Spikes; Sticks; Apples; Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries; Allure, Blast, Blinker, Eyedrop, Heal, Hunger, Quick, Reviver, Sleep, Stun, Totter, and Warp Seeds; Calcium, Iron, Protein, and Zinc; Max Elixirs; TMs and Wonder Orbs. These items are consistent throughout the majority of the dungeon.

The traps include Sticky and Grime Traps; Warp Traps; Explosion and SelfDestruct Traps; PP-Zero and Seal Traps; Mud and Slow Traps; Spin and Slumber Traps.

The Explosion and SelfDestruct traps are made mostly useless throughout the majority of this dungeon thanks to the prominence of wild pokemon with the Damp ability. The Damp ability seems to affect the entire floor, so you don't have to worry about explosions much at all unless you're just really unfortunate.

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

Northwind Field [1F - 2F]

For the first couple of floors, you'll run into Poliwag, Volbeat, and Jynx. Poliwag can be recruited with Tadpole Pond and Volbeat can be recruited with Rub-a-dub River. Jynx, however, is unrecruitable as a fully evolved pokemon.

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

Northwind Field [3F - 4F]

Azumarill joins in on the 3rd floor.

On the fourth floor, I was able to recruit a Poliwag which I named Rain.

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

Rain (Poliwag); Lv. 50

Item: None

Ability: Damp, Water Absorb | Moves: Hypnosis, Rain Dance, Body Slam, Belly Drum

Yeah, I was really surprised to see such a high-leveled pokemon! It definitely didn't seem so strong while I was dealing with them. I guess the high level offsets its low stats as a first-stage pokemon? This might actually prove to be incredibly useful if I ever need a pokemon to recruit a tough pokemon with as it's a tier above even Vibrava and now gets a +10% bonus to recruitment rates thanks to its level!

Belly Drum is also a move that's notably different from the main series. Instead of cutting your HP, it reduces your belly to 1 and maxes out your attack. This can make you an incredibly terrifying force at the cost of a mere Apple. If I'm being honest, I think this makes the move even more useful than in the main series!

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

Northwind Field [5F - 6F]

Crawdaunt begins to appear on the fifth floor, where Poliwag ceases to. Crawdaunt can be a bit annoying thanks to Protect, but keep in mind Protect can be circumvented with Gravelrocks! Get as much damage as you can while its guard is down!

The fifth floor is drenched in rain.

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

Northwind Field [7F]

Volbeat and Jynx no longer appear on the 7th floor.

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

Northwind Field [8F - 9F]

On the 8th floor, Azumarill is gone as well but Delcatty begins to appear. Delcatty can be a little annoying thanks to its Cute Charm ability in addition to Attract, Sing and DoubleSlap. Thankfully, it doesn't seem capable of doing too much damage.

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

Northwind Field [10F]

Poliwhirl and Vaporeon begin to appear on the 10th floor.

The weather on the 10th floor is rainy once again!

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

Northwind Field [11F - 16F]

Crawdaunt is gone after floor 10.

Allia leveled up partway through floor 14 and tried to learn Slash, but I really value the moves Allia already has more, so I'm not too worried about making room for this move.

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

Northwind Field [17F]

The 17th floor says goodbye to Delcatty and Poliwhirl and hello to Delibird and Muk. Delibird can be recruited with the Frigid Cavern. Delibird's only natural move is Present which can potentially be a really powerful attack, but also has a chance to do next to nothing or even heal you. Muk is annoying, though, for all the same reasons as Grimer. Stench can be a pain, but I think we're better equipped to deal with Muk than we were with Grimer in Magma Cavern.

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

Northwind Field [18F]

Vaporeon is gone on the 18th floor.

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

Northwind Field [19F - 23F]

The next floor brings in Poliwrath.

On Floor 20, the dungeon's look changes and this is a good tell that it's time to search for the Sealed Chamber on this floor! That's right, we're not done with those!

If you brought a key with you, you'll find the Lunar Ribbon inside!

The Lunar Ribbon, much like the Sun Ribbon, helps pokemon who evolve at night.

->

Just like the Sun Ribbon, this evolution requirement is only used for one pokemon: Eevee! With the Lunar Ribbon along with an IQ of 2 stars, Eevee can evolve into Umbreon at Luminous Cave!

If you're already in possession of a Lunar Ribbon, you'll find a Link Cable in its place. But if you've got keys to spare and are looking for Link Cables, then I recommend searching Solar Cave instead as you'll find three in one trip, only two of which require keys.

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

Northwind Field [24F]

Golduck joins the party on the 24th floor.

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

Northwind Field [25F]

On the 25th floor, Poliwrath disappears and Politoed takes his place. Politoed is by far the most terrifying pokemon in this dungeon, even compared to the boss. Why? Because of one simple abomination of a move: Perish Song. This devastating attack works exactly the way it does in the main series. It adds a Perish Count to every pokemon in the room. Once that count reaches zero, the pokemon gets instantly KO'd. It's absolutely absurd that they thought this move was okay in a game with such a heavy penalty for death. This is exactly the sort of reason I've elected to start openly using save states.

Anyway, if a Politoed wanders into the room with you, I strongly recommend using whatever items or moves you have at your disposal to get rid of it ASAP. Every move you spend with a Politoed in the same room as you could be the turn you spell your own doom. As far as I can tell, there's no way to get rid of the perish count either since there's no switching. The only way to help yourself once you've been hit by Perish Song is to use a Heal Seed to recover from it. Considering it hurts everything in the room, though, it's kinda miserable...

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

Northwind Field [26F]

Delibird and Muk are gone on the 26th floor.

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

Northwind Field [27F]

Wartortle and Croconaw join in on the 27th floor!

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

Northwind Field [28F]

On the 28th floor, Absol makes its appearance!

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

Northwind Field [29F]

Golduck and Wartortle both leave on the 29th floor. Unfortunately, Politoed is still around on this floor...

As you stealth your way around this floor, you might notice that all of the items are replaced by Water Stones, who'd'a guessed??

The Water Stone, of course, is an evolutionary item.

->

The Water Stone can be used to evolve Poliwhirl into Poliwrath, Shellder into Cloyster, Staryu into Starmie, Eevee into Vaporeon, and Lombre into Ludicolo.

Be careful evolving Poliwhirl into Poliwrath as doing this will make sure that Poliwhirl will never evolve into a Politoed! Naturally, the same is true for Vaporeon and all the other Eevolutions. Isn't it typical that the most useful of these three evolutionary stones just happens to be the one where these items are littered all over a floor plagued with singing frogs.

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

On the 30th floor, we're stopped by a voice that commands us to stop and demands to know why we've come.

The voice reveals itself to belong to none other than the legendary pokemon of the North Wind: Suicune!

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

Team Recover

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

Allia (Feraligatr); Lv. 38

Item: Scope Lens

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Dig, Scary Face + Surf, Ice Beam

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

Storm (Zapdos); Lv. 47

Item: Stamina Band

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Agility, Detect, Fly, ThunderBolt

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

Rain (Poliwag); Lv. 50

Item: Water Stone [Sticky]

Ability: Damp, Water Absorb | Moves: Hypnosis, Rain Dance, Body Slam, Belly Drum

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

Vs. Suicune

Right off the bat, I found it critically important to open up with an Agility followed by ThunderBolt. Suicune actually knows Aurora Beam, so it could be problematic if he opened up with a Super-effective attack on Storm. Detect can shield me from damage and put Suicune in an awfully awkward spot where he has to spend a turn moving in order to attack one of us. Meanwhile, Agility boosts the number of attacks we get to hammer him with. From here, it's really just a matter of making sure Storm keeps his Detect up and spams ThunderBolt and Fly as much as possible.

It isn't long at all before Suicune goes down thanks to Storm's sheer power.

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

Of course, it's time for our obligatory follow-up scene where Suicune concedes and hears our plea.

We present Suicune with the Sunset Wing and, like the others, he immediately understands and imbues the wing with his own power.

And now the Sunset Wing has revealed its true colors: It's now become the much more familiar Rainbow Wing! It's actually really pretty here as the colors are constantly flowing through it like a river.

From here, Suicune teaches us where our final destination in this quest lies: We must bring the Rainbow Wing to Mt. Faraway! That is where this mirage pokemon lives.

With this, we now have access to our next destination: Mt. Faraway! Can you guess who this mysterious mirage pokemon is just yet? It's not exactly difficult to piece together, but I'll continue to play coy just a little while longer! Next time, we'll make way for Mt. Faraway!

November 24, 2021

To open up this session, I decided to go ahead and evolve Rain to his peak. He came at Level 50, so I figured he'd actually be incredibly useful for me. I also had an abundance of Water Stones so I felt there was no reason to wait. I don't have any particular need to evolve him specifically into Politoed, anyway.

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

New Evolutions: Team Recover

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

Rain (Poliwhirl); Lv. 50

Item: None

Ability: Water Absorb, Damp | Moves: Rain Dance, Belly Drum, Hydro Pump, Body Slam

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

Rain (Poliwrath); Lv. 50

Item: None

Ability: Water Absorb, Damp | Moves: Rain Dance, Belly Drum, Hydro Pump, Body Slam

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

In addition, I taught Rain Brick Break via TM. With this, he should be pretty well prepared to take on a lot, I would think. As a huge missed opportunity, however, I completely forgot to feed him all the Orange Gummis I'd been saving up this whole time. I'll have to remember to do that soon!

With all that preparation, today we'll be heading off to finish the quest for the mirage pokemon by making our way to Mt. Faraway and meeting the pokemon we're after.

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

It probably doesn't come as a surprise but this dungeon, like the three fields, requires you to save before entering, meaning you won't be able to soft reset to avoid the penalty for a failure. You'll also need the HM Surf in order to reach this dungeon.

I brought along Storm, Allia, and Rain for this one. I figured Rain's Rain Dance would be incredibly helpful against the Mythical Pokemon since it's pretty obvious which pokemon that might be at this point, but admittedly I went with a full team because of an oversight I realized partway through. I intended to part ways with some of my teammates at the end of the dungeon so that I could recruit this mirage pokemon since it actually has a surprisingly high recruitment rate, but I somehow forgot that you can't recruit these pokemon on your first time around. Oh well, looks like we're getting no new recruits this time.

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

Mt. Faraway

Contrary to the Three Fields, Mt. Faraway doesn't have nearly as much of a variety of items. Instead, we've only got Poke; Cheri Berries; and Allure, Blast, Blinker, Hunger, Sleep, and Totter Seeds. If you want to make it to the top, you'd better come prepared with your own Reviver Seeds, Apples, Max Elixirs and the like. You won't be finding them here!

In addition, I strongly recommend you bring with you a Key. This time more than ever before, especially if you have an interest in recruiting every pokemon in the game because the item you'll find in this dungeon is incredibly important for 100% completion. Even if you aren't interested, it's still incredibly helpful for perhaps getting a specific pokemon you might want to recruit. Especially if it's a rare one!

The traps are standard fare again. Sticky and Grime traps; PP-Zero and Seal Traps; Warp Traps; Spin Traps; Mud Traps; Slow Traps; Slumber Traps; Explosion and Selfdestruct Traps.

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

Mt. Faraway [1F - 5F]

For the first five floors, you'll find Lunatone, Hitmonchan, and Snorunt. Lunatone can be recruited with the friend area Mt. Moonview while Snorunt can be recruited with Frigid Cavern. Hitmonchan, however, can't be recruited as he's fully evolved. You may want to be wary of Hitmonchan's Counter attacks or Snorunt's room-wide Powder Snow, but nothing on this floor is too terribly dangerous as their attacks are all pretty weak.

Floor 4 has a random weather effect.

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

Mt. Faraway [6F - 9F]

On 6F, Lunatone is replaced with Solrock who can also be recruited with Mt. Moonview.

Another random weather effect is active on Floor 8.

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

Mt. Faraway [10F]

Floor 10 introduces Marshtomp, Golem, Vigoroth, and Azumarill. Swampert and Vigoroth both have -19% recruitment rates while Golem and Azurill are completely unrecruitable.

Another random weather effect is here.

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

Mt. Faraway [11F]

Azumarill seems to have gotten cold feet because it immediately goes away on the 11th floor.

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

Mt. Faraway [12F - 19F]

Snorunt and Solrock disappear on the following floor.

There are random weather effects on floors 14 and 17

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

Mt. Faraway [20F]

Azumarill returns on 20F along with Parasect and Castform. Castform can be recruited with Thunder Meadow. You'll want to watch out for Parasect's Spore which is a room-wide attack that will put all enemies to sleep. This can quickly spell bad news for your team in a bad situation. They also have Effect Spore as an ability and Stun Spore to slow your assault further. They may not be very strong in the main series, but in Mystery Dungeon, Parasect is a little terrifying. Be prepared to deal with them at range.

Starting on this floor, in addition to the other traps throughout the dungeon, you might run into Summon Traps as well.

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

Mt. Faraway [21F - 29F]

Azumarill is gone again on the 21st floor and Granbull takes its place. Granbull is where the firepower starts to get pretty serious, so watch out for his attacks. Thankfully, he's no Ursaring with Fury Swipes, but his attacks can still catch you by surprise. Especially if you get paralyzed by Lick. Be careful!

The dungeon's design shifts here to reflect the interior of the icy caverns.

The weather is random again on Floor 22, 24, and 28.

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

Mt. Faraway [30F]

Floor 30 reintroduces Azumarill yet again alongside Weezing, Dugtrio, Croconaw, and Glalie, most of whom are unrecruitable, and Croconaw is evolved so he has a -19% recruitment rate. You might want to be wary of Dugtrio's Magnitude which, if you're unlucky, can potentially be more powerful than Earthquake! Glalie is also pretty scary with its ability to soak up damage like a sponge. It also knows Ice Beam to attack you from a distance.

The weather on this floor is random. But even if you get Sandstorm or Hail, don't rush straight for the stairs! Remember that key?

There's a sealed chamber on this floor. If you brought a key with you, you'll definitely want to make sure to seek it out before you move on.

Inside the hidden chamber is an incredibly rare and valuable item: The Friend Bow. This held item dramatically increases the recruitment rate of any pokemon the holder defeats. The recruitment rate is increased by 10%! Considering you have to be level 50 in order to gain that kind of boost from your level alone, that's an incredible boost! To make matters even better, this boost stacks with the recruitment rate boost from your level, too! So, at level 50 like Rain, that's a 20% boost for all recruitment possibilities! That number is especially signficiant because, now that we have a 20% recruitment bonus, it's now officially possible for us to recruit first stage evolved pokemon! That said, it's still significantly easier to just recruit their previous forms and evolve them most of the time. These -19% recruitment rate pokemon still only have a 1% recruitment rate after this bonus is applied. The only way to boost the rate further is to reach level 60, 70, etc. to increase the level boost further. Still, if you're interested, keep in mind that entire evolution families always share friend areas, so any evolved pokemon you might be interested in recruiting will share a friend area with its earlier form. This item also makes a lot of legendary pokemon a lot easier to recruit as well! Just bear in mind you'll need to sacrifice a held item to use it.

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

Mt. Faraway [31F - 34F]

Granbull no longer appears after floor 30.

You'll need to deal with random weather effects on floor 32 and 34 as well.

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

Mt. Faraway [35F]

Azumarill returns one last time on Floor 35 before disappearing for good.

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

Mt. Faraway [36F - 39F]

For floor 36 through 39, Azumarill is gone and the pokemon you find are the same as the floors before. Unfortunately, there are no special evolution items or anything you can find on the final floor, so just make your way to the staircase!

Floor 36 once again has a random weather effect.

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

When we arrive at floor 40, we're met by a mysterious voice that congratulates us on reaching this far.

Unfortunately, the voice tells us what we pretty much already know. We do still have one final trial to overcome in our quest to witness the mirage pokemon.

The Mirage Pokemon reveals itself to be Ho-oh! And Ho-oh wishes to test our strength by battling with us at the mountain's peak. We've come this far, so there's no sense in turning back now! Let's see this through to the end!

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

Team Recover

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

Storm (Zapdos); Lv. 48

Item: Stamina Band

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Agility, Detect, ThunderBolt, Fly

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

Allia (Feraligatr); Lv. 39

Item: Scope Lens

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Dig, Scary Face + Surf, Ice Beam

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

Rain (Poliwrath); Lv. 50

Item: Friend Bow

Ability: Water Absorb, Damp | Moves: Rain Dance, Belly Drump, Hydro Pump, Brick Break

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

Vs. Ho-Oh

Right off the bat, I got into setting up here. With Storm, I used Agility to boost my team's speed, then went into the menus and toggled the AI's ability to use their ranged moves. I've gotten into the habit of turning off their ranged moves so that they don't use them to pick fights and cause trouble while exploring the dungeons. I've found it's caused a lot less headache in trying to prevent my teammates from attacking when I don't want them to. In times like this, you just have to remember to turn them on.

After that, I set up Detect in order to put Ho-oh in an awkward position where he'll need to move in order to be in attacking range of any of us.

Soon, I switched over to Rain and used Rain Dance to reduce the power of Ho-Oh's Fire Blast while also powering up my own Hydro Pumps.

It was a bit of a struggle, a Reviver Seed or two were used, but we wound up overcoming Ho-Oh in the end!

After that, the dungeon just... ends... and we wake up the next day as normal. No cutscene played out at all after defeating Ho-Oh. With all that buildup, I thought we were getting into something really cool, but... this is a rather anticlimactic ending to the whole quest, isn't it? Well, there is one minor step that we have left, but there's an extra optional step we can take to get a more interesting ending to this quest, so I think it's for the best we save that for next time. But yes, I definitely do think the ending to this quest is incredibly anticlimactic which is unfortunate given how difficult it was to get there. Still, the three fields are incredibly useful dungeons for evolving pokemon, so there's that!

November 26, 2021

Booting up the game following the completion of Mt. Faraway, you'll find Ho-oh's portrait displayed on the file select menu. Strangely, none of the Legendary Beasts are included. I suppose Ho-oh is the stand-in for all of them.

Well, today's going to play out a little bit differently than normal. Instead of pressing onward, we'll be covering the recruitment process for Ho-Oh and the Legenary Beasts. More specifically, why the Legendary Beasts are probably going to take a lot longer for us to recruit.

The first thing I did was purchase the friend area Rainbow Peak from the Wigglytuff Club for 6500P. Unlike previous legendaries, you actually have to purchase the appropriate friend area ahead of time for these four. It is a tall mountain high above the clouds surrounded by radiant rainbows.

Rainbow Peak is the exclusive home for Ho-Oh.

Another friend area I purchased today was Sacred Field for 6500P. This location is more or less just a green field with a bunch of special-looking rocks. It's significantly less visually interesting than Rainbow Peak, but it's a pretty important area regardless!

As you can probably guess, this location is home to the three Legendary Beasts Entei, Raikou, and Suicune.

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

Now, before we talk about our progression today, I want to mention the recruitment process for the Legendary Beasts. It's nothing too crazy. You just have to purchase Sacred Field from Wigglytuff and then battling them over and over until you recruit them, just like before. The reason I'm treating this differently, however, is that these guys are significantly harder to recruit than the Legendary Birds. They only have a base recruitment rate of 0.1%. That's technically possible, but incredibly unlikely. It's especially troublesome considering these bosses are significantly more challenging to defeat than the Legendary Birds were and their dungeons are also a lot more challenging. Of course, you can't recruit these pokemon your first time around. You'll need to revisit them.

It's clear that you're meant to travel to Mt. Faraway and retrieve the Friend Bow before trying to recruit these Legendary Beasts. But even that will only boost their recruitment rate to 10.1% which means, statistically speaking, you'll need to crawl through the dungeons 10 times before you can expect to recruit just one of them. Keep in mind you'll also have to defeat them as well.

One thing that might make the Legendary Beasts easier to recruit than the Legendary birds, however, is that they all have a size of 1. It seems reasonable that you should be able to recruit these pokemon even if you aren't alone, but don't quote me on that. I'd solo these bosses anyway just in case.

The reason I'll be putting these guys off until later on, if I do them at all, is that it'll be significantly easier to recruit them if I'm higher level. Currently, my strongest pokemon is in the threshold of 50-59 which is an additional 10% to the base recruitment rate. Coupled with the Friend Bow, that's a flat 20% boost to all recruitment rates. However, that still leaves the Legendary Beasts with a 20.1% recruitment rate which just isn't high enough for my liking. If you come back with a higher level, you can get that number up to as high as 34.1% between the levels 90-100. To my knowledge, you can't get any higher than a 34% recruitment rate boost from being level 90 and having a Friend Bow. Perhaps this will put into perspective just how necessary the Friend Bow is. Even then, it'll still statistically take around three or four tries before I can expect to have each of the Legendary Beasts recruited.

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

As for Ho-Oh, this one is significantly easier, so I have no problem dedicating today to recruiting it! Like the Legendary Beasts, Ho-Oh cannot be recruited the first time around. You'll have to climb to the peak a second time in order to defeat it in a rematch. Unlike the Legendary Beasts, however, Ho-Oh has a recruitment rate of 99.9%! Even without any bonuses, you're all but guaranteed to recruit him just by defeating him alone.

The process is simple enough, just get to the top of Mt. Faraway and solo the boss with your toughest fighter. Make sure they're small in size! To help with this task if you find Ho-Oh challenging, use Totter Seeds and Sleep Seeds to stop him from attacking and, if you're lucky, put some distance between you. Bring plenty of Reviver Seeds, too! Remember that Reviver Seeds double as free Max Elixirs in a pinch, too, so you can just wail carelessly on Ho-Oh until he falls as long as you have enough Reviver Seeds.

If you have even a tiny recruitment rate boost, you'll have a 100% chance of recruiting Ho-Oh!

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Mirage (Ho-Oh); Lv. 50

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Whirlwind, Fire Blast, Gust, Recover

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

Shortly after recruiting Ho-Oh, however, we're met with a cutscene! It's been a while since something like this happened, so this must be pretty important...

We find Charizard wandering through a strange dungeon.

Listening to their conversation tells us that this was a new dungeon discovered by Blastoise. Charizard came with him to explore the dungeon, but it's proven to be incredibly challenging even for Blastoise!

After some encouragement from Charizard, the two begin to push on...

Blastoise is stopped by a faint voice he hears. The voice grows louder as they listen for it...

Charizard demands the owner of the voice to reveal itself.

The voice explains simply that he was created for the purpose of fighting and that he is the most powerful of all pokemon. Once again, I think we have enough info to go off of to figure out just what that means, but for now, we'll let the game do the talking.

Shortly after, the duo is assaulted with powerful attacks that knock them both out.

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

As we cut back to Pokemon Square, we find Bellsprout and Lombre having a discussion, ironically enough, about who the strongest pokemon would be. Lombre thinks that Rayquaza must be the one since he destroyed the meteorite, but Bellsprout argues that Groudon couldn't even be defeated by Alakazam's team.

When Allia arrives on team, everyone asks her what she thinks about the discussion. We're given the option to choose between the three. I think I'd honestly have to say I'm the strongest, at the very least of these three! I was able to defeat both Groudon and Rayquaza, after all!

It seems that nobody is amused by my assertion, but come on! We could take 'em on!

Wynaut soon speaks up about a rumor he's heard about a pokemon created just for fighting. A pokemon that can think of nothing more than defeating anything it comes across. Lombre and Bellsprout both seem to agree that it's a pretty intense idea...

Soon, Charizard and Blastoise arrive and confirm the rumors. They stumble weakly onto the scene, completely defeated. It seems this pokemon really exists.

Blastoise and Charizard together explain their experiences exploring Western Cave and being defeated by this pokemon that's supposedly stronger than even Groudon and Rayquaza...

After this, it seems the Western Cave is open! But... we're probably going to want to put this one off for a little while. We don't really have any pressing reason to go there at the moment, after all. It's purely curiosity that would motivate anyone to go there. However, perhaps there's a story behind this strange pokemon. We'll want to go sooner or later. But for now, we'll put it off.

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

After the events of that cutscene, we return to the base and continue where we left off. I think it's time to finally conclude the Mirage Pokemon arc.

Though it doesn't matter much and there's no direct reward either way, for the best-feeling ending, I think Spinda would like to see the Mirage Pokemon himself! So, we'll have Mirage pay him a visit in Pokemon Square.

At first, what's happening goes completely over his head. He asks about the Mirage Pokemon we've seen, as he would if we approached him normally.

As soon as Spinda is told we are Ho-Oh, his little mind is absolutely blown and ends up fainting!

Spinda thanks us for our visit and promises that he'll keep this memory in his heart for as long as he lives.

And then he just totters off the way he always has. Yeah, it's still pretty anticlimactic, but at least it has some sort of resolution.

With that, the Mirage Pokemon storyline is over and a new one begins: The Story of the powerful pokemon of Western Cave. This one we're not going to be pursuing just yet as there are actually a few other plot threads I'd like to start and explore first. We'll be looking into those soon.

Today's the day after Thanksgiving, so I hope everyone in America have had a good one and filled up well! Next time, we'll have to figure... something out!

December 15, 2021

It's been a while since we've made an update! Aside from finishing up my semester along with other irl responsibilities, there's also been a bit of behind the scenes work being done in preparation for today's update!

Before we advance to our next dungeon, we need to gather a few more keys! We'll need three keys, specifically. Along the way, we'll be completing some missions as well.

During our preparation process, we purchased the friend area Serene Sea! This friend area isn't home to any pokemon we've seen so far, but it will unlock some bonus dungeons we'll be exploring later on. (Honestly, this is mostly just because I actually didn't notice these dungeons getting unlocked at the time.)

Thanks to our Friend Bow, getting new recruits happens a lot more frequently! We were able to gather some new recruits!

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

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/b/b8/Platinum_Rank_RTRB.png

New Recruits: Team Recover

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

Smoke (Houndour); Lv. 11

Item: None

Ability: Early Bird, Flash Fire | Moves: Howl, Ember, Leer

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

Howdy (Wynaut); Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Shadow Tag | Moves: Destiny Bond, Safeguard, Mirror Coat, Counter

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

Finally, I brought Scatter the Kadabra to Luminous Cave to evolve him with one of my Link Cables!

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

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/b/b8/Platinum_Rank_RTRB.png

New Evolution: Team Recover

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

Scatter (Alakazam); Lv. 18

Item: None

Ability: Synchronize, Inner Focus | Moves: Teleport

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

One last measure I recommend you take before your first trip to the Buried Relic: Make sure you have the Final Island friend area purchased from Wigglytuff Club. All will become clear soon enough.

Now, with all of that out of the way, it's time to prepare for our trip. I think it's about time we finally delve into the Buried Relic! This is going to be the longest dungeon we've explored so far, so preparation is going to be important. First of all, you're going to want to make sure you bring three keys. In addition, you're going to want a pokemon like Duskull who can walk through walls and hover over difficult terrain. In additionn to this, be prepared for challenging boss fights as well! With the amount of stuff we need to bring with us, sticky traps are a little scary, so you'll also want to bring a Cleanse Orb or two. If all of your cleans orbs become sticky, you might want to use an Escape Orb to leave and try again.

In addition to being prepared, you're also goign to want to be mindful of inventory space. There's a handful of items you're going to want to hold onto during your first trip through this dungeon. You may even feel more comfortable making multiple trips. There's nothing waiting for you at the end, so really, you might be better off just going until you get what you're after, then use the Escape Orb to leave. Remember the importance of making sure you always have an Escape Orb at the ready. If your last Cleanse Orb is sticky, it's not worth the risk to continue at the potential cost of your Escape Orb also getting sticky. Likewise, if your Escape Orb becomes sticky, use your Cleanse Orb right away. Don't risk it getting stuck as well!

In preparation for this journey, I entered with Nature, Allia, and Grim. Ultimately, I did end up having to make multiple trips through the dungeon, during my second runs, I've finally realized the sheer power of an item I've dismissed before: The Warp Scarf.

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/8/8c/MDBag_Scarf_RTRB_Sprite.png

I initially disregarded this item as being "near useless" because warping just meant separating yourself from your teammates. But when I recognized that basically meant you could effectively respawn on a floor several times over in a matter of a few turns, that means you can keep warping until you land next to the stairs. Beyond that, you always have the freedom to simply take the scarf off to explore a room and collect any items. In a more endurance-focused dungeon like this one, this can really save you some headache. Just be wary that you may find yourself accidentally warping right next to a dangerous enemy, and the strategy doesn't work as smoothly on floors with large rooms. If you're going to apply this strategy, I strongly recommend setting your allies to "Get Away" so that they'll try to avoid battling with other pokemon. This is effective since you don't need them to follow you anyway. If they're capable of traveling over special terrain, they can also take shelter in areas where most enemies can't reach them.

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

Upon entering the dungeon, you'll once again have to save the game. Thankfully, no HMs are required to access the dungeon.

In order to unlock Buried Relic, all you have to do is defeat Rayquaza at the end of the main story. From there, Buried Relic will become the topic of discussion around town and you'll need to get the dungeon's location from Shiftry.

My first visit actually ended pretty early on. I happened to recruit a pokemon on the first floor and decided I didn't want to travel the entire dungeon with a level 15 new recruit, so I used an Escape Orb to quickly preserve my new teammate!

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

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/b/b8/Platinum_Rank_RTRB.png

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Chill (Sneasel); Lv. 15

Item: None

Ability: Inner Focus, Keen Eye | Moves: Screech, Quick Attack, Taunt, Leer

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

Buried Relic

[Unfortunately, due to ongoing issues with Bulbapedia, I won't be providing images for the items. I'm really hoping this doesn't persist or I'll just have to find an alternative source for sprites. Bulbapedia used to be incredibly convenient for this purpose. To see the sprites of these items, you may need to check the bulbapedia page.]

There are lots of interesting items available in this dungeon: Poke; Bounce, Detect, Patsy, Persim, Pierce, Power, Racket, Special, Stamina, Twist, Weather, and Zinc Bands; Def., Mobile, Pass, Pecha, Sneak, and Warp Scarves; Diet and Heal Ribbons; No-Stick Caps; Insomniscopes; Lockon and X-Ray Specs; Scope Lens; Gravelrocks; Iron Thorns; Silver Spikes; Sticks; Apples; Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, Rawst, and Sitrus Berries; Allure, Blast, Eyedrop, Heal, Hunger, Quick, Reviver, Sleep, Stun, Totter, and Warp Seeds; Max Elixirs; a large collection of TMs, Wonder Orbs, and Link Boxes.

As you can see, people weren't fooling around when they called this place a treasure trove. There are lots of useful items to be found here and that's just scratching the surface. There's actually more to this place than meets the eye, especially when we start to explore what's inside the walls... but that's for another day.

Anyway, among these common items you'll find on the floor, there are a handful of new ones you may have noticed!

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/8/8c/MDBag_Scarf_RTRB_Sprite.png

First, the Mobile Scarf allows you to travel over difficult terrain.

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/4/41/MDBag_Glasses_RTRB_Sprite.png

The Lockon Specs increases the accuracy of thrown items.

The Sitrus Berry is a new and very powerful item! If you eat it, it'll recover your HP to full. But, if your HP is already full, it'll permanently increase your maximum HP by 2!

While I don't normally cover individual Wonder Orbs, the Fill-In Orb is of special note as it will replace difficult terrain with regular ground tiles, allowing you to travel across the road.

In addition, the Stairs Orb is a really useful orb that will mark the location of the stairs on the map, allowing you to make a beeline straight for it. This can be helpful in getting out of floors with annoying enemies.

The last orb I'd like to mention is the Luminous Orb, which reveals the map of the entire floor as well as all enemies on it. Being able to see the entire map of the floor is incredibly useful for finding hidden chambers if you know which floors they'll appear on.

As for traps, I think I'm just going to stop detailing the various traps you can encounter unless a new one pops up. Just expect the worst in each dungeon. They're pretty consistent overall.

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

Buried Relic [B1F - B3F]

For the first three floors, you'll find Golbat, Sneasel, and Wynaut! Sneasel will always be recruitable since it only requires Darkness Ridge while Wynaut requires Echo Cave.

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

Buried Relic [B4F]

These three will be joined by Whismur and Machop. Whismur requires Echo Cave while Machop requires Mt. Discipline

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

Buried Relic [B5F]

The next floor replaces the first three with Hoothoot, Hitmonchan, and Hitmonlee. Hoothoot requires Flyaway Forest while Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee are unrecruitable. Hitmonchan can be a little overwhelming if it gets Agility up, so be wary.

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

Buried Relic [B6F - B8F]

On the sixth floor, you may find the next version exclusive which is perhaps the strangest one of all: Porygon can only be found in Red Rescue Team. Why this is strange, we'll cover a bit later. Porygon can be recruited with the Decrepit Lab.

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

Buried Relic [B9F]

Gastly and Drowzee join in on B9F at the cost of Raticate, Whismur and Machop. Gastly can be recruited with Darkness Ridge while Drowzee requires Wild Plains.

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

Buried Relic [B10F]

B10F introduces our next version exclusive: Porygon2. Which is exclusive to... Blue Rescue Team. I think the reference here is pretty obvious. Porygon is supposed to represent the lower graphical capabilities of the GBA in comparison with the higher quality of the DS. Hence, Red Rescue Team gets Porygon and Blue Rescue Team gets Porygon2. But, beyond that neat little detail, this is a baffling decision that arguably makes Red Rescue Team the superior version. Obviously, Porygon can be evolved into Porygon2, but, while Porygon2 is a special exception among fully evolved pokemon where he actually can be recruited with a 10% recruitment rate, with no breeding mechanic or anything, Porygon can never be obtained. That is, without a special tool we'll be addressing in a future post. But, in normal gameplay, not a chance.

Alongside Porygon2, you can also find Abra on this floor. Abra can be recruited with the Decrepit Lab as well.

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

Buried Relic [B11F]

Abra and Porygon will disappear on B11F.

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

Buried Relic [B12F - B13F]

Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan are now gone.

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

Buried Relic [B14F]

B14F introduces Aron and Gulpin. Aron can be recruited with Mt. Cleft while Gulpin requires Poison Swamp.

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

Buried Relic [B15F]

When you arrive on B15F, you'll be met by an unexpected surprise! Regirock will begin to attack you as soon as you arrive! Be prepared for battle!

Thanks to Nature, this battle is actually pretty simple. Like most legendaries, Regirock can't actually be recruited the first time around. At least, not without jumping through some hoops, so there's no need to stress about that. For now, we'll just lay on the pounding!

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/a/af/MDBag_Rock_Part_RTRB_Sprite.png

After his defeat, Regirock will drop a strange item called a Rock Part. Handle this item very carefully! It'll break if you so much as try to use it. Just keep it safe in your inventory, but make sure to keep it with you! Its use will become incredibly important soon! If the Rock Part breaks, you'll have to retrun here to fight Regirock again in order to get a replacement.

Once you've claimed your part, it's time to advance by stepping on the teleport tile!

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

Buried Relic [B16F]

On B16F, the pokemon from B14F return alongside Geodude, Noctowl, and Ditto. Geodude can be recruited with Mt. Deepgreen while Ditto needs the Decrepit lab.

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

Buried Relic [B17F - B18F]

Meditite joins the fray on B17F. It requires Mt. Discipline to recruit.

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

Buried Relic [B19F]

Porygon2 is gone on B19F! In its place is Wobbuffet.

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

Buried Relic [B20F]

Aron and Gulpin are now gone on B20F, but Abra is back!

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

Buried Relic [B21F - B22F]

The atmosphere changes on B21F as you arrive in a deeper part of the ruins here.

Geodude, Noctowl, leave and Abra does yet again as well.

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

Buried Relic [B23F]

On B23F, Meditite is replaced with Hypno.

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

Buried Relic [B24F]

B24F brings in Hitmontop!

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

Buried Relic [B25F]

It probably isn't terribly unexpected that you'd be encountering the other two Legendary Golems during your adventure through the Buried Relic. On the 25th floor, you'll run into Regice!

While it took a bit of finagling thanks to Regice's range attacks and Nature's weakness to Ice, Regice ultimately faced the same fate as Regirock.

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/6/6e/MDBag_Ice_Part_RTRB_Sprite.png

Perhaps not unexpected once again, Regice drops an item called the Ice Part. Just like the Rock Part, you're going to want to hold onto this one and be extra careful not to break it by interacting with it!

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

Bured Relic [B26F - B29F]

On B26F, three of the four pokemon from B24F return with Shedinja replacing Wobbuffet.

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

Buried Relic [B30F - B34F]

Hypno and Hitmontop disappear on B30F in exchange for Makuhita who can be recruited with Mt. Discipline

On B33F, I did manage to recruit a Makuhita. However, it was rather inconsequential because I soon came to a better opportunity that I couldn't turn down!

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

Buried Relic [B35F]

On the 35th floor, you'll find the last of the three Legendary Golems: Registeel!

Once again, the fight was pretty short-lived and Nature was able to make pretty quick work of him.

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/7/76/MDBag_Steel_Part_RTRB_Sprite.png

Similarly to the other two, Registeel drops the Steel Part. With the Rock, Ice, and Steel Part coming together...

The three parts join together to form a Music Box! Just like the three parts, do not interact with this item directly or it will break forcing you to have to battle the three legendary golems all over again in order to get another one. Just keep it in your inventory while exploring this dungeon and its effect just might present itself soon...

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

Buried Relic [B36 - B39]

The only pokemon that returns here from before is Shedinja. Other than that, you'll find Sandshrew who can be recruited with Furnace Desert. Far more exciting, however, is the mythical pokemon Mew! Mew is an incredily special case, however, and I'm not going to go over the best strategies for recruiting Mew, but it's a strong candidate for the most difficult pokemon to recruit in the entire game! That mainly comes down to the limitations of recruitment in conjunction with its rarity. I do plan to dedicate a post towards the end of my coverage of this game on the most difficult recruits in the game and I'll probably go over Mew in more detail there, but if you're interested in it now, just know that it appears incredibly rarely, and you must have the Music Box created from the parts left by the three Legendary Golems in your inventory for Mew to even spawn at all. Also bear in mind that Mew will usually transform before arriving on screen, so you're probably not going to know who it is until you KO it. There's some nuance to how you can sus out Mew, but for now, let's just say don't get your hopes up too high.

In order to recruit Mew, you'll need the Final Island Friend Area which is why I so heavily suggested that area earlier.

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

Buried Relic [B40F]

On B40F, Kadabra joins the fray.

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

Buried Relic [B41F - B49F]

Elekid joins in on B41F. He can be recruited with the Power Plant.

On B45, you'll want to stop what you're doing and seek out a hidden chamber. You can simplify this process using one of those Luminous Orbs if you've happened to pick one up.

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/3/37/MDBag_HM_TDS_Sprite.png

Using a key on this one will reveal the HM for Rock Smash! If you already have this HM, you'll find a Link Cable instead.

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

Buried Relic [B50F - B59F]

On B50F, Kadabra disappears making room for Mr. Mime.

B51F changes the aesthetic up once again to this deeper red, brick-like texture.

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

Buried Relic [B60F]

B60F introduces Pupitar in place of Elekid!

On this floor, you're going to want to watch out for a strange formation like this one where you can find another HM surrounded on all sides by solid walls! There's a couple ways to get this item, but the easiest is to make use of a Ghost-type. If you don't have one yet, your best hopes of getting one are in Darknight Relic. Other than that, you could also theoretically make use of Explosion or Self-Destruct. There are also high-level IQ skills that can allow any pokemon to travel through walls! Another solution might be to use a Trawl Orb to drag the item to you. I'm not actually sure how effective such a process would be. But for now, I'll just be relying on Grim to do the dirty work.

The HM in the center of this mess of wall is the HM for Strength! It'll be replaced with a Link Cable if you already have it, of course.

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

Buried Relic [B61F - B64F]

Rhyhorn joins the fun on B64F. Rhyhorn can be recruited with the Safari Friend Area.

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

Buried Relic [B65F - B67F]

Arbok joins in on B65F.

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

Buried Relic [B68F - B69F]

Shiftry and Mawile begin to appear on B68F! Mawile can be recruited with Echo Cave.

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

Buried Relic [B70F]

Mr. Mime is gone on B70F.

And it's on this floor that you'll find another hidden chamber with the HM for Flash hidden away inside! Once again, if you already have the HM, you'll find a Link Cable.

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

Buried Relic [B71F - B73F]

Pupitar is gone on B71.

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

Buried Relic [B74F]

Graveler takes Rhyhorn's place on B74, watch out for its explosions!

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

Buried Relic [B75F - B79F]

Arbok and Shiftry are gone on B75.

It was on B79F where I saw a very peculiar notification! Mew used Transform! It was at this point where I realized that perhaps bringing a new recruit through this dungeon was a bit of a foolish choice. So, I said farewell to my newly recruited Makuhita in exchange for just a chance at recruiting this new Mew.

And... it was successful! ...kind of. I had to play around with a lot of options and... er... definitely didn't scum around with save states to get this to happen. But eventually, I did recruit Mew!

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

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/b/b8/Platinum_Rank_RTRB.png

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Origin (Mew); Lv. 40

Item: None

Ability: Synchronize | Moves: Pound, Transform, Mega Punch, Metronome

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

Though it's usually a blessed convenience, recruiting Mew actually instantly forces you to escape from the dungeon. Since we were so deep and didn't quite make it to the end, we also still have another key to use and were actually just about to reach its door, I had to climb my way all the way back down.

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

Buried Relic [B80F - B81F]

As always, these later floors are where things start to get a little scary with Machoke running around. These guys can take some hits and deal some damage, so watch out! They replace Graveler from previous floors, though, so no more surprise Magnitude 10's!

On B80F, you might stumble across this particularly large hidden chamber.

Cracking it open will reveal not one, but two obstacles between you and the HM it houses. You'll need to be able to cross over this water as well as pass through the wall that blocks your way. There are a few ways over both of these obstacles and your reward is... the HM for.... Cut. Yeah, I don't get it either. But, with Cut here, I do believe we now have all 8 HMs! We should no longer be barred access to anymore dungeons, perhaps? That is, outside of story limitations, anyway.

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

Buried Relic [B82F - B87F]

Haunter joins the fray. Ghost types are never fun to see! But we're nearing the end of the dungeon! Just a little longer to go!

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

Buried Relic [B88F - B90F]

Machoke is now gone after B87F!

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

Buried Relic [B91F - B93F]

To add insult to injury, Golem is now here alongside those pesky Haunter! And Mawile is no longer there to help soften the blow!

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

Buried Relic [B94F - B98F]

Thankfully, Haunter is gone on B94. Unfortunately, that really just means a lot of Explosions and Magnitudes the rest of the way.

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

Buried Relic [B99F]

Strangely, Mew doesn't appear at all on B99F. The only pokemon you'll find this far down are Golem, Golem, and more Golem. But, once you find your way to the exit, you're as good as gone!

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

And that I did. Good lord was this a doozy of a post to string together! Unforunately, this is just one of many 99F dungeons in the game. We've still got quite a ways to go... We'll have to wait and see what we stumble across next time, I suppose. I might start getting to work on those new dungeons I got access to from Serene Sea.

December 17, 2021

After recruiting Mew, its portait will show up on your file select screen! Lovely bragging rights!

Today, we're going to be taking a bit of a break from the more serious postgame dungeons and exploring some more Friend-Area tied dungeons. First and foremost, I've gotten plenty of money from my two forrays into the Buried Relic, so let's get into some money spending!

With the amount of money I currently have, I was nearly able to purchase every friend area that remained in the Wigglytuff Club. Unfortunately, due to the issues I've been having with bulbapedia, I'm going to have to be pulling images of these friend areas from Serebii. These images don't capture the full art of the friend areas, but it's the best I have access to right now. It's really unfortunate and I hope that Bulbapedia links start working again soon!

Shallow Beach

This friend area is home to the Wingull from Stormy Sea along with other pokemon that live just offshore we've yet to encounter.

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

Deep-Sea Floor

This place is home to many pokemon that live in the deepest depths of the ocean. It's needed to recruit Omanyte in Stormy Sea.

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

Treasure Sea

Established around a sunken ship filled with treasure, this friend area is home to pokemon that like to make their homes in tiny crevices underwater. It's needed to recruit Carvanha and Anorith from Stormy Seam.

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

Cryptic Cave

This mysterious location is home to a pokemon we've yet to see. Thanks to the use of Serebii's images, I guess it's already pretty blatant who that is. We'll get there when we get there!

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

Mystic Lake

The mythical aura of this lake is perfect for the magestic Dratini from Wyvern Hill!

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

Aged Chamber AN

The name of this friend area is pretty self-explanatory as to what you can recruit here. But again, we'll get there when we get there!

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

The only friend area that remains in Wigglytuff Club is Aged Chamber O? Not much to really expect out of such a location, but we now have the majority of all friend areas in the game!

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

Grand Sea

With all that out of the way, let's get onto our new dungeon! Grand Sea is one of two dungeons unlocked upon purchase of the Serene Sea friend area and its where our focus is going to be today!

Compared to what we've been through recently, this dungeon is a bit of a joke. It requires Dive in order to access, so make sure you have that one! If you still need it, you can get it once from Whiscash at Whiscash Pond. If you need a new one, make your way to Solar Cave!

The items here include Poke; Bound, Curve, Detect, Patsy, Power, Racket, and Stamina Bands; Diet, Gold, Heal, Joy, and Plain Ribbons; Pecha, Sneak, and Warp Scarves; Insomniscopes; Scope Lenses; Whiff and X-Ray Specs; Geo Pebbles; Gravelerock; Cheri Berries; Allure, Blinker, Heal, Sleep, and Totter Seeds; and then TMs and Wonder Orbs.

You may notice that the only berries here are Cheri Berries. You may want to bring an Oran Berry or two just in case. You never know when a Monster House might ruin your day and you're not going to stumble across random oran berries to heal off your damage.

Among the Wonder Orbs, a new one is the One-Room orb which destroys all the walls on the floor and transforms the entire floor into one giant room. I suppose you can consider this an improved version of the radar or scanner orb depending on how well prepared you are to deal with the dungeon's enemies. On the contrary, if you're in a more dangerous dungeon, it may not be too good of an idea to use this one.

Of course, come prepared to deal with your typical traps, but your biggest threat this time around is really just confusion and long-range attacks like BubbleBeam. There's nothing too major.

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

Grand Sea [B1F - B4F]

For the first four floors, you'll be running into Wingull, Qwilfish, and Tentacool. Wingull of course needs Shallow Beach to be recruited while Qwilfish requires Serene Sea which you should have in order to explore this dungeon. Tentacool requires Bountiful Sea in order to be recruited.

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

Grand Sea [B5F]

The 5th floor introduces Kabuto and Corsola. Kabuto requires Deep-Sea Floor while Corsola requires Shallow Beach.

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

Grand Sea [B6F - B9F]

Slowpoke replaces Wingull on B6F. Slowpoke requires Bountiful Sea to be recruited.

On B6F, I recruited Cover the Kaubto!

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Cover (Kabuto); Lv. 28

Item: None

Ability: Swift Swim, Battle Armor | Moves: Mud-Shot, Leer, Harden, Absorb

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

Grand Sea [B10F]

On the 10th floor, Qwilfish and Tentacool leave. You'll begin to find Horsea who requires Treasure Sea, but you might be really surprised to stumble across Dragonite!

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

Grand Sea [B11F - B13F]

For the following floors, Dragonite disappears.

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

Grand Sea [B14F]

Anorith replaces Kaubto and Corsola on the 14th floor. It requires Treasure Sea to be recruited.

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

Grand Sea [B15F]

On the 15th floor, Slowpoke no longer appears and Krabby and Staryu take its place. Krabby requires Shallow Beach while Staryu requires Bountiful Sea. Dragonite also returns here!

You're going to want to take the time to explore on this floor, however, because you'll find a DeepseaScale!

->

By offering this item alongside a Link Cable at Luminous Cave, you can evolve Clamperl into Gorebyss! Just remember this is a branched evolution, so you'll need to recruit another Clamperl if you also want Huntail.

If you already have a DeepseaScale, this will of course be replaced with a Link Cable.

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

Grand Sea [B16F - B19F]

Once again, Dragonite only sticks around for a single floor and is gone on the next one.

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

Grand Sea [B20F]

On the 20th floor, you might run into Dragonite again as well as Vaporeon!

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

Grand Sea [B21F - B23F]

Lots of pokemon disappear on the 21st floor leaving only Anorith and Staryu around alongside Tentacruel.

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

Grand Sea [B24F]

On the 24th floor, Anorith is replaced by Kabutops.

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

Grand Sea [B25F]

Slowbro and Kingler appear on B25F alongside Dragonite for another return!

On the 25th floor, you'll want to explore the floor again because you'll be able to find a DeepseaTooth!

->

When paired with a Link Cable, this item can allow Clamperl to evolve into Huntail!

And just like the DeepseaScale, this will be replaced with a Link Cable if you already have one.

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

Grand Sea [B26F]

Dragonite and Staryu are gone on B26F.

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

Grand Sea [B27F - B29F]

Seadra appears on B27F.

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

Grand Sea [B30F]

Vaporeon returns on B30F and, as a version exclusive, Mantine will appear on B30F only in Red Rescue Team.

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

And with that, the dungeon is over! Like I said, this dungeon was a bit of a joke. The one we play next time I expect to be significantly more challenging, however, so we'll see how that goes.

December 28, 2021

Another update! Today we'll be focusing on the other dungeon that opened up when we obtained along with the Serene Sea friend area: Far-off Sea!

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

Far-off Sea

Just like Grand Sea, you'll need access to the Far-off Sea friend area in order to gain access to this dungeon. In addiiton, you'll need the HM Dive. However, there's an additional limitation in that you'll also need a Water-type pokemon!

Since I'm being forced to bring along a Water-type anyway, I went ahead and taught Allia Dive for the sake of having more inventory space. I have plenty of Dig TMs at this point, so I can easily re-teach this.

This dungeon is significantly longer than the dungeon we explored last time.

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/4/44/MDBag_TM_RTRB_Sprite.png

The items you'll find throughout the dungeon include Poke; Bounce, Curve, Detect, Patsy, Power, Racket, and Stamina Bands; Diet, Gold, Heal, Joy and Plain Ribbons; Pecha, Sneak, and Warp Scarves; Tight Belts; Insomniscopes; Scope Lenses; Whiff Specs; X-Ray Specs; Geo Pebbles and Gravelerocks; Cheri Berries; Allure, Blinker, Heal, Sleep, and Totter Seeds; as well as assorted TMs and Wonder Orbs.

I strongly recommend bringing with you two keys this time. In addition, you'll want to make sure you're well-stocked on food and max elixirs because you won't be finding anything useful in that regard for quite a while. You'll notice there aren't any apples and the only berries you'll find are Cheri Berries. Be prepared for a long trip as this is unfortunately one of the longer dungeons of the game. In fact, this is perhaps one of the more difficult endurance dungeons because you actually cannot switch leaders in this dungeon. You're stuck with whoever you enter as and you can't switch to an ally to help out directly in an emergency situation like you may have grown comfortable doing in the postgame. For this reason, I strongly advise against the Warp Scarf strategy unless you're really confident in your teammates' ability to handle themselves.

Unfortunately, due to an error on my part, I didn't actually notice that I needed to bring keys with me this time around, but there is hope even in such a situation. You still have a chance to get at least one of the rewards!

I decided to enter the dungeon with Nature, Allia, and Poliwrath. Let's see how it goes!

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

Far-Off Sea [B1F - B5F]

The early parts of this dungeon are covered in water as one would expect from its name, meaning Allia can actually make use of her Dive move here! This is actually pretty nice as Dive is significantly stronger than Dig for a Water-type pokemon. The only reason I'm running Dig is because it's more consistantly useable. Anyway, the pokemon you'll find on the first few floors include Shellder, Omanyte, and Krabby. Shellder requires Bountiful Sea to recruit, Omanyte requires Deep-Sea Floor, and Krabby requires Shallow Beach.

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

Far-Off Sea [B6F - B8F]

The next floors bring in Slowpoke and Seel. Slowpoke requires Bountiful Sea while Seel requires Ice Floe Beach.

On B7F, I was able to recruit a Krabby which I named Claw!

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Claw (Krabby; Lv. 32

Item: None

Ability: Hyper Cutter, Shell Armor | Moves: Mud-Shot, Harden, Vicegrip, Stomp

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

Far-Off Sea [B9F]

Shellder departs on 9th floor.

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

Far-Off Sea [B10F]

Omanyte joins Shellder with Spheal rolling in to take its place. Spheal also requires the Ice Floe Beach friend area to recruit. Watch out for Spheal's Ice Ball attack! It can rack up some serious damage if it catches you off guard!

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

Far-Off Sea [B11F - B13F]

Krabby is gone on the B11F leaving only Slowpoke, Seel, and Spheal around.

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

Far-Off Sea [B14F]

Anorith joins on B14F, requiring Treasure Sea to be recruited.

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

Far-Off Sea [B15F - B19F]

Slowpoke and Seel are now gone, leaving only Spheal and Anorith.

On the 16th floor, the dungeon changes tileset to that of an undersea cave.

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

Far-Off Sea [B20F]

B20F almost brings in a whole new roster, replacing Spheal Grimer who requires Poisonous Swamp to be recruited as well as the fully evolved (and consequently unobtainable) Omastar and Vaporeon. Omastar can take a few hits to take out and Grimer can always be annoying thanks to Stench.

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

Far-Off Sea [B21F - B23F]

Vaporeon disappears as soon as it appears.

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

Far-Off Sea [B24F - B25F]

Anorith is gone on the 24th floor.

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

Far-Off Sea [B26F - B29F]

The fully-evolved Kingler joins the fray on the 26th floor.

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

Far-Off Sea [B30F]

Grimer and Omastar disappear on B30F and in their place stands Slowbro and Carvanha. Carvanha can be recruited with Treasure Sea but Slowbro is fully evolved. Be wary of Carvanha's Rough Skin which deals counter damage against any pokemon that makes contact with it.

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

Far-Off Sea [B31F - B34F]

Vapreon is gone again on B31F.

On B33F, you'll find the dungeon returns to its familiar water-centric undersea tileset.

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

Far-Off Sea [B35F]

Starmie, Ariados, and Sealeo are all found on B35F. Sealeo is tough to recruit and you're better off recruiting Spheal from an earlier floor.

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

Far-Off Sea [B36F]

Kingler is gone!

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

Far-Off Sea [B37F - B39F]

And so is Slowbro!

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

Far-Off Sea [B40F]

And a few floors later, so, too, is Carvanha!

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

Far-Off Sea [B41F - B44F]

Wailmer joins in on B44F where they're actually kinda pushovers. They require Serene Sea to recruit which means they should be recruitable whenever you enter the dungeon.

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

Far-Off Sea [B45F - B49F]

On B45F, you'll find that Starmie, Ariados, and Sealeo are all gone. You'll instead begin to find Luvdisc, who can be recruited with Treasure Sea. In Blue Rescue Team only, you can also find Lapras in here. Lapras is a size-4 pokemon, so you'll need to make sure you have room in your party if you're looking to recruit one. Lapras requires the Mystic Lake friend area to recruit.

Luvdisc are a little annoying because they like to layer status effects like Confusion and Infatuation on you. In addition, Lapras then comes along with the move Perish Song... oh god. Thankfully, Lapras is typically pretty easy to KO, but try to take it out from a distance if you can. Needless to say, since it's a version exclusive, this dungeon is far less stressful in Red Rescue Team.

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

Far-Off Sea [B50F]

On B50F, you'll also find Dratini, who also needs Mystic Lake for recruitment, and Slowking who is fully evolved and cannot be recruited. Vaporeon also returns yet again!

If you're smarter than me and actually brought keys into this dungeon, you'll want to stop on this floor and seek out a secret vault.

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/4/44/MDBag_TM_RTRB_Sprite.png

Inside this vault, you'll find an incredibly rare TM for a move called Wide Slash. Wide Slash is actually a Mystery Dungeon original move. It's a typeless attack that damages pokemon in the three tiles immediately in front of you and adjacent to you. (That's, straight ahead and two diagonals, or two straights and one diagonal if you're facing diagonally). This move is special not only in that it's an original mystery dungeon exclusive attack, but also in that it is a typeless attack similar to your basic move. Unfortunately, since I didn't bring a key, I'll have to pass on this item for now.

If you already own a Wide Slash TM, this one will be replaced with a Link Cable.

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

Far-Off Sea [B51F - B54F]

Starting on B51F, you'll no longer find Wailmer and Lapras. Vaporeon predictably disappears again as well.

Perhaps more interestingly are the items that are added to the pool on this floor and lasting until the end of the dungeon. For the rest of the dungeon, you'll be able to find Keys, and, oddly enough, DeepSeaScales and DeepSeaTeeth. I find those last two incredibly odd because you'll never need more than one of either of these items unless you want a second Gorebyss or Huntail. I find these especially odd considering they were treated as one-of-a-kind items in Grand Sea, but apparently that's simply not the case here. Even though they're replaced with Link Cables in Grand Sea if you already own one, you can find multiple copies of these items here.

More importantly for me, though, the ability to obtain Keys down here gives me an opportunity to get that latter secret vault that I missed!

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

Far-Off Sea [B55F - B59F]

Dewgong and Octillery join in on B55F in place of Luvdisc. If Lapras' Perish Song wasn't enough to make your blood pressure rise, you now have Dewgong's Sheer Cold to watch out for! Octillery is completely overshadowed compared to the risk of potentially getting OHKO'd out of nowhere! Neither of these two can be recruited as they're both fully evolved.

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

Far-Off Sea [B60F]

Dratini and Slowking peter out in favor of Muk, Sharpedo, and Walrein who are basically just thicker counterparts to their unevolved counterparts earlier in the dungeon. Thankfully, no Sheer Cold from Walrein. It just takes a solid beating to wipe out instead. Vaporeon also makes yet another appearance here.

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

Far-Off Sea [B61F - B64F]

As expected, Vaproen dips again on the next floor.

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

Far-Off Sea [B65F - B69F]

Dewgong and Octillery are gone on the 65th floor and I'd say that's the last of the roughest pokemon the dungeon has to offer. The worst you have to deal with now are mostly just pokemon that overstay their welcome with bulk. You can find Clamperl here who can be recruited with Deep-Sea Floor.

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

Far-Off Sea [B70F - B75F]

The final five floors consist of only Clamperl, Kingdra, and Wailord. Wailord may look imposing, but you can usually just run right through it. He's just a big lug.

When you reach the 72nd floor, you'll once again want to seek out the secret vault where you'll find another original TM!

https://archives.bulbagarden.net/media/upload/4/44/MDBag_TM_RTRB_Sprite.png

This TM contains the move Vacuum-Cut. Vacuum-Cut inflicts a flat 35 damage to all enemies in the same room as the user.

Of course, if you already own a Vacuum-Cut TM, this one will be replaced with a Link Cable.

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

And finally, we reached floor 75! Far-off Sea doesn't seem so Far-off anymore! With that out of the way, I do believe there is only one remaining dungeon tied to friend areas we've yet to explore, but it's a short one and we should be able to explore it soon! Other than that, we've also got another plot thread to explore, so that's probably the direction we'll be headed. But, we'll have to wait and see what our next session brings! We're finally nearing the end of this game, but we've yet to face our greatest challenges.

January 3, 2022

Ahh, while I was typing up my post last time, it seemed like the images from Bulbapedia were working better, but it doesn't seem to be getting better anytime soon. That's fine, I suppose. I guess I'll just have to stick with using Serebii's images for now.

Anyway, today is going to be another short update. To my understanding, this is going to be the last one as everything left in the game are pretty hefty chunks of playtime. So, let's get into it.

First of all, I went through and did a few missions with Machete and Roast. Thanks to our Friend Bow, we were able to get a healthy amount of new recruits as well!

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

New Recruits: Team Recover

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

Heat (Magby); Lv. 17

Item: None

Ability: Flame Body | Moves: Ember, Leer, Smog

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

Mount (Numel); Lv. 14

Item: None

Ability: Oblivious | Moves: Growl, Tackle, Ember

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

Relic (Baltoy); Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Confusion, Harden, Rapid Spin

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

Dumbell (Beldum); Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Take Down

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

In addition, I purchased our final Friend Area: Aged Chamber O?. With this, I believe we do now have access to every friend area in the game! At the very least, that's all of them available through the Wigglytuff Club. If you have every friend area purchased from Wigglytuff and still find yourself unable to recruit a certain pokemon, remember that some friend areas are given as rewards for completing missions. If you struggle to find them, I'll be covering a feature later on that might make them easier to seek out.

Anyway, just like Aged Chamber AN, this area is home to pokemon we haven't met yet but, even without the thumbnail, doesn't take too much thought to figure out.

If it somehow isn't clear yet, purchasing both Aged Chamber AN and O? will unlock a new dungeon that will most certainly reveal the purpose of these friend areas! Naturally, we'll be heading there today!

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

Unown Relic

In order to gain access to this dungeon, you'll need to purchase Aged Chamber AN and Aged Chamber O? from the Wigglytuff Club.

The items aren't anything too exciting. Poke; Gravelerrocks and Geo Pebbles; Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries; Heal, Quick, and Warp Seeds; Max Elixirs; and a small selection of Wonder Orbs.

There really isn't anything I recommend bringing into this dungeon in particular besides the basics: Escape Orb, Cleanse Orb, maybe an Apple or two but you're not likely to need it. Even status healers really aren't all that important here. This is probably the shortest, simplest dungeon we've explored in a long time. There's also no real reason to complete the dungeon at all.

I decided to enter the dungeon with Poliwrath and Venusaur.

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

Unown Relic [B1F]

So, this dungeon is all about one pokemon and one pokemon alone: Unown! But of course, Unown is famous for coming in many different shapes. Internally, each form of Unown is actually treated as a separate pokemon. If you're interested in gathering them all, you may want to bring a lone, high-level pokemon with a Friend Bow to get the highest chances and have three open slots in your team. Just keep in mind you'll have to babysit them all to keep them from getting killed. And the way Hidden Power works in this game, being random power and type each dungeon visit, these little guys have the potential to be deceptively powerful. But they're still pretty weak stat-wise, so they'll go down quickly enough. Don't let yourself get overwhelmed, though!

On the first floor, you can find Unown A, B, C, D, O, R, U, and Z.

It probably isn't too difficult to guess which Unown require which friend areas. Any Unown from A-N are recruited with Aged Chamber AN while Unown from O - ? are recruited with Aged Chamber O?. Since both of these friend areas are required to access this dungeon, this shouldn't be an issue at all. Simple enough, right? This dungeon is entirely about comming to fill out these two friend areas with as many different Unown as possible.

On the first floor, I recruited an Unown R and named it Rune!

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Rune (Unown R); Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Hidden Power

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

Unown Relic [B2F]

The next floor brings in Unown E, F, G, H, P, S, X, !, and ?.

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

Unown Relic [B3F]

B3F brings in I, J, K, L, V, while ! and ? stick around.

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

Unown Relic [B4F]

B4F brings in M and N while O and P return from the first two floors. ! and ? Are still around as well.

On this floor, I was also able to recruit a second Unown: Unown O! I named him Origin.

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Origin (Unown O); Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Hidden Power

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

Unown Relic [B5F]

B5F keeps ! and ?, brings back C, G, J, R, S, and T from previous floors. Q is new, though!

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

Unown Relic [B6F]

B6F retains !, ? and C from the previous floor as well as bringing back E, U, V, and X.

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

Unown Relic [B7F]

B7F brings back A, B, K, and Z, and introduces Y. At this point, every single Unown is available across all the floors. You never actually have to go deeper than B7F in order to recruit them all. You can simply use an Escape Orb to jump out of the dungeon and head back inside for the others. But, if you do continue...

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

Unown Relic [B8F]

! and ? finally go away on B8F and you can find repeats of C, D, G, H, M, Q, S, and U.

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

Unown Relic [B9F]

B9F brings along E, I, J, K, L, P, R, and S.

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

Unown Relic [B10F]

B10F keeps J and P around while also bringing back H, N, O, Q, T, and V

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

Unown Relic [B11F]

B11 keeps O and Q from B10, along with C, E, G, I, K, M, and S.

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

And that's it! Like I said, an incredibly short and simple dungeon. The only major threat here are the traps, but across a mere 11 floors even those can only hurt so badly. You're probably not going to struggle at all in this dungeon. At worst, you'll get surprise KO'd by an unexpectedly powerful Hidden Power, but a quick rescue shouldn't be hard at all to pull off if you don't have the Reviver Seed to protect you from such a fate.

Anyway, with that, we should now have all of the dungeons completed that were unlocked from friend areas! All that's left, I believe, are some additional miscellaneous dungeons and dungeons tied to plot threads. We're drawing closer to the end of the game, but things are going to get much tougher than they've ever been before. Next time, we'll start to look for some more plots to explore!

January 7, 2022

So, in light of recent issues with images breaking, I've decided to switch sprite sources. From now on, I'll be using images from a mixture of Serebii and a new site called pokencyclopedia. Unfortunately, neither source has exclusively transparent sprites for some reason, so I'll be switching between the two. I'll be retroactively changing the image sources around sporadically, so you'll still see broken images here and there. But from now on, we will be using a new database which does come with some bonuses! For one, I now have animated sprites for Mystery Dungeon! So you'll be noticing a lot more life being brought to these posts, hopefully.

Anyway, last time we finished off the last of the friend area-tied dungeons, so all that remains are dungeons tied to individual plot threads. So, let's get started on those!

If you wander up to Whiscash Pond after reuniting Latias and Latios, you'll find Team Meanies, sans Gengar, hanging around up here.

It seems these two have made some sort of great discovery that they want to keep a secret. They're even agreeing not even to let Gengar in on it!

Of course, as soon as the two catch you listening in on their conversation, they both immediately clam up. Well, Medicham does anyway. It seems that Ekans is quite fond of running his mouth.

The two run off and leave you behind. Certainly suspicious. We'll need to keep an eye out for them.

Another change you may have noticed is that Alakazam is now standing by the path up to Whiscash Pond. IF you speak with him, he'll tell you about a massive cyclone in the sea near the Legendary Island where Moltres, Zapdos, and Aritcuno reside.

If you have access to the Legendary Island friend area, he will ask you to travel there to investigate the oddity. Remember that you don't actually need to obtain the Legendary Island in order to recruit the Legendary Birds. The friend area comes for free with the birds.

Before moving on, there are actually a few evolutions we can go ahead and do which I've been neglecting for a while. I figured now's as good a time as any to do this.

Thanks to the levels they were recruited at, Claw the Krabby, Club the Cubone, Buddy the Totodile, River the Mudkip, and Howdy the Wynaut can all evolve into Kingler, Marowak, Croconaw, Marshtomp, and Wobbuffet respectively!

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

New Evolutions: Team Recover

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

Claw (Kingler); Lv. 32

Item: None

Ability: Hyper Cutter, Shell Armor | Moves: Vicegrip, Harden, Mud Shot, Stomp

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

Club (Marowak); Lv. 28

Item: None

Ability: Rock Head, Lightningrod | Moves: Bonemerang, Leer, Focus Energy, Headbutt

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

Buddy (Croconaw); Lv. 29

Item: None

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Scary Face, Bite, Water Gun, Rage

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

River (Marshtomp); Lv. 28

Item: None

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Take Down, Mud Sport, Foresight, Bide

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

Howdy (Wobbuffet); Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Shadow Tag | Moves: Destiny Bond, Safeguard, Mirror Coat, Counter

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

In the process of clearing some missions, we also obtained a new recruit: Howl the Poochyena!

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Howl (Poochyena); Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Run Away | Moves: Odor Sleuth, Bite, Sand-Attack, Howl

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

If we return to Whiscash pond the next day, we'll find Medicham and Ekans continuing to discuss their scheme. Apparently they've discovered some dungeon capable of granting wishes? The two discuss the wishes they want granted. Ekans wants a wider jaw to swallow larger foods while Medicham wants a quiet place to meditate where no one will bother her.

Just like before, as soon as they notice you listening in, they scurry off. For now, we'll just have to let this go and go check out Legendary Island instead.

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

If you have all three Legendary Birds recruited, after speaking with Alakazam about the weather anomaly and returning to the Legendary Island, the three birds will fly up together.

In a manner similar to the Legendary Beasts and the Rainbow Wing, the three birds combine their powers to create a strange stone.

The three Legendary Birds explain that their arrival at the Legendary Island must have awakened the guardian of the sea. By combining their powers and creating a Vortex Stone, we should be able to reach the whirlpool and reach a dungeon called the Silver Trench to find this Guardian of the Sea.

So, we now have our heading! Off to the Silver Trench!

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

Silver Trench

In order to gain access to this dungeon, you'll need to obtain the Vortex Stone from the Legendary Birds on Legendary Island. This requires completion of the TM Thief plot as well as the recruitment of Zapdos from Mt. Thunder, Moltres from Mt. Blaze, and Articuno from Frozen Forest. At this point in the game, these recruits should be tremendously easy and their dungeons don't even have traps, so you're good to go. If you have the Friend Bow from North Wind Field, it'll make recruiting them easier. Just make sure you have space for a size-4 pokemon in your team!

In order to actually enter the dungeon, you must bring a Water Pokemon with the move Dive or the HM itself with you.

In the beginning of the dungeon, you'll find the following items: Poke; Def., Pass, Pecha, and Warp Scarves; Detect, Patsy, Persim, Power, Stamina, and Twist Bands; Gold and Heal Ribbons; Insomniscopes; Scope Lenses; X-Ray Specs; Grimy Food; Blue Gummis; Cheri, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries; Heal, Sleep, Totter, and Warp Seeds; Max Elixirs; TMs and Wonder Orbs. You may notice that this is the first dungeon in a while that has Blue Gummis! I definitely don't recommend coming here looking for them, you can definitely get them in more convenient places before, but it might be nice to have a few additional boosts to IQ.

I strongly recommend utilizing the Warp Scarf strategy for this one as it's going to be a very long dungeon and I encountered quite a handful of Monster Houses to boot.

Allia still knows Dive from our previous venture, so I decided to march on ahead into the unknown with Storm the Zapdos, Nature the Venusaur, and Allia the Feraligatr! Just a heads up, you might want to avoid making any new recruits throughout this dungeon your first time through, just a fair warning. Zapdos has the Warp Scarf and I also kept a Stamina Scarf to replace it with throughout the dungeon.

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

Silver Trench [B1F - B4F]

For the first four floors, you'll be running into Wingull, Tentacool, Shellder, Omanyte, and Qwilfish. Wingull requires Shallow Beach to recruit, Tentacool and Shellder require Bountiful Sea, Omanyte requires Deep-Sea Floor, and Qwilfish requires Serene Sea.

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

Silver Trench [B5F]

Kabuto and Corsola join on the 5th floor. Kabuto requires Deep-Sea Floor while Corsola requires Shallow Beach.

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

Silver Trench [B6F-B8F]

Wingull disappears on B6F and is replaced with Slowpoke and Seel. Slowpoke requires Bountiful Sea to be recruited while Seel requires Ice-Floe Beach.

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

Silver Trench [B9F]

Tentacool no longer appears on the next floor.

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

Silver Trench [B10F - B13F]

Shellder, Omanyte, and Qwilfish all disappear the next floor. Spheal and Horsea join along in their place! Spheal requires Ice-Floe Beach while Horsea requires Treasure Sea. As always, watch out for Spheal's Ice Ball attack. It can build up lots of damage real quick.

Starting on B10F, you'll begin to find Gravelerocks.

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

Silver Trench [B14F]

Kabuto and Corsola are now gone on B14F and replaced with Anorith who requires Treasure Sea to be recruited.

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

Silver Trench [B15F - B19F]

Slowpoke and Seel disappear on the next floor with the introduction of Krabby and Staryu. Krabby requires Shallow Beach to recruit while Staryu requires Bountiful Sea.

On the 15th floor, you'll be met with a bit of a surprise! The entire floor is one massive room! And this whole room is always going to be a monster house! Storm's Agility is incredibly useful in these rooms as it allows you to weave in and out of these crowds without having to invest a bunch of PP into taking them all out. The Warp Scarf can also help you get out of sticky situations. In fact, throughout the whole dungeon, I've found Agility to b e far more useful for getting away from battles rather than strictly for in-battle purposes.

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

Silver Trench [B20F]

On the 20th floor, Spheal no longer appears. In its place, Grimer, who requires Poison Swamp for recruitment, and Omastar who is unrecruitable, appear. Vaporeon also appears on this floor for the first time.

This is the final floor you'll be able to find the berries, seeds, and Max Elixirs. So make sure to seek them out if you're running low.

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

Silver Trench [B21F - B23F]

Horsea no longer appears on the next floor.

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

Silver Trench [B24F]

On B24F, Anorith is replaced with the unrecruitable Kabutops.

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

Silver Trench [B25F]

The next floor sees Krabby replaced with Sealeo. Just like with Spheal, watch out for Ice Ball!

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

Silver Trench [B26F - B29F]

Staryu is replaced with Kingler on the next floor.

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

Silver Trench [B30F]

Grimer and Omastar are replaced with Slowbro, Seadra, and Carvanha. Carvanha can be recruited with Treasure Sea. Vaporeon also reappears for this floor.

This is the final floor you'll be able to find Grimy Food, but more importantly, the Blue Gummi. Seek them out if you still want them!

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

Silver Trench [B31F - B33F]

The next few floors are the same but without Vaporeon.

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

Silver Trench [B34F]

Sealeo disappears on the following floor.

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

Silver Trench [B35F]

On the 35th floor, Kabutops ceases to appear and Tentacruel, Starmie, and Armaldo begin to appear.

This floor is yet another floor-wide monster house! I forgot to take a screenshot, so this one just depicts the one from the previous floor. Just use your imagination!

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

Silver Trench [B36F]

The next floor says goodbye to Kingler.

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

Silver Trench [B37F - B39F]

Slowbro leaves the party on the 37th floor.

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

Silver Trench [B40F]

The following floor, Seadra and Carvanha can no longer be found. Vaporeon returns here again, of course.

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

Silver Trench [B41F - B44F]

Wailmer joins in on B44F! He can be recruited with Serene Sea.

Starting with B41F, you'll begin to find Iron Thorns and Silver Spikes.

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

Silver Trench [B45F - B49F]

Tentacruel, Starmie and Armaldo leave Wailmer behind on B45F, but Luvdisc comes in to join it! Luvdisc can be recruited with Treasure Sea.

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

SIlver Trench [B50F]

Dratini, Slowking, and Remoraid repopulate the board on B50F. While Slowking can't be recruited, Dratini can be with Mystic Lake while Remoraid needs Treasure Sea. Vaporeon returns again here, too.

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

Silver Trench [B51F - B54F]

All the attention seems to scare Wailmer off on the next floor.

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

Silver Trench [B55F - B59F]

Luvdisc follows suit on the next floor and is replaced with Dewgong. Dewgong is easy to underestimate, but watch out for its Aurora Beam which can attack from wide ranges! Sheer Cold is also potentially devastating. Try not to get too close!

B55F is another floor-wide Monster House. Make a beeline for the stairs! Dewgong are especially scary in these wide-open rooms. They can snipe you from across the entire floor!

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

Silver Trench [B60F]

Things are starting to get pretty serious at this point. On B60F, Dratini, Slowking, and Remoraid disappear in favor of Muk, Octillery, Sharpedo, and Walrein. Octillery has all sorts of ranged attacks it can hit you with. Walrein also know both Ice Ball and Aurora Beam! Sharpedo's Rough Skin allows it to deal counter damage whenever you make contact with it and Dewgong's still hanging around for a little while with its terrifying Sheer Cold attack. This floor also has Vaporeon.

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

Silver Trench [B61F - B64F]

The only difference with these floors is that Vaporeon is no longer here!

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

Silver Trench [B65F - B69F]

Clamperl appears on the next floor in place of Dewgong. Clamperl is a bit of an obnoxious pokemon, but I'll take it over those terrifying Dewgong any day! Clamperl can be recruited with Deep-Sea Floor.

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

Silver Trench [B70F]

Muk, Octillery, Sharpedo, and Walrein all disappear on the next floor, making way for Chinchou, Kingdra, and the return of Vaporeon. Chinchou can be recruited with Deep-Sea Floor. If you're relying on ThunderBolt for crowd control like I have been, you might find these little guys to be incredibly dangerous with their Volt Absorb paired with Confuse Ray and Thunder Wave. But what makes them truly terrifying is their partner in crime: Kingdra. Kingdra likes to use Agility. Under most situations, this isn't too much of a problem, but... well, we'll get to the most terrifying floor soon enough.

Now, if you're for whatever reason interested in the Gravelrocks throughout the dungeon, this is the last floor you'll be able to find them.

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

Silver Trench [B71F - B79F]

Gorebyss begins to appear on B79F. Gorebyss' Water Pulse is yet another attack you'll need to watch out for.

And when you reach B75F, you'd better have a pokemon with Agility or still be packing some Warp Orbs because you are NOT going to survive this floor-wide Monster House for long on your own. The Kingdra that appear in this floor won't hesitate to boost their speed with Agility. But the terrifying part is that Agility doesn't just boost their speed, but the speed of all their allies on the same floor. That means all those Chinchou, Clamperl, and Gorebyss not only have the advantage of numbers, but you can't simply outspeed them with Agility anymore! If they're faster than you, they'll catch up to you in no time and start pummeling you several turns in a row. Storm had to use Agility just to keep up and still needed to rely on Detect to actually survive. Keep in mind, even if you have a pokemon with Agility, there are several Kingdra on this floor who can use Agility to boost each other while the others don't even have to waste a move to use Agility at all.

To make matters worse, you still have the ranged attacks of Gorebyss to deal with. Gorebyss can not only snipe you from across the floor, but if it has high enough speed, it can do so several times!

And if either Clamperl or Chinchou catch up to you, your movement is going to be hindered further. Clamperl can trap you in place with both Clamp and Whirlpool while Chinchou can hinder your offensive and evasive abilities with Thunder Wave and Confuse Ray. I can't stress enough how important it is to take those Kingdra out ASAP and keep your speed quadrupled is much as possible! This is by far the hardest part of the dungeon to power through. But once you get to those stairs, you're basically home free! The rest of the dungeon after this isn't nearly as difficult as this floor! Just be wary you'll still have to deal with the same pokemon and it's also still entirely possible that you could stumble across normal random monster houses on top of this one. But that's just bad luck and more easily defended against.

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

Silver Trench [B80F]

The 80th floor completely replaces the pokemon you've been struggling against (thank God). Now, you have Cloyster, Lileep, and Relicanth along with the final return of Vaporeon. Lileep and Relicanth both require Deep-Sea Floor to be recruited.

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

Silver Trench [B81F - B89F]

No more Vaporeon!

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

Silver Trench [B90F - B98F]

Again, all pokemon from the previous floors are replaced. This time with Lanturn, who is just as annoying as Chinchou but thankfully isn't surrounded by the obnoxious tag team from earlier, as well as Cradily and Huntail.

When you reach the stairs on B98F, I think you know the drill by now. Make room in your party for a size-4 pokemon. I suppose saying goodbye to a Size-4 pokemon of your own is a good way to do this! Just, make sure to take the item off before you say farewell! It's actually been a while since we've done this, it feels like. Believe it or not, the Friend Bow isn't actually necessary at all, but inventory management is a bit of a headache.

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

Team Recover

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

Nature (Venusaur); Lv. 40

Item: Friend Bow

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Sleep Powder + Leech Seed + Toxic, Bullet Seed

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

Allia (Feraligatr); Lv. 45

Item: Joy Ribbon

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Scary Face + Surf, Ice Beam, Dive

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

Vs. Lugia

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

This fight unfortunately plays out rather predictably, though admittedly almost nostalgicly. I start by inflicting Lugia with a bunch of status problems using Nature while Allia pounds on him with attacks. Then, Nature joins in on the assault with Bullet Seed.

It doesn't take long at all for Lugia to be defeated! Thankfully, Lugia is much like Ho-oh in that his recruitment is practically guaranteed with a 99.9% recruitment rate. Just make sure you have room for him in your party and you're good to go! I chose to name him Shadow. Believe it or not, this isn't named after Shadow Lugia from XD which is a connection I realized in retrospect. Rather, I derived the name from Ho-oh's nickname Mirage. I figured the darkness in the depths of the sea could be considered a counterpart to mirages in the sky.

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Shadow (Lugia); Lv. 30

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Gust, Safeguard, Whirlwind

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

Much like the Legendary Birds, and unlike Ho-oh, you'll automatically gain access to Lugia's friend area: Deep-Sea Current, on recruiting her. (I try to refer to Lugia as female since supposedly that was the original designer's intention for the character's design. It was supposed to have motherly qualities) So, you don't actually have to have the Friend Area in order to recruit her.

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

With that, we've made it to the end of the dungeon! That's one huge dungeon down! But we've still got some more to go!

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

The next morning, we find Xatu at our hideout. Apparently he isn't here on any sort of important business, he's just here to shop.

Soon, Blastoise comes having been searching all over for Xatu. He explains that there is a strange cave near Mt. Thunder that wasn't there before and wants to ask about it.

Xatu explains that he has named the cave Meteor Cave, as it was created when a fragment of the Meteorite Rayquaza destroyed crashed into the mountainside.

After being asked if he'd explored the cave, Blastoise explains that there were strange creatures within.

Xatu suggests that the creatures Blastoise may not actually be from our world at all... Perhaps they emerged from the meteorite when it crashed into the mountain?

It isn't long before Nature gets the idea that he wants to explore the cave himself. What could it hurt? Perhaps we'll go to see this strange cave soon enough!

January 8, 2022

After recruiting Lugia at the end of Silver Trench, her portrait appears on your file screen.

If we check up on Medicham and Ekans, we find that apparently Ekans got KO'd in the dungeon they were discussing before, but Medicham is apparently still going on strong. He's muttering to himself about changing his wish to help him become stronger. Unlike before, he doesn't run away when he notices us chatting with him, but we're not able to get much more information out of him just yet.

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

Anyway, our main focus today is going to be on that strange cave that Blastoise discovered. And a strange cave indeed for many reasons. This is by far the most unique dungeon in the entire game, especially up until now. In order to gain access to this dungeon, all you have to do is clear Silver Trench. I'm unsure if recruiting Lugia is necessary, but it shouldn't be all that difficult to do so.

What makes this dungeon so strange are the limitations surrounding it. First of all, you need the HM Surf or a pokemon that knows the move. In addition, you can only enter the dungeon with a single pokemon. Even further, you can only go in with three items in your inventory alongside your held item.

Beyond that, the dungeon itself follows some unique rules as you'll soon find.

The only item you're going to find in this dungeon is Poke. So choose your three items carefully.

I strongly recommend bringing three Reviver Seeds alongside X-Ray Specs as your equipped item. These Reviver Seeds can take the role of food, Max Elixirs, and Oran Berries. The X-Ray Specs are going to be incredibly important for reasons you're about to find.

I decided to enter with Allia alone.

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

Meteor Cave [B1F - B19F]

Throughout every floor of this dungeon, you'll only find a single pokemon: Deoxys. More specifically, illusory Deoxys. On each floor, a single one of these three pokemon will spawn and you'll need to hunt them down and KO them.

Until you KO the Deoxys illusion on each floor, the staircase will be blocked on the map, causing it to look like this. After the Deoxys is defeated, the staircase will revert to normal. This should make it apparent why I suggested the X-Ray Specs. This item allows you to see the locations of all items and enemies on the floor. Without this item, you'll find yourself wandering aimlessly in search of a single pokemon across each of the dungeon's 19 floors. With only three items, you'll quickly find yourself starving to death if not being kicked out of the dungeon by the mysterious wind.

Thankfully, this game doesn't require you to save on entrance, so you can feel free to simply shut the game off and load from your last save. But even beyond that, since you're only bringing in three items, you're probably not going to be losing much at all from getting KO'd.

Of course, Deoxys comes in three formes: Attack, Defense, and Speed.

Attack Forme Deoxys has some of the most devastating attacks. Be careful not to take a hit from it. However, it's offset by incredibly weak defenses, allowing you to take it out with ease using single attacks.

Speed Forme Deoxys has an inherent boost to its speed allowing it to move several times in one turn. Try to use moves like Dig or Fly while it's moving toward you, or hit it with ranged attacks.

The most dangerous of the three Formes is Defense Forme Deoxys. Defense Forme is the opposite of Attack Forme. It has incredibly high defenses but its attack is lacking. The reason this is so devastating is that it really doesn't need high attack because it also knows the move Night Shade, allowing it to deal static 35 damage against you. Its main threat, though, is the amount of hits it'll take to take this guy out. Not only does his defenses cause you to dish out multiple attacks, regardless of physical or special, he can build up layers of defenses with Iron Defense and Amnesia to minimize the damage you can possibly dish out. Beyond that, all three formes still possess the Pressure Ability which means every attack uses double PP. If you're stuck using basic attacks against Defense Forme Deoxys after he's set up his defenses, you might be dealing as little as 1 or 2 HP if any at all! Make sure you use your strongest attack against these guys and try to take them out as fast as possible. Hope you encounter as little of them as possible as well. They will tear through your PP like crazy. Without PP, not only will they take forever to KO, but the other formes will be significantly more difficult to deal with using only single attacks as well.

To help prevent them from building up their defenses further, you may want to use Taunt to seal their use of Iron Defense and Amnesia, forcing them to take an offensive position. Status problems like Toxic and Leech Seed might also help, but to a lesser extent.

One last thing that makes these Deoxys annoying is that they know Teleport, allowing them to flee from you and forcing you to track them down all over again. With only three items, hunger is a pressing concern as well. If you bring three Reviver Seeds, you have some room for error in all your bases. If you start to get hungry, you can just let yourself starve and revive with full belly and restored HP and PP. And if you get hungry again, the Plain Seeds that are left behind can help fill your belly just a little.

This dungeon is entirely an endurance round, can you make it through the 19 floors battling random forms of Deoxys on each one?

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

Team Recover

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

Allia (Feraligatr); Lv. 45

Item: X-Ray Specs

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Scary Face, Surf, Ice Beam, Dig

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

On the 20th floor of the dungeon, we find the real Deoxys in his Normal Forme. He explains that he's from space and that he wants to know what's happed. And then... attacks us? Yeah, there's not a whole lot of reason to fight here, but here we are!

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

Vs. Deoxys

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

This fight is incredibly straight-forward. I wish I could explain a more complex strategy, but it's really just dumping all of my PP into attacks and letting myself go down to be revived with full PP again using my leftover Reviver Seeds. Of course, this Deoxys is significantly tougher than the ones we've been battling throughout the dungeon, so he'll take quite a while to take out with this method. He'll also boost his defenses with Cosmic Power, but it's not nearly as obnoxious as Defense Forme's Iron Defense and Amnesia. This Deoxys also isn't capable of dishing out a whole lot of damage at once, resorting mainly to Night Shade which still only deals 35 damage.

Eventually, Deoxys goes down leaving us with another rather anticlimactic end to a plot.

If you're intrested in recruiting Deoxys, keep in mind he has a -10% recruitment rate, so don't expect to get him on your first try. You'll want to be high level and a Friend Bow into the fight. That's easier said than done. You're going to want to wait until you can take out the Deoxys in one attack each before trying to attempt something like this. Again, toward the end of the playthrough, I do plan to cover the most challenging pokemon to recruit, and this would definitely be one of them. But for now, we'll leave him be.

And with that, we've cleared Meteor Cave and resolved another plot thread! We're getting closer and closer to the end of the game! Until next time!

January 9, 2022

As per usual, you'll receive Deoxys' portrait on your save file once you've defeated it. There's not many legendary pokemon left!

When you check the bulletin board for new rescue requests, after listening in on Medicham and Ekans' conversations over several days, you might be surprised to find a request from Medicham in a place called Wish Cave. This must be that dungeon they've been talking about. But if she sent this request, she can't be faring well!

Upon accepting the mission, you can read the message from Medicham warning of the dungeon's difficulty.

And with this, the dungeon Wish Cave is now available for exploration!

Ekans appears after accepting the mission here and he's quite distressed knowing he'll be of no use in trying to help Medicham. It definitely looks like we'll have to step in!

Just a heads up, we're about to head into a dungeon in which all money you have on-hand will disappear on entrance due to the dungeon's special rules. So make sure to deposit everything at the bank before heading out!

Though it's not quite as abnormal as Meteor Cave, this dungeon is still quite unique compared to most of the dungeons we've been through up until now. First, you'll need the HM Surf in order to access the dungeon. As previously mentioned, any money you bring in will disappear. The dungeon has a compulsory save, meaning you'll need a rescue if you get wiped out. The most unique rule, of course, is that every pokemon that enters the dungeon will temporarily revert to Level 1. They'll stay their current stage of evolution, but their level will be much lower. On one hand, this does mean you don't have to grind up your level to make it through the dungeon. On the other, you're likely to be pretty low level by the end of the dungeon. Thankfully, for now, our main focus is simply rescuing Medicham on the 20th floor, so let's see how that goes!

The items that can be found here are pretty hefty: Poke; Bounce, Detect, Patsy, Persim, Pierce, Power, Racket, Special, Stamina, Twist, Weather and Zinc Bands; Def., Mobile, Pass, Pecha, Sneak, and Warp Scarves; Diet, and Heal Ribbons; Much Belts; Insomniscopes; Lockon Specs; Scope Lenses; X-Ray Specs; Gravelrocks; Iron Thorns, Silver Spikes, and Sticks; Huge Apples; Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, Rawst, and Sitrus Berries; Allure, Blast, Eyedrop, Heal, Hunger, Quick, Reviver, Sleep, Stun, Totter, and Warp Seeds; Max Elixirs; Assorted TMs and Wonder Orb; and finally Link Boxes.

I decided to venture in with Allia and Nature alone this time around.

Not only will your pokemon's levels and stats be reverted, their moveset will be replaced as well! I actually didn't see this coming. You'll have to rely on any TMs you bring in with you along with moves you naturally gain early on by level-up. Keep in mind that HMs can't be used in dungeons. With this in mind, the Joy Ribbon is a really useful item to bring into this dungeon as it can help you get new moves much quicker. Try to choose pokemon with good starting movesets that can also level up quickly.

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

Wish Cave [B1F]

On the first floor, you'll run into Bellsprout, Magnemite, Sunkern, Jigglypuff, and Cleffa. Bellsprout and Sunkern can be recruited with the Jungle, and Cleffa with Mt. Moonview. Jigglypuff is one of the pokemon that are easy to forget is technically an evolved pokemon, so it does have a -19 recruitment rate. You'll want to seek out an Igglybuff instead, most likely. Magnemite you should already have, and at much higher level, from the main story, so you should also have its friend area: The Power Plant.

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

Wish Cave [B2F - B3F]

Caterpie can be found on B2F and can be recruited with Mist-Rise Forest.

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

Wish Cave [B4F]

Bellsprout, Magnemite, and Sunkern are gone on B4F, but Marill joins. Marill is another pokemon that retroactively became an evolved pokemon thanks to baby Azurill. You'll have an easier time evolving an Azurill.

Finding TMs in this dungeon can be a huge boon. Far more so than most other dungeons. Any changes to your moveset are impermanent and will go away at the end of the dungeon, though, so if you find a really valuable TM, be sure to save it!

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

Wish Cave [B5F - B6F]

On B5F, Jigglypuff, Cleffa, and Caterpie are all gone with Rattata and Togepi joining. Rattata joins with Wild Plains while Togepi joins with Flyaway Forest.

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

Wish Cave [B7F]

B7F replaces Marill with Aron who can be recruited with Mt. Cleft.

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

Wish Cave [B8F - B10F]

Voltorb replaces Rattata on the 8th floor. Voltorb should always be recruitable at this point since he needs the Power Plant which you got with Magnemite during the main story.

On B8F, I was able to recruit a Voltorb which I named Mine.

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Mine (Voltorb); Lv 3

Item: None

Ability: Soundproof, Static | Moves: Charge, Tackle

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

Wish Cave [B11F]

On B11F, the pokemon completely change to focus on Ralts, Meditite, and Baltoy. Ralts can be recruited with Sky Blue Plains, Meditite with Mt. Discipline, and Baltoy with Ancient Relic.

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

Wish Cave [B12F]

Geodude begins to appear on B12F and can be recruited with Mt. Deepgreen.

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

Wish Cave [B13F]

Natu tags along on B13F! He can be recruited with Flyaway Forest.

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

Wish Cave [B14F]

This floor brings a new aesthetic to the dungeon. The pokemon here are mostly the same, but Ralts is missing.

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

Wish Cave [B15F - B16F]

Meditite, Baltoy, and Geodude are gone here. They're replaced with Beldum who can be recruited with the Magnetic Quarry.

It was on B15F where I recruited Sight the Natu!

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Sight (Natu); Lv. 8

Item: None

Ability: Synchronize, Early Bird | Moves: Peck, Leer

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

Wish Cave [B17F]

Machop and Swinub join on the 17th floor and can be recruited with Mt. Discipline and Frigid Cavern respectively.

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

Wish Cave [B18F - B19F]

Skarmory can be found on B18F in place of Natu and Beldum. Since you can't rematch Skarmory at the top of Mt. Steel after the initial boss fight like you can with the Legendary Birds, this is your first chance to recruit one. Skarmory can be recruited with Ravaged Field.

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

When you arrive on the 20th floor, you'll find Medicham having taken shelter in a safe area while awaiting her rescue.

Medicham is surprised that we've come to rescue her! Once you do, everyone automatically warps out of the dungeon. Unfortunately, you can't actually finish the dungeon your first time through, even if you want to keep going. That's probably a good thing, though, because there's a certain item you'll want before progressing further.

But that's the end of the visit! This dungeon is significantly deeper than just 20 floors, but we'll need to put it off for a little while longer.

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

The two pokemon are overjoyed by our rescue! Even though they've been so rude to us, maybe this will change their attitudes?

Medicham explains that she was excited to go to the Wish Cave when she heard the place was capable of granting wishes, but it was far too dangerous for her, so she would much rather never set foot in there again.

Medicham's reward for us is apparently an item she sent the rescue request to avoid losing, but now that she's decided to never go back, she leaves it with us.

The item you receive is a Wish Stone. It's an item necessary to have your wish granted in the depths of Wish Cave. We'll have to make sure to bring that with us when we return to explore the whole thing! But for now, it seems things have calmed down a little bit and we'll need to start exploring new avenues again. Perhaps we're ready to take a look at that mysterious Western Cave?

January 11, 2022

So, this session wasn't nearly as productive as I would've liked, personally, but things don't always go according to plan! Still, I wanted to focus on a small mechanic I've been meaning to cover in more detail for a while. If you recall, early on I may have mentioned something about an easy way to increase your stats without actually having to level up your pokemon? Well, in hindsight, I think I may have misinterpreted that. As it turns out, the plan I had to power up my pokemon in the late game really only seems particularly efficient... in Rescue Team DX, this game's remake on the Nintendo Switch... A pretty drastic mistake there, to be sure. But not an uncommon one. As I've found, it seems really difficult to actually find information on specifically the original games. Oh well, such is life. Still, I think this might be an important topic to cover as there are still some interesting items you may obtain with this method.

Before we get into any dungeon crawling today, I do want to take a moment to call attention to Medicham and Ekans. Now that we've rescued them, if we talk to them, Medicham will ask us if we've seen Gengar. The two will then begin to discuss what's been going on with him recently. Apparently he's been trying to play his feelings off and pretend everything is fine, but though it's enough to fool Medicham, Ekans is able to see right through the facade and can tell there's something on his mind. I suppose we'll keep it to ourselves for now.

Anyway, our main focus today is a treasure hunt at Buried Relic! I actually packed pretty heavily for this. All you really want are pockets full of Apples, depending on how much time you want to spend searching the dungeon, and the most important factor is the Escape Orb and Cleanse Orb combo, or multiple escape orbs. This is especially important here since we're not intending to actually complete the entire dungeon.

If you recall, back when the Buried Relic was the talk of the town, people were speaking about rumors of items inside the dungeon's walls! I've briefly spoken about buried items before, however I do believe I'm actually guilty of spreading some misinformation regarding them and how they work. Allow me to elaborate.

Those X-Ray Specs I said might reveal items inside the walls? As it turns out, nope! Completely bogus! Once again, I was mistaking this for the way the item works in Rescue Team DX. In this game, the X-Ray Specs are next to useless for searching for items hidden in the walls.

What you're instead going to want is a pokemon capable of walking through walls. There's a few ways you can accomplish that.

One, is simply using just about any Ghost-type. Some, like Shedinja, Sableye, and Dusclops are incapable of walking through walls despite their Ghost-type, so make sure they can before relying on this!

Alternatively, if you're lucky enough to find a Mobile Scarf, this item can allow you to walk through walls as well.

Another option is to max out a pokemon's IQ until it learns the IQ skill Super Mobile. With this skill, a pokemon can travel over any terrain including walls.

Finally, you have the option to use the HM Rock Smash which isn't actually a harming attack like you'd expect, but it's a utility move that has 99 PP and is capable of destroying a wall in front of you. I previously assumed that these HMs would be used as keys to dungeons similar to Surf, Fly, and Waterfall, but I stand corrected. This is the purpose of Rock Smash. Strength also isn't a move that causes direct harm but rather hurls a pokemon away from you. Cut is the most interesting of these, I think. It's an attack that hits all enemies that immediately surround the user, just like ThunderBolt. Flash is the most disappointing. You might expect it to light up dark floors, but it actually just works like a standard attack, reducing the accuracy of the target in front of you.

If you have a pokemon with one of these conditions, in my case, I'm using Nature with a Mobile Scarf equipped, you'll want to run along walls until you stop automatically at an abnormal location. Normally, when you're running, your character will automatically stop at forks in the road, exposed traps, stairs, and other special tiles, a pokemon blocking the way, some event occurs such as a status effect wearing off, and, most importantly, when you're near an item.

That last detail is the most significant. If you automatically stop in a place like this, you'll no an item must be near.

And, sure enough, using the Mobile Scarf to pass through the wall nearby reveals a Sitrus Berry! It's worthwhile to note that the item is always buried one tile away from a natural ground tile. It will never be buried deep in the wall, at least as far as I'm aware, though it may be buried behind difficult terrain making it incredibly unlikely for you to find.

It's important to know how to dowse for these items because walking through walls without the Super Mobile IQ Skill drastically tears through your Belly. You'll be starved of all your apples in no time if you just blindly wander through all the walls on the floor. Even while avoiding the belly consumption with Super Mobile, you'll still have to cross over the entire floor several times over.

If you're really dead-set on using the blind wandering strategy in conjunction with Super Mobile (Keep in mind, it takes A LOT of Gummis to reach 990 IQ in order to unlock the skill), I recommend trying to get your hands on a Tight Belt. This is a held item that stops you from losing belly at all unless you're walking through a wall. You can get a Tight Belt from Far-Off Sea. Ironically, it can even be a buried item there, too.

I should also mention that I'm also unsure if you will actually stop at a buried item if you're not capable of walking through walls, so you might want to experiment a bit with that.

The best combination, theoretically, is probably a Ghost-type capable of walking through walls, like Ghastly or Duskull, wearing a Tight Belt. That way you'll be able to run through the halls and against the walls in all the rooms without wasting any hunger and still be able to guarantee you'll stop near a buried item.

Needless to say, the Tight Band is an incredibly rare and incredibly valuable item.

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

What can you find as buried items? Well, the items you can find vary from dungeon to dungeon. There are some unfortunate items that just aren't worth the hassle, but the main reason you might find this worth it are these items:

Stat-Boosting Vitamins, Ginseng, Joy Seeds, Life Seeds, Sitrus Berries, and exclusive TMs that you can't find any other way, like Sludge Bomb and Water Pulse.

Life Seeds and Sitrus Berries can increase your max HP by 3 and 2 respectively, just make sure to eat the Sitrus Berry at full health or you won't get the HP boost.

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

The next unfortunate detail is that... these items are either far harder to find than I thought, or significantly rarer than in Rescue Team DX. I really just cannot promise this as a very efficient way to toughen up your pokemon like I thought before. Not only are the buried items hard to find, but they're often junk like Poke or common TMs if you're unlucky enough. It seems like this tactic works a lot better in DX where the items are more common and are easier to find without wasting a ton of belly running around like a maniac.

Anyway, in the process of this treasure hunt, I did find some new recruits!

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

New Recruits: Team Recover

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

Lift (Machop); Lv. 22

Item: None

Ability: Guts | Moves: Foresight, Seismic Toss, Karate Chop, Focus Energy

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

Rumor (Whismur); Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Soundproof | Moves: Uproar, Pound, Astonish, Howl

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

I did a couple of visits to Buried Relic, and in between I did find Medicham and Ekans hanging out in Pokemon Square talking about Gengar visiting Mt. Freeze... curious... perhaps we should see if we can't check up on him soon?

January 11, 2022

The next time I came out of the base, I was surprised by Gengar at my door! We haven't seen him this whole time!

However, it seems that Gengar isn't here to give us grief but rather... to ask for help? As Medicham and Ekans have foreshadowed, apparently Gengar's been trying to reach the top of Mt. Freeze but he's lacked the strength to match our ability to make it.

Apparently, he wants to go see Ninetales... perhaps this is related to the legend?

If you agree to help, Gengar will begin to tag along with you next time you visit Mt. Freeze! This overrides any active missions, so make sure you do this first before preparing any rescue missions at Mt. Freeze. As he explains, though, this only applies to Mt. Freeze and he isn't actually joining your rescue team for miscellaneous adventures.

When you visit Mt. Freeze next, Gengar will meet you at the dungeon's entrance and will go in with you.

I could've come in with Machete and Roast who are a more appropriate level for this dungeon, but I figured it was thematically appropriate to have Nature and Allia escort Gengar up Mt. Freeze. It's us he came to ask, after all.

This dungeon is still the same as it's always been, which means it should be incredibly easy at this point in the game. Since this was a story dungeon, it has a comparatively low number of floors, no traps, and an almost nostalgic midway point before the second half of the dungeon! Climbing this dungeon is probably the easiest thing we've had to do this whole post-game, so there's no need to go into too much detail about it.

Once you reach the summit, Gengar calls out to Ninetales, knowing she must be here.

Nintetales explains to Gengar the reason he was transformed. She explains that Gardevoir was the one who was cursed and that he had transformed when he fled because of his own cowardice.

Gengar demands that Ninetales lift her curse, and even threatens to fight her if she doesn't comply, dragging us into this! Of course, we have no intention of fighting, and neither does Ninetales, who explains that the curse cannot be lifted so easily.

Ninetales explains further that, though she has the ability to inflict powerful curses, those curses are so powerful that they cannot be undone with their own power. However, she suggests there could be another way.

Nintetales' curse was laid on Gengar's heart, not on his entire being. Therefore, she explains that, if his heart is capable of changing, the curse may be lifted from Gardevoir. In order to do so, she gives Gengar a 9-Tail Crest.

Ninetales provides that the 9-Tail Crest is needed to break a seal at a place called Murky Cave, where Gardevoir's physical form has been trapped all these years. So, our goal now is to travel to this Murky Cave and use the 9-Tail Crest to free Gardevoir!

Relieved that there seems to be a way to lift the curse after all, Gengar decides to go home!

After we leave, Ninetales ponders what his fate could turn out to be. His heart is wavering between clashing emotions, and it seems that something bad could happen if he doesn't make a final decision by the time he reaches Gardevoir at Murky Cave...

As we return home, Gengar suggests that he'll still need our help going forward. So it looks like we've got our heading for next time! We're off to Murky Cave!

January 15, 2022

Once again, we're given a pretty rude awakening with Gengar meeting us the moment we step outside the house. He definitely cares a lot about this journey into Murky Cave!

He definitely seems to be tormented about it.

Just like when escorted him up Mt. Freeze, Gengar will only accompany you to Murky Cave.

So, with a little bit of prep, let's go!

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

Murky Cave

Much like Meteor Cave, this dungeon only has PokeDollars inside, so make sure you bring all the supplies you'll need! It's not particularly long or difficult, though. But you might want to bring some Reviver Seeds, Warp Orbs, and maybe an Apple or two. Max Elixirs are probably the most important. It's also incredibly useful to bring a stack of gravelrocks.

As one minor difference from Meteor Cave, this dungeon does have Monster Houses, which means you can get items besides PokeDollars from those! But those items are exclusively TMs and Wonder Orbs.

Your first time through this dungeon, Gengar will always accompany you until you reach the final floor. Because of this, most of the difficulty of this dungeon comes from simply keeping him alive. He's a bit tougher than the type of pokemon who'd be tagging along on an escort rescue mission, but Gengar's Quick Attack can get you in a bit of danger in this dungeon considering some of the enemies on the later floors are strong enough to one-shot him. I decided to lead with Allia this time. I figured she was the best one to accompany Gengar on this journey of self discovery. She's the one he came the closest to opening up with during the ending of the main story, so she'd definitely be the most helpful to accompany him when things start to get... heavy.

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

Murky Cave [B1F-B2F]

The first set of pokemon you'll find here are Cascoon, Zubat, Venonat, and Seviper. Zubat can be recruited with Echo Cave, Venonat with Secretive Forest, and Seviper with Wild Plains.

It was on B1F where I recruited a Venonat which I named Monitor.

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Monitor (Venonat); Lv. 17

Item: None

Ability: Compound Eyes | Moves: Confusion, SuperSonic, Foresight, Disable

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

Murky Cave [B3F - B4F]

Cascoon goes away on B3F but Grimer and Dustox join. Dustox can't be recruited, but Grimer can be recruited with Poison Swamp.

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

Murky Cave [B5F]

Cascoon returns on the following floor.

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

Murky Cave [B6F]

Zubat, Venonat, and Seviper stop appearing after B5F. Cascoon is also gone. In their place is Golbat.

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

Murky Cave [B7F - B9F]

Cascoon returns on B7F joining alongside Shedinja. As always, Shedinja can be a little annoying if you're unprepared. But those Gravelrocks I suggest you bring will make quick, effortless work of them.

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

Murky Cave [B10F]

Shuppet joins on B10F along with the return of Dustox. Shuppet should always be recruitable thanks to getting Darkness Ridge from the main story.

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

Murky Cave [B11F]

Golbat is gone on B11F and replaced with Crobat, but Cascoon returns again!

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

Murky Cave [B12F]

Cascoon is gone again on B12.

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

Murky Cave [B13F]

Shedinja is gone on B13F and replaced with Misdreavus who should also always be recruitable thanks to getting Darkness Ridge from the main story.

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

Murky Cave [B14F]

Dustox is gone on the 14th floor and replaced with Muk and Swalot who are both unrecruitable.

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

Murky Cave [B15F - B19F]

Finally, Shuppet is gone on the next floor.

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

And with that, the dungeon is over! Like I said, a very short dungeon, just make sure to keep your eye on Gengar!

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

After arriving at the depth of Murky Cave, we find a hollow spot where Gengar's 9-Tail Crest fits perfectly.

When he does, a flash of light fills the room!

After the light clears, it seems like nothing has happened... Gengar thinks he hears something, but shrugs it off until...

The voice grows louder and begins to speak with us, welcoming us to the Murky Cave.

The voice introduces itself as the judge of darkness. This is the being that will judge Gengar's heart and determine whether or not the curse on Gardevoir may be lifted.

The Judge warns Gengar that he must be evaluated.

Gengar was expecting to battle some boss monster, but it seems this task is something far more difficult even for him. He'll need to pass his evaluation not with his own words, but with the words of myself, and we'll need to answer the Judge's questions honestly... things certainly aren't looking good for him, but I think we can see something there even if he might be having trouble bringing it to the surface. Maybe there's hope his heart really has changed?

With this, the trial begins and the world seems to fade into darkness.

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

We only get one opportunity for this, so we have to make this count. If we want to help Gardevoir, we need to try and help Gengar however we can.

The first question asks about why Gengar wants to help Gardevoir, but it seems to disagree that Gengar wants to help Gardevoir.

When the Judge asks why he wanted to save her, I explain that he wanted to save her because she took the curse in his place.

What happened next? Well, we have to be honest. He abandoned Gardevoir and ran away.

When asked why he abandoned Gardevoir, we again can't lie. We know he only cared about himself.

The following question focuses on Gardevoir and Gengar's relationship and if it was really so flimsy. Honestly, I answered "no," here. After all, even though Gengar may have only seen Gardevoir as a tool, their relationship still clearly meant something to Gardevoir. She said so herself, she didn't mind the role she had been given even though her story in life was so tragic. But the voice seems to disagree.

The Judge circles back to the previous questions, giving us another chance to think things through more. Honestly, I wish they'd factored in my thoughts on the matter, but I suppose that's just not the narrative they want to approach.

No matter how you answer the questions, this sequence will always end the same. The Judge tells you his questions will end now and asks if you have any regrets. After saying no, the trial is over and The Judge of Darkness reaches its verdict.

The verdict... is not in Gengar's favor.

Distressed by this decision, Gengar begins to spill his heart out, pleading with the judge to hear his true feelings. Finally, Gengar was able to put these feelings into words rather than dodging them. It's kind of astonishing to see him break down like this, but really cool to see his character development finally come full circle. I always thought it was bizarre this part of his character arc was buried so deep into the postgame, but here it is. Though I'm still not much of a fan of his character, he's definitely much more interesting having come to this development.

Immediately following his outburst, to everyone's surprise, the Judge of Darkness reverses his verdict and Gardevoir appears before us! Ninetales also makes her appearance, revealing that she must've been following closely behind as well.

Ninetales explains to Gengar why the curse was able to be lifted. Her curse had been laid on his twisted heart, but his sense of gratitude was the part that was missing. Now that he's gained it, he was able to come to his complete feelings and allow the curse to be lifted.

Ninetales explains that Gardevoir has returned, but she will no longer have her memory of Gengar as her partner. Gengar is reluctant to accept this fact, but he suggests that it doesn't matter, as long as she's back.

With that, we make our way back to the base.

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

Gardevoir thanks us for bringing her back from her curse even though, as far as she's aware, we're total strangers to her.

Gengar decides not to try and get Gardevoir to remember. Perhaps it's for the best he doesn't dredge up bad memories for her.

He thanks us by gifting us with a Mobile Scarf! If you weren't lucky enough to obtain one randomly like I have, this will help you search for buried items in the Buried Relic!

Though given the perfect opportunity to explain their relationship, Gengar once again decides to leave things be and just introduces himself as Gengar when asked for his name before taking his leave.

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

One last detail before we leave for the day, if you visit Pokemon Square after rescuing Gardevoir, you'll find her hanging around the marketplace. If you speak with her, she'll tell you she has an interest in joining Team Recover.

With this, you can give her a nickname and she won't be lonely ever again! Maybe one day she'll come to learn Gengar's identity and the two can truly be reunited.

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

Loyalty (Gardevoir); Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Synchronize, Trace | Moves: Confusion, Double Team, Teleport, Growl

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

Unfortunately, she's only level 5 so she's not going to be pushing any boundaries at all. But, we might use her if we get any missions from earlier dungeons. Anyway, next time, I think the only real plot thread that remains is that of the Ultimate Pokemon. Beyond that, there's also Wish Cave we need to get to the bottom of as well as the remaining miscellaneous dungeons. The to-do list is getting shorter! We're almost over the hill!

January 17, 2022

Western Cave

It's finally time to check out that Western Cave that was hyped up so long ago. In order to gain access to this dungeon, all you have to do is finish the Mirage Pokemon plot by defeating Ho-oh at the top of Mt. Faraway. In order to enter the dungeon, you'll need the Surf HM.

I recommend bringing a Key with you into this dungeon, though it's not nearly as important here for reasons that'll become clear. I also brought a bunch of Ginseng that I've been saving up over the course of the game. These items can be used to power up your set move. I wanted to make sure I used them on appropriate moves, specifically room-wide moves. My original plan was to get the TM for Blizzard and teach it to Allia over Ice Beam, but after finding out Blizzard only hits in front of you, I decided I had a better target for them.

I decided to bring Blizzard the Aritcuno out again. I can use the Ginseng to power up his Powder Snow move which is actually a room-wide attack. I think room-wide attacks are incredibly important as they can give you a solid counterplay to those pesky Monster Houses. Just know that Ginseng aren't useable on Linked Moves, so you'll need to bring a Link Box in order to delink the moves and re-link them after using your Ginseng. Also remember to make sure the move you want to power up is at the top! I wanted to use these items now because after this point, I may never need them again.

The items you can expect to see throughout this dungeon are Poke; Cheri, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries; Blast, Heal, Reviver, Sleep, and Totter Seeds; Max Elixirs; and Keys. Because you can find Keys in the dungeon, and the sealed chamber is so deep in, you're pretty likely to naturally find one by the time you reach the chamber. You might not need to bring a Key with you if you don't have one in storage, but it's always good to enter the dungeon with the keys you need just in case.

The selection of items is so limited that you're likely to get multiples of each item by the end of the dungeon which is fantastic for finding Reviver Seeds and Max Elixirs as well as certain other items a little bit deeper in...

Just a heads up, this is arguably the toughest standard dungeon in the entire game. It's another 99-Floor dungeon with some really tough enemies. Thankfully, there isn't a mandatory save, so you always have the option to soft-reset if anything goes south. I recommend taking full advantage of the Warp Scarf.

I decided to enter the dungeon with Blizzard the Articuno, Nature the Venusaur, and Allia the Feraligatr.

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

Western Cave [B1F - B2F]

For the first two floors, you'll be able to find Murkrow, Butterfree, Beedrill, Venonat, and Snubbull. Butterfree and Beedrill are unrecruitable. Murkrow requires Flyaway Forest to recruit, Venonat requires Secretive Forest and Snubbull requires Sky Blue Plains.

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Western Cave [B3F]

Murkrow leaves while Ekans and Meowth join on B3F. Ekans can be recruited with Wild Plains while Meowth requires Energetic Forest.

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

Western Cave [B4F - B5F]

Everybody but Ekans and Meowth disappear on the next floor and in comes Smeargle and Bellossom. Bellossom can't be recruited, but Smeargle can with Sky-Blue Plains. By this point in the postgame, however, you probably already have a Smeargle from the quest. Smeargle can be a little scary as they're capable of using Sketch to copy the last move used. They might copy your more powerful attacks if you're not careful.

I haven't taken screenshots for every floor, but expect Sunny, Cloudy, and Rainy weather throughout the dungeon.

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

Western Cave [B6F]

Venomoth and Exploud join on B6F in place of Ekans. Neither of whom can be recruited.

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Western Cave [B7F]

Meowth and Smeargle disappear on the next floor.

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Western Cave [B8F - B9F]

Bellossom is the next to go on B8F, replaced with Primeape.

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Western Cave [B10F]

Igglybuff, Tauros, and Miltank can be found on B10F. Igglybuff can be recruited with Sky-Blue Plains, Tauros and Miltank can both be recruited with the Safari.

Starting on this floor, you can begin to find the vitamins Calcium, Iron, Protein, and Zinc alongside the other items. You can find these for the rest of the dungeon, so keep an eye out on them because they can quickly build up your stats.

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

Western Cave [B11F]

Miltank is gone on the next floor along with Venomoth.

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Western Cave [B12F]

Shiftry joins the fray on B12F. Unlike most fully evolvable pokemon, Shiftry can actually technically be recruited. He just has a recruitment rate of -30% making him incredibly difficult to recruit. That said, this one might not necessarily be particularly bad to go after considering the rarity of Leaf Stones. Note: We have actually yet to find a Leaf Stone anywhere.

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

Western Cave [B13F]

Kangaskhan joins on B13F in place of Exploud. Kangaskhan can be recruited with the Safari.

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Western Cave [B14F]

Espeon and Arbok begin to appear on the 14th floor in place of Primeape and Igglybuff, both being unrecruitable. Both Espeon and Arbok are unrecruitable.

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Western Cave [B15F - B16F]

Dodrio joins on the following floor. It' sunrecruitable.

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

Western Cave [B17F - B18F]

Tauros is gone on B17F.

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Western Cave [B19F]

Ivysaur appears on B19F in place of Espeon.

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Western Cave [B20F]

Only Shiftry and Ivysaur remain from the previous floor on B20F. Miltank returns from B10F and Umbreon and Bayleef both join in.

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Western Cave [B21F - B26F]

Pinsir and Aggron join on B21F. Pinsir can be recruited with the Overgrown Forest.

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Western Cave [B27F]

Umbreon is gone on B27F.

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

Western Cave [B28F]

The dungeon's aesthetic turns to darker colors here.

Ivysaur and Bayleef disappear on this floor and are replaced with the unrecruitable Persian.

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Western Cave [B29F]

Pinsir is gone on the next floor.

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Western Cave [B30F]

Swalot joins on B30F. Miltank also returns.

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Western Cave [B31F - B36F]

Hariyama joins on the next floor in Aggron's place. Again, Miltank is gone, too. These are probably the first enemies that can be particularly deadly in this dungeon thanks to Arm Thrust. Watch out for them!

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Western Cave [B37F]

Lickitung replaces Persian on B37F. Lickitung can be recruited with Sky-Blue Plains.

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Western Cave [B38F]

Grovyle and Blaziken join on B38F. I found Blaziken to be incredibly dangerous, though this may mainly be due to Nature and Blizzard's weaknesses to its attacks. Blaziken is unrecruitable as a fully-evolved pokemon.

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

Western Cave [B39F]

Hariyama is gone on the following floor.

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Western Cave [B40F]

The dungeon's aesthetic switches to more of a Desert Cave theme on B40F.

Swalot leaves here while Miltank returns alongside Skarmory and Absol. Skarmory can be recruited with Ravaged Field. You should already have an Absol from the main story, but you can always recruit another one here if you want using Darkness Ridge.

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Western Cave [B41F - B44F]

Miltank leaves on the next floor.

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Western Cave [B45F - B48F]

For the next several floors, you won't find Lickitung.

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Western Cave [B49F]

On B49F, Feraligatr joins. Strangely, just like Shiftry, the final forms of the Water Starters only are actually recruitable. Feraligatr here has a -33.9% recruitment rate making it incredibly difficult to recruit, but it's strangely technically possible as opposed to the other final form starters. I'm not really sure why this is.

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

Western Cave [B50F - B53F]

Venusaur, Alakazam, and Tyrannitar can be found starting on B50F. These three are unrecruitable.

The presence of Tyrannitar is pretty unnerving as its Sand-Stream ability means you'll be dealing with sandstorms for as long as they're hanging around. A bit less remarkable, but Miltank comes back on B50F and sticks around for a few more floors than usual.

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Western Cave [B54F - B58F]

Miltank gets shy again on B54F.

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Western Cave [B59F]

Feraligatr is gone on B59F.

On this floor, you'll want to try and find the sealed chamber. There's going to be a sandstorm here, so it might be a little stressful to hunt it down. If it helps, you could bring a Weather Band or a Rock, Ground, or Steel-type to avoid the damage.

Inside, you'll find a Beauty Scarf!

->

The Beauty Scarf is an evolution item that allows Feebas to evolve into Milotic! You can think of it as a substitute for the evolution requirement of maxing out a pokemon's Beauty stat.

If you already have a Beauty Scarf, as expected, this'll be a Link Cable instead.

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

Western Cave [B60F]

Venusaur and Alakazam are gone on B60F while Arcanine joins. Arcanine cannot be recruited. Miltank also returns and this time, she's here to stay!

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Western Cave [B61F]

Tyrannitar is gone on B60F.

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Western Cave [B62F - B68F]

Typhlosion joins on B62F. Typhlosion is unrecruitable.

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Western Cave [B69F]

On B69F, Typhlosion is replaced with Sceptile. Sceptile, too, is unrecruitable.

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Western Cave [B70F - B78F]

Ninetales joins on the next floor, another unrecruitable.

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Western Cave [B79F]

Swampert replaces Sceptile on B79F. Just like Feraligatr, Swampert does actually have a -33.9% recruitment rate.

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Western Cave [B80F - B86F]

Machamp and Meganium join in place of Ninetales on B80F. Neither are recruitable.

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

Western Cave [B87F - B88F]

Steelix appears on B87F. Another unrecruitable.

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Western Cave [B89F - B91F]

Charizard and Blastoise begin to appear on B89F. Blastoise is also recruitable like the other final-form Water Starters.

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Western Cave [B91F - B98F]

For the remainder of the dungeon, Steelix no longer appears.

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

Due to an oversight, I sent Allia home before going onto B99F. However, your first time through, it's not actually necessary to make room in your party.

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

When we reach B99F, we hear the same ominous voice echoing through the caves that Blastoise and Charizard did. The voice of the Ultimate Pokemon.

The pokemon reveals himself, unsurprisingly, as Mewtwo! And now, it's time to take him on!

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

Team Recover

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

Blizzard (Articuno); Lv. 58

Item: Stamina Band

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Agility + Powder Snow[+6], Ice Beam, Fly

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

Nature (Venusaur); Lv. 44

Item: Scope Lens

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Leech Seed, Toxic, Sleep Powder, Bullet Seed[+2]

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

Vs. Mewtwo

Due to PP-Zero traps throughotu the dungeon, Nature's moves were de-linked, so I had to be a bit more careful about how to set up for this fight. I set Nature to the IQ skill "Exclusive Move-User" and told him to wait where he was. We'll let Mewtwo approach us.

Meanwhile, Blizzard would start to use Agility + Powder Snow to build up our speed as well as hit Mewtwo from a range. Thanks to Agility, I got several hits in before Mewtwo could even approach.

Once Mewtwo finally stepped forward, he was hit by Nature's Sleep Powder. From there, I set Nature to use Leech Seed or Toxic next while Mewtwo slept while Blizzard continued to pummel him.

Eventually, Mewtwo simply went down as simple as that. Like all bosses with Venusaur, Mewtwo was actually a total joke.

Unfortunately, you can't actually recruit Mewtwo on your first trip through the dungeon, so I had no reason to get rid of Allia before the fight. Oh well, no skin off my nose!

With that, the dungeon is over! That's the last of the standard dungeon. I've been saying this is the last of the plot threads, but that's kind of a half-truth. We do still have the matter of Wish Cave where we'll want to investigate Medicham's claims of having a wish granted. I'm just not really sure if that's so much a part of the plot thread as it is a natural follow-up to it. But, that's probably where we're going to be headed next.

January 18, 2022

After defeating Mewtwo at the end of Western Cave, his portrait will appear on your save file screen.

So, as promised, today my goal was to take on Wish Cave and get to the bottom of this mysterious wish-granting dungeon. You could argue this is truly the last plot thread remaining.

Unfortunately, I ran into a hiccup that made me realize that this task would be even more challenging than I had ever anticipated, to the point where, I'm gonna be honest... I think I'm kind of done with playing through the remaining dungeons. At least, the ones that remain in standard gameplay. I'll explain as we go on.

To start with, just like before, you'll want to deposit all of your money. This time, you'll want to make sure you have your Wish Stone in your inventory as well.

In addition, I also strongly recommend you make sure you have access to the Friend Area Mt. Moonview.

Since this is the most challenging dungeon in the game that you're allowed to bring items into, I thought I'd pack my best items with me. It turns out my inventory was poorly optimized here. I don't think it's necessary to bring any food at all, you'll find plenty of Huge Apples throughout the dungeon to not only keep your belly filled but to make it last longer, too. I also had myself equipped with a Stamina Band with the idea that I'd switch the Joy Ribbon on whenever I was about to get into a battle, but I soon switched to the Joy Ribbon alone and left the Stamina Band behind. The Exp was far too valuable and the belly wasn't nearly as much of an issue. I'd definitely say to replace them with Reviver Seeds or Max Elixirs. Looking online at guides, a lot of people seem to suggest bringing TMs like Frustration and Joy Seeds saved up from excursions. As it turns out, that's for good reason.

I've already covered the restrictions for this dungeon, so there's no reason to sum them up now. I also think it's okay to skip over the first 20 floors since we've already detailed them not too long ago.

I will say, though, make sure you keep on top of your levels. I lost a few attempts because I underestimated how important that was. Once you start dealing with Machop on B17F, you'll quickly understand how important it is to stay on top.

One useful tip for this dungeon is that this game actually does allow you to learn the same move multiple times for the extra PP or to have out outside of a Link to either Link to another move or for use unlinked. If you get doubles of TMs for useful moves, don't be shy about doubling up! Just make sure it's worth giving up that extra move slot for. (You can always overwrite it later!)

Sitrus Berries and Huge Apples are your best friend in this dungeon as well. Though the Sitrus Berries effects aren't permanent by nature of the dungeon's rules, the HP boost is still perhaps most welcomed in a dungeon where you start at Lv. 1.

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

Once you reach floor B20, the room where you found Medicham, you'll find it completely empty save for a Warp Tile that takes you to the next floor. From here on, it's uncharted territory!

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

Wish Cave [B21F - B25F]

Starting on B21F, Machop and Swinub return from the previous floors while Trapinch is introduced! Machop are still the powerhouse fo these floors as they can effortlessly one-shot Nature.

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

Wish Cave [B26F - B28F]

On B26F, you can finally say good riddance to Machop and Swinub. Spinarak and Electrike take their place. Spinarak can be recruited with Secretive Forest while Electrike can be with Thunder Meadow.

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Wish Cave [B29F - B30F]

Trapinch is gone on floor B29.

Floor B30 brings with it a design that almost looks more like a haunted mansion than a cave.

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

Wish Cave [B31F - B32F]

Gligar joins the fray on B31F. Its Sand-Attack can cause you to waste some PP so try to take it out quickly.

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Wish Cave [B33F]

Nidoran M and Electabuzz join the fray on B33F in Spinarak's absence. Nidoran M requires Wild Plains while Electibuzz requires Power Plant. Be wary of Electibuzz's range with Quick Attack!

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Wish Cave [B34F - B35F]

Electrike is gone on the following floor.

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Wish Cave [B36F - B37F]

Gligar is gone on B36 and replaced with Manectric and Tauros. Tauros can dish out a lot of pain if left unchecked, so be sure to take him out. Around this point, I'd started to develop a strategy with Nature's current build where I'd hit an enemy with Attract from a TM then plant Leech Seed and walk away. The pokemon's HP would drain while it tries fruitlessly to chase me down. It works as long as I don't get flanked by another tough foe. Even in that case, I can always turn around and take out the weakened pokemon behind me. This saves a lot of PP and gives me some free healing as well! Unfortunately, the Leech Seed doesn't last forever. Tauros can be recruited with the Safari friend zone.

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

Wish Cave [B38F]

Abra begins to appear on B38F in place of Nidoran M and Electabuzz. They're more or less harmless, so there's no need to waste any PP on them. They're fairly difficult to recruit, though! They can be recruited with Decrepit Lab.

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

Wish Cave [B39F - B40F]

Murkrow joins on B39F. It can be recruited with Flyaway Forest.

The atmosphere changes to this more cave-like appearance starting on B40F.

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Wish Cave [B41F]

Manectric is gone on B41F.

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Wish Cave [B42F]

Ariados joins the fray on B42F. Its String Shot and Scary Face can get you in some serious trouble with some of these tougher enemies so watch out!

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Wish Cave [B43F]

Dunsparce begins to appear on B43F where Abra and Murkrow cease. Dunsparce can be recruited with Echo Cave.

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Wish Cave [B44F]

On the following floor, Tauros is gone and Nincada takes his place. Nincada can be recruited with Secretive Forest.

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Wish Cave [B45F]

Dunsparce is gone on the next floor.

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Wish Cave [B46F]

On B46F, Bagon, Golbat, and Kadabra join the fray. Bagon can be recruited with Dragon Cave.

B46 is where my final attempt today left me completely dumbfounded. Keep in mind, I've been shamelessly abusing save states to help me through these late-post-game dungeons. And my choice to do so really highlights, to me anyway, just how massively unfair this game can be at times. For example, this one floor was more or less impossible for me to complete under the current conditions, so I'd have to leave with an Escape Orb and come back, completely wasting all the time and resources I'd spent getting just this far. And this is less than half-way through the dungeon!

So, what made this floor so impossible? Well, the game wasn't quite soft-locked per se, but there was one major hindrance that made it impossible for me and its name starts with K and ends with M.

Let's talk about Kadabra because... holy crap. This thing took its vitamins this morning.

All of my standard offensive moves on Kadabra could only deal 2 HP at most. I'd need to get creative with fighting these guys. Fair enough. Except...

They can deal 114 damage effortlessly with a ranged attack: Psybeam. So running away from them is hardly an option, and so my only real option seems to be to use Attract to prevent him from attacking, then Leech Seed to sap away his health while I chip away with basic attacks.

Even with this strat, though, not only does it take several uses of both Attract and Leech Seed just to defeat a single Kadabra, meaning a massive waste of PP, all he needs is a single opportunity to use Recover to undo the last four turns of damage.

Unless there's a typo in the game's source code, these guys seem intentionally OP, being Level 30 which is twice the level of anything else on the floors they appear on and is even stronger than [Spoilers] Metagross on the last few floors of the dungeon who is level 28.

So, okay, Kadabra is an F.O.E. (F**king Overpowered Enemy). That's obnoxious, but fair, I suppose. I just have to avoid them. But if only it were that simple. These guys are all over the place, they're just a regular enemy, not just some rare encounter and they're tough enough to be boss fights! What's more, they don't just appear on this floor. They're gonna be around until B50F. That's 5 floors of this nonsense.

Okay, so there's a really tough enemy on the floor and he's not rare. Okay, but I should be able to just find another way around, right? With some clever maneuvering, especially using my Warp Seed I collected, I should be able to make my way around no problem! Well, allow me to walk you through my experience.

So, at the start of the floor, I begin in a room with a single Bagon and Ariados. It's a little annoying, but I've had worse starts. I can fight them off and continue moving forward.

That's where the fun begins. A Monster House without a single fuck given. And what's that right there? Yeah, that's the stairs. I don't know if you can tell in the screenshot, but that map shows that this is literally the only path out of the starting room. Needless to say, there is no way I'm fighting through this crowd to get to that staircase. I can use my Warp Seed to try and dig a path through, but it's not long at all before I get cut off and surrounded. I can try to retreat, but there's an immediate dead end behind me. But, there's still hope.

The staircase just happens to be right next to the other entrance into the room! If I'm lucky, I can approach the monster house from the north and step onto the stairs to get by! Of course, I can't just do that normally because there's only one path out of the starting room, so...

This looks like a good time to use that Warp Seed!

Unfortunately the Warp Seed leads me straight into the Monster House where I'm surrounded and killed in seconds.

Now, if you don't know how RNG works in this game, the Warp Seed is correlated to the turn count. If you use a Warp Seed on the first turn, it'll always take you to the same tile. But, if you use it on the second turn, it'll take you to a completely different tile. So, I decided to play around with this by taking a step, then using a Warp Seed, then taking two steps, etc. until I found a good warp.

For some reason, aside from the first turn, every single warp I tried would take me to a different part of this room in the Northeast! So, fair enough, but what's wrong with this floor? Well, there's two sleeping Kadabra in here. That would be fine if one of them wasn't literally right next to the room's exit!

The natural progression of this is to use Attract and Leech Seed, then book it down the hall to the left.

This winds up leading me into a room with an Ariados that loves to slow me down, and Alakazam isn't too far behind me.

As I try to fight my way through, two more enemies appear while Kadabra is still in hot pursuit!

At some point, I actually am able to defeat the Kadabra, but...

When I finally got to the Monster House from the North... yup, sure enough, a pokemon was on the stairs. I should've known it wouldn't have been that easy.

I'd already used my Warp Orb on an earlier floor that was similarly difficult due to several Machop back to back. So yeah, no matter what I did, there was no getting out of this situation and nothing short of a Totter or Warp Orb would really help me. Even if I did manage to break through, there's still 4 more floors of Kadabra and I only have so many Max Elixirs in my pockets! At this point I'd burned through most of them and the later floors have more consistently tougher enemies!

So, at this point I think I've finally hit the wall of what I'm willing to put up with. Not to say I think this dungeon is actually impossible or anything ridiculous like that, but I think this is the point where the amount of time you're expected to put into preparation for it is a bit absurd. I definitely could do it, but the real problem is whether or not I really want to. At this point, it's not a matter of accomplishment, it's more a matter of burnout. This extreme difficulty is already compiled on top of multiple layers of elements I've already expressed my discontent for. Traps, Monster Houses, the harsh punishment for defeat... I honestly think I'm just at my limit. I'm simply not enjoying myself with this part of the game as much as I feel like I should be and I don't want this thread to become a source of stress in my life.

There's precedent for this decision as with Round 2 of Pokemon Stadium, the Orre Colosseum, and the Gold Symbols at the Battle Frontier. I'm confident I could do all of these things with a significant amount of patience, but I just don't think it's worth it for the sake of the series. There's still more to the show and I don't want to be stuck on these stupid dungeons for a whole month. There's still a bit more after these dungeons.

So, the decision I've come up with is, I'll continue to cover these dungeons the way I normally would, but rather than show you screenshots of my experience, I'll share a YouTube video of a full playthrough of the dungeon so you can see the game and winning strategies in action.

This video was courtesy of Ravage656 on YouTube! Going forward, I'll continue to detail the following floors as I would otherwise, just don't expect any further screenshots. I hope you're all okay with this decision! I might come back and actually play through these dungeons, but I'm just being real when I say I absolutely don't expect to.

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

Wish Cave [B47F - B49F]

Looking at the selection of pokemon on the following floor, I think I'm beginning to understand that this really was just supposed to be a single really difficult floor and I just happened to get super unlucky. But still, across 99 floors, that feels like it's bound to happen a lot and I don't appreciate that the entire trip can be abruptly stopped because of unfortunate placement. I mean, it's just as likely I could've spawned inside of the Monster House and gotten completely screwed over. And that happens quite frequently.

Anyway, on B47, Ariados no longer appears. Nidorina, Nidorino, Magmar, and Illumise join the fray. Illumise can be recruited with Rub-a-Dub River. You should run into Kadabra a lot less frequently since the floor is diluted with so many different pokemon at once.

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

Wish Cave [B50F]

Electrode joins on B50 in place of Nincada and Bagon.

If you somehow lost your Wish Stone, you should be able to find one on this floor.

If you already have a Wish Stone in your bag or in your storage, it'll be a Link Cable here instead.

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

Wish Cave [B51F - B52F]

On B51, we've finally gotten rid of Kadabra! I'd take anything at this point over them. Still, these replacements aren't much better. Forretress, Dugtrio, Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan all replace Golbat, Nidorina, Nidorino, and Magmar. We've got some explosions, we've got Magnitude, we've got powerful attacks from Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan's Agility. What a nightmare.

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

Wish Cave [B53F]

Numel and Ditto join in on B53 in place of Illumise. Thankfully, Numel isn't high enough level to know Magnitude, but Dugtrio can always ruin your day. Numel can be recruited with Crater while Ditto requires Decrepit Lab.

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

Wish Cave [B54F - B55F]

On the next floor, Forretress takes its leave.

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

Wish Cave [B56F]

Elecrtrode is gone on B56 and is replaced with Magcargo.

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Wish Cave [B57F]

Everything from previous floors is gone save for Ditto and Magcargo, but Torkoal has joined! This is probably the safest a floor's seemed since B45F. Torkoal can be recruited with the Crater.

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

Wish Cave [B58F]

Rhyhorn joins on B58F. He can be recruited with the Safari.

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

Wish Cave [B59F]

Next in line is Piloswine! Piloswine's Powder Snow is a room-wide attack you might need to watch out for. It's capable of Freezing!

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

Wish Cave [B60F]

Torkoal takes his leave on the next floor, but Arbok takes his place!

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

Wish Cave [B61F]

Up next is Pineco! Watch out for Self-Destruct! Pineco can be recruited with Secretive Forest.

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

Wish Cave [B62F - B63F]

Magcargo and Rhyhorn are the next to go. This time, Lairon and Metang are ready to go!

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

Wish Cave [B64F]

Piloswine leaves next.

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

Wish Cave [B65F - B69F]

The next floor brings new blood with Shelgon and Zangoose.

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

Wish Cave [B70F]

Shelgon is out on B70, leaving Zangoose all on his lonesome.

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

Wish Cave [B71F]

Koffing and Rhydon appear on B71F. Koffing can be recruited with Poison Swamp. Magcargo also returns here!

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

Wish Cave [B72F - B73F]

Zangoose is gone on B71. Graveler and Magby take its place. Graveler is always scary with its SelfDestruct and Magnitude. Magby can be recruited with the Crater.

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

Wish Cave [B74F - B75F]

Nidoqueen joins on B74F.

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

Wish Cave [B76F]

Graveler and Koffing take their leaves on B76F making room for Graveler's less-threatening older brother, Golem who lacks Magnitude or SelfDestruct.

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

Wish Cave [B77F]

Nidoking joins on B77F and Magmar returns as well! Rhydon, Magby, and Nidoqueen disappear, though.

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

Wish Cave [B78F - B79F]

Magmar is gone again on B78F.

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

Wish Cave [B80F]

On B80F, Golem and Nidoking give their places to Grimer and Camerupt. Porgyon2 can also be found here in Blue Rescue Team only! Grimer can be recruited with Poison Swamp. Watch out for Camerupt's Magnitude!

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Wish Cave [B81F - B83F]

On B81F, Magmar makes the way for Shuppet who'll be your next big menace with its ability to attack from the walls. It should always be recruitable thanks to requiring Darkness Ridge.

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Wish Cave [B84F]

Porygon2 is replaced by Hitmontop on B84F.

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

Wish Cave [B85F]

Thankfully, Shuppet doesn't overstay its welcome and takes its leave on B85F.

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Wish Cave [B86F - B88F]

Grimer and Camerupt exit while Forretress makes his return on B86 alongside the appearance of Solrock and Weezing. Solrock can be recruited with Mt. Moonview. If you're going through Wish Cave, I should hope you already have access to this Friend Area.

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Wish Cave [B89F]

Forretress leaves again on B89F.

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Wish Cave [B90F - B93F]

I hope you aren't starved for PP yet because you've got three floors of Dusclops to contend with starting from B90F! HItmontop and Solrock are also gone, so don't lean on them to dilute the waters. Scizor is also here and its Agility can mess things up.

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Wish Cave [B94F - B95F]

Dusclops is gone, thankfully, on B94F, with Flygon and Metagross taking its place.

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Wish Cave [B96F]

Scizor takes his leave next on B96.

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Wish Cave [B97F]

Claydol appears on B97F in place of Flygon.

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Wish Cave [B98F]

And, finally, on B98F, Salamence joins the party.

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

When you reach the final floor, you'll be met by a particularly groggy pokemon who has just been awoken from a long slumber. Perhaps thanks to the power of the Wish Stone? You'll have to defeat Jirachi in battle in order to complete this.

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

Vs. Jirachi

The fight in and of itself is quite simple, it's just a matter of how many resources you have remaining after your trek through the 98 floors before this point.

Once you defeat Jirachi, if you have room in your party, and if you have the friend area Mt. Moonview, you'll be able to recruit Jirachi!

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

If you do not recruit Jirachi, either because you didn't have room in your party or you simply declined its request, Jirachi will wake up from this fight and ask you to make a wish for it to grant. You can wish for a number of things! You'll choose one of many wishes from a list, only one wish can be granted, though!

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"Lots of Money."

Jirachi will fill the room with a massive amount of money.

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"Lots of Items."

Jirachi will fill the room with an assortment of random items. This is probably the least exciting reward as it seems to be limited to just the items you can already get throughout the dungeon anyway. You've probably already been holding onto the most valuable stuff you've found across those floors, what will these do for you? Well, I suppose you're the judge.

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"A Friend Area."

Jirachi will give you access to a Friend Area you don't have access to yet. If you were unfortunate enough to come all the way down here without Mt. Moonview, it might be a good idea to select this wish in hopes of getting it for free! If you already have every Friend Area in the game, Jirachi will ask you to make a different wish because you already have so many and it can't think of any more you would be pleased with.

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"More Strength."

Jirachi will fill the room with a whole bunch of stat enhancements. Be careful with this one, though! While it might seem exciting to have all of these items, heed Jirachi's warnings. Because of the dungeon's rules, your stats will be reverted after you leave the dungeon. Make sure to collect the items instead of using them or their effects will be wasted. Essentially, this means you're dumping your entire inventory of whatever you've collected up until this point in favor of stat enhancers. In addition, you'll have to choose your favorites as you won't be able to fit them all into your tool box. I recommend singling out Joy Seeds, then Ginseng, then vitamins, then Life Seeds, then Sitrus Berries in that order. But it's ultimately up to you.

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

"Something Good!"

This is one of the more interesting wishes. It's a difficult one for Jirachi to answer, but it will do one of three things in a particular order. First, it'll increase your Rescue Team Rank from Normal to Bronze, Bronze to Silver, Silver to Gold, Gold to Platinum, Platinum to Diamond, and Diamond to Lucario.

If your team is already Lucario Rank, then you'll instead wake up the next morning to your partner telling you someone was blown to your base by a gust of wind and that they've taken it as a sign to join your team. This will be any Pokemon you haven't recruited, though I don't know if there are limitations such as one-of-a-kind Legendaries and the like. You'll also gain their Friend Area for free if you don't already have it.

Finally, if you're already Lucario Rank and have every single pokemon recruited, you'll simply receive money.

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

And, well, that's that. I'm sorry it might be a bit disappointing that I didn't get around to actually finishing the dungeon myself. I'm sure it would've been very exciting to get all the way up to Jirachi, but I really don't have any sort of personal childhood investment in this game the way I did with other difficult Pokemon games like Stadium, so I honestly don't find myself caring so much about that. From the start, I was always more interested in the story aspect of the game and the postgame kind of lets that take a backseat in favor of shaking up the gameplay in ways that I'm really just not a fan of.

I will say, though, that the gimmick of resetting your level to 1 isn't an inherently bad choice. It's actually a really cool idea! It allows you to use literally any Pokemon you want, even if you've never invested any resources into raising them yourself.

If you want to play along, I suggest taking the advice of the player in that video. Crobat's SuperSonic looked incredibly helpful along with Piloswine's Powder Snow. It's definitely good to have a room-wide attack on your team, but there was a reason I wanted to go in alone with Venusaur as you'll see in one of the upcoming posts...

Anyway, next time, we'll cover one of the last two remaining dungeons that we currently have access to.

January 19, 2022

As mentioned in the last post, I've kinda reached the point where I'm over the idea of completing all the dungeons. I'm not necessarily admitting defeat, they're definitely doable, but a 99-floor dungeon already takes a solid chunk of time to take on and the chance of failure could lead to an entire session wasted. I just don't think forcing myself to complete these dungeons is a good fit for this thread.

Without further ado, today we'll be covering the second of these level reset dungeons: Joyous Tower. In order to gain access to this dungeon, all you have to do is rescue Latias from Pitfall Valley at the end of the TM Thief plot thread.

This dungeon is nearly identical to Wish Cave, but it's perhaps the most disappointing of the three level reset dungeons. The only real draw to this dungeon are the exclusive recruits on the earlier floors. This is the only place a good chunk of Starter pokemon are recruitable. It's also home to a handful of pokemon who were previously only found in Tiny Woods and where they couldn't be recruited. Any first-form pokemon we haven't met yet, with the exception of a certain Mythical Pokemon, can be found here in Joyous Tower. They don't seem to be too terribly deep, either, so feel free to bring a Friend Bow and an Escape Orb. The most difficult recruit here seems to be Chansey who appears on floor 50.

Just like Wish Cave, any entrants will be temporarily reverted to a clean slate at level 1 with their movesets, stats, IQ, etc. This effectively means you can enter with literally any pokemon you want without worrying about having to train them up. Unlike Wish Cave, you don't need Surf to access the dungeon, so you have no need to bring the HM with you. Any money you bring in will be lost, so be sure to deposit it in the bank.

If you want to make a push for the end, make sure to come prepared for another 99-floor dungeon!

The items you can find throughout the dungeon include Poke; Curve, Detect, Persim, Pierce, Power, Special, Stamina, and Zinc Bands; Diet, Heal, and Joy Ribbons; Munch Belts; No-Stick Caps; Pass, Pecha, and Warp Scarves; Insomniscopes; No-Aim Scopes; Whiff Specs; Geo Pebbles and Gravelrocks; Iron Thorns, Silver Spikes, and Sticks; Big and Huge Apples; Cheri, Oran, Pecha, Rawst, and Sitrus Berries; Allure, Blast, Blinker, Heal, Hunger, Joy, Quick, Reviver, Sleep, Totter, and Warp Seeds; Vitamins and Max Elixirs; assorted TMs and Wonder Orbs; and Link Boxes.

Just like Wish Cave, I've found a video of a complete playthrough of the dungeon! This video is courtesy of Japancommercials4U2

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

Joyous Tower [1F]

On the first floor, you can find Wurmple, Jigglypuff, Treecko, and Bulbasaur. Wurmple can be recruited with Mist-Rise Forest while Treecko requires Overgrown Forest and Bulbasaur requires Beau Plains.

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Joyous Tower [2F]

Taillow joins in on 2F. It can be recruited with Beau Plains.

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Joyous Tower [3F]

Wurmple is replaced with Pichu on 3F. Pichu can be recruited with Energetic Forest.

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Joyous Tower [4F]

Jigglypuff and Treecko are gone on 4F and replaced with Diglett who can be recruited with Boulder Cave.

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Joyous Tower [5F]

5F removes Taillow but brings in Spinda as well as Plusle or Minun in Red Rescue Team and Blue Rescue Team respectively. Spinda can be recruited with Mt. Deepgreen while Plusle and Minun require Thunder Meadow.

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Joyous Tower [6F]

Bulbasaur leaves on 6F.

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Joyous Tower [7F]

Metapod joins in place of Pichu and Diglett on the 7th floor.

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Joyous Tower [8F]

Chikorita joins on 8F in place of Spinda. It can be recruited with Beau Plains.

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Joyous Tower [9F - 10F]

Plusle and Minun disappear on the next floor along with Metapod. They're replaced by Pinsir, Psyduck, Kakuna, and Clefairy. Pinsir can be recruited with Overgrown Forest while Psyduck requires Turtleshell Pond.

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Joyous Tower [11F]

Torchic appears on 11F and Scorched Plains for recruitment.

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Joyous Tower [12F]

Eevee appears on 12F in place of Chikorita and Pinsir. It requires Evolution Forest in order to recruit. It's a little odd that you find Eevee so late in the game considering you've been collecting items that are only useful for it for so long.

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Joyous Tower [13F]

Cyndaquil appears on 13F in place of Psyduck. It requires Scorched Plains to recruit.

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Joyous Tower [14F]

Beldum joins on 14F in place of Kakuna and can be recruited with Magnetic Quarry.

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Joyous Tower [15F]

Scyther appears in Clefairy's place on 15F. It can be recruited with Overgrown Forest.

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Joyous Tower [16F]

Torchic is gone on 16F.

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Joyous Tower [17F]

Beldum disappears on the 17th floor. Linoone and Exeggutor take its place.

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Joyous Tower [18F]

Eevee and Cyndaquil stop appearong on 18F and in comes Slakoth. Slakoth can be recruited with Energetic Forest.

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Joyous Tower [19F - 20F]

Scyther is gone on 19F and is replaced by Sunflora.

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Joyous Tower [21F]

Linoone and Slakoth disappear on 21F but Trapinch, Smoochum, and Shroomish join. Trapinch requires Furnace Desert, Smoochum requires Frigid Cavern, and Shroomish requires Mushroom Forest.

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Joyous Tower [22F]

Ledyba and Clefable join on 22F as well! Ledyba can be recruited with Mist-Rise Forest.

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Joyous Tower [23F]

Exeggutor and Sunflora take their leave on the next floor to make room for Farfetch'd.

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Joyous Tower [24F]

Skitty joins on the next floor. It can be recruited with Energetic Forest.

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Joyous Tower [25F]

Trapinch is replaced with Houndour next.

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Joyous Tower [26F]

Teddiursa joins on 26F after Smoochum, Shroomish, and Ledyba leave.

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Joyous Tower [27F]

Dustox and Spinarak joins on 27F. Spinarak can be recruited with Secretive Forest.

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Joyous Tower [28F]

Weedle appears on 28F which is recruited with Mist-Rise Forest.

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Joyous Tower [29F]

Skitty is gone on 29F.

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Joyous Tower [30F]

Gardevoir and Bellossom joins party on 30F.

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Joyous Tower [31F - 32F]

Teddiursa and Dustox leave together on the next floor. Beedrill, Gligar, and Stanter arrive in their place. Gligar can be recruited with Mt. Deepgreen and Stantler with Energetic Forest.

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Joyous Tower [33F - 34F]

Spinarak is replaced on 33F with Cacnea who can be recruited with Furnace Desert.

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Joyous Tower [35F]

35F replaces Weedle with Doduo who can be recrutied with Safari.

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Joyous Tower [36F]

Manectric joins on 36F while Beedrill and Gligar leave.

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Joyous Tower [37F - 38F]

Gardevoir, Stantler, and Cacnea all leave on 36F.

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Joyous Tower [39F]

Heracross joins on 39F in the absense of Bellossom. They can be recruited with Overgrown Forest but watch out! They can make things real ugly real fast if they use Endure.

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Joyous Tower [40F]

Igglybuff can be found on 40F in place of Doduo. Igglybuff can be recruited with Sky-Blue Plains.

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Joyous Tower [41F]

Tauros and Houndoom join on 41F in the absense of Manectric. Tauros can be recrutied with Safari.

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Joyous Tower [42F]

Breloom is gone now and replaced with Bagon, Ariados, and Skiploom. Bagon can be recruited with Dragon Cave.

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Joyous Tower [43F]

Dunsparce joins on 43F in Heracoss' stead.

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Joyous Tower [44F]

Dugtrio appears on 44F. Watch out for Magnitude again!

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Joyous Tower [45F]

Tauros and Dunsparce are gone on the next floor and Nincada joins in. Nincada can be recruited with Secretive Forest.

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Joyous Tower [46F]

Magby joins on 46F where Bagon leaves. Magby can be recruited with Crater.

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Joyous Tower [47F - 49F]

Lots of pokemon are flushed away on the next floor while Tangela and Magmar join in their stead. Tangela can be recruited with Jungle.

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Joyous Tower [50F]

A whole bunch of pokemon join in on 50F! Dugtrio and Nincada are gone, but in their place are Chansey, Electrode, Wigglytuff, Azumarill, and Snover. Chansey can be recruited with Sky Blue Plains and Snover can be recruited with Frigid Cavern.

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Joyous Tower [51F]

Tangela, Magmar, and Chansey all leave on the next floor. Fearow and Victreebel join next. Victreebel's level looks a little scary, but the video I linked shows that they seem to go down pretty easily compared to those Kadabra from Wish Cave.

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Joyous Tower [52F]

Magby is gone on the next floor.

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Joyous Tower [53F - 54F]

Ditto and Swablu join on 53F. Ditto can be recruited with Decrepit Lab while Swablu can be recruited with Flyaway Forest.

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Joyous Tower [55F]

Fearow leaves on 55F and is replaced with Pidgeot.

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Joyous Tower [56F]

Mightyena and Metang appear on 56F in the place of Electrode and Victreebel.

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Joyous Tower [57F]

Wigglytuff and Azumarill are gone on 57F and replaced with Ponyta, Rapidash, and Torkoal. Ponyta can be recruited with Scorched Plains and Torkoal can be recruited with Crater.

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Joyous Tower [58F-59F]

Rhyhorn joins on 58F in place of Snorunt and Pidgeot. It can be recruited with Safari.

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Joyous Tower [60F]

On 60F, Swablu, Ponyta, Rapidash, and Torkoal take their leave to make room for Lairon, Arbok, Shelgon, and Granbul. CHansey also makes another brief appearance here before shying away again.

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Joyous Tower [61F]

Pineco joins on 61F in place of Mightyena. It can be recruited with Secretive Forest.

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Joyous Tower [62F]

Metang and Rhyhorn are replaced by Pupitar and Seviper next. Seviper can be recruited with Wild Plains.

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Joyous Tower [63F - 64F]

Lairon is gone on th enext floor and in comes Slaking!

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Joyous Tower [65F]

Ditto, Arbok, and Shelgon leave on 65F while Koffing and Glalie join. Koffing can be recruited with Poison Swamp.

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Joyous Tower [66F]

Masquerain appears on 66F.

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Joyous Tower [67F]

Pupitar leaves on 67F.

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Joyous Tower [68F - 69F]

Granbull is gone on 68F while Sandshrew, Graveler, and Rhydon appear. Sandshrew can be recruited with Furnace Desert. Watch out for Graveler's Magnitude and Explosion!

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Joyous Tower [70F]

Seviper and Slaking take their leaves on 70F while Shuppet and Camerupt join in.

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Joyous Tower [71F]

Koffing and Masquerain are the next to go.

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Joyous Tower [72F - 73F]

Magby returns again on 72F!

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Joyous Tower [74F - 75F]

Glalie, Sandshrew, Graveler, and Rhydon disappear on 74F. They're replaced by Ledian, Sandslash, and Golem.

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Joyous Tower [76F]

Shuppet is gone on 76F. You'll find Forretress and Altaria instead.

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Joyous Tower [77F]

Magby is gone again on 77F but its evolution, Magmar begins to appear! More importantly, this is the only other floor you'll find Chansey, so try and seek it out!

It probably won't mean much to you, but this is the last floor that you can find Link Boxes. If your moves get De-linked from this point onward, you're out of luck! Just try and make do!

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Joyous Tower [78F]

Chansey is gone for good on the following floor.

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Joyous Tower [79F]

Ledian is gone on 78F.

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Joyous Tower [80F - 82F]

Everything from before this point is completely flushed out on this floor. Instead, you'll find Porygon2, Grimer, Dusclops, and Lunatone. That's right, you're gonna start really hurting for PP thanks to Pressure. Grimer can be recruited with Poison Swamp while Lunatone can be recruited with Mt. Moonview. Porygon2, of course, can only be found in Blue Rescue Team.

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Joyous Tower [83F - 84F]

Scizor begins to appear on 83F.

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Joyous Tower [85F]

Porygon2 no longer appears on 85F.

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Joyous Tower [86F - 87F]

86F bring sin Tropius and Weezing in place of Grimer and Dusclops. Tropius can be recruited with Jungle.

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Joyous Tower [88F]

Blissey appears on 88F in place of Lunatone.

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Joyous Tower [89F]

Metagross can be found on 89F in place of Blissey.

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Joyous Tower [90F - 91F]

Flygon and Aerodactyl show up on 90F. That's right, things are starting to look a lot like the final floors of Sky Tower now and that includes Aerodactyl: The arch nemesis of these endurance challenges. Brace yourself! I hope you still have Max Elixirs! Aerodactyl can be recruited with Ancient Relic.

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Joyous Tower [92F]

Scizor is gone on 92F.

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Joyous Tower [93F]

Claydol and Salamence join on 93F.

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Joyous Tower [94F - 99F]

On the following floor, Flygon disappears leaving the rest around to the end of the dungeon!

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

And for clearing Joyous Tower? You get... absolutely nothing. Just a disappointing generic clear screen like the other generic dungeons. It's not at all worth the resources to get to the end of the dungeon, I strongly recommend only bothering to reach floor 50 for the chance to recruit Chansey. The rest of this dungeon is just an unnecessary slog to go through and you'll get nothing out of it besides waisted items. Even Exp and Stat gains you'll get throughout the dungeon don't mean anything.

But, that's it for this dungeon! All that remains is the final dungeon. One that's been foreshadowed since the beginning of the game thanks to PKMN News and Whiscash's rumors. The Ultimate Dungeon of the game where you can only enter alone with no items at all.

January 19, 2022

This is (probably) the last post in this series where I'll merely be sharing a video of the dungeon we tackle. This time around, we're going to be covering what is regarded as the single most challenging dungeon in the game: Purity Forest.

Way back near the beginning of the game, talking to Whiscash would get him to share a rumor with you about the ultimate dungeon where you can only enter alone, your level is reverted to 1, and you can't bring any money or items in with you. We also got a PKMN News article discussing this dungeon. And if you're looking to 100% this game, this is arguably the greatest challenge you'll face in the game, though there are a few others that rival it in other aspects.

Yes, you have to clear the dungeon with only one pokemon. It's another 99 Floor dungeon and your level is reset to 1 at the start. The main gimmick that sets this dungeon apart from Wish Cave and Joyous Tower is that you also can't bring any items. That means you'll be relying exclusively on whatever you happen to stumble across while exploring the dungeon. In that respect, it's almost like the Battle Pyramid from Pokemon Emerald. You're stuck with whatever the dungeon happens to give you and if, at any point, you fail, you have to start all over from scratch.

Thankfully, by not allowing you to enter with any items, you're not going to lose on failure. So, despite being an incredibly challenging dungeon, it's arguably the safest one to enter since there's no risk of losing any important items. Needless to say, you'll be living off the land so there's really not much you can prepare for at all.

In order to gain access to this dungeon, you'll need to have rescued Latias from Pitfall Valley and obtained the Friend Area Sky-Blue Plains.

Apparently the general consensus seems to be that Alakazam is the best pokemon to use for these dungeons. It's got really powerful stats at low levels, knows lots of helpful attacks to keep itself alive and moving, Teleport being especially helpful for getting away from danger, and he's also really easy to get, too. All you need is a Link Cable and to recruit an Abra from Solar Cave. With the Friend Bow and end-game... er... end-post-game? stats, Abra should be easy to OHKO. They come at level 16, ready to evolve into Kadabra right away, and then you can immediately evolve Kadabra with a Link Cable which you can also easily get from the same trip to Solar Cave as long as you already have one of the three HMs there. (This can even be accomplished on your first trip since you get HM Dive from Whiscash at the start of the postgame.)

So, there's my recommendation. Bring Alakazam and try your best to survive off of the items you find. Make sure to store all of your items and money before entering the dungeon!

The items are perhaps the most significant help you'll need in this dungeon. They're more important here than ever before, so keep your eyes peeled for them!

You'll find Poke; Bounce, Curve, Detect, Patsy, Persim, Pierce, Power, Racket, Special, Stamina, Twist, Weather, and Zinc Bands; Def., Dodge, Pass, Pecha, Sneak, and Warp Scarves; Diet, Gold, Heal, Joy, and Plain Ribbons; Much and Tight Belts; No-Stick Caps; Insomniscopes; Lock-on, No-Aim, and Whiff Specs; Scope Lenses; Geo-Pebbles and Gravelrocks; Iron Thorns, Silver Spikes, and Sticks; Apples and Big Apples; Grimey Food; Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, Rawst, and Sitrus Berries; Allure, Blast, Blinker, Doom, Eyedrop, Heal, Hunger, Joy, Life, Quick, Sleep, Stun, Totter, and Warp Seeds; Ginseng and Max Elixirs; assorted TMs and Wonder Orbs and Link Boxes. Strangely, Link Boxes and most Wonder Orbs can't be found on the 20th floor and I'm not entirely sure why. They can be found on every floor from 1-19 and 21-98, though. The ones that can be found on that floor are the Blowback and Escape Orbs. Rollcall Orbs can also be found starting from Floor 50 which... is incredibly ironic considering this dungeon doesn't actually allow you to recruit any pokemon. Consequently, there's no reason for me to discuss what friend areas are needed for each pokemon. Every pokemon in this dungeon, with a single exception that will be obvious when we get to it, can be found elsewhere. By process of elimination, and the setting of the dungeon, I'm sure you can guess what pokemon that special exception should be pretty obvious.

As mentioned earlier, this dungeon is a bit ironic in that, while it is the most challenging dungeon in the game, by nature of the forced level reset and the empty pockets you have to enter by, it's probably the most accessible of all the post-game dungeons. No grinding or even training necessary at all. But that unfortunately also means there' simply nothing you can do to make the experience easier for you. You've just gotta pray for good RNG! May the odds be ever in your favor!

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

This video is courtesy once again of RAVAGE656 on YouTube. Big thanks for this footage!

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

Purity Forest [1F]

The first floor brings with it Pidgey, Jigglypuff, Bellsprout, and Cleffa.

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Purity Forest [2F]

Caterpie and Wurmple join on the next floor.

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Purity Forest [3F]

Exeggcute appears on the next floor.

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Purity Forest [4F]

Poochyena replaces Pidgey, Jigglypuff, and Bellsprout on 4F.

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Purity Forest [5F]

Rattata and Nidoran F appear on the 5th floor.

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Purity Forest [6F]

Togepi replaces Exeggcute on 6F.

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Purity Forest [7F]

Poochyena is dropped on 7F in favor of Zigzagoon, Clefairy, Elekid, and Voltorb.

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Purity Forest [8F]

Aron and Spearow replace Rattata and Nidoran F on the next floor.

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Purity Forest [9F]

Hoppip and Weedle on 9F! But Zigzagoon slips away.

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Purity Forest [10F]

Clefairy and Elekid disappear on 10F while Metapod as well as Plusle or Minun in Red Rescue Team or Blue Rescue Team respectively appear.

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Purity Forest [11F]

Togepi, Voltorb, Aron, Spearow, Hoppip, and Metapod all take their leave on the following floor. They're replaced by Ralts, Marill, and Eevee.

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Purity Forest [12F]

Geodude and Baltoy join next in place of Plusle and Minun.

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Purity Forest [13F]

Weedle is gone on 13F while Meditite joins.

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Purity Forest [14F]

Beldum joins in place of Ralts on 14F.

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Purity Forest [15F]

Everything except Beldum gets flushed out on 15F and replaced by Exeggutor, Skarmory, and Natu.

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Purity Forest [16F]

Scyther joins next!

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Purity Forest [17F]

Sudowoodo and Slakoth appear on 17F in place of Beldum and Exeggutor.

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Purity Forest [18F]

Linoone and Oddish join on 18F in place of Skarmory and Natu.

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Purity Forest [19F]

Scyther is gone and replaced with Sentret and Swinub.

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Purity Forest [20F]

Sunflora on 20F in place of Sudowoodo!

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Purity Forest [21F]

Slakoth and Linoone are the next to go to make room for Castform, Ledyba, and Shroomish.

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Purity Forest [22F]

Sentret is gone next.

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Purity Forest [23F]

Farfetch'd joins on 23F in place of Swinub and Castform.

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Purity Forest [24F]

Poliwag and Trapinch on 24F!

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Purity Forest [25F]

Growlithe on 25F in place of Oddish and Sunflora.

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Purity Forest [26F]

Ledyba and Shroomish are gone and replaced with Yanma, Weepinbell, and Spinarak.

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Purity Forest [27F - 28F]

Poliwag and Gorwlithe are next to go when Teddirusa and Dustox join.

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Purity Forest [29]

Farfetch'd and Trapinch leave on 29F.

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Purity Forest [30F]

Electrike joins on 30F.

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Purity Forest [31F]

Yanma, Teddiursa, and Dustox all leave on 31F while a whole slew of pokemon join including Ampharos, Beedrill, Nidoran M, GLigar, and Stantler.

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Purity Forest [32F]

Weepinbell leaves next.

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Purity Forest [33F]

Next goes Spinarak.

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Purity Forest [34F]

Ampharos leaves, but Castform returns on 34F!

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Purity Forest [35F]

Doduo and Electabuzz join in place of Electrike on 35F.

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Purity Forest [36F]

Beedrill, Nidoran M, and Gligar are gone next in favor of Manectric, Tauros, and Gloom.

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Purity Forest [37F]

Cacnea is takes Stantler's place on 37F.

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

Purity Forest [38F]

Electabuzz is gone next.

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

Purity Forest [39F]

Castform leaves again, but Murkrow and Heracross join next.

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

Purity Forest [40F]

Doduo and Cacnea are gone on this floor. Breloom and Cacturne join.

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

Purity Forest [41F]

EManectric and Murkrow are gone now.

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

Purity Forest [42F]

Breloom is gone and replaced with Skiploom and Ariados.

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

Purity Forest [43F]

Tauros and Heracross are gone. Dunsparce is here!

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

Purity Forest [44F]

Nincada is next to join.

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

Purity Forest [45F]

Dunsparce is gone here.

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

Purity Forest [46F]

Cacturne is the next to go in favor of Golbat.

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

Purity Forest [47F]

Skiploom, Ariados, and Nincada leave next. Magmar, Bagon, Nidorina and Nidorino join in their stead.

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

Purity Forest [48F]

Gloom is gone making room for Tangela.

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

Purity Forest [49F]

Illumise joins next.

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

Purity Forest [50F]

Magmar and Bagon are replaced with Arcanine next.

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

Purity Forest [51F]

51F flushes out everyone except Illumise and Arcanine. It introduces Electrode, Forretress, Fearow, Shuckle, Hitmonlee, and Hitmonchan. Lots of changes here!

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

Purity Forest [52F]

Illumise is gone on the following floor.

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

Purity Forest [53F]

Magby joins the mix next.

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

Purity Forest [54F]

Electrode and Forretress leave to make room for Numel and the return of Castform.

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

Purity Forest [55F]

Fearow and Shuckle are dropped next.

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

Purity Forest [56F]

Arcanine and Magby take their leave next. Mightyena and Magcargo join in next.

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

Purity Forest [57F]

Rapidash and Torkoal join in place of Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, and Numel.

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

Purity Forest [58F - 59F]

Rhyhorn and Swablu join on the next floor.

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

Purity Forest [60F]

Snorunt, Piloswine, Arbok, and Ditto join on 60F in the absence of Castform, Rapidash, and Torkoal.

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

Purity Forest [61F]

Mightyena is replaced with Furret.

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

Purity Forest [62F]

Lairon and Metang join on 62F in place of Magcargo and Rhyhorn.

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

Purity Forest [63F]

Snowrunt is gone and replaced with Pineco.

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

Purity Forest [64F]

PIloswine, Furret, and Lairon are gone next.

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

Purity Forest [65F - 68F]

65F brings with it a flush of all pokemon from previous floors, introducing Pupitar, Dugtrio, Shelgon, Zangoose, and Vileplume.

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

Purity Forest [69F]

Pupitar is gone on 69F.

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

Purity Forest [70F]

Dugtrio and Shelgon leave on 70F while Masquerain, Glalie, and Slaking join. Castform also rejoins the party again.

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

Purity Forest [71F]

Koffing joins on 71F when Zangoose joins.

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

Purity Forest [72F]

Magby rejoins on 72F when Masquerain leaves.

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

Purity Forest [73F]

Rhydon replaces Glalie.

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

Purity Forest [74F - 75F]

Nidoqueen joins next!

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

Purity Forest [76F]

Golem joins next in place of Slaking and Koffing.

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

Purity Forest [77F - 78F]

Magby, Rhydon, and Nidoqueen disappear on 77F but Nidoking joins while Magmar returns!

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

Purity Forest [79F]

Only in Blue Rescue Team, Porygon2 joins on the 79th floor!

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

Purity Forest [80F]

80F brings with it a flush of all pokemon besides Magmar and Porygon 2 and introduces Grimer, Camerupt, and Parasect. Parasect's Spore is something to watch out for and can form a deadly combo with Camerupt's Magnitude. Be very careful!

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

Purity Forest [81F - 82F]

As always, Shuppet is most dangerous because of its ability to attack through the walls and drain your PP with Spite. Lure it out of the walls and take it out quickly!

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

Purity Forest [83F - 84F]

Ponyta joins on 83F.

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

Purity Forest [85F]

Porygon2 and Shuppet are gone on 85F! Good riddance to that pesky ghost!

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

Purity Forest [86F - 87F]

Everything except Parasect gets flushed out on 86F, replaced instead with Ledian, Forretress, Solrock, Venomoth, and Weezing.

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

Purity Forest [88F]

Altaria joins on 88F.

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

Purity Forest [89F]

Ledian and Forretress are gutted on 89F.

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

Purity Forest [90F - 92F]

Solrock leaves on 90F replaced by the PP-draining Dusclops as well as Scizor and the return of Castform.

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

Purity Forest [93F]

Altaria is gone on 93F.

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

Purity Forest [94F]

Duclops is finally gone on 94F only to be replaced by the even worse offender: Aerodactyl alongside Flygon.

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

Purity Forest [95F - 96F]

Tropius and Metagross join on 95F in place of Scizor.

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

Purity Forest [97F]

Flygon is replaced with Claydol on 97F. At this point, you're probably pretty drained, but there's just a little bit to go! Hang in there!

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

Purity Forest [98F]

On the final floor, you can finally say good riddance to Aerodactyl. Tropius, too. Salamence joins the fray. This is the last floor, so make a beeline for that staircase!

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

When you finally reach the 99th floor, you'll come face to face with the time-traveling mythical pokemon Celebi! Don't worry, there's not a boss fight this time like with Jirachi. Once you've reached this point, you've won! Celebi will be impressed by your dedication to reach this point and will ask to join your team for free!

On recruituing Celebi, you'll get its friend area: Healing Forest for free!

At this point, we've seen every single recruitable pokemon! But even if you've been quite diligent in recruiting everything possible, you might notice a few gaps still. I haven't gone over where some evolution items are still hidden, locking a handful of final evolutions away, but beyond that, there are some pokemon even still that you have to go a bit out of the way to recruit. Don't worry, I'll get around to all of these in a future post about some of the more difficult pokemon to recruit for anyone interested in 100% completing the game. In the mean time, though, there are actually yet still a few more bonus dungeons we've yet to unlock that I'd like to go over. So for the next few posts, I'd like to go over those!

Next time, I think it's about time we start playing around with Wonder Mail!

January 20, 2022

As mentioned before, today we're going to start covering some of the more hidden content within the game! I think this'll be a lot more enjoyable than what we've been doing through the game.

While playing through the game, you may have noticed a section on rescue requests labeled "Wonder Mail" followed by a password. As you may have guessed, this password can be jotted down and shared with other players so that they can have access to the same mission you found. So, if you found a really useful mission with a great reward a friend was looking for, you can share the wonder mail code with them! This can be really handy for getting your hands on some rare items and, most notably, the friend areas that are only available as rescue rewards: Sky Blue Plains, Mt. Moonview, Dragon Cave, and Boulder Cave.

You've probably caught on by now, but these rescue requests are completely randomly generated, the Wonder Mail code is essentially instructions to build a particular mission type. You might be thinking that this could be exploited, and you're absolutely right. If you're interested in cheating the system a bit, there's an online tool that lets you create your own custom Wonder Mail codes, even ones that you'll never randomly receive online. For example,

F?FN H4T? 4R?P
2(...)?! 64?6 K4?W

is a Wonder Mail code tied to a mission where you can rescue a Steelix from the first floor of Tiny Woods and be rewarded with a Friend Bow. I'm... pretty sure these conditions are impossible under normal gameplay, so I'd definitely consider using this tool to be a cheat unless you're really just after specific rewards like missing Friend Areas or certain other incredibly rare rewards. Do note, however, that each Wonder Mail can only be used once per save file, so make it count and don't take it for granted!

However, there are some special Wonder Mail codes that aren't available in normal gameplay but are still hiding some exclusive content buried in the game. These codes would be distributed on the official site pokemon.com which, predictably, has undergone a massive face lift since then. Unfortunately, the site was heavily reliant on Flash back then, so it doesn't seem accessible through the Wayback Machine.

These special codes are what we'll be focusing on these next few days.

In order to enter a Wonder Mail code, you first have to make sure you have room for the mail in your job list. That's where the job will go, not to your mailbox or bulletin board. Once you're sure you have room in your Job List, navigate to "Wonder Mail" on the home menu, then enter the Wonder Mail password!

This is the first of these special passwords we'll be taking a look at:

??MS CJ(...)? 44?P

MF?8 7J6R (...)M?1

After entering the code, the Wonder Mail will be added to your Job List!

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

And when we next go into the game, we'll find that very request right there in the Job List! This one is a mission on the first floor of a dungeon called Oddity Cave. That's right, there's still some more dungeons to explore!

Obtaining one of these special requests will unlock the dungeon! Without further ado, let's check it out!

Oddity Cave

The only way to gain access to this dungeon is through the special Wonder Mail code. There isn't anything too terribly remarkable in it, but I suppose it's extra content so it's worth checking out.

The items you can find here include: Poke; Def. Scarves; Power, Special, and Zinc Bands; Cheri, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries; Gravelrocks; Blast and Heal Seeds; Max Elixirs; Apples; Blue, Brown, Gold, Grey, Orange, Purple, Red, Royal, White, and Yellow Gummis; and assorted Wonder Orbs.

It's been a long time since we've seen a dungeon this simple! It does feature traps, but they seem quite few and far between.

I decieded to dive into the dungeon with Roast and Machete. They haven't gotten much screentime in a while.

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

Oddity Cave [B1F - B3F]

The first few floors feature Ditto, Weedle, Beedrill, Nidoran M, Electrike, and Cacnea. Ditto can be recruited with Decrepit Lab, Weedle with Mist-Rise Forest, Nidoran M with WIld Plains, Electrike with Thunder Meadow, and Cacnea with Furnace Desert.

Of course, let's not forget the Pikachu we were asked to rescue from the Wonder Mail! This is just treated like an ordinary rescue mission, so you won't be forced to escape the dungeon once you've rescued Pikachu.

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

Oddity Cave [B4F]

On the following floor, you'll find Electabuzz!

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

Oddity Cave [B5F]

The next floor will flush out everyone except Ditto and Electabuzz. Pidgeotto and Ampharos begin to appear here!

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

Oddity Cave [B6F]

B6F brings with it a snowy appearance.

Numel, Shuckle, and Slugma join here. Numel and Slugma can both be recruited with Crater while Shuckle requires Mt. Deepgreen

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

Oddity Cave [B7F]

Numel is gone and replaced with Torkoal on the next floor. It, too, can be recruited with Crater.

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

Oddity Cave [B8F - B9F]

Rapidash is the next to join!

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

Oddity Cave [B10F]

Shuckle now takes his leave, too.

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

Oddity Cave [B11F]

The dungeon now has a thick blanket of snow!

Everything except Ditto is flushed once again and now we find Piloswine and Nosepass. Nosepass can be recruited with Echo Cave.

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

Oddity Cave [B12F]

Piloswine is gone the following floor, leaving only Ditto and Nosepass.

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

Oddity Cave [B13F]

Nosepass is gone on B13F while MIghtyena and Lairon join.

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

Oddity Cave [B14F - B15F]

Snorunt joins on B14F. He can be recruited with Frigid Cavern.

On both B14F and B15F, the weather is snowing, so those Snover are going to have double movement!

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

And with that, the dungeon is over! Even though nothing was really going on here, it was nice to have a short, relaxing, low-stakes stroll through a dungeon again! I'm hoping the other dungeons like this one are similar in nature.

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

Of course, our rescue will be rewarded properly like any normal rescue request as well. We've got some more Wonder Mail codes to try, so let's check 'em out!

January 22, 2022

As promised, today we've got another Wonder Mail dungeon! This time, the password is:

? ? M 4 C J Y ? 4 4 ? P

C F ? 8 7 J 6 R ... M ? 1

This Wonder Mail is tied to another request from Jigglypuff to rescue Pikachu. This time, from a dungeon called Remains Island.

As always, the new dungeon is unlocked as soon as you get your hands on the rescue request, so let's get going!

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

Remains Island

This dungeon still isn't anything too terrible, but I admittedly did underestimate it a little bit. It is notably more difficult than Oddity Cave, so it's probably a good idea not to just waltz in with weaker pokemon.

The items you can find here include: Poke; Def. Scarves; Power, Special, and Zinc Bands; Cheri, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries; Max Elixirs; Gravelrocks; Blast, Heal, and Warp Seeds; Blue, Brown, Gold, Gray, Orange, Purple, Red, Royal, White and Yellow Gummis; and assorted Wonder Orbs.

I brought in Roast and Machete, though in hindsight, some of the pokemon in here were a little tougher than I initially gave them credit for. I probably should've brought Nature or Allia along with for a little babysitting, or at the very least, come better prepared with items. I'll try to do better next time!

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

Remains Island [B1F - B3F]

For the first few floors, you'll find quite a variety of Flying-type pokemon to contend with: Hoothoot, Swellow, Ninjask, Pidgeot, Farfetch'd, Ledyba, and Beautifly. Hoothoot can be recruited with Flyaway Forest while Farfetch'd requires WIld Plains. Ledyba needs Mist-Rise Forest and the others are unrecruitable due to being final forms.

Of course, let's not forget to rescue Pikachu on the first floor before we delve deeper!

On the second floor, I also found a new recruit: Somnia the Hoothoot!

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Somnia (Hoothoot); Lv. 6

Item: None

Ability: Insomnia, Keen Eye | Moves: Tackle, Growl, Foresight

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

Remains Island [B4F]

Hoothoot leaves on B3F when Butterfree joins. Butterfree might catch you by surprise from a range with Psybeam, so keep your eyes peeled!

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

Remains Island [B5F]

On the fifth floor, Raticate and Hoppip join the fray. Hoppip can be recruited with Beau Plains.

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

Remains Island [B6F]

Swellow and Ninjask are gone after B5F.

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

Remains Island [B7F - B8F]

Everything before Butterfree is flushed out on B7F in favor of Doduo, Swablu, and Wingull. Doduo can be recruited with Safari, Swablu with Flyaway Forest, and Wingull with Shallow Beach.

It was on B8F when I found myself yet another new recruit: Glee the Hoppip! Welcome to the club! Though, it's admittely a little disappointing to recruit two low-level pokemon early in the dungeon like this. I'll have to carry them a little ways.

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

New Recruit: Team Recover

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

Glee (Hoppip); Lv. 8

Item: None

Ability: Chlorophyll | Moves: Splash, Synthesis, Tail Whip

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

Remains Island [B9F]

Spearow and Yanma appear on B9F in the absence of Raticate and Hoppip. Spearow can be recruited with Ravaged Field while Yanma requires Mist-Rise Forest. Watch out for Yanma's SuperSonic! This was the floor that actually had me start to worry about my progress. Pokemon were consistently taking several hits to KO and the possibility of getting sniped by a Yanma out of nowhere is, quite frankly, terrifying.

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

Remains Island [B10F - B12F]

Butterfree is free to go after B9F and in comes Masquerain! Its Water Sport was pretty annoying against my Flamethrowers.

On B11F, the dungeon's aesthetic changes to that of an underground cave. We're getting deeper!

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

Remains Island [B13F]

Doduo and Swablu are gone next on B13F with the introduction of Scyther who can be recruited with Overgrown Forest.

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

Remains Island [B14F]

Spearow is gone on the next floor.

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

Remains Island [B15F]

Followed by Wingull and Masquerain. Skiploom begins to appear in their place.

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

Remains Island [B16F - B19F]

Spinarak and Togetic can be found on the next several floors. Spinarak can be recruited with Secretive Forest.

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

Remains Island [B20F]

On the final floor, Scyther is replaced with Dodrio.

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

And then there's the stairs! We made it to the end!

Yeah, once again, there's nothing too terribly remarkable here. Even the Pokemon you can find here are all pretty standard for the main story. But again, it's nice to have bite-sized dungeons with post-game elements. They really don't seem so bad with fewer floors.

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

Of course, when we return, we're once again thanked by Jigglypuff before she departs. Something tells me this isn't the last we'll be seeing of this pair...

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