All the Pokemens

May 30, 2022

Before we get into today's post, I want to apologize for the lack of updates these past couple days. I meant to get a post up the last day before I left for my family's weekend trip, but Bulbapedia was having server-side issues so I wasn't able to get the info I needed and by the time I made the decision to post what I already had, the internet stopped working. Of course, while I was away, Chrome (not my computer) ended up closing itself and I lost the entire post I'd written. Naturally, this session, as well as one session following, aren't quite as vivid in my memory. So some details may unfortunately be inaccurate, but I'll try to sum it up as best as I can recall.

As a further consequence, due to having written this post twice and not having all the details fresh in my mind, forgive me if this post seems a bit more curt. I'll try to be more descriptive in future updates after the Waterfall Colosseum.

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When you first start the game, there are two colosseums available to you. The Gateway Colosseum is recommended first if you don't have a DS Pokemon Game of your own to unlock the rental passes for Nate and Cindy so that you can begin swapping around pokemon on them to your liking. This will give you a better advantage in future colosseums that also allow rental passes.

Of course, like in Stadium, this game heavily encourages you to use your own pokemon from the main series titles rather than just whatever you have access to through Rentals. And because the Rental Pass teams aren't really the best, I do recommend playing this game with your own pokemon. I'm also pretty sure Rental Passes aren't permitted in every colosseum, though I could be wrong in that respect. So, in this session, I went ahead and created a Rental Pass for Pearl's team.

I chose to create a Cool Girl named Nova to tie into the theme of Space. I also spent some of the PokeCoupons won from the Gateway Colosseum on some clothes for her! An unfortunate issue with clothes shopping in this game, though, is that you can't actually see what the article looks like until after you purchase it. You just get a text description of the item which sometimes doesn't even describe its actual appearance. It's a minor frustration, but it's definitely notable considering these are cosmetics and the only way to earn more PokeCoupons is to go win an entire colosseum challenge.

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Apologies for the low quality image, at the moment I can't think of any better way to demonstrate my trainer's looks other than taking a photo with my camera. I don't have any homebrew software on my Wii U to take screenshots or anything like that.

New Star Nova's Team

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Garden (Torterra M); Lv. 54

Item: Leftovers

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Earthquake, Curse, Synthesis, Wood Hammer

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Paint (Gastrodon F); Lv. 54

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Storm Drain | Moves: Mud Ball, Ice Beam, Rain Dance, Surf

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Song (Mismagius F); Lv. 55

Item: Cheri Berry

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Confuse Ray, Psychic, Charge Beam, Shadow Ball

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Fireworks (Rapidash F); Lv. 55

Item: Shell Bell

Ability: Flash Fire | Moves: Megahorn, Solar Beam, Sunny Day, Fire Blast

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Martial (Lucario M); Lv. 55

Item: Chesto Berry

Ability: Steadfast | Moves: Aura Sphere, Swords Dance, Close Combat, Dark Pulse

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Sculpture (Weavile F); Lv. 55

Item: Scope Lens

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Ice Shard, Aerial Ace, Night Slash, Blizzard

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Main Street Colosseum

The Main Street Colosseum is very similar to the Gateway Colosseum in that it's a series of straight, run-of-the-mill battles. You'll need to defeat 6 trainers in a row before facing off against the Colosseum Leader. The main difference here is simply that the Main Street Colosseum allows you to use Custom Passes. Ironically, this makes this tournament much, much easier. Recall that in Level 30 open format, the AI's teams are limited to pokemon and movesets that are available at level 30. Pretty much every battle here was a quick sweep with Song or Sculpture with nothing much to say.

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Battle 1: Passionate Rider Zackary

Zackary's team was easily swept with Paint. I led with her because Zackary had a lot of Fire- and Flying-type pokemon.

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Battle 2: Three Brothers Aric

I led with Sculpture against Aric's team since Ice was strong against a lot of his team and I had Aerial Ace for his Lombre. He ended up using both of his pokemon that were quad weak to Ice before sending out his Machop to counter Sculpture. Thankfully, I also ran Song to swtich into when he sent one of his two Fighting-types out. Easy switch and easy punish. Sadly, this is probably the most exciting battle in the entire challenge.

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Battle 3: Tomboy Melody

Melody was easily swept using Song.

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Battle 4: Picnic Girl Elena

Elena was also swept using Song.

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Battle 5: Youthful Couple Ariel

Fireworks was used to sweep Ariel! She had a lot of Water-types, but with Sunny Day I could make quick work of them with Solar Beam. None of them put up much of a fight.

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Battle 6: Sci-Fi Maniac Todd

Todd went down with Paint, he had a lot of Steel-types that could be taken out with Mud Bomb, Ice Beam and Surf helped deal with some others as well.

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Vs. Colosseum Leader Taylor

This is our first time hearing the Colosseum Leader theme! It doesn't hesitate at all to call back to XD's boss music! Thankfully, the stakes aren't so high in these battles, we aren't fighting for the fate of the world or anything like that. But still, a battle with the Colosseum Leader means the difference between pass or fail!

Her team consists of Pachirisu, Luxio, Luvdisc, Jigglypuff, Kirlia, and Bonsly!

I chose Garden, Sculpture, and Paint to go against this team with the expectation that I'd simply be able to sweep through the entire team with Garden.

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Bonsly

To start out, I immediately began setting up Curse against Bonsly's Rock Polish. Follwing that, she went for Fake Tears to try and pressure me into switching. I didn't take the bait. Even after a Rock Polish and my Curse, Bonsly still wasn't able to outspeed me, so Earthquake tore right through Bonsly the following turn.

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Kirlia

Due to the Fake Tears earlier, I was admittedly not too confident about this matchup, but I decided to stay in and go for Earthquake anyway. It seemed Taylor was expecting me to switch because she tried to take the opportunity to set up Calm Mind! Sorry, Taylor!

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Luxio

Luxio actually managed some damage with Ice Fang, but it was unfortunately too little too late. Thanks to the Curses it barely did anything to me and Luxio wound up going down with ease.

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And with that, Taylor was defeated and the Main Street Colosseum was cleared! Upon clearing the colosseum, we received a new Battle Pass depicting the Main Street Colosseum! In addition, a new colosseum opened up: The Waterfall Colosseum! We'll be taking a look at that next time, but for now, Main Street ranked up to Rank 2, unlocking the Double Battle format. So, let's check it out!

Admittedly, even though this is just Rank 1, I was kinda taken aback by how simple these battles were, but even Stadium started with some pretty rookie-tier battles, so I'm definitely expecting the game to get significantly tougher by the end.

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Before diving back in, I went ahead and created a new Battle Pass for my team from Diamond. I made this one a Cool Boy named Century to go with the Time theme.

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Note: You are only one Battle Pass can be made out of each blank pass at a time, I just switched Nova's background to the newly unlocked Main Street Colosseum background. Going forward, I'll try to be more consistent about taking pictures of updated Battle Passes!

Middle Trainer Century's Team

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Senshi (Infernape M); Lv. 64

Item: Black Belt *

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Mach Punch, Flare Blitz, Close Combat, Taunt

*Senshi doesn't have the Life Orb simply because I didn't have it equipped when I copied data over. He should have it, but I figured it's not exactly necessary to specialize my team at the moment.

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Denki (Luxray M); Lv. 64

Item: Shell Bell

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Thunder Fang, Roar, Swagger, Crunch

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Hana (Roserade F); Lv. 64

Item: Big Root

Ability: Poison Point | Moves: Giga Drain, Toxic Spikes, Sludge Bomb, Stun Spore

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Uki (Floatzel F); Lv. 64

Item: Expert Belt

Ability: Swift Swim | Moves: Crunch, Aqua Jet, Ice Fang, Waterfall

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Kuro (Honchkrow F); Lv. 64

Item: Scope Lens

Ability: Super Luck | Moves: Fly, Night Shade, Night Slash, Haze

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Ibutsu (Bronzong); Lv. 64

Item: Leftovers

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Gyro Ball, Hypnosis, Stealth Rock, Trick Room

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Main Street Colosseum Double Format

Though being Rank 2 makes the battles a bit more challenging, they're still very easy here. I mostly just swept with Senshi and Kuro. However, I very quickly came to understand that, not only is this team a bit weaker than my Diamond team in terms of competitive viability, but it's also very poorly optimized for Doubles. I think going forward I'll be leaving Single format to Century while Nova handles Doubles.

Anyway, like the Gateway Colosseum, and I'm assuming most colosseums will be this way as well, after Rank 1, the opponents are randomly selected meaning I can't detail the battles here as well. I don't really like the idea of having my phone glued to my hand to take notes every single battle, especially if it gets to the point where I end up losing and having to start over. No thank you!

Since we're not detailing the battles, though, I wanted to take a note about what battles in this game are like. I spent a lot of time prefacing my expectations going into the game, but I never actually talked much about how the game presents itself! I've gotta say, so far, I'm absolutely loving this game's presentation. I don't think 3D Pokemon Battles have ever looked better! A lot of the older pokemon still use their N64 models and it clearly shows, but like in Gen III, some of the more prominent ones seem to have gotten new models! If I had to guess, they went ahead and created new models for all the pokemon in the regional pokedex of Sinnoh, but don't quote me on that! Beyond that, they put a lot of effort into making the attacks feel a lot more intense and realistic! If a move makes contact, the pokemon now physically runs over and gets in the target's face before attacking! It's actually a really cool detail I honestly never expected to see. Also, when a pokemon takes damage, their HP bar is displayed and the edge gets fizzled away using a different particle effect depending on the type of attack the pokemon was damaged with.

The last thing I wanted to address, and this is particularly relevant during Double-Battles, is that this game uses dynamic camera angles to showcase multiple pokemon getting hit by one attack at the same time! For example, if Garden uses Earthquake and his ally is Kuro, the game will notify that Kuro is immune to the attack and then the animation will play out showing both of the opponents getting hit by Earthquake. It only does this for two pokemon at a time, though, so if all three pokemon are hit, the animation still has to play out twice. Still, this makes Multi-hit moves a lot more satisfying to use and leads to a lot less wasted time compared to Colosseum and XD! Overall, battles in Battle Revolution are actually a lot faster-paced than they are in Diamond and Pearl!

The last thing I wanted to mention is the announcer. Just like in Stadium, the battles in Battle Revolution have an announcer commentating on the battle! He'll say various lines depending on the conditions of battle, even noting special things like the pokemon taking itself out with Recoil. There are some points where the voice clips are pretty obviously spliced together, mainly when the announcer has to say the name of a pokemon. But in general, it's a really nice way to make the battles more exciting and it's something I definitely noted felt was missing in the Gen III 3D games. The announcer in this game is none other than Rodger Parsons who was the narrator at the time! As of now, he still does the narration for the anime, his position was briefly taken by Mike Polluck during the Gen III era, but he returned with the debut of Battle Frontier and is still the narrator to this day! If you've ever watched the Pokemon anime, you're almost certainly familiar his voice!

Anyway, with all that said, let's get back to covering Century's Double Battle experience against Taylor!

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Vs. Colosseum Leader Taylor

Just like Joe, Taylor's pokemon from Round 2 and onward are selected from a pool. However, she will always have her signature Pachirisu, one additional Electric type, and one Water-type to cover for it.

I decided to select Hana, Uki, Denki, and Kuro against her team.

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Wartortle & Butterfree

Hana and Uki doubled down on Wartortle to take it out, I was worried about the possibility it might have an Ice attack. The worst I imagined Butterfree could offer was a Giga Drain. All it did was go for Silver Wind on Hana which didn't do much of anything.

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Charmeleon

Still not quite fearing that Butterfree, we again doubled down on Charmeleon. Uki's Waterfall was enough to get a fast KO, giving Hana the chance to hit Butterfree with Sludge Bomb instead, even getting a lucky Poison off! Butterfree ate her Sitrus Berry and went for Silver Wind again on Uki.

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Sandslash

I went for Waterfall on Sandslash while Hana finally turned to focus on KO-ing Butterfree with another Sludge Bomb. Sandlash didn't quite go down and was able to get a Sandstorm up just in time.

Aqua Jet the following turn was able to get past Sandslash's infamous Sand Veil, earning me the KO!

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And once more, the colosseum has been cleared!

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So that's that for the Main Street Colosseum! Not much to write home about. Next time, however, we'll be taking on the Watefall Colosseum! It's also not much in the way of difficulty, but it's our first colosseum with a unique style of battling! See you when we get there!

May 30, 2022

Waterfall Colosseum

Located off the shore of Poketopia near the back of the island, Waterfall Colosseum is a colosseum themed around waterfalls as its name suggests. It's a stone structure that seems to be carved out of or built on the side of a rocky island. There is nothing but ocean surrounding it on all sides.

This colosseum is opened after clearing Main Street Colosseum. It defaults to Single Battle format for Round 1 and battles here consist of a series of up to 5 individual 1v1 rounds with your goal being to win best 3 of 5. This ruleset is somewhat reminiscent of the Battle Arena from Emerald but lacks the three-turn time limit and judgment rule. Because the battles here are 1v1, arena traps, entry hazards, and most setups are more or less useless. Your best bet is to come out guns blazing with your strongest and fastest killers, settling everything with your fists! At the start of each match, you'll select five of your six pokemon to be used in round 1 through 5 in order. You're committed to this order and can't change it during the course of the match, so try to win fast! Due to only having one pokemon per round, you might find yourself stuck in an unfavorable matchup, so try to bring pokemon that cover their weaknesses well!

This colosseum is still on the easy side, so again, there's not much variance to cover. All of these battles ended on round 3, so all of my opponents only ended up using 3 pokemon. As per usual, there are 6 matches before the leader, leading to a maximum of 30 1v1 battles overall! But, realistically, you're probably going to be dealing with around 18 quick rounds.

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I decided to enter the first round with Century this time since his team is better equipped for Single-battles than double-battles. Unfortunately, due to the nature of this gym's gimmick, a pokemon like Ibutsu who's meant to be an emergency switch-in to make a tough opponent easier isn't going to see any use here.

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Match 1: Pikachu Fan Damon

Round 1: Senshi v Sunflora

Close Combat was more than enough to make up for the fact that Flare Blitz wasn't super-effective like I was hoping.

Round 2: Hana v Luxio

Luxio couldn't do much to Hana and just fell to a couple of Sludge Bombs.

Round 3: Uki v Sunflora

Ice Fang was enough to win here! Giga Drain wasn't gonna get it very far.

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Match 2: Bug-Catching Man Harry

Round 1: Sensi v Silcoon

Silcoon was nothing, though I would've preferred Senshi be used for a tougher battle here.

Round 2: Uki v Wormadam

Couldn't be a more unfortunate matchup than this one for poor Harry. A Waterfall was all it took to end this round.

Round 3: Kuro v Yanma

Yanma's Detect allowed it to defend against my Fly, and its Substitute was a little annoying, but I was able to whittle away at its health with Night Slash instead.

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Match 3: Leader-in-Training Desiree

Round 1: Hana v Lombre

An easy matchup with Sludge Bomb!

Round 2: Denki v Poliwhirl

Thunder Fang is all that needs to be said.

Round 3: Uki v Wormadam

Ice Fang got me out of a bit of a tight bind here!

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Match 4: Swimming Club Member Sierra

Round 1: Senshi v Sealeo

There were definitely some other matchups I would've preferred for this one, but this wasn't the worst. Close Combat was able to make quick work of Sealeo.

Round 2: Hana v Mothim

This was my first fairly awkward matchup, but there wasn't much Mothim could do to keep up with the pressure of Sludge Bomb every turn.

Round 3: Uki v Delibird

All Delibird seemed to do was spam Present, so he was easy to pick off with a couple Waterfalls.

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Match 5: Passionate Rider Ruben

Round 1: Uki v Chingling

Crunch was all I needed for this matchup.

Round 2: Senshi v Riolu

Close Combat, poor Riolu could only get a Quick Attack off.

Round 3: Kuro v Chimchar

Night Slash was a better move than the 2-turn Fly. Led to a fast KO!

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Semifinal: Youthful Couple River

Round 1: Hana v Skiploom

Skiploom couldn't hold up to Sludge Bomb, but unfortunately I splurged a bit too early with Hana, making some of the other matchups a bit more awkward.

Round 2: Denki v Lombre

It took a couple of Thunder Fangs to get through this one, especially after getting nailed with Fake Out, but Lombre went down.

Round 3: Senshi v Marill

Close Combat wins the day yet again!

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Vs. Colosseum Leader Marina

And we've arrived at Marina! The leader in charge of the Waterfall Colosseum! You might be disappointed, or relieved, to know that her Kyogre-themed outfit absolutely does not foreshadow a Kyogre on her team the way Taylor did with Pachirisu. It's actually a really cool outfit, though!

Marina seems to specialize in Water-types, with Ground-types to cover for their weakness to Electric attacks and Flying-types to cover for their Grass weakness. We'll see how well they stack up!

I decided to choose Hana, Senshi, Uki, Denki, and Kuro in that order for this battle. I've found throughout this tournament that the order doesn't really matter too much against the AI, it's not like you can play mind games with an algorithm. Just pick your best pokemon to throw in first and go for that quick win!

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Round 1: Hana v Corosla

I couldn't have asked for a better lead! Just one Giga Drain and this matchup was over!

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Round 2: Senshi v Farfetch'd

While the matchup looks unfavorable just observing the typings, this is a Farfetch'd we're talking about here. Close Combat took it out without a second thought.

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Round 3: Uki v Wormadam

This matchup seemed familiar, but it didn't end as quickly as it did before because Wormadam surprised me with a Passho Berry to survive the first Waterfall! Unfortunately, it flinched from Waterfall giving me a free win. That's gotta suck but I'm not confident there was anything Wormadam could possibly do to turn the battle around in a single turn. So, that's the game!

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Upon completing the Waterfall Colosseum, you'll gain access to a blank pass depicting the colosseum as well as two new colosseums: Neon Colosseum and Crystal Colosseum! In addition, two new Rental Passes will also be made available! We'll cover this a bit later in the post. For now, let's focus on our second challenge of the Waterfall Colosseum in the Double format!

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Waterfall Colosseum Double Format

As per usual, after clearing the colosseum at Rank 1, it ranks up and you gain access to the Double Battle format along with tougher battles!

In the Double Battle format for this colosseum, you'll choose all six pokemon in your party to determine the order they'll come out. Instead of 1v1, the battles will be 2v2, so make sure to select pairs of pokemon that will function well together! Instead of best 3 out of 5, doubles are best 2 out of 3, causing them to end much quicker since you don't have to worry about new pokemon being sent in at the end of the turn like in typical double battles.

As always, the trainers are now random, so again, it's not easy to recap everyone's pokemon choices so I won't really bother.

I entered this time with Nova's Battle Pass and began battling it out!

In general, I found my team order fluctuating very little this time around. I typically found myself pairing up Garden with Song to take advantage of Levitate + Earthquake, Paint with Sculpture because Sculpture could typically soften up one of the foes before Gastrodon washes out the whole field with Surf, and Martial with Fireworks mainly because they're the last two remaining, but both are just strong solo fighters in their own right. Fireworks also just doesn't have a whole lot of synergy with the rest of the team.

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Vs. Colosseum Leader Marina

While I typically found myself using Paint and Sculpture second, I decided to swap them with Fireworks and Martial for this matchup simply because I thought this would be a better matchup for the foes I'd be facing off against. Let's see if it pays off!

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Round 1: Garden & Song v Sealeo & Lombre

Not quite the type of matchup I was hoping for, I opened up with Earthquake and Charge Beam to try and take out Sealeo right away. I underestimated Sealeo's defences, though, and it was able to barely hang on. I should've gone for Wood Hammer instead. Thankfully, it missed with Ice Ball, though I'm pretty sure Ice Ball wouldn't have done much anyway since it starts out with really low power. Lombre went for Absorb on Song which naturally didn't accomplish much at all. The following turn, a Shadow Ball softened Lombre up enough for an Earthquake to take care of both Sealeo and Lombre at the same time! Round 1 went to me!

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Round 2: Fireworks & Martial v Masquerain & Croconaw

Both FIreworks and Martial were hit with an Intimidate right off the bat, but a Fire Blast made quick work of Masquerain while Close Combat softened Croconaw up a bit. He went for Water Gun, but a Megahorn and Close Combat the following turn was enough to finish the job.

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And there you have it! We've cleared the Waterfall Colosseum again! An easy enough challenge!

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As mentioned before, we've unlocked two rental passes for having cleared the Waterfall Colosseum, so I quickly brought the two into the Gateway Colosseum to make them official! I'm not going to detail these challenges, I just want to detail the initial formats each time. However, I will note that the rising difficulty with each rank increase is especially noticeable when you're using these... less than optimal rental teams. Unfortunately, you're required to win with these preset teams if you want to unlock the pass as your own!

Here's the teams that are available to you

Beginning Trainer Tommy's Team

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Sandslash F; Lv. 50

Item: Razor Claw

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Dig, Rock Tomb, Aerial Ace, Sandstorm

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Haunter F; Lv. 50

Item: Wide Lens

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Hypnosis, Sludge Bomb, Curse, Giga Drain

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Metang; Lv. 50

Item: Metronome

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Metal Claw, Take Down, Magnet Rise, Psychic

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Bibarel M; Lv. 50

Item: Destiny Knot

Ability: Unaware | Moves: Waterfall, Hyper Fang, Swagger, Double Team

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Rotom; Lv. 50

Item: Wise Glasses

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Charge Beam, Ominous Wind, Confuse Ray, Reflect

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Mightyena M; Lv. 50

Item: Expert Belt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Bite, Protect, Ice Fang, Fire Fang

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With this team, I mostly found myself leaning more toward Bibarel, Mightyena, and Haunter. Their type coverage is pretty great and Bibarel can soak up damage pretty well, making it a solid switch-in. I was expecting to use Metang a bit more, but anytime I found myself considering it, I'd lean more toward Mightyena for his ability to cover a variety of types. I'd occasionall use Rotom as well in the event that I need to rely on stalling a foe out for a couple turns. Confuse Ray is more consistent than Swagger and under its protection, I can also set up Reflect. Still, it's a very RNG-dependent moveset so it's not something I wanna find myself backed against the wall with.

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New Star Daisy's Team

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Beautifly M; Lv. 50

Item: Power Herb

Ability: Swarm | Moves: Gust, Silver Wind, SolarBeam, Roost

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Golbat F; Lv. 50

Item: Lum Berry

Ability: Inner Focus | Moves: Wing Attack, Zen Headbutt, Bite, U-Turn

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Bellossom M; Lv. 50

Item: Occa Berry

Ability: Chlorophyll | Moves: Energy Ball, Protect, Sunny Day, Sludge Bomb

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Sneasel M; Lv. 50

Item: Focus Sash

Ability: Inner Focus | Moves: Ice Punch, Bite, Counter, X-Scissor

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Lopunny M; Lv. 50

Item: Big Root

Ability: Cute Charm | Moves: Dizzy Punch, Defense Curl, Mirror Coat, Drain Punch

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Lumineon M; Lv. 50

Item: Damp Rock

Ability: Storm Drain | Moves: Surf, Captivate, Rain Dance, Psybeam

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There are a lot of words I could use to describe this team but "good" is not one of them. First of all, let's start with the two weakest links: Beautifly and Bellossom. Beautifly has SolarBeam without Sunny Day. To be fair, it does have a Power Herb which lets it get use out of SolarBeam early. However, it completely lacks the Special Attack or STAB to get much mileage out of that SolarBeam after that, it's got nothing. It's clearly meant to be a double-battle tag team with Bellossom. Then we get into the other issue. Bellossom is extremely slow. Even with Chlorophyll active, it's going to have a hard time outspeeding anything. Before the sun is out, it's going last almost 100% of the time. This makes it terrible for this Double-Battle setup because, by the time Bellossom's turn comes around to set up Sunny Day, it's likely already knocked out. That's not even considering the fact that Bellossom itself doesn't have Solar Beam, Synthesis, or any other way to benefit at all from Sunny Day besides Chlorophyll. It's got some decent firepower with EnergyBall and Sludge Bomb, but its speed holds it back. All of this is really just to set up multiple SolarBeam with Beautifly who can't even do all that much damage with it in the first place and is also likely to go down very quickly due to its frailty. That's not even addressing the fact that both of these pokemon share multiple weakness to Fire, Ice, and Flying, as well as numerous additional weaknesses, too. It's very rare you can safely lead with these two or get them both out safely in the middle of a battle. The biggest catch is that absolutely nothing besides these two pokemon benefit at all from Sunny Day. It's actually detrimental to Lumineon who now has to set up Rain Dance just to not have its Surf be weakened, while Sneasel can no longer Freeze with Ice Punch, meaning Sunny Day is more likely to benefit the opponent than it does you.

So, already, you're basically going through this tournament with 1/3 of your team near useless. Now, the remaining four pokemon aren't actually all that bad. The team doesn't benefit much from Lumineon's Rain, but Lumineon itself does so that at least makes it a little better than Bellossom. But now, looking at this team, let me ask you two things: 1. What do you do if the opponent has an electrode? 2. What do you do against a team full of Fighting-type pokemon?

Because both of these situations consistently came up and it was a nightmare to handle. My best bet for Electrode was to try and catch an Electric attack with Mirror Coat or perhaps hit it with Ice Punch or Bellossom's Energy Ball. Again, I stress that Bellossom isn't good at battling on its own, so you'd be running it pretty much exclusively to counter Electrode rather than its ability to set up Sunlight. Even then, it doesn't do a very good job. Electrode was just a massive pain in the ass to handle.

And then we have the Fighting-types. Good lord I wanted to die whenever I had to face off against these things. Again, Beautifly is almost useless against them even with its resistance. Sneasel and Lopunny are both weak to Fighting-types, can't do enough damage to bulky ones. Golbat is the only reliable pokemon you can switch in on a Fighting-type, but he absolutely cannot carry your entire team against three of them, he lacks the fighting power. Thankfully, there are other outs, but they require working around the AI's move choices. For example, you can utilize Sneasel's Focus Sash in conjunction with Counter to get an easy KO on an opponent, but that's a one-time use and if they use anything that won't one-shot you, the strategy falls through. Lumineon isn't bulky enough to hold up to any attacks so it'll likely just get a Psybeam or two off.

Thankfully, while doing this challenge, I came to discover that this game actually does have a Perfect Continue rule. If you get a perfect win, that is, a win without a single one of your pokemon fainting, you'll earn a continue! This is a great way to help ease some of the stress in the higher ranks.

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Now, once you have these passes unlocked, you can freely pull the great pokemon off of them and leave the more questionable ones on the wayside, and thank god for that! Some of these pokemon like that Golbat and Sneasel are pretty solid builds and it's great to have them separate from the garbage they're trapped with.

Anyway, all that bitterness out of my system, next time we'll be taking on the Neon Colosseum! See you then~

May 31, 2022

Neon Colosseum

The Neon Colosseum is our next destination! This colosseum is a balcony reaching out from a large skyscraper in the middle of a cityscape. As the name implies, the balcony is decorated with neon lights.

Unlike previous colosseums, this colosseum defaults to Double Battle format in Round 1, so come prepared for some Double Battles! It also starts at Rank 2 rather than Rank 1, but you're still limited to only Double Battles until it ranks up to Rank 3!

Neon Colosseum has a gimmick that makes it a very strange colosseum. Like other colosseums, you'll be battling 6 trainers and then the Colosseum Leader. However, before each battle, rather than looking at your opponent's team and selecting 4 pokemon from your own to battle with, you'll instead select your four pokemon from a spinning dartboard!

The big catch here is that both yours and your opponent's pokemon will be on the dartboard. Your pokemon have a blue border while your opponents' have a red border. If you time your button presses poorly, you might not end up with your own pokemon but instead your opponents'! And let me tell you right now that you almost never want your opponent's pokemon because almost all of them have absolutely miserable movesets. The toughest opponents you'll be facing are when your opponent steals your pokemon and uses them against you. If you're feeling really quirky, you might want to come up with a team of 6 low-level pokemon and focus exclusively on claiming the enemy's pokemon since they'll only scale down to Lv. 30, but that's not very fun due to the really miserable movesets some of these pokemon have. For example, one trainer has a Monferno that only knows Fire Spin and Fury Swipes as its harming moves.

You might struggle in this battle at first as you try to aim for your own pokemon but get stuck with your opponent's bad ones. The key here is that it's possible to time your darts so that you always get the pokemon you aim for. I find that, for most consistent results, I want to aim my cursor right at the portraits of the pokemon, count eight panels ahead of my target pokemon and then press A when the pokemon on that panel I counted to is about to pass. Counting the panels can be a bit tricky, but there's no time pressure on throwing your dart so take your time and start over if you find yourself getting confused.

Honestly, this gimmick is really interesting, but I wish they didn't seem to intentionally give the trainers really bad pokemon. I wish taking your opponent's pokemon was a more viable strat, but just about anything you bring in yourself, even from the rental passes, is undoubtedly going to be the best there.

If you aren't confident with your timing, I recommend bringing in a rental pass rather than a custom pass. That way, you won't have to struggle with battling against your own best pokemon as much. Practice your timing and by the time you reach the colosseum leader, you should be able to get the 4 pokemon you want consistently.

One last thing to note is that, regardless of how good at the timing you've gotten, you and your opponent take turns throwing darts, meaning they'll always have a chance to snipe up to 3 of your pokemon from you before you get the chance to select them yourself. So, there is still a layer of luck here with the AI. Be prepared to battle your own pokemon! And absolutely do not rely on your opponent's pokemon to battle your own! If you get an opponent's pokemon, you can expect them to entirely play a support role or be total deadweight. Just avoid them at all costs.

Since I wasn't so confident in my timing the first time around, I opted to bring in a rental pass. Reminder that you can swap pokemon between rental passes as much as you like! I chose some of my favorite pokemon from among the rental passes I already had.

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

Sprout Trainer Cyndy's Team

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

Sneasel M; Lv. 50

Item: Focus Sash

Ability: Inner Focus | Moves: Ice Punch, Bite, Counter, X-Scissor

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Monferno M; Lv. 50

Item: Meadow Plate

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Fire Punch, Mach Punch, Grass Knot, Sunny Day

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Bibarel M; Lv. 50

Item: Destiny Knot

Ability: Unaware | Moves: Waterfall, Hyper Fang, Swagger, Double Team

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Dragonair F; Lv. 50

Item: Sitrus Berry

Ability: Shed Skin | Moves: DragonBreath, Thunder Wave, Twister, Shock Wave

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Grotle M; Lv. 50

Item: Fist Plate

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Razor Leaf, Leech Seed, Rock Smash, Bite

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Golbat F; Lv. 50

Item: Lum Berry

Ability: Inner Focus | Moves: Wing Attack, Zen Headbutt, Bite, U-Turn

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

Throughout the majority of this challenge, as expected, my most challenging battles were when the opponent took my pokemon. I always prioritized getting my Monferno and Sneasel first as they were consistently the most deadly pokemon. However, it's also important to read the room and select the pokemon that will fare best against the other pokemon in the battle. If the opponent has a lot of Fire Types, Sneasel might not be the best choice.

Battle 1: Pikachu Fan Alyssa

Starting out, I obviously had to learn the typing, so I struggled to get my own pokemon and wound up mostly with a handful of Alyssa's. Her Bastiodon was mostly what I ended up relying on for its bulk, but it's not too great for attacking. Plusle helped me deal with my own Monferno by locking it into Grass Knot, buying me time to bring out Bastiodon and take it out with Rock Tomb. Plusle doesn't have any harming moves of its own besides the single-use Fling, however, so be wary! Snover's moveset is alright as well, but it's still a Snover and doesn't hold up well to a lot of types.

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

Battle 2: Passionate Man Joey

Since this was my first time, I hadn't realized your and your opponent's pokemon were marked with the red and blue outlines, so I genuinely thought there was no way to tell our Monferno apart! I actually wound up losing my first attempt here because I got stuck with a bunch of his Fire-types and Grotle against my own Bibarel and Golbat. You can imagine how frustrated I was when I found out the Monferno I got only had Fire Spin and Fury Swipes. The second time around, though, I got my hands on Bibarel and Golbat and this battle was easy as could be!

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Battle 3: Leader-in-Training Jessica

I was already starting to learn th etiming here! I was able to get three of the pokemon I wanted: Monferno, Sneasel, and Golbat, but unfortunately missed the Dragonair I wanted and got stuck with a Stunky that knew some alright moves with Slash and Attract, but wasn't very good in the stat department. Meanwhile, I had to fight off my own Wigglytuff, Grotle, and Dragonair. I also found out that her Butterfree's only harming move is Silver Wind because it got stuck unable to do anything after it ran out of PP!

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Battle 4: Swimming Club Member Barret

Barret's battle wound up being a total joke. While I led with Sneasel and Grotle, he got stuck with his worthless Unown, Metapod, Corsola, and Butterfree. Sometimes luck is on your side, I suppose!

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Battle 5: Passionate Rider Goldy

I accidentally wound up with Goldy's Corsola and Butterfree this time because I was trying to adapt a more consistent approach to the wheel and wound up with poor results for this battle. But, I still managed to com eout on top using our mixture of pokemon, but the battle was admittedly pretty close.

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Semifinal: Close Siblings Craig

By this point, I had the timing down pretty solid! I was able to lead with the Sneasel and Bibarel I wanted and follow up with the Dragonair and Golbat as well! Consequently, the battle was a cinch!

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

Vs. Colosseum Leader Rosie

Rosie comes to the show dressed up with a Roserade-themed outfit! It's also looking pretty cool!

By this point, I was pretty confident in my ability to choose my pokemon, which is what the game's banking on because Rosie here actually has some pretty decent pokemon of her own if you happen to get any of them. She has some fairly dangerous attacks. As you can probably tell, her team is themed around the move Sunny Day which means a lot of Solar Beam...

I wound up claiming Sneasel, Monferno, Golbat, and Dragonair

While she chose Sunflora, Beautifly, Roselia, and Skiploom!

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

Sunflora & Beautifly

I opened up with an Ice Punch on Beautifly and Fire Punch on Sunflora. Beautifly couldn't survive, but Sunflora nearly fell to a Fire Punch. Then she made the mistake of setting up Sunny Day and sealing her own fate.

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

Roselia

An Ice Punch to finish off Sunflora and a Fire Punch to wipe Roselia away completely!

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Skiploom

Do I even need to tell you what poor Skiploom's fate was? It was doomed from the start.

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

Ironically, I think this battle with Rosie was the easiest in the entire colosseum.

Upon defeating Rosie, the Neon Colosseum is cleared and you receive a new blank pass for it! The colosseum also ranks up, allowing you to battle in Single Format!

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

Neon Colosseum Single Format

The rules differ in Single Format in all the ways you'd expect. Single Battles, and each trainer selects 3 pokemon from the wheel rather than 4.

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

Since I was a bit more confident with the roulette this time, I decided to give a Custom Pass another shot! This time, I decided this would be a great chance to use a third Custom Pass I'd created a while back to represent my Gen 3 teams from before. I only had one set of six pokemon that were consistently around the same level, and that's the team I brought with me to the top of Mt. Battle in Gale of Darkness, the team I tried to take on Orre Colosseum with. I thought this was fitting since I specifically chose this time with representatives from across all of Gen III.

Advanced Trainer Echo's Team

Note: This team has not been changed since Gen III save for evolving Memory, so it's poorly optimized for Gen IV, especially in the moveset and held item department. This team is also heavily leaning toward double battle format rather than single, but I figured that was fine as well since the opponents were so easy at these low ranks.

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 78

Item: Focus Band

Ability: Synchronize | Moves: Psychic, Light Screen, Reflect, Psych Up

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

Gray (Steelix M); Lv. 78

Item: Leftovers

Ability: Rock Head | Moves: Earthquake, Double-Edge, Sandstorm, Rock Slide

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Hill (Ninjask M); Lv. 78

Item: Lax Incense

Ability: Speed Boost | Substitute, Protect, Swords Dance, Baton Pass

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Ozone (Swellow M); Lv. 78

Item: None

Ability: Guts | Moves: Aerial Ace, Steel Wing, Endeavor, Facade

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Family (Jolteon M); Lv. 78

Item: BrightPowder

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

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Memory (Dusknoir M); Lv. 78

Item: Quick Claw

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

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

As I battled my way through Single Battle format in the Neon Colosseum, I very quickly realized a critical flaw in my approach to using this team in this colosseum. I have no solid out to my Gray at all. While my initial approach was to set up Baton Pass with Hill and then switch into Gray for a clean sweep, I realized that if I didn't lead with Gray, there was a chance the opponent could select Gray at which point I'd have an incredibly awkward time countering it. This happened at one point and, thankfully, Faith's Psychic critted and was enough to take Gray out with ease, but that second battle in the challenge was scary enough to convince me to lead with Gray and let the AI have Hill if they want him. They're not really going to know how to use Hill properly, anyway.

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

Vs. Colosseum Leader Rosie

I went with Gray, Ozone, and Faith while Rosie took Family and also ran Bastiodon and Vileplume. Things were looking pretty solid, here!

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

Family (Jolteon)

As strong as Family was, there was no way it was taking an Earthquake from Gray. While he tried to fight back with Bite, Earthquake wiped the floor with him. (Sorry, bud!)

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

Bastiodon

Another easy KO. He could do nothing but just take an Earthquake at face value and drop.

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

Vileplume

Just when I thought things were looking fantastic for me, this Vileplume actually got me on the ropes! It hit Gray with a Sleep Powder. Alright, no biggy. But then I got scared when I saw it start to use Double Team! Perhaps I let my emotions get the better of me, but I immediately retreated into a pokemon I knew could potentially take Vileplume out quickly.

Admittedly, this was a mistake that definitely could've costed me the match, but due to some luck, Vileplume's Sleep Powder missed, allowing me to get an Aerial Ace off. I didn't quite KO Vileplume and was put to sleep the following turn. This could've been especially bad and it was where I realized the gravity of my mistake. If Vileplume hit me with Sludge Bomb or something, I'd probably go down. Meanwhile, it could set up as much Double Team as it wanted and my only pokemon that bypasses accuracy would be gone. There was still hope with Faith's Psych Up paired with Psychic, but I really couldn't count on something like that. Thankfully, Ozone woke up on the first turn and took Vileplume out before it could become too much of a hassle.

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

That battle was a bit too close for comfort even though I technically got a perfect win. I'm pretty confident this would've ended in a loss had I lost Ozone to that Sleep Powder.

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

One last bit of trivia I wanted to mention is that Rosie's design actually differs internationally! In Japan, she actually has a light skin tone rather than a dark one. I definitely prefer her with the darker skin, there weren't a whole lot of prominent dark-skinned characters at the time and I really think the dark skin lends itself better to the Roserade look, personally. Though that might be just because I'm used to it. White Rosie looks a bit cursed to me.

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

Anyway, with that over, we're through with Neon Colosseum and can now advance toward the Crystal Colosseum! I'll see you guys there!

June 1, 2022

Crystal Colosseum

Today we'll be taking on the Crystal Colosseum! This colosseum is set inside a large cavern in a cave underground beneath the mountainous, desert region in the back of PokeTopia. The walls of the colosseum are lined with glowing blue crystals with stalagtites and stalagmites reaching inward from the ceilings and floors and there are waterfalls pooling into an underground stream.

This cave's ruleset is pretty standard compared to that of the Neon Colosseum. Instead of battling through a series of 6 opponents, you'll be participating in a 16-player tournament similarly to the Battle Dome at the Battle Frontier. The difference here is that you don't get any hints toward the types of moves your opponent will be using. The tournament itself has only four rounds, so it's actually much faster than the others so far. The champion of the tournament get sot battle with the Colosseum Leader.

Similarly to the Neon Colosseum, this colosseum begins at rank 2 and is restricted to double battles on first entry. Due tot he tournament format, even your first round opponents are going to be a bit more random than normal. Each trainer will always have the same six pokemon, but the results of individual battles will be different each time.

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

I wound up entering the tournament with Century, admittedly forgetting that it was Nova who was better prepared for double battles. Oh well, it's not like I expect these battles to be particularly difficult.

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

Tournament Battle 1: Cool Beauty Larissa

Larissa's team was pretty easily swept with Senshi and Denki.

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

Tournament Battle 2: Muddy Boy Haden

Haden had a really unfortunate lead against Uki and Hana that very quickly led to his downfall.

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

Tournament Semifinal: Future Girl Karla

Karla was also easily dealt with using both Denki and Uki. I could basically ignore Butterfree and focus on chipping away at Wigglytuff without even having to bring Senshi out for easier KO's.

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

Tournament Final: Mature Couple Carissa

Carissa's pokemon also weren't much of an issue for Hana and Denki to handle together.

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

Vs. Colosseum Leader Voldon

Upon winning the finals of the tournament, you're granted the opportunity to have a battle with the Colosseum Leader: Voldon!

Voldon comes at you with a collection of Electric, Rock, and Steel types and then... Carnivine for coverage I suppose.

I decided to lead with Senshi and Hana to cover the majority of Voldon's types. Quite frankly, I didn't have much to out some of his pokemon, but I went with Uki instead of Denki to cover for Rotom as well as deal super-effective damage against Carnivine. Let's see how it goes!

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

Elekid & Metang

With Senshi's Flare Blitz and Hana's Sludge Bomb, we were able to KO both of Voldon's lead pokemon.

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

Machoke & Rotom

I went for Close Combat to KO Machoke, I also used Sludge Bomb on him underestimating how much damage I'd manage. I'm kinda used to Machoke being dangerously bulky. Anyway, that Sludge Bomb ended up going to Rotom who resisted it due to its ghost type. Rotom proceeded to hit Senshi with a Shock Wave that did a surprising amount of damage.

Rotom was alone now, and even though things were pretty safe here, I thought it'd be nicer to give Senshi some rest.

I switched Ibutsu in while Hana went for a Giga Drain which he survived. Ibutsu switched in on a Shock Wave, but it was now ready to go down. Giga Drain was all it took to finish it off!

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

With that, Voldon was defeated and the Crystal Colosseum was cleared! Upon doing so, we gain access to the colosseum's Blank Pass as well as gaining access to our next colosseum: The Sunny Park Colosseum! We're not moving forward just yet, of course. Because Cyrstal Colosseum also ranks up, gaining us access to the Single Battle Format!

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

Crystal Colosseum Single Format

The Single Format isn't significantly different at all form the Double Format other than its use of standard Single Battle rules. That's 3v3 instead of 4v4.

For Rank 3 onward, the trainers you battle will be shuffled around the tournament tree, so you'll be battling against different trainers each time. Of course, you'll always battle Voldon at the tournament finals.

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

I entered this time with Nova, who I've decorated with some of the Forest set of clothes which gives her a bit of a Robin-Hood look! I thought this aesthetic was pretty neat so I stuck with it! If you've been disappointed by the customization options, remember to check back at the store each time you complete a colosseum! Sometimes new sets of clothes are made available!

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

Vs. Colosseum Leader Voldon

Anyway, I battled my way through the tournament and made it up to my battle with Voldon!

I went into the battle with Garden, who I was quite frankly already covered his entire team pretty well. Song helped cover for his Machoke and then Paint could hold its own against any stragglers if necessary.

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

Electrode

Garden was met by his Electrode! Electrode opened up with Thief, but... didn't steal my Leftovers? I used Earthquake to take it out.

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

Elekid

Elekid was probably his best out to Garden. He hit me with a FIre Punch that did a decent amount of damage to me, but Earthquake took him out with ease. Sure enough, that Leftovers was not stolen as it took effect right here. I find it odd that Electrode knew Thief but apparently already had a held item... Maybe it's a berry?

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

Machoke

Machoke was up next. While I was sure Garden would be capable of handling this battle, too, I wanted to play it safe.

Expecting a Fighting attack, I switched into Song who was instead caught off guard by a Rock Tomb! He got the Speed drop on me, but it wasn't enough to get me slower. I hit him with a Psychic attack and was hit by another Rock Tomb and another stat drop! This, too, wasn't enough to buy him an extra attack, though, and I finished him off with one more Psychic!

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

And now Voldon was defeated again! Next time, we move on to the Sunny Park Colosseum! See you then!

June 2, 2022

Sunny Park Colosseum

Located on the outskirts of the city of Poketopia, Sunny Park Colosseum is a colosseum set in a grassy park under the open blue sky. There is a fountain and a giant ferris wheel and several large trees bearing treehouses for audience members to stand in. Curiously, the fountains actually depict a Dive Ball which, in Diamond and Pearl, is only obtainable through the Pokemon News Press and through transfer from Gen III titles using Pal Park. You might think this is because the ball is useless without the HM Dive, but its effect actually was altered in Gen IV so that it worked on pokemon while Swimming or Fishing instead. I suppose it wasn't included to put more emphasis on the Net Ball which renders the Dive Ball a bit redundant.

Tangent aside, the Sunny Park Colosseum is a standard series of 6 battles like the Gateway or Main Street Colosseum. There are two notable differences, though. One, just like the other recent colosseums, it starts at Rank 2 and defaults to Double Battles only. Two, after passing the six battles you get to face off against a Colosseum Master like Joe in Gateway Colosseum rather than a Colosseum Leader like usual!

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

Being a Double Battle challenge, I entered with Nova again! Let's see how this battle goes!

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

Battle 1: Pikachu Fan Tasha

I led off with Sculpture and Fireworks, so this initial matchup was a joke. I didn't even bother targeting Metapod since there's just about nothing it could do and instead focused on setting up Sunny Day while Sculpture took out Weepinbell. From there, the rest of the battle was a simple sweep, focusing on the second pokemon before finally taking out Metapod at the end.

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Battle 2: Poison Tongue Boy Curtis

I led with Song and Denki for this one. A simple Thunder Fang and Psychic took out the two foes, opening up for a fairly clean sweep. Machoke went down to a Psychic, but it took a little bit of time to get over Wigglytuff, nothing too crazy, though.

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Battle 3: Leader-In-Training Patrick

Is this the Sunny Park Colosseum? No, this is Patrick! I led with Sculpture and Fireworks for this one. Not fearing Unown, I decided to focus on setting up Sunny Day while starting a sweep on Skiploom with Sculpture's Icicle Crash. When Kricketune came out next, the game was over for Patrick. A series of Fire Blasts and Night Slashes later and he wad one-in.

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Battle 4: Swimming Club Member Logan

Between Denki and Sculpture, this battle was simple enough.

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Battle 5: Passionate Rider Hannah

This one was a bit more awkward as I led with Song and Sculpture, but we managed to push through, focusing our firepower on Graveler's slot until it was only Wigglytuff left. Then we could pile on the damage to take it out!

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

Semifinal: Mature Couple Ian

This was an unfortunate lead against me. I led with Garden and Song due to the prominence of Electric-types, but Ian lead with not one, but two Ice-types. So, I had to retreat into Martial to make quick work of Sealeo while Song focused her Charge Beam on Delibird. After a couple of turns, the two were down and I could bring Garden back out to Earthquake the rest away!

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

Vs. Colosseum Master Sashay

Sashay has the appearance of a dancer with her body adorned with purple and yellow ribbons!

Sashay's team is entirely double-battle oriented with additional focuses on weather its various aditional benefits.

I decided to enter the battle with Martial, Sculpture, Fireworks, and Song, figuring I'd want to take an offensive approach to a team composition like this.

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

Lopunny & Shuckle

I led with Ice Shard against Cherrim to KO it ASAP but I didn't quite get the KO. Minun outsped Martial and hit him with a ThunderBolt, but I returned the favor with an Aura Sphere that didn't quite get the KO either. Then Cherrim used Sunny Day after having survived the turn.

I haven't actually gone over Cherrim's gimmick yet since Gardenia never used Sunny Day against me, but Cherrim actually has a special form it takes during sunlight! Its default form is called Overcast Form where it appears as a large purple bulb. But in sunlight, it blooms into its adorable Sunshine form! Since it's only like this in battle, its PC Box sprite (which are where the images of the Battle Revolution models I've been using come from) doesn't reflect this form, but this is what it looks like in Diamond and Pearl!

Anyway, this form change is purely cosmetic and happens independently from its ability, so it'll still change forms even if you use Skill Swap or Worry Seed on it. But, it does serve as a signal to note when its Flower Gift ability does take effect. Flower Gift boosts Cherrim's Physical Attack and Special Defence along with that of its ally in a double battle, making Cherrim a deceptively interesting pokemon.

Deceptively interesting or not, Cherrim wasn't going to last very long in this battle. Another Ice Shard was all it took to get rid of it. Unfortunately Flower Gift only boosting its special defence really hurts it in the land of the physical/special split. With Cherrim out of the picture, Flower Gift no longer has effect and Martial is able to finish off Minun with another Aura Sphere.

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

Lopunny & Shuckle

Lopunny thought it would be funny to use Fake Out on Martial. A really bad choice considering Lucario can only have Inner Focus or Steadfast, but I suppose she did buy herself an extra turn, but Martial's Steadfast gave him an extra boost of speed practically guaranteeing I go first the following turn. I tried to take out Lopunny with Close Combat and went for Night Slash to chip away at Shuckle's HP. I wasn't lucky enough to crit, though, but the following turn, Martial was able to get Close Combat off and KO Lopunny.

And finally, it was just Shuckle left and Close Combat was all it took to seal the deal.

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

And with that, Sashay is defeated! Upon clearing the Sunny Park Colosseum, you're rewarded with a special Silver Badge accessory like the Bronze Badge we earned for defeating the first Colosseum Master. The colosseum ranks up to Rank 3 and we now gain access to its Blank Pass as well as two new colosseums that now default to Rank 3: Magma Colosseum and Sunset Colosseum! Beyond all of that still, we also gain two more rental passes which we'll be sure to check out soon enough. But, as always, let's go ahead and take on this colosseum in the other format!

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

Sunny Park Colosseum Single Format

There's not much else to talk about here in the Single Battle format. It's just 6 Single Battles before the battle with Sashay.

I entered the Single Battle Format with Century again! While wearing the Water T-Shirt and Water Pants, he actually gains access to a hidden title: Swim Club Member. It seems that pairing together full sets of clothes can unlock secret titles and they aren't all just unlocked through progress. I wonder what other hidden titles there are?

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

Vs. Colosseum Master Sashay

Anyway, we battled our way through 6 battles once again until we made our way to Sashay.

I haven't been taking note of the pokemon the Colosseum Leaders have been using in the second challenge mostly because I haven't thought it was all that relevant due to them being randomly selected from a pool, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to share what pokemon she had in her party to help explain my choices of entrants better. In this case, she came at me with Chansey, Girafarig, Skuntank, Toxicroak, Tangela, and Exploud.

Senshi, Uki, and Kuro were the pokemon I went with for this matchup. Skuntank gave me a few issues back in Diamond, so the same will hold true here if she goes with it, but we should be fine overall.

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

Chansey

I opened up with Senshi against her Chansey which couldn't have been a better matchup. Close Combat took it out with ease.

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

Exploud

Up next came Exploud who also went down easily to Close Combat.

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

Girafarig

Finally, she came at me with Girafarig. This is another headscratcher. I'm starting to think the AI just sends pokemon out strictly in the order they select them in. Definitely would've made sense to send Girafarig earlier to disrupt Senshi, but regardless, I needed to switch out of this matchup.

Expecting a Psychic attack, Kuro came in on a Calm Mind (I guess I'm kinda right?) and went for Night Slash to finish the battle!

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

And with that, Sashay was defeated!

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

Much like Rosie, I wanted to call attention to the fact that Sashay's design was also altered from the Japanese to English versions of the game. In Japan, Sashay has lighter skin and no shorts under her skirt... but Pokemon is for good boys and girls, so she gets shorts in the international version. They also darkened her skin I suppose to make the cast more racially diverse. I guess she also shrunk in size between regions (It's definitely not that I couldn't find a lower resolution render for the japanese design or anything).

That's almost it! We've just got one more thing to cover!

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

For clearing Sunny Park Colosseum, we gained access to two new rental passes: One for the Muscle Man Rookie Joel and the Cute Girl Freshwoman Natalie. Once again, you'll need to take these passes through Gateway Colosseum before you're permitted to swap their pokemon around with other rental passes or use them in other colosseums.

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Rookie Joel's Team

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Machoke M; Lv. 50

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: No Guard | Moves: DynamicPunch, Foresight, Seismic Toss, Ice Punch

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Sudowoodo M; Lv. 50

Item: Smooth Rock

Ability: Sturdy | Moves: Rock Slide, Stealth Rock, Sandstorm, Fire Punch

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Piloswine F; Lv. 50

Item: Icy Rock

Ability: Snow Cloak | Moves: Ice Fang, Body Slam, Hail, Earthquake

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Hypno F; Lv. 50

Item: Leftovers

Ability: Forewarn | Moves: Hypnosis, Zen Headbutt, Fire Punch, Ice Punch

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Camerupt F; Lv. 50

Item: Passho Berry

Ability: Solid Rock | Moves: Magnitude, Will-O-Wisp, Lava Plume, Yawn

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Muk F; Lv. 50

Item: BlackSludge

Ability: Sticky Hold | Moves: Sludge, Shadow Punch, Brick Break, Curse

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There are a lot of really useful movesets on this team, but it's another case of really unfortunate team composition. Almost this entire team is built on Physical attackers and there is very little type coverage among them. There is next to nothing this team can do against a Solrock or Lunatone except spam Ice Punch. (Muk is likely to just get KO'd with a Psychic attack before it can even attack) The team is severely lacking in speed. It tries to make up for it with bulk but it lacks any sort of healing moves to make that particularly viable. I often found that if the opponent so much as got a lucky crit, I'd be backed so bad into a corner that I'd just have to pray for Machoke's Quick Claw to take effect. As you can imagine, things were getting especially stressful, especially as I battled Joe in round 5. I was consistently missing his Stantler with Hypnosis and was consistently getting hit by his. I ran through all of my continues just trying to put his Stantler to sleep only to get tripped up by his Chesto Berry. Thankfully, I did eventually get through without having to repeat the whole challenge, but that left a really bitter taste in my mouth that honestly cuased me to play really sloppy with the next pass as I was admittedly in a rather foul mood at that point.

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

Freshwoman Natalie's team

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Seadra M; Lv. 50

Item: Scope Lens

Ability: Sniper | Moves: BubbleBeam, Flash Cannon, Focus Energy, Aurora Beam

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Togetic M; Lv. 50

Item: BrightPowder

Ability: Serene Grace | Moves: Follow Me, Flamethrower, AncientPower, Silver Wind

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Pikachu M; Lv. 50

Item: Light Ball

Ability: Static | Moves: Discharge, Brick Break, Protect, Fake Out

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Dugtrio M; Lv. 50

Item: King's Rock

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Magnitude, Shadow Claw, Slash, Double Team

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Vespiquen F; Lv. 50

Item: Charti Berry

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Confuse Ray, Heal Order, Attack Order, Aerial Ace

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

Cherrim F; Lv. 50

Item: Heat Rock

Ability: Flower Gift | Moves: SolarBeam, Helping Hand, Sunny Day, Worry Seed

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

This team actually felt a lot more cohesive than Joel's, unfortunately me being a little cross-eyed with frustration at this point left me incompetent at handling it. It's very clearly a double-battle team with pairs like Cherrim defending against Pikachu's Discharge and Dugtrio's Magnitude while being able to power them up with Helping Hand, while also buffing their special defense with Flower Gift. Pikachu and Togetic can cover for switches using Fake-Out or Follow Me and Follow Me is in generally a really strong attack for Double Battles in general as it can be a major disrupt for a lot of strategies. Pikachu can pair well with Cherrim and Dugtrio while Dugtrio pairs well with Cherrim and the two Flying-types that are immune to Magnitude. Pikachu's Protect can also allow Dugtrio to use Magnitude while he's out, too. Though with how often I found myself getting Magnitude 4, I really wish I could just run Earthquake here instead.

Due to being tilted, I ended up losing a few challenges at the Gateway Colosseum which led me to the discovery that colosseums can actually rank down if you lose at them a couple times. A lower rank means easier battles which, thankfully, makes it easier to unlock these rental passes! But it also means fewer Poke Coupons will be rewarded upon clearing the colosseum. However, once you have all of the Rental Passes, creating a decent team out of the pokemon available to you feels a lot easier!

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

Well, anyway, that's it for today's update! Next time we'll be exploring the Magma Colosseum!

June 7, 2022

Sorry about the long wait for this update! I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but Bulbapedia has been going through some technical difficulties that made it difficult to write my posts. Pages frequently wouldn't load and, even when they did, images would likely break even on the site itself. As Bulbapedia is one of my major sources for environmental and character images for this game, I wanted to hold off on updating until it was back up and running again. I didn't want to compromise the thread by using images from Serebii which showed less detail. This was more of a personal preference decision rather than a serious one, but long story short, I just didn't want to have to go back and fix a whole bunch of images due to a setback when I wasn't sure how long that setback was going to take.

With no official word from Bulbapedia, I can't make any promises that updates will resume at a consistent pace, but since the site is working just fine right now, I'd like to go ahead and get the next update out!

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

Magma Colosseum

This Colosseum begins at Rank 3. We're starting to step up in difficulty! At this point, my attacks aren't consistently OHKO's anymore, so the AI actually gets a bit more of a chance to fight back! Set inside the crater of an active volcano on an island just off the coast of PokeTopia (Don't ask me why anyone thought this was a reasonable location!) this colosseum hosts battles on a platform hovering over a large pool of lava with metal domes lining the inner walls of the volcano, perhaps designed to regulate the lava pressure and prevent eruptions?

The rules in this colosseum are that of a round robin-style tournament rather than the typical knock-out style. Just winning all of your battles isn't necessarily enough to come out on top. Instead, you'll earn 1, 2, or 3 points based on how many of your pokemon were knocked out during the battle. Theoretically, you could win every battle with your last pokemon and still not come out on top. Likewise, you could potentially still win even if you lose a battle!

You'll go through the tournament battling all other trainers in the tournament. At the end of the five rounds, the finals cores will be compared and the player in first place will have the opportunity to battle the Colosseum Leader! I'm not actually sure what happens if more than one trainer is tied for first place. I'd assume they'd probably let you challenge the leader anyway, but don't quote me on that one.

Magma Colosseum starts out only available in the Single Battle format, so of course I'm leading with Century who now gets a really smooth-looking makeover thanks to the rider outfit that's available in the store now!

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

Battle 1: Hiking Club Member Laurence

Uki and Hana were able to make it cleanly through this guy for 3 points!

Total: 3 Points

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

Battle 2: Twin Sisters Christa

I've noticed the AI seems to have a really odd habit of sending out pokemon that are weak to my lead first. Maybe they're set to only send the pokemon out in the order they're selected at these lower ranks? I'm not really sure, but it makes it really easy in situations like this where Christa sends out two pokemon that are quad-weak to Uki's Ice Beam before sending out her Venomoth to put up a decent fight. Of course, it was too little too late and Senshi could finish it off for another 3 points!

Total: 6 points

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

Battle 3: Lone Wolf Robert

That Pelipper was a tad annoying to deal with, but overall, Song was able to wipe the floor with Robert.

Total: 9 points

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

Battle 4: Passionate Rider Norman

This one was an easy sweep with Uki, though it was a bit closer than I would've liked thanks to the use of Smokescreen, but switching out never felt particularly necessary.

Total: 12 points

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

Battle 5: Twin Sisters Christine

This one I led with Hana who was able to pick off Grovyle with Sludge Bomb, but switched into Uki to deal with that Masquerain. Uki could then push through Sandslash easily enough.

Total: 15 points (Perfect!)

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

After finishing that fifth battle, our points were tallied up, my perfect run leaving me with the distinctive lead, meaning I was the winner of the tournament and the one with the right to challenge the Colosseum Leader!

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

Vs. Colosseum Leader Terrell

Terrell seems to specialize in Fire and Ground-types, with the other two Sinnoh starters splashed in for type coverage. (Grotle kinda counts as a Ground-type since he evolves into one... it gets a pass from me!)

Terrel's actually got some decent type coverage, so this was the first time that I felt like I was spread a bit too thin. Thankfully, Senshi is adapt enough to handle just about any opponent regardless of typing as long as he can outspeed it. But Uki would be useful against the majority of Terrel's team, so I led with him.

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

Sandlash

His Sanslash opened up big with its Quick Claw triggering letting it get an Earthquake off on Uki before I hit it with Waterfall. It held on, so I followed up with an Aqua Jet to seal the deal.

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

Charmeleon

Charmeleon came out, but it was a very brief appearance since he went down quick to a Waterfall crit. I'm pretty confident that the crit didn't matter and I would've gotten a one-shot anyway, but I can't say for sure due to the crit.

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

Quilava

And Quilava was in the same boat. An Aqua Jet finished Quilava off with ease. So, this battle, too, was an easy sweep!

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

With that, Terrell was defeated and we'd completed the Magma Colosseum. Upon this accomplishment, the colosseum ranks up and we gain the colosseum's blank pass. Now the double battle format is available, so you know the drill!

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

Magma Colosseum Double Format

Nova rejoined the battle for this double battle challenge! We battle our way to the end. In Double Battle format, of course you have the chance of earning up to 4 points each battle since you're using 4 pokemon, but it's a lot harder to keep them alive since the opponent can gang up on yours. Like I said, pokemon are starting to get a bit more durable and are capable of taking a hit or two, so try to play really aggressive or really patient. Due to having 4 pokemon, the maximum score is now 20 instead of 15.

I lost a couple of pokemon during one of the battles here, but still came out on top in the end with a nearly perfect score that nobody else came close to!

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

Vs. Colosseum Leader Terrell

Terrell's team this time around was a little bit scarier for Nova's team. The presence of two Dragon would make things a bit more complicated than I'd initially expected.

When choosing my pokemon, I made the mistake of leading with Garden and Song rather than either of my Ice types expecting to use Earthquake to take out some Fire-types right away.

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

Dragonair & Flygon

I quickly realized why this was a problem when my opponents were both of his Dragon-types, one of which knew Levitate. I tried to make the best of this by going for Confuse Ray to slow Flygon's attacks while Garden went for Earthquake to see how much he could manage against Dragonair. It wasn't much and this actually had me a bit worried, especially when Flygon's Confusion was healed by a Lum Berry. Song was hit by both a Dragon Claw and a Dragon Rage, but managed to hold on. Another Confuse Ray was able to land on Flygon, but it was able to get a Fire Blast off for some major damage on Garden while Dragonair finished Song off with another Dragon Rage. This was a really bad start so far.

I brought Paint out next and went for Ice Beam to KO Flygon. Dragon Claw and Dragon Rage were enough to KO Garden, but I was able to at least get rid of that obnoxious Flygon!

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

Flygon

Sculpture came along next and focused her efforts on taking out Flygon with an Ice Shard. Flareon's Quick Claw triggered, letting it get a Bite on Sculpture, that definitely could've been worse, before Sculpture picked it off with a Mud Bomb.

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

Camerupt

The only foe we had to deal with now was Camerupt who went down easily enough to an unnecessary Ice Shard coupled with a Surf.

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

And there you have the Magma Colosseum! All in all, I'm not too much of a fan of this colosseum. While it tries to stand out from the various standard battle tournament colosseums, the battles themselves aren't affected much at all considering all colosseums already reward you for getting perfect victories so I end up playing the battles here the same way I do all the others anyway. The only difference is this one punishes you for not getting perfect victories by making it easier for the other trainers to surpass you, but I can't imagine it feeling good to struggle at this colosseum but win every match and still lose at the end because you didn't win with enough points. Especially if you fall into that valley where it's impossible to recover.

This colosseum isn't hard to get through by any means, but it's not one I imagine myself wanting to come back to with a higher tier of difficulty, it kind of just sounds like it would be stressful.

Speaking of stressful, though, you guys know how I've felt so far about using this game's pre-made rental pokemon, right? Well, get used to those complaints because next time we're taking on the Sunset Colosseum which is absolutely full of 'em! See you then...

June 11, 2022

Once again, I have to apologize for the wait between updates. This one wasn't due to technical difficulties with image sources or anything, but rather due to the fact that I recently came down with a positive covid test! Always a fun time. I'm doing alright, I've never been worried about getting the virus myself. Obviously, it sucks to have it, but in my case it's not that much worse than a typical flu. I should be over it soon, but it has left me with really low energy these past couple days, so I haven't really had the motivation to write any of these posts.

Ramblings aside, let's get back to business with our next colosseum!

Sunset Colosseum

Located off the coast of the back of Poketopia, surrounded by ancient ruins, this peninsula of a colosseum seems to be open only during sunset hours! The ruins surrounding it bear a resemblance to Stonehenge and, being perfectly lined up with the sunset, it's likely this colosseum doubles as an astral calendar.

This is probably my favorite colosseum in terms of aesthetic, but that's a bit unfortunate because it's by far my least favorite in terms of its gimmick. The colosseum starts out at Rank 3 just like Magma Colosseum, but is only open to double format as opposed to Magma Colosseum's single format. This is the shortest colosseum challenge in the game with only three battles before your battle with the Colosseum Leader, but you'll quickly find out why.

Sunset Colosseum hosts a battle type called the "Select Battle," in which the pokemon on your battle pass, rental or not, is completely ignored. If you recall the Challenge Cup from Pokemon Stadium 2, this is a similar challenge but instead of only giving you a randomly generated team of 6 rental pokemon, you and your opponent will both choose from the same pool of 12 pokemon that are randomly generated before every battle.

I've already shared my gripes about how bad some of this game's rental movesets can be so you can probably imagine a big part of why I already hate this concept from this alone, but the selection of pokemon seems to have very little, if any, thought put into it at all. Often this will lead to really boring mirror matches where you're just chipping away at each other's HP with weak attacks and a single crit or secondary effect could completely sway the battle. And again I must stress how bad these rental movsets can be. The worst one off the top of my head was this Victreebel that knew Swords Dance but its only harming move was Acid, an incredibly weak special attack. It didn't have Baton Pass or anything to actually use that Attack for. The only purpose is to work in conjunction with Psych Up or something as a Double Battle strat but there wasn't a single other pokemon in the selection that had that move. This sort of thing has me absolutely convinced some of these movesets are designed intentionally to be bad choices. But on the flipside, sometimes there are pokemon that are just so powerful due to the lack of opposition within the teams that you'll just win for choosing it. I recall one battle where there was a Pelipper that knew Roost, Wing Attack, and Water Pulse. Pretty standard moves, but the problem was that there was nothing else among the 12 pokemon that could out it. No Electric or Rock attacks, no pokemon that rivaled Pelipper's bulk or could do nearly enough damage to get over roost. Even its offensive moves were the strongest on the board by far. It was just completely unfair. I ended up winning the battle just because I selected it and the opponent didn't, but that doesn't make the win very satisfying in my eyes.

Beyond those complaints, because you and your opponent are choosing from the same selection of 12 pokemon, mirror matches are very common and they're mostly just settled by coin flips on speed ties or other RNG factors like status ailments, secondary effects, abilities, crits, damage range, etc. This is especially probable in higher difficulties since your and your opponent's idea of the best pokemon are going to be relatively similar. It isn't uncommon at all for 3 out of your 4 pokemon selections to be completely identical.

All 12 pokemon you select from will be changed each battle, so no, I did not note every single summary of every pokemon in each round. I find just checking all the summaries in this colosseum tedious enough. Consequently, this is probably going to seem like one of the least detailed posts as I don't have the usual sources to pull the opponent's teams from.

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

By nature of not having access to your own pokemon, your choice of battle pass is pretty arbitrary save for the trainer themselves. I decided to lead with Century first. I battled my way through Pikachu Fan Stewart, Girl in Love Grace, and Swimming Club Member Tamara, I did end up losing a couple times due to bad RNG but thankfully there's not too much time lost. Before we get into our fourth battle with Colosseum Leader Dusty, I think it's appropriate first to cover the selection of pokemon we both chose from.

Among the 12 pokemon we had to choose from, we had Mothim, Gorvyle, Combusken, Gabite, Wormadam, Luxio, Nidorino, Riolu, Vigoroth, Yanma, Lombre, and Chimchar.

In case it's not obvious, the fact that I'd have to do this for every single trainer in this colosseum, multiple times in the event that I end up losing, is why I didn't even bother taking notes on most of these battles. And I'm certainly not going to be writing out the summaries for every single pokemon I can choose from like I do for the rental passes. Instead, I'll just be writing out the summaries for the pokemon I selected.

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

Combusken F

Item: Passho Berry

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Crush Claw, Bulk Up, Aerial Ace, Brick Break

This was the pokemon that seemed to have the most offensive presence and best type coverage. Though it doesn't get any fire attacks, it does have a solid STAB Fighting attack, and Aerial Ace isn't something to shake a stick at. It's strong against a lot of things in this selection and is arguably better than a fire attack would be.

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

Luxio M

Item: Shuca Berry

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Spark, Ice Fang, Crunch, Fire Fang

Throw a lot of colors onto a bunch of offensive moves and it fires neurons for me! Even though in hindsight Fire Fang doesn't really do much in this selection that Ice Fang doesn't, I just like having a lot of different type options! Ice Fang in particularly would be useful in dealing with Gabite assuming I can survive its Dig attack. Gabite is one of the few pokemon that might give Combusken some trouble.

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

Nidorino M

Item: Sitrus Berry

Ability: Poison Point | Moves: Helping Hand, Fury Attack, Leer, Substitute

This guy doesn't seem all that good on the surface, and really, he isn't. It might seem like a really odd-ball choice, but I chose it mainly to play support to my Combusken and Luxio. Using Helping Hand, I might be able to get a more OHKO's for a quick win without having to worry about my pokemon taking too much damage! This pokemon ultimately proves itself very worthwhile but not at all in the way I expected it to.

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

Vigoroth F

Item: Chople Berry

Ability: Vital Spirit | Moves: Body Slam, Uproar, Brick Break, Protect

Vigoroth is a powerful force to be reckoned with. It's got a strong offensive and Defensive Presence thanks to Protect, its Chople Berry covers its only weakness. It's definitely the pokemon to be most afraid of on this list.

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

Vs. Colosseum Leader Dusty

At the fourth battle in the colosseum, we battle with Dusty, a cool boy wearing a Lucario outfit that, as a kid, I used to think looked really cool but, while I like most of the patterns as an adult, the ears are just a bit much.

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

Combusken & Gabite

This seemed like a pretty solid lead to open up! Gabite opened up with Dig causing Luxio's Ice Fang to miss, leaving the rest of the turn to a mirror match between our Combusken. His went for a Crush Claw for some reason while mine went for the super-effective Aerial Ace. The following turn, Dig landed on my Combusken before Luxio was able to KO Gabite with its Ice Fang. His Combusken went for Bulk Up which helped it to survive another Aerial Ace. My Combusken wasn't doing too great after taking a super-effective Dig and a Crush Claw, but I was going in.

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

Grovyle

Grovyle took Gabite's place and quickly started to make some damage. I tried to hit it with an Ice Fang but was interrupted with a Leaf Blade that nearly KO'd Luxio! Beyond that, my Ice Fang missed! With Aerial Ace, I was at least able to take out Combusken, but Grovyle was now the larger threat.

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

Vigoroth

Virgoroth came next. I was even more worried about this one, quite frankly. But this pair didn't hestitate to throw out the intimidation factor by KOing Luxio with Leaf Blade and Combusken with Body Slam in the same turn to even the odds!

Things were looking a bit worrisome now that I was down to just Nidorino and Vigoroth. I figured Dusty might not be so worried about my Nidorino just yet, so anticipating all of his attacks on Vigoroth, I went for Protect and started chipping away at Grovyle's HP with Nidorino's Fury Attack. Definitely not my preferred move, but I'll take free damage where I can! Indeed, Vigoroth's Protect soaked up a Brick Break and Leaf Blade covering well for Nidorino's attack. But I was gonna need more than this breakthrough to turn this around.

The following turn, Grovyle hit Nidorino with a critcal Leaf Blade, causing Nidorino to use a Berry. Vigoroth went for Body Slam powered up by Nidorino's Helping Hand to seal the deal against Grovyle. Dusty's Vigoroth used Body Slam to finish off Nidorino and this is where the VIP moment came in! Just as he was going down, Nidorino's Poison Point was triggered, poisoning Dusty's Vigoroth.

Things were reduced to a 1v1 between our Vigoroth. Under normal conditions, this would be nothing more than allowing RNG to decide the victor. Admittedly, the poison is still due to RNG but it's something that was theoretically avoidable on his end, causing it to feel better than a fluke crit or coin flip on a speed tie. Thanks to this poison, all I needed to do to win this matchup was stall for as long as I could, and Vigorth had the perfect move to do that! With Protect, he wouldn't be able to hit me every other turn. In between Protects, I'd hit him with Brick Breaks to chip away at his health, the first one being softened up by the Chople Berry. While he'd be dealing as much damage to me as I'm doing to him, the poison would build up every turn, including the turns I use Protect, causing him to inevitably succumb to the accumulated damage, winning me the battle!

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

And so, Dusty has been defeated and the Sunset Colosseum has been cleared! Upon clearing this colosseum, we're rewarded with Coupons and the Sunset Colosseum Blank Pass. The colosseum is ranked up, single format is made available. Furthermore, after clearing both the Sunset and Magma Colosseums, the next colosseum opens up: Courtyard Colosseum! This is the penultimate colosseum, so we're nearing the end of the main playthrough! But, of course, let's now move on to our Single Battle experience!

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

Sunset Colosseum Single Format

Naturally, the only difference with the Single Format in the Sunset Colosseum is that you'll be selecting three rather than four of the 12 pokemon in each battle. This might sound like you're less likely to deal with mirror matches since you're both selecting fewer pokemon, but of course, you're really just more likely to select the three best pokemon, especially considering each one has to be better capable of holding its own since it doesn't have a teammate to make up for its lack of offensive power. It also means that the overpowered mons are that much more impossible to combat without simply mirroring.

For the single format, I went with Nova. Again, this doesn't mean anything other than aesthetic. These are just the two avatars I've invested the most coupons into. I battled my way to our next battle with Dusty!

The selection of pokemon against Dusty this time was a little bit scary to behold. There was a solid focus on Fighting-types which unfortunately rendered Steelix and Probopass less than useful.

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

Poliwrath F

Item: Zoom Lens

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Submission, Hypnosis, Brick Break, Fling

I thought Poliwrath would make a decent lead due to the Zoom Lens + Hypnosis Combo making it easy to switch into anything else if necessary. Brick Break is really nice as well. Submission and Fling, not so much. I don't see any reason I'd want to fling my Zoom Lens and Submission deals recoil damage which isn't something I want for my main damage sponge.

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Golbat F

Item: Sitrus Berry

Ability: Inner Focus | Moves: Confuse Ray, Bite, Wing Attack, Supersonic

Golbat was a good tactical pokemon. Her Poison/Flying typing makes her a great switch-in on the fighting-type attacks I'd expect to run into a lot here. Confuse Ray can help prevent opponents from hitting me if necessary. SuperSonic is completely redundant next to Confuse Ray, but Bite and Wing Attack are alright for damage and type coverage!

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Lucario M

Item: BrightPowder

Ability: Steadfast | Moves: Aura Sphere, Water Pulse, Detect, Rock Slide

Lucario, likely by design, was just an obvious counter to just about everything on this board. Much like that Pelipper I complained about earlier, this was the "Choose me or lose" pokemon. But, it seemed so valuable I didn't want to lead with it.

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

Vs. Colosseum Leader Dusty

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

Poliwrath

It seemed he had the same idea as me and led with the safest option! However, he had a different approach to this matchup than what I had in mind. I opened up with a Hypnosis which ended up missing. He went for Submission which didn't do too terribly much. The following turn, the speed tie was in his favor and he hit me with another Submission before I nailed him with Hypnosis and switched the following turn.

To minimize the risk of being put to sleep after he wakes up, I went for Confuse Ray to potentially stop Poliwrath from attacking the turn he wakes up. Then, I went for Wing Attack. Poliwrath didn't actually wake up and it took two Wing Attacks for the KO, so it seems the Confuse Ray wasn't actually necessary but I still think it was a worthwhile insurance investment.

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

Hitmonlee

It surprised me to see another Fighting type besides Lucario. Did he have a mono-fighting team? Well, I hit him with Confuse Ray to slow his attacks and got to work using Wing Attack. It only took Hitmonlee hitting himself once on top of a single Wing Attack to seal his fate. I wonder if the Confuse Ray was necessary at all? I can't imagine this thing doing much to me even without it.

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

Probopass

Probopass is not the pokemon I was expecting to see at all and, quite frankly, it was a bit disappointing. I was prepared to have to try and stack the odds against his Lucario by strategically using Poliwrath and Golbat's moves together, but... this was probably the easiest pokemon to counter next to maybe Steelix. I just hit him with a Confuse Ray and then switched.

After hitting itself in confusion again, Probopass went down to a powerful Aura Sphere to the face, and that marked the end of the battle.

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

It was an admittedly sad battle on Dusty's side of the RNG, ever since Poliwrath fell asleep he never once got the chance to attack. You already know I'd be pissed if I was in his position! But, he took the loss well. This is, after all, just the sort of thing wins are decided by in this colosseum. I see this one as far more luck based than the Neon Colosseum due to all the mirror matches you'll have to bounce around. I do wish I had a slightly more exciting battle, but, realistically, I don't think any of the battles in this colosseum are ever going to be very exciting.

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

With the Sun setting on Sunset Colosseum, it's time to make our way toward the Courtyard Colosseum as we prepare for the penultimate challenge before we take on the final colosseum in the game. Unfortuantely, due to my positive Covid test, I'm forced into isolation from the rest of my family for the next couple days, so this thread might have to be put on hiatus once again for a little while!

June 14, 2022

Goodness, lots of technical difficulties have gotten in the way of my ability to consistently upload throughout this game, but I'm determined to see it through to the end! Between Bulbapedia getting all screwy, me getting Covid and being confined to my room for 5 days, my TV failing to function for a while earlier today, the first day I'm allowed to leave my room, and just general weariness, I just haven't been in the best position to get back into the swing of things. A lot of things seem stacked against me, but I'm back for another update!

Before going ahead with the update, though, I'd like to make a small announcement here as I did with my status earlier. While sorting things out in preparation for the continuation of the thread, I have been reformatting the thread to source images away from Bulbapedia. I haven't made too much significant progress, but all of the images up to the end of Pokemon Silver's main story should be working fine. I've since also reformatted the posts introducing Kanto and the one where I detail the Kanto Gym Leaders, so now everything up until after the battle with Blue should be working fine as well. Please feel free to contact me either here or through EcchiText if you notice any oddities with the formatting in those early posts! Note that anything after Blue has not been reformatted at the time of writing this post, so anything between that and my Diamond version playthrough is not likely to display properly.

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

Courtyard Colosseum

Courtyard Colosseum is a colosseum set at the entrance of a Bastiodon-shaped Castle overlooking a moonlight forest! The colosseum is accessed from a wooden bridge, the arena is basked in moonlight as well as light from the windows of the buildings surrounding it and the ghostly lanturns lining the edges. The colosseum's in-game description falsely claims the only thing lighting it is the moonlight itself, but I imagine this place would be quite dark if that were true.

This Colosseum is home to another standard Knockout Battle, defaulting to Rank 3 Double Battle Format. Six Battles before challenging the Colosseum Master. However, there is an additional gimmick this colosseum has that no other Knockout Battle does.

On occasion, seemingly randomly, a thick fog will roll in at the start of a battle. I don't know any nuance about this phenomenon, but it isn't too terribly common. Between my fourteen battles I did in this session, only three battles were under the veil of fog. If I had to guess, there's probably something like a 10% chance of fog rolling in at the start of each battle. However, that doesn't stop a lot of your opponents from using annoying stall tactics to try and take advantage of the fog if it rolls around. You may want to bring a pokemon with the move Defog, your own Weather moves to override the fog, pokemon with moves like Aerial Ace or Faint Attack to attack without missing, or bring in your own evasive tactics. This is probably where they'd be most viable. The fog is permanent like any natural weather in the games, so be prepared to suffer through it or get rid of it altogether.

As you can imagine, I'm not a big fan of this gimmick. Fog's only purpose is to make attacks miss which only causes these battles to be drawn out a lot longer than they need to and leave them feeling a bit more luck-dependent than normal. However, it is interesting to note that this is the only way Fog can be seen in this game as no moves can call it forth like other weather effects. Consequently, it's the only colosseum in which Defog's ability to clear Foggy weather can be utilized as well.

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

For the first challenge, I entered with Nova's team.

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

Battle 1: Pikachu Fan Damion

The fog that rolled in made Damion take a few more turns than I would've liked, but between Song and Garden, his team was easily mowed through with Earthquake, Shadow Ball, and a dash of Charge Beam.

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

Battle 2: Steel Spirit Daniela

There was no fog in this battle, but the Wormadam Daniela led with hit Garden with a Mirror Shot that reduced his accuracy and caused him to miss a handful of Earthquakes. Still, we got our attacks through and she was just unable to keep up!

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

Battle 3: Leader-in-Training Dominique

The first turn in this matchup was a pretty interesting one. I opened up with Sculpture's Blizzard against her Butterfree and Golbat, not really wanting to leave either unchecked. I ended up missing her Golbat, but Blizzard did hit Butterfree with little fanfare. Butterfree then put Sculpture to sleep with Sleep Powder, but after that, Paint was able to get an Ice Beam off on Golbat to make up for the lack of damage from Blizzard and, in a stroke of luck, I was able to trade her sleep for a spontaneous freeze! Any RNG salt was out now and from here, the battle could still be turned around. I switched my focus over to taking out Butterfree with Ice Beam while trying to get Scuplture to wake up. She didn't, and when Wigglytuff hit the stage, I retreated into Martial who, along with Paint, were able to hold the fort for the rest of the battle. This one was a fun one!

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Battle 4: Swimming Club Member Breana

This was another Garden & Song Battle. The Bibarel was annoying because it set up Double Team turn one and immediately hit behind a Substitute. Thankfully, all it did from there was spam Hyper Fang, so it was just a waiting game until Earthquake had wiped out the rest of her supporting cast and I could finish her off with a pair of Psychic and Wood Hammer.

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Battle 5: Passionate Rider Benny

Song ultimately carried more weight in this battle thanks to all the opposing Ghost-types who were weak to her Shadow Ball, but Earthquake certainly helped out a bit against Charmeleon, so that was a plus!

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Semifinal: May-December Couple Jakie

This battle gave me a bit of deja vu. I led with Paint and Sculpture, led with Blizzard to hit both of my foes while I, expecting some sunlight shenanigans considering the multitude of Grass-types on her team, went for Rain Dance with Paint only to be met instead by my own Quick Claw forcing me to go first. That's just the way that item works. Unfortunately, my suspicions were unfounded and the two instead went on an all-out offensive against Sculpture, specifically. I was ultimately able to take them both out with a mixture of Ice Beam and Ice Shard, but things were a little dodgy there and could've gone south real fast had Vileplume hit Paint with a Giga Drain. Well, I say real fast, but I still had two other pokemon including Fireworks. It just would've been unpleasant to lose one of them so quickly. Anyway, once Wigglytuff hit the stage, I finished Butterfree off and brought Martial out. A Close Combat there and an Ice Beam on Golbat finished the deal.

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Vs. Colosseum Master Kruger

The master of the castle, Kruger, doubles as the Colosseum's Master!

His team consists of a handful of tough pokemon who aren't shy about going on an all-out-offensive, espeically if you're unlucky enough to be stuck under the veil of fog with him.

This matchup led to a rather unconventional lead for me to choose: Paint and Fireworks. These two normally don't have a whole lot of synergy since Fireworks is weak to Paint's Surf and Surf gets zero benefit from Sunny Day. However, I didn't really need Surf for this matchup as much and I figured Fireworks might be helpful for picking off Victreebel and Pupitar if I can get Sunny Day up in time.

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

Swalot & Gligar

I opened up with a Sunny Day from Fireworks before she was just completely deleted by an absolutely unexpected and reckless Earthquake on Gligar's part! That was admittedly a scary opening, but it damaged Swalot pretty badly, too. Swalot followed up with an equally scary Hyper Beam! But thankfully, Paint held on and was able to get her Ice Beam off to take out Gligar for an even trade.

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Hitmontop

Song felt like the obvious follow-up to Fireworks and, when I was met with Hitmontop, I knew I'd made the right choice. Psychic was able to get some decent damage off on him, but his Triple Kick was able to get the KO on Paint before I could finish it off with Mud Bomb. Naturally, Swalot had to recharge after unleashing its Hyper Beam so it was immobile for this round.

Garden joined the battle in Paint's place. Between Psychic and Earthquake, the two foes went down before they could attack.

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Victreebel

It was still sunny thanks to Fireworks' Sunny Day, so Victreebel unfortunately got the benefit from Chlorophyll allowing it to outspeed Song. It took this opportunity to hit Song with Gastro Acid, relieving her of her Levitate Ability! But between Psychic and Earthquake, we were able to take out Victreebel with ease. Song took some heavy damage from the unexpected Earthquake, but she was fine in the end!

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And with that, the third and final Colosseum Master of Poketopia, Kruger, has been defeated! On his defeat, the Courtyard Colosseum is cleared, ranks up to unlock Single Battle format, we receive the Colosseum's Blank Pass and a Gold Badge to use with our avatars. In addition, the final colosseum in Poketopia makes its grand opening: The Stargazer Colosseum which is what our efforts will be focused on next time!

In the meantime, though, let's check out that single format!

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Courtyard Colosseum Single Format

Once again, this is just the same ruleset but for Single Battles. Just like in Double Battles, you'll go through six battles with the random chance of Fog rolling in before each one.

This time around, I entered with Century, of course. The battles seemed a lot easier this time around, perhaps because it's harder for the opponent to get their evasive strats set up in a Single-Battle when I'm sweeping clean through them with Senshi or Uki. This one definitely went a lot faster than in the Double Format.

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Vs. Colosseum Master Kruger

Kruger's team was filled with some Dark and Ghost types, making my options fairly limited, but not nearly limited enough to have me worried!

Kruger's team this time around was looking pretty succeptible to Stealth Rock, so I decided this time to take the fairly unconventional lead with Ibutsu. There was one matchup I was really hoping to hard counter with this and I think you can imagine exactly what that is. I also went with Uki and Senshi since they could cover just about everything on the team together.

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Cacturne

I led off with Ibutsu against Kruger's Cacturne. Right away, I set up Stealth Rock before putting Cacturne to sleep with Hypnosis and switching out.

Senshi came along to kick Cacturne out with a Flare Blitz for an easy KO.

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Forslass

Froslass was Kruger's follow-up on Cacturne. It came out into the stones taking some damage, not that it really mattered much because it, too, would be immediately going down to Flare Blitz either way. All the stones did was save me some recoil damage.

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Shedinja

And then the final matchup was exactly what I was hoping to see! Shedinja popped right out onto some stones that immediately KO'd it! You just love to see this type of win!

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Definitely a less exciting battle here, but hey, whatever floats the boat. Kruger was defeated and all that's left now is the Stargazer Colosseum! We'll make our way there next time!

June 14, 2022

Stargazer Colosseum

This is the final colosseum in Poketopia. Located inside of a planetarium at the top of the central hill overlooking all of Poketopia, Stargazer Colosseum is home to a climactic battle under the stars projected to the ceiling. The cratered ground and the cosmos above seem to simulate the appearance of a battle on the moon!

This colosseum is home to the Poketopia Championship Battle, which is a one-time challenge. The Championship Battle is only accessible in Double-Battle format. This is another standard knockout battle, but this time with the six battles being against the six Colosseum Leaders you've battled throughout the game with the final battle against the Master of all of Poketopia himself.

Each of the Coloseum Leaders have their teams from your first challenge against them, with this being your first time in a standard fight against most of them! With no holds barred, you should find all of these battles a lot easier this time around, actually.

I entered the challenge with Nova since it's a double-battle challenge. Unfortunately, since it's only available once, I won't be able to go back through with Century to do it again in Single format. But these guys were generally the ones I found myself having more fun with, anyway, so I'm glad to get some extra use out of them!

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Battle 1: Colosseum Leader Taylor

Hailing from Main Street Colosseum is Taylor!

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Luvdisc & Bonsly

I led off with Garden and Song against Taylor and immediately got to work with Earthquake and Charge Beam to wipe off her first two pokemon and get a stat boost on Charge Beam!

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Pachirisu & Kirlia

Right away, Kirlia went down to a Shadow Ball, but Pachirisu held on by causing Garden to flinch with Bite.

Pachirisu annoyingly survived another round by causing Garden to flinch again and surviving a Shadow Ball, but on the final turn, it went down to just one more Shadow Ball.

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Battle 2: Colosseum Leader Marina

Marina from the Waterfall Colosseum is next! Her colosseum was home to the Team Battle ruleset where battles were handled in a series of one-on-one matchups. This time we get to see more of her team!

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Aipom & Farfetch'd

I led off this time with Fireworks and Sculpture. Fireworks opened up with Sunny Day while Sculpture jumped right in to nail Farfetch'd with Ice Shard! Farfetch'd didn't quite go down as expected, but I didn't regret using Ice Shard because it allowed me to get the hit in before Aipom would've shut down any other attack with Fake Out. Farfetch'd just used Swords Dance which it would be unable to capitalize on, so the following turn I finished it off with Ice Shard while Fireworks let loose with a Fire Blast to take care of Aipom as well!

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Ledian & Corsola

Two more pokemon up and at 'em! Between Ice Shard and Solar Beam, neither stood a chance.

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Battle 3: Colosseum Leader Rosie

Hailing from the Neon Colosseum is the leader of the Fortune Battle ruleset! You don't get a chance to use her pokemon against her, here, so you'll need to show her what you're capable of wholly on your own.

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Weepinbell & Delcatty

I led with the same duo this time but didn't bother setting up Sunny Day. I figured with her abundance of Grass-types, she'd be trying to set Sunny Day up herself. Instead, I just went straight for Fire Blast on Delcatty while Sculpture went for Ice Shard to take out Weepinbell. Once again, she made the mistake of opening up with Fake Out against Sculpture which was a waste since Ice Shard allowed me to outspeed anyway. Weepinbell barely survived the Ice Shard but spend the opportunity paying me back with a Gastro Acid. Meanwhile, Fire Blast ended up missing Delcatty, so she was lucky enough to buy herself an extra turn. The following turn, though, Weepinbell definitely went down to Ice Shard, though she thought she was onto something by going for Helping Hand with Delcatty, Weepinbell didn't even come close to getting to attack. Fire Blast landed on Delcatty as well, but she survived the hit for another round.

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Sunflora

Sculpture and Fireworks swapped targets with this one. Sculpture went for Ice Shard to finish off Delcatty while Fireworks took Sunflora out with a quick Mega Horn!

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Roselia

Roselia couldn't stand a chance, either. A simple Ice Shard was enough to finish it off.

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Battle #4: Colosseum Leader Voldon

From the Crystal Colosseum is Voldon! His colosseum was home to the Tournament Battle ruleset which didn't differ much from a standard knockout tournament save for being a tad shorter.

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Metang & Rotom

I led with Garden and Song against his Metang and Rotom. This was an easy enough matchup, though Metang was able to hit Song with a Bullet Punch, it didn't accomplish too terribly much and I was able to take Rotom out with Shadow Ball before it could manage anything. Of course, it would take more than a single Earthquake to get rid of Metang.

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Onix

Onix took the place of Rotom and so I switched up tactics a bit. Song would be able to finish off Metang with a neutral Shadow Ball, so I went ahead and honed all my focus on hitting Onix with a Wood Hammer to guarantee a double KO. It was successful and both foes went down! The recoil was also a pleasant reminder that, while Onix has some decent defense, it doesn't actually have a whole lot of HP to get through, so I didn't actually take all that much in the form of recoil damage.

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Carnivine

Carnivine was a bit awkward to battle with Garden, so I went ahead and retreated, expecing Song to be able to handle this matchup pretty well anyway.

To my surprise, however, Carnivine took Song out with a Faint Attack! I guess it shouldn't have been too terribly surprising given the Bullet Punch I'd suffered earlier, but I was confident Song would take a hit like that. Maybe she would've at full health. Anyway, that was fine, because I had my real out to Carnivine now, Fireworks!

It was either Garden rejoining the battle or Paint who was quad weak to Grass, so I took the lesser of two evils and Fireworks finished the job with Mega Horn.

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

Battle #5: Colosseum Leader Terrell

Terrell heirs form the Magma Colosseum which hosted the League Battle Tournament. I recall him being one of the tougher Colosseum Leaders, but battles with him specifically were always straight-forward so things shouldn't be much different here.

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Monferno & Quilava

I led with Paint and Sculpture, but the presence of Monferno had me a bit worried I might be immediately pelted with a Mach Punch, so I immediately retreated.

I switched Song in and realized my fears were somewhat realized. Though Monferno focused a Blaze Kick on Paint, annoyingly getting a burn in the process, Quilava ultimately went for Brick Break on Sculpture, so this turned out to be a good, safe switch. Paint let out a Surf to wipe out both of the opponents leaving only minimal damage on Song. A good trade, I'd say!

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Sandslash & Prinplup

A Surf and Shadow Ball was all this one felt like it needed. Unfortunately, I got Prinplup's HP low enough with Shadow Ball it ended up healing with its Sitrus Berry. On the flipside, though, Sandslash set up Sandstorm before going down to Surf. Combined with the incoming damage from our attacks, this was actually enough to take out Prinplup!

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Semifinal: Colosseum Leader Dusty

Dusty is perhaps the most satisfying opponent to face here as you no longer have to struggle with the Sunset Colosseum's obnoxious Select Battle rules. You get to finally beat him down with your own superior pokemon and nothing is more satisfying than that! While most trainers only use the team they had in the first battle against you, Dusty here pulls his team from the selection of pokemon you both selected from in that battle. His six pokemon are just the best ones that were available.

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Grovyle & Vigoroth

Virogroth opened up with a Protect which was a little annoying, but by doubling down on Grovyle with Earthquake and Shadow Ball, we were able to take it out after it was only able to get off a single Leaf Blade.

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Riolu

I decided to try and go for a double KO here by hitting Vigoroth with a Psychic in case Earthquake wouldn't KO it at full health, but I was met by another Protect which cut Song's attack off... alright, a waste of a turn on his end but I was able to get Riolu out before it could manage much of anything.

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Combusken

I tried to focus Song's attack on Combusken to guarantee a KO before it could get any dangerous attacks off on Garden. It went down with ease but this time Vigoroth's Protect failed, allowing me to get in with an Earthquake!

The game had to be trolling me at this point because Vigoroth immediately went back to hiding behind Protect for two more turns before finally going down to Garden and Song's attacks. What a pain in the butt! But with that, our semifinal round was completed!

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Vs. Poketopia Master Mysterial

And upon reaching the 7th battle in the Stargazer Colosseum, it's time to come face to face with the head of Poketopia, the master illusionist Mysterial!

This guy's got a decent variety of stat distribution on his team, but he seems to have a notable weakness to Garden and Song... I think you know what that means!

I led off with Garden and Song while also running Martial to help with that Haunter and Chansey if necessary. Paint was also there to help pick off Golbat, or Dragonair if any of them felt too awkward to handle. For the master of Poketopia, this guy's team seems pretty easy to cover... of course, I don't suspect at all that he's battling at his full strength here...

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Golbat & Chansey

Right off the bat, I opened up with an Earthquake and Psychic combo that didn't quite take care of both foes, but Earthquake did wipe Chansey off the board, but not before they could get a combo of their own with Bite and Shadow Ball to gang up a bit on Song.

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Kingler

Kingler joined the fray next and I felt confident in taking it out with Wood Hammer while finishing off Golbat with another Psychic. In between attacks, Kingler was able to take Song out with Crab Hammer before being taken down with Wood Hammer, though.

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Haunter

I followed up with Martial only to be answered with a Haunter, confirming I'd made the right choice! A Dark Pulse was all it took to finish this one off and secure me the victory!

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And with that, I've defeated Mysterial and claimed the title of Poketopia Master! Okay, that's admittedly not much of a difficult task. As I've stressed throughout this playthrough, the Level 30 Open format you're forced to play first is really just easy mode. Upon clearing the Poketopia Championship, you finally unlock the Level 50 All format! This format operates more similarly to that of the Battle Tower in Diamond and Pearl where all pokemon, regardless of level, are scaled down to Level 50. This format allows you to mix and match pokemon a lot more easily without having to worry about grinding. It also makes a much wider variety of pokemon legal for your opponents to use, so don't expect as many compromised teams with unevolved pokemon! You can even expect to bump into some legendaries here and there. Be warned!

In addition to unlocking Level 50 All, the Stargazer Colosseum as well as the three other Colosseums that were home to the other three Colosseum Masters Joe, Sashay, and Kruger all unlock special new advanced rule styles. We'll detail these soon enough. Of course, you'll also receive the Blank Pass for the colosseum as well as some additional new Blank Pass designs or having cleared the championship in its entirety. New clothes and mystery gifts are added to the shop as well. Lastly, you're rewarded with a special crown your character can wear! It's a bit gaudy for my tastes, but it's there if you're interested!

After receiving all of your rewards, you're treated to the game's credits!

It's a bit of a nightmare to find footage of the game's credits, it seems, but here's a video from a YouTuber called Aimi! She's playing what looks to be a german version of the game, but the credits seem to be the same across international versions. It's pretty standard opening with a shot of Poketopia, fireworks being launched in celebration of the championship, and then it cuts to a black screen with the credits scrolling through, confetti falling, and various pokemon running around in the background. Pretty standard stuff, really. But, it's a credit roll I can't say I've ever seen before today!

Anyway, we aren't quite done with this game, however I will say that we might be taking a break from this game and coming back to it. Looking at some of the stuff we've unlocked, I've now come to understand that some of this is looking more like Generational Cleanup stuff similar to some of the postgame content in Colosseum and XD and some of it even calls back to Stadium 2. In addition, while I never played Round 2 in Stadium and Stadium 2, I actually think I do want to go through this game and play each of the colosseums again in Level 50 All format because, to me, it sounds like the real experience of the game and it's something I imagine people have a lot less experience with. Of course, I also want to revisit the new rulesets introduced in some of these colosseums as well, but again, they're sounding a bit more difficult to just jump into than I'd be comfortable with diving headfirst into, so I do think it makes sense to simply return to this game as part of the generational cleanup after HeartGold and SoulSilver.

Overall, I actually found myself really enjoying this game! It was simple and I wouldn't say quite as charming as XD or Colosseum, but the presentation is really nice and I loved the way the battles looked here! There are a few more nooks and crannies I'd like to cover about this game before moving on to the next games on the list, though. But nothing too terribly daunting. I'd say we've got one more update with this game before moving on to our next project in this thread which I have pretty mixed feelings about getting into, admittedly... I guess we'll just have to see how it goes! Anyway, see you next time for the initial cleanup of Pokemon Battle Revolution!

June 15, 2022

So today is our initial cleanup for Pokemon Battle Revolution! Now that we've cleared each of the game's 10 colosseums on standard difficulty, we have mostly everything available to us. There's still some more to unlock which we'll cover on our final cleanup after we revisit this game for Round 2, but for now I want to focus on the remainder of the game's features we haven't done much with.

As mentioned in the previous post, upon clearing the Poketopia Championship, the Stargazer Colosseum as well as the three colosseums run by the Colosseum Masters all have new rulesets opened up! I'm not going to be taking these rulesets on as I'd rather save them for Round 2 coverage, but I figured I'd go over these rulesets now. Note, since I'm not actually playing these modes I may actually get some details wrong. I'll be describing them again when we come back to actually experience them anyway, I just want to give a basic coverage of what to expect in case anyone playing along might want to jump right into these modes.

Gateway Colosseum - Trade Battle

Gateway Colosseum's Rental Battles now become Trade Battles which add an extended nuance to the standard rental battle and allow for a bit more customization in this mode! This ruleset is somewhat akin to the Battle Factory in the Battle Frontier. You enter with one of your rental passes as per normal, but upon victory, you have the opportunity to swap one of the pokemon you used for the battle with a pokemon used by your opponent! Using this, you can gain access to a much wider variety of rental pokemon! If I'm understanding this ruleset correctly, I believe these trades may also be permanent (hence the requirement for rental passes only), so you could slowly build the "perfect" rental team over several challenges!

Sunny Park Colosseum - Little Battle

This was the main challenge I looked at that made me realize it might be for the best to hold off a bit before committing to Round 2. Sunny Park Colosseum, which used to host a standard Knockout Battle tournament now hosts the Little Battle challenge! As its name implies, this is Battle Revolution's answer to Little Cup from previous gens! Only first-stage pokemon capable of evolution are permitted for entry and all entrants must be Level 5 or below. Stadium 2 actually gave me quite an appreciation for Little Cup and the ways it gives attention to otherwise easily overlooked pokemon and items, so I'm really glad to see the gameplay mode getting some love here, even if it is delegated to just a single colosseum.

However, Little Cup in Gen IV is a little bit more technical to get into. You can't simply hatch a pokemon at Level 5 anymore, so you'll have to carefully level your babies up to Level 5 while also carefully monitoring details like EVs and such. To me, I kind of preferred the idea of Little Cup when you were battling with freshly hatched pokemon, having to actually train the pokemon seems like a bit of an obnoxious extra step when you're already going through all the hassle of breeding the perfect mons in the first place. But, I suppose there's always been a hint of training even in Gen II Little Cup. I can't imagine EVs are too terribly important to monitor for this one colosseum, but I can't honestly say for certain. If you do want to worry about them, you're definitely going to want the assistance of Power items and Pokerus to get more EVs per burst of Exp. It takes an especially nuanced approach in order to max out EVs before level 5.

Courtyard Colosseum - Survival Battle

This one sounds to me like the most exhausting of the rulesets. It's a special take on the 100-trainer endurance challenge of Mt. Battle in the Orre Region. However, your team won't automatically heal between battles. Instead, you'll spin a roulette to see various effects happen.

HP, PP, Status, and consumed Held Items are all factors that have to be restored separately, and the roulette can restore each of these to one member or all of your team. If you're gonna take on this challenge, it's important to bring some pokemon that are ready to endure several quick battles in a row because you aren't likely to get out anytime soon.

You'll enter each battle with your entire team of six pokemon while your opponents will start out with fewer pokemon each battle, but the number of pokemon you'll have to deal with as you climb the ranks becomes greater and greater, much like Battle Tower in Colosseum and XD's story modes. Thankfully, unlike Mt. Battle, you aren't actually expected to clear all 100 trainers in one sitting. Not only are you permitted to use the quick save feature to take a break, but you can also retire at any point and still get a partial reward. For clearing 50 battles and 100 battles, you'll receive special blank passes: Pearl Wave and Diamond Dust respectively. There doesn't seem to be any images of these passes online, so I couldn't tell you what they look like, myself.

Stargazer Colosseum - Masters Battle

To all Poketopia Masters, Stargazer Colosseum hosts a special Master's Battle challenge which seems to be very similar to XD's Orre Colosseum. There are 8 iterations of Masters Battle challenges which will pit you against four battles culminating in a battle with a Colosseum Master or Poketopia Master Mysterial himself. The final iteration of this is challenge is where you'll battle Mysterial at his peak, his team will even differ based on which Pokemon game your save file is linked to, if any at all. Not unlike how your Rival's team changed depending on your starter in Pokemon Stadium.

With no firsthand experience, I can't tell you how closely this matches XD's Orre Colosseum in terms of difficulty, but I can't imagine it being nearly as bad. Try yourself against it if you want to see how you can handle it!

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The next thing I'd like to call attention to is the shop! Up until recently, I've mostly been focusing on in-game cosmetics. However, I mentioned in the beginning of the game that you could also purchase mystery gifts to send to your copy of Diamond and Pearl! Just like the selection of clothing is expanded, so, too, is the selection of mystery gifts that are made available to you as you progress through the game! We still don't have access to all of them as some require progress through the new rulesets that have been made available to us, but I still thought it might be important to cover the items we can get upon clearing the championship for the first time! Each of these prizes can be received on your system as a Mystery Gift via Wireless, just be wary that you may have to delete a Wonder Card in order to make room for them as each save file can only hold up to three Wonder Cards at a time. Also note that these Mystery Gifts are, in general, significantly more expensive than any cosmetics, so you may find yourself needing to grind up for a while to gain access to any that catch your eye. So, think carefully and make sure you actually need the item you're going to buy and that you're not buying a repeat of something you already have!

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Standard Items

From the beginning of the game, the Dusk Stone, Shiny Stone, Dawn Stone, King's Rock, Light Clay, Quick Claw, Leftovers, and Choice Specs can all be purchased for 7,200 Poke Coupons. I find it a tad strange that the Metal Coat is ommitted when the King's Rock is included, but that's the way it is! The first four of these items are useful for evolving pokemon while the latter four are reusable held items that I have a hard time believing you managed to lose on accident.

Upon viewing all of the Battle Tutorials, which is a section of Battle Mode I haven't covered because it's literally nothing but walls of text detailing various strategies, the types of things you'd be able to apply yourself through more exciting modes like the Classroom in Stadium 2 or Battle Sims in XD. But, if you view them all, the Wise Glasses can be purchased here for 7,200 PC as well.

Upon clearing the Sunny Park Colosseum for the first time, the Up-Grade and Iron Ball are also added to the list of Mystery Gifts for 9,600 PC.

Looking a bit further into the future, upon clearing Little Battle in Sunny Park Colosseum for the first time, you'll gain access to the Protector, Dubious Disc, and Reaper Cloth. Each of these cost 12,000 PC.

And upon clearing the first set Masters Battle challenge, you'll unlock the DeepSeaScale, DeepSeaTooth, Soul Dew, and Expert Belt. The former three cost 14,400 PC each, while the Expert Belt only costs 7,200 PC like the Wise Glasses.

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Berries

No berries are available for purchase from the beginning of the game, but upon clearing the championship, the Ganlon, Salacc, Petaya, and Apicot Berries are made available for 19,200PC! It's a massive price but let's not forget that these berries can be planted and grown infinitely. With enough patience just one can turn into 100 and these are some of the best berries for Poffin ingredients!

For defeating 50 opponents in the Survival Battle at Courtyard Colosseum, you can purchase a Lanslat Berry for 38,400PC. This was the prize for getting all the silver symbols in Emerald's Battle Frontier, if you recall.

The Starf Berry is available for defeating 100 opponents for the same price. This berry used to only be obtainable by gathering the Gold Symbols at Emerald's Battle Frontier.

For clearing the fourth set of Masters Battles at Stargazer Colosseum, you'll gain access to the Liechi Berry which was exclusive to the Mirage Island in Gen III.

The Enigma Berry is available upon clearing the eighth set of Masters Battles at Stargazer Colosseum, this berry used to be used as an error handler for unrecognized berries and is most commonly associated with E-Reader exclusive Berries, with many of them being transformed into Enigma Berries when transferred into Gen IV due to the original berry no longer existing. This shop is the only means of obtaining this berry legitimately without the use of an E-Reader.

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TMs

From the beginning of the game, TM05: Roar, TM12: Taunt, TM65: Fling, TM78: Captivate, and TM87: Swagger can all be purchased for 9,600 PC.

Upon clearing Sunny Park Colosseum for the first time, TM31: Brick Break, TM 42: Facade, TM48: Skill Swap, TM84: Poison Jab, and TM88: Pluck can also be purchased for the same price.

For clearing Courtyard Colosseum for the first time, you also gain access to TM13: Ice Beam, TM24: ThunderBolt, TM29: Psychic, TM30: Shadow Ball, and TM35: Flamethrower for 12,000 PC each.

Upon clearing Little Battle for the first time, you'll gain access to TM59: Dragon Pulse, TM71: Stone Edge, TM79: Dark Pulse, and TM81: X-Scissor for 9,600 PC each.

And for clearing Stargazer Colosseum's first set of Masters Callenge, you'll be able to get TM01: Dragon Claw, TM26: Earthquake, TM50: Overheat, and TM92: Trick Room for 12,000 PC

Note that many of these TMs actually are one-of-a-kind while others can already be obtained by repeatable methods. Make sure you're getting your money's worth out of any of these purchases!

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Special Gifts

Finally, we have the most significant section of offerings this shop has for you. These Special Gifts are rare pokemon that can be redeemed completely for free! Of course, you can only retrieve one of each of these per save file, so make sure to take good care of them!

From the start of the game, there aren't any gifts available. At least, not on the surface anyway. In fact, in normal gameplay, you're only likely to come across one of these at all.

Secret Gift

Pikachu F; Lv. 10 (OT: PKTOPIA)

Item: Light Ball

Ability: Static | Moves: Volt Tackle, Surf, Tail Whip, Thunder Wave

This gift is available upon clearing the Poketopia Championship.

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But, there are actually two more gifts that require special codes to be inputted through your personal greeding on your user profile. Similar to the codes used for Ranger Missions in Pokemon Ranger, the specific code you'll use is dependent on the region your game is from. For a list of all available passcodes, you can check the bulbapedia page here.

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Shocking Secret Gift

Electivire M; Lv. 50 (OT: PKTOPIA)

Item: Magnet

Ability: Motor Drive | Moves: ThunderPunch, Ice Punch, Cross Chop, Earthquake

Alongside this pokemon's availability in the shop, you'll also gain access to the exclusive Gold Blank Pass upon entering the correct code.

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Heated Secret Gift

Magmortar F; Lv. 50 (OT: PKTOPIA)

Item: Charcoal

Ability: Flame Body | Moves: Flamethrower, Psychic, Hyper Beam, Solar Beam

Alongside this pokemon's availability in the shop, you'll also gain access tot he exclusive Silver Blank Pass upon entering the correct code.

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Electivire and Magmortar are actually pretty tough pokemon to get in Diamond and Pearl because the held items required for their evolutions, the Electirizer and Magmarizer, are extremely rare, only available as held items on wild Magby and Elekid which you might recall were pokemon only available in the wild via dual slot functionality in the first place. Even then, these are both trade evolutions which are inherently a lot harder to get than most other evolutions. This is likely the easiest method you'll have of getting these two pokemon registered in your pokedex, so I strongly recommend this approach.

Beyond that, the Pikachu you get from these gifts is also fantastic! It's a rare Surfing Pikachu which is a fantastic coverage option, and it also knows the move Volt Tackle which it's further able to pass down thanks to the Light Ball it comes with. Before this point, Surfing Pikachu could only be obtained post GSC via Pokemon Box: Ruby and Sapphire so this is certainly not a gift to shy away from!

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Battle Passes

Upon clearing the Poketopia Championship, I mentioned you gained a few blank passes in additions to the standard reward for clearing the Stargazer Colosseum. I figured you might be interested in seeing what these look like. These four passes are modeled after various modes of transport spotted across Poketopia.

Poketopia Jet

Poketopia Helicopter

Poketopia Train

Poketopia Ship

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

In addition, there are also the two blank passes we received alongside our Shocking and Heated Secret Gifts!

Gold Pass

Silver Pass

These two designs are pretty standard, but, hey, you might be interested in using them since they're exclusive to rare secrets!

There are a few more passes that I unfortunately can't show you, either because there's no known way to get them or because they're tied to defunct gameplay mechanics such as gathering friend passes from online play, but in addition to the passes we've covered so far, there's also the Groudon Red, Kyogre Blue, and Rayquaza Green passes obtained by gathering 20, 40, and 60 friend passes respectively, the Pearl Wave and Diamond Dust passes as alluded to earlier obtained through Survival Battle, the Ball Collection pass which is obtained from clearing the final set of Masters Battle, and then there are also a Bronze, Black, and White pass to go with the Gold and Silver ones that, as far as I can tell, seem to go unused.

In addition, there are also passes obtained for clearing any colosseum at rank 1 - 8, these are Stream Pink, Star Yellow, Ball Mosaic Aqua, Steam Green Star Pink, Ball Mosaic Sepia, Light Pastel, and Shiny Cobalt. These all seem to be variations of the standard designs available from the beginning but in different colors, so knock yourself out with them.

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

Now, before we finish up here, I wanted to cover a few more small details. One is back in Battle Mode. In the beginning of the game, I falsely stated that the other option besides Colosseum Mode was DS Battle Mode, but DS Battle Mode is actually a second option from the title screen, similar to the difference between Story Mode and Battle Mode in Colosseum. The other option here is actually Free Battle, an option to jump into a multiplayer battle! You can battle with a friend or an AI in this mode by selecting two passes, Battle or Rental Passes. If a friend has a Battle Pass saved to their Wii Remote, they can bring it over and battle with that pass as well! This is the best way to use pokemon from multiple playthroughs against each other. You can battle in Single or Double Format under Anything Goes, Level 50 All, or any custom rulesets where you can adjust the amount of pokemon to be entered, level restrictions, time limits, and turn on and off various clauses such as Sleep Clause or banning moves like Dragon Rage for low-level battles. It's the standard battle mode functionality you've come to expect form this sort of game.

You can select any of the 10 colosseums you've battled on throughout the game, and I haven't really mentioned this yet, but there actually is a subtle difference between these colosseums. You see, each colosseum actually does affect moves that draw from their environment. So if you have a pokemon with a move like Nature Power, you might actually be able to give yourself a subtle advantage with a seemingly arbitrary choice of venue.

The moves that are affected include Camouflage, Nature Power, and Secret Power.

Gateway Colosseum: Camouflage transforms the user into the Water type, Nature Power becomes Hydro Pump, and Secret Power may lower the target's Attack by 1 stage.

Main Street, Neon, and Courtyard Colosseum: Camouflage transforms the user into the Normal type, Nature Power transforms into Tri Attack, and Secret Power may cause Paralysis

Waterfall and Sunny Park Colosseum: Camouflage transforms the user into a Grass-type, Nature Power becomes Seed Bomb, and Secret Power may cause Sleep.

Crystal, Magma, and Stargazer Colosseum: Camouflage transforms the user into a Rock-type, Nature Power becomes Rock Slide, and Secret Power may cause Flinching

And finally, at the Sunset Colosseum, Camouflage transforms the user into a Ground Type, Nature Power becomes Earthquake, and Secret Power may lower accuracy by one stage.

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

Lagoon Colosseum

In addition to all of the above, there's actually one final 11th colosseum available to battle on! But this one is only accessible through online battles and DS Battle modes. Unused Data voice lines in the game does imply that the Lagoon Colosseum may have at once point been planned to be a part of Colosseum Mode, but it was scrapped for unknown reasons. Still, it is available! It's functionally identical to Main Street, Neon, and Courtyard Colosseum in terms of environmental moves. The colosseum itself is set on a small island off the coast of Poketopia. It actually looks quite peaceful! Nearby islands are connected by wooden bridges while the colosseum itself is surrounded by tropical trees, a hut, and a wooden dock. This place seems to serve the role of a standard Battle Arena in Poketopia.

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

And, to my knowledge, that's everything there is to cover for now! Of course, as I've mentioned already, I have every intention of coming back to this game and seeing what else it has to offer, but at the moment, I think we're best looking forward into what the future holds for us! At least, assuming the future gets here at all! It might be a bit dark... maybe that foreshadowing is a bit heavy handed, huh? Next time we meet up, we'll be starting a new chapter for the thread! See you then!

June 16, 2022

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness

That's right, we're jumping right back into big ol' chunky full-fledged RPG territory again! If you recall, I had a lot of mixed feelings toward my playthrough of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red and Blue Rescue Team which came in at the tail-end of Generation III and it seems the devs of those games just couldn't wait to get started on a sequel that would utilize the upcoming generation of Pokemon!

I had extremely high praises for Red and Blue Mystery Dungeon's main story as it was a surprisingly emotional one. Though the story was simple, I found all the characters endearing enough to really care about the struggles they went through and a lot of the drama and self doubt really struck a chord with me. For the longest time, I've heard that this game leaned far more into the emotional side, to the point where a lot of people to this day still claim it's their favorite story, not only in the Pokemon franchise, but across all RPGs! I'm personally a sucker for any video game or movie that can make me cry for the characters, so I'm genuinely excited to see where the story of this game takes us!

A bit of background here, unlike Red/Blue Mystery Dungeon, I've never actually finished the main story of these games. I've made a decent amount of progress in Explorer's of Sky but never actually finished the story and I can't quite say what caused me to stop, I think it was just a matter of putting the game down because I got distracted by something else and simply never coming back to it. But I know this is a story I want to experience in its entirety because of how legendary it is in the Mystery Dungeon fandom.

Of course, I do have to admit I'm going in with mixed feelings. The tail end of my Red/Blue Mystery Dungeon playthrough left me extremely tired and frustrated with the game and these games don't look like they'll be much different in that regard. I hope to be pleasantly surprised in this playthrough, but I really don't expect to enjoy the postgame at all in much the same way that I didn't enjoy the postgame in the main series. In addition, I seem to recall things I really resented in the first game like traps to be more prominent in this sequel. But I'm definitely gonna try my best to focus on the positives going forward as, just like Rescue Team, we're going to be investing a healthy chunk of the next couple months to this game.

As for how I plan to approach this, I've decided on a similar approach to this game as the one I took with Red/Blue Rescue Team. There, I started an initial playthrough of Red Rescue Team and played Blue Rescue Team on an emulator. Splitting up between emulator and physical cartridge did lead to some unfortunate inability with communication, but I don't recall missing out on too much and I don't believe I'll be missing out on anything too crazy here in Explorers, either. One difference I will be establishing this time around, however, is that my main focus from the beginning will be on the emulated version as I can more directly showcase screenshots and such from that version of the game. During Rescue Team, I was planning to use my Red Rescue Team as my main playthrough since it was on original hardware, but I wasn't too satisfied with vaguely recreating the screens using sprites. I ultimately switched over to Blue Rescue Team as the main focus when the postgame came along because I was starting to find myself incredibly frustrated with how easy it was to die and found myself more and more shamelessly using save states just to finish dungeons that didn't really seem to have much of a point in existing in the first place. By the end of the game, I was too frustrated with all of this to bother even with the game's ultimate final challenge which I admittedly do regret a little bit, hopefully I'll have a bit more patience with this game. I'll need to develop that patience, though, because when we get around to Explorers of Sky and other future Mystery Dungeon titles... hoo boy I don't even want to think of all that right now.

Anyway, for this playthrough I'll be playing Explorers of Darkness on physical hardware while playing Explorers of Time on Emulated hardware. Explorers of Time will be our main adventure focusing on a male protagonist this time while Explorers of Darkness will be our side adventure focusing on a female protagonist. And I'll be continuing with the same pattern I did before, generally focusing on one dungeon each update unless there are notable exceptions. The format of the posts should generally be mostly the same, so there shouldn't be too much to concern ourselves over this time around.

The title screens of both versions of the game have notably different aesthetics, with Explorers of Darkness focusing on a strange gear in a volcanic mountain while Explorers of Time focuses on a similar gear in a forest clearing. One of these two definitely looks a lot more daunting, but I suppose it'll just take some time to see what exactly they're foreshadowing here!

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

Of course, when we start up the game for the first time we've got only two options to select from, New Game and Nintendo WFC. Why don't we jump right into the game?

Personality Quiz

Just like in Rescue Team, our journey will begin with a personality quiz to determine our starter pokemon. Just like in those games, I'm going to answer these questions as honestly as I can and let fate decide my starters!

Whenever I receive any sum of money, I generally do stash away about half of it to save for larger investments in the future. The other half goes straight to my wallet where it'll probably just be whittled away as tips over months of inaction because I tend to try and slow myself from spending large chunks of money on a whim these days. Maybe I should do better about that!

This question was a bit tough to answer, but I think I'd have to say I'm generally more of a fan of the country. Even though I'm not too big with dirt and bugs and the like, I find large cities to be really claustrophobic to live in. Still, in hindsight perhaps it would've been more accurate to say I like them both. There's a lot you can do in one that you can't really do in the other.

Of course I didn't look! What do you take me for?

Maybe I shouldn't be sharing this on the internet, but yeah, I do tend to get a bit careless about locking the door behind me. I don't exactly live in a bad neighborhood at the moment, so I don't feel too insecure in doing it. That said, I suppose I do make a point to lock my car door whenever I leave it. But I answered this question thinking about the door to my house. I often justify it as simply not wanting to accidentally lock someone out who may have left without a key. My dad in particular tends to do that a lot rip.

I mean, who hasn't, right? It would be pretty cool to meet with aliens from another world!

Well, I suppose you can say playing Pokemon games since I was 3 and, to this day, starting a thread where I continue to do that same thing qualifies me as having had a hobby for a long time, huh?

I really don't. This question is a bit dated, I suppose, since I don't think very many people even watch TV at all these days, mostly leaning toward streaming services like Netflix or Disney+. But no, I generally don't find myself switching channels much. Usually I leave my TV on one channel and whatever's on is on. I don't usually end up paying much attention to it anyway and it's usually just used for video games more than anything else.

This is a bid of an odd question for me, I suppose whether or not I worry really depends on what kind of "fortune-teller" we're referring to. I'm not one to completely throw away prophecy, but the source of the prophecy is certainly something to be scrutinized. But, I suppose even thinking of it to that degree can be considered worrying about it, huh?

In Blue Rescue Team, I answered as a girl to increase my chances of getting a different starter compared to my Red Rescue Team playthrough. This time, this is my first quiz so I'll answer honestly and say that I'm a male!

This is a cute little detail added to this game that just makes the personality quiz a little bit more immersive, one final step is to touch your finger on the bottom screen to finalize the decision on what kind of starter you'll be assigned.

My personality quiz has concluded to tell me that I am have a calm nature, I'm the type of person who puts my friends above myself and am very forgiving, but that I often let myself slip every once in a while and end up falling behind. I think that sounds pretty accurate, all things considered.

And so, my starter has been decided as the Grass-type Chikorita!

Just like in Rescue Team, you'll next be given a small list of pokemon form which to choose your partner! Your partner can be any starter including Pikachu but not Eevee. Pokemon from the same gen as your starter as well as the same type are not selectable, either. Though Pikachu may be an exception to that same-gen rule since it's not quite the same thing as Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. Anyway, in the interest in focusing more on new content, I decided the most obvious choice in this scenario would be Piplup, the Water-type starter from Gen IV to best cover Chikorita's weakness!

Of course, your partner is selected from a truncated list of potential starters for the main character. Most of these are just the complete list of starters, but there are also some rare potential starters mixed in. Most of these return from Rescue Team, but notably the Gen IV starters and Munchlax have been added to the list! Unfortunately, you may also notice some sad omissions. You can no longer start the game with the pokemon Psyduck, Machop, Cubone, or Eevee.

The starter you're assigned is determined by the your nature and gender as determined by the personality quiz.

The Lonely nature will lead you to Bulbasaur as a boy or Mudkip as a girl.

Docile boys become Charmander while docile girls become Bulbasaur.

Quirky boys receive Squirtle while Quirky girls get Piplup.

Brave boys become Pikachu while Brave girls become Charmander.

Sassy boys become Meowth while Sassy girls become Totodile.

Calm boys become Chikorita while Calm girls become Cyndaquil.

Jolly boys become Totodile while Jolly girls become Munchlax.

Quiet boys become Treecko while Quiet girls become Chikorita.

Hardy boys become Torchic while hardy girls become Treecko.

Rash boys become Mudkip while Rash girls become Torchic.

Hasty boys are Skitty while Hasty girls are Pikachu.

Bold boys are Turtwig while Bold girls are Squirtle.

Naive boys are chimchar and Naive girls are Skitty.

Impish boys are Piplup while Impish girls are Chimchar.

And, finally, relaxed boys are Munchlax while Relaxed girls are Meowth.

One notable difference you might notice with this is that no starters are bound to gender anymore! While the partners you select have pre-determined genders, with Torchic being the only female as far as I can tell, you yourself can start as any of the starters regardless of which gender you select. So, if you keep track of what types of how you've been answering throughout the quiz and want to game the system to get the starter you want, you can gain a bit more control by strategically choosing your gender. Alternatively, this probably means a lot of grumpy boys probably got told they were Skitty and immediately reset their game after feeling emasculated (LOL).

Anyway, while I prefer to leave my starter up to fate the way the game seems intended, if you're interested in shooting for a specific starter and want to paly along, here's a guide for you to follow to help get the starter you want. Do note, however, that the questions are randomly generated every time and you can't skip the intro until a save file is created! So it may take a few tries to get the one you want! Try to have an open mind when choosing your starter!

So, with all said and done, my starter and partner have been selected. Say hello to my new self and Pep the Piplup!

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

Our story begins with a rather ominous cinematic spanning both screens as some sort of shipwreck seems to be occurring in the middle of a terrible storm off the coast of a dangerous-looking shore! I suppose this is something that'll be elaborated on further with time.

Soon, I wake up on a shoreline, things look much calmer here but I'm much too exhausted to stay awake for long. Clearly, I have no idea what I've been through or even if that was me in that intro. It's implied to be the case, but we've had misleading backstory expository in the previous game that led us down a wild goose chase, so let's not make any assumptions here!

We soon cut to our future partner Pep here, who seems to be struggling with some sort of confidence issue regarding this strange building here.

He steps forward and alerts some sort of security measure as is footprint is checked to determine the type of pokemon he is!

The sudden noise seems to be a bit too much for the little guy's nerve and he can't bring himself to move forward. I guess he's not the kind to like to be in the center of attention, huh?

He pulls out a strange stone which he calls his personal treasure. He brought it along to try and inspire himself, but it still wasn't enough. I suppose this is something he's been mulling over for a long time but just can't get the guts to do.

As Pep takes his leave, a no-good Koffing and Zubat come out of hiding having been staking the place out, likely staking out weaklings just like him to mug.

The two collectively decide to go and take whatever that personal treasure of Pep's was. That's not a good sign!

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

On the Beach

Before I continue summarizing the story, I want to briefly touch on the fact that the soundtrack to this game is one of the most heavily praised aspects, it was the same case for Rescue Team, so I strongly recommend clicking the links whenever I put them as captions for images to listen to the ost. Of course, with time these links may break as these videos are taken off of YouTube, so please don't hesitate to ask me to fix them!

As Pep makes his way to the beach nearby, several Krabby seem to gather and begin blowing bubbles that start to decorate the shoreline and glisten in the sunset creating a beautiful scene!

The beauty of the scene before him isn't lost on Pep who can't help but take it all in to help him feel better about himself.

It isn't too terribly long before he stumbles across us, still knocked out on the beach!

We slowly wake up and he starts to speak with us, telling us that he was worried when he noticed we weren't moving and that he's glad we're okay.

And it's looking like once again we're opening up with the exact same mystery as the one from Rescue Team... something happened to us causing us to wake up in a strange new location as a pokemon! We distinctly recall being a human but can't remember a thing about our previous life! Well, save for my name, anyway.

We get past our introductions. I name myself Aura simply because this character does seem to be intended as a self-insert of sorts given that it's so heavily determined by my own personality. I did the same thing with Rescue Team even though I doubt these are intended to be the same character in the continuity, I can't quite rule out that possibility, either. Like I said, I don't know much at all about the story of this game or any of the twists it dishes out later on. A lot of this is going to be completely new to me!

It seems that pokemon have been getting more aggressive recently, causing the pokemon of the world to live a lot more on edge around new people. It makes sense that he might be a bit distrusting of us at first, but he admits we don't seem like a particularly mean sort.

Speak of the devil, those no-good baddies from before turn up to bump into Pep, causing him to drop his treasure.

The two pokemon take Pep's treasure right in front of him, poking fun at the fact that he's too much of a coward to do anything about it.

Pep is disheartened to watch his treasure get stolen so easily, but finally works up the courage to chase those two down and get his treasure back! We agree to help him and off we go to our very first dungeon!

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

Current Team

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

Aura (Chikorita M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Tackle, Growl

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

Pep (Piplup M); Lv. 5

Item: None

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Pound, Growl

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

Beach Cave

And here we have our first dungeon! I won't spend as much time going over the basics this time as the game is fundamentally identical to Red and Blue rescue team as far as I'm aware. If you have any questions about how this game works, I recommend taking a look back at the earlier posts there. Long story short, dungeons span multiple procedurally generated tile-based floors filled with rooms and hallways. Your ultimate goal on each floor is to find the staircase tile that proceeds to the next. Along the way, you'll run into wild pokemon who will attack you as well as items to help you.

Right now, there isn't too terribly much to worry about besides fighting enemies that come yoru way and working your way to the depths of the cave. You can only carry one item at a time but the items available are pretty standard.

As youe xplore, you'll find darkness and difficult terrain are already being introduced a bit earlier than they were in the previous game. In darkness, a small spotlight will appear around your leader in hallways and you can only see enemies within that spotlight. This can make things a bit spotty especially in later dungeons, so be careful on dark floors and watch for enemies on your map! Whenever you're in a room rather than a hallway, the spotlight will zoom out to cover the entire room so that you can see everything inside it, but you won't be able to see in the hallways.

As for difficult terrain, in this case water, only certain species of pokemon can pass through different kinds of terrain. Generally, pokemon capable of flight have the easiest time with difficult terrain. Water types like Piplup are capable of traveling on this water, but Chikorita doesn't quite have things so lucky.

Beach Cave [B1F - B4F]

As you explore the four floors of this dungeon, you'll run into Shellder, Kabuto, Corsola, and Shellos. None of these guys are too threatening, but since this dungeon is so short you may want to go ahead and get into the habit of using your attacks to defeat them. You can use a standard attack in a pinch, but in general you'll probably want to focus on using attacks like Tackle or Pound to get through these encounters. You can only directly control your leader, but you can encourage your allies to use certain moves over others by checking or unchecking them through the menus. Right now, there isn't anything too terribly intrusive that they can end up doing, so I'm fine with Pep helping out however he wants. It's worth noting that even if an attack is resisted by type matchups it's still likely to deal more damage than a standard, typeless attack. So use Tackle even against the Kabuto and Corsola and see how it plays out for you!

The only item you can find on the first floor of this dungeon is Poke. This is a currency that can be spent in shops later and is an incredibly important resource!

On the second floor only, you can find Oran Berries instead of Poke. Since we don't have a toolbox yet, we can only carry one item at a time. You naturally heal up damage as you explore so you're not likely to really need an item like this, but you may as well bring one with you if you've got nothing else!

After the second floor, you'll no longer find Oran Berries and instead find Blast and Sleep Seeds for the rest of the dungeon. These are items you do not want to eat yourself but rather throw at enemies nearby. Blast Seeds will deal a decent chunk of damage while Sleep Seeds may put the target to sleep. Either of these seeds have a chance to miss when thrown, though, so it isn't guaranteed. And if they miss, there is a risk of the enemy picking them up and using them against you, too, so try and play it safe! They're generally a pretty safe bet, though. So especially if you know the seed in your hands is easily replaceable, you may as well give it a chuck whenever a pokemon is out of range of your normal attacks.

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

At the fifth floor, we finally corner Koffing and Zubat and finally take the chnace to stand up against Pep's bullies. Of course, they're not done messing with him and don't intend to give up the treasure so easily. It looks like we'll have to fight for it!

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

Vs. Koffing & Zubat

If you have any Blast Seeds, a good opening might be to throw one straight across because you just might pick off Zubat right away. Since I only have an Oran Berry with me, I went ahead and used Growl to reduce their attack while they were out of range instead. Pep had the same idea and so their attack was reduced quite a bit before they were able to approach us for their attacks.

Once they were in range, it was just a matter of using Tackle over and over to take out the two foes. I led off by singling out Zubat since Koffing was in position to take damage from both of us. Zubat went down fairly effortlessly and Koffing wasn't too far behind. And that was that! Really simple stuff all things considered. But it is a tutorial dungeon, so you can't expect much complexity out of it. Interestingly, it looks like this game might actually heal you before a boss battle? I didn't actually pay attention, but I do have 30 PP for Tackle which I'm pretty sure I'd been using throughout the dungeon. It's entirely possible that this is true only for early boss fights and won't be a consistent thing, though. Probably best not to rely on automatic healing before a boss fight just yet.

In the end, we came out on top with just a few scratches here and there.

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

With that, the two goons drop the treasure they stole and retreat. Pep is more than greatful for the help we provided, though I'm pretty confident he would've been fine on his own. Those guys were all talk!

Pep thanks us all the way back to the beach, this treasure must really mean a lot to him after all as he's never looked happier to get it back!

Pep shows us his treasure and begins to explain why it means so much to him. He starts by going into his interests about exploring. He wants to go off and see fantastical places nobody's ever seen before and make his mark on history. It's a pretty lofty goal for someone so small, but it's certainly not unachievable! We have the experience to affirm that one!

He gives us a closer look at the fragment and explains that the inscription on it is just screaming that this relic must be a key to somewhere legendary. He sees it as the key to his dreams of becoming a famous explorer! That's why it means so much to him. He believes this fragment must fit into something somewhere and open up something new, and that's why he wants to join an exploration team! But he admits that he chickened out in the process.

It's pretty clear where this is going. We just woke up on this beach with nowhere to go, and Pep has an idea for somewhere we can go.

It seems that experience with Koffing and Zubat has emboldened Pep a lot and he wants to join an exploration team with us!

After a bit of internal monologue, we conclude that we really don't have anything better to go off of right now and that exploring with Pep might just help us uncover the mysteries of what's been going on. So, why not? Let's start a new Exploration team together!

And with that, we make our promises and our future is looking set! Next time, perhaps we'll see just what it means to become an Exploration Team!

And there we have the game's prologue! Who knows what kinds of strange ways this game will play on the expectations set up by the first game? Only time will tell! Well, I suppose Darkness will have to tell a bit of a story as well.

As mentioned before, I'm playing not only Explorers of Time on emulator, but Explorers of Darkness on physical hardware. So, let's take a quick look at how things are going on that other save file, shall we?

Just like in Blue Rescue Team, I decided to start with a female protagonist to increase my odds of getting a different starter. My quiz brought me to the Brave nature this time around and gave me Charmander as my starter! In the interest of focusing on new starters in this game, I decided to choose my partner as Turtwig. I named Charmander Liz and Turtwig Sprout. It's a little bit unfortunate that I started with Charmander I think as I'd really rather start with a pokemon I've never had on my team before and I did have Mudkip and Charmander in Red Rescue Team, but this time around Charmander is the leader, so maybe it'll be different enough! I don't want to sit there and restart over and over until I get a starter I want more, though. This is what fate chose to give me so it's what I'll be sticking with!

There isn't too terribly much to cover between these two's adventures so far, I had a Blast Seed for the boss fight against Koffing and Zubat this time that was able to take Zubat out right away on the first turn, allowing us both to double down on Koffing and leading to an even quicker win than the first time. Easy stuff!

Anyway, next time we'll be making our exploration teams official! Let's see what that means! Though I still have mixed feelings about this project in the long-run, I do have to say I'm excited to buckle down and finally experience this story from beginning to end that I've been hearing about all these years!

June 17, 2022

We pick up today where we left off last time. Pep brings us to the entrance to Wigglytuff's Guild, the place he couldn't bring himself to go through visiting the first time. But this time, he's got us here to help him work up the courage!

Well, he's still gotta psych himself up a little bit, it seems, but we know he can do it!

He's once again freaked out by the security protocol he triggers, but he holds firm and tells himself to be strong. He's in new territory already!

After identifying his footprit as that of a Piplup, the voice from the hole permits Pep to enter, but it's also aware there's someone else nearby and asks for us to stand there as well.

I'm not sure I fully understand this but this security measure seems to concern even myself as I hesitate to step onto the grate before the voice calls out to me to stand on it.

However, there seems to be some sort of difficulty once I actually do step on...

It seems the Diglett whose job it is to monitor this grate isn't quite sure how to identify our fingerprint. Perhaps Chikorita aren't very common around these parts?

After a bit of back and forth between the Diglett and another voice, the two seem to agree that we don't seem particularly suspicious, so they decide to allow us inside the guild.

After shaking his nerves off a bit, Pep is excited to finally be able to go inside and further his dream! Let's go in and help him see it through!

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

Wigglytuff's Guild

Inside the guild, there's a ladder that leads deeper inside.

The guild is certainly a lot larger on the inside than it looks on the surface! Pep is blown away!

It isn't too long before Chatot arrives on the scene to introduce himself as the right-hand man of the guildmaster. It seems he's pretty important around here and will be helping us with whatever we're here for.

He briefly mistakes us for salespeople or surveyors, so he somewhat curtly brushes us off, but Pep holds his ground and insists that we want to form an exploration team!

Chatot is surprised by this suggestion. He implies the training process for new exploration teams is extremely difficult for newcomers to get through and not many are enthusiastic about the process.

When questioned about it, though, Chatot immediately goes on the defensive. Perhaps they really do have a dire need for more exploration teams and he doesn't want to discourage potential new recruits! He immediately goes a full 180 and insists that the training program couldn't be easier!

Without further ado, he's delighted that we have an interest in forming an exploration team and leads us to where we must go to register!

He leads us down to the second floor of the guild where apprentices come to work.

Chatot leads us to the Guildmaster's chamber and warns us to be on our best behavior around him before we go inside. He sounds like he might be pretty scary!

As we step inside, we find the guildmaster who is a lot more whimsical than he's been built up by Chatot so far. Perhaps Chatot is just a bit jaded? Or perhaps there's more to this Wigglytuff than meets the eye... Either way, he introduces himself and admittedly doesn't seem much different at all from the Wigglytuff that ran the Wigglytuff Club in Rescue Team!

Wigglytuff doesn't waste any time in getting our new team registered!

I decided to name my and Pep's team Persevere.

I feel I should also mention that Liz and Sprout's team was named Team Outreach.

So, from now on, Team Persevere's adventure refers to the adventure in Explorers of Time, while Team Outreach's adventure refers to the adventures in Explorers of Darkness. I wanted to name them Persevere and Outreach because I felt they both fit with the themes we've seen of these characters and their interests so far, as well as with the idea of remaining persistent over time and reaching out to help those in the darkness. I'm not certain how accurate this will turn out to fit the themes of the game, but I figure it can't be too far from the goal, right?

And with that, we're officially registered as Team Persevere!

To commemorate our new registration, Wigglytuff gifts us with an Exploration Team Kit, not unlike the one we received in the mail when we registered to become a Rescue Team in the first game!

Inside, we get an Explorer Badge which will allow us to beam people who need rescuing back to the guild, a Wonder Map that will allow us to navigate easily to dungeons, and a Treasure Bag which can be used to hold multiple items so we no longer have to carry just one with us!

Wigglytuff foreshadows a new feature in this game where, as your explorer rank increases, not only will you be permitted to take on tougher missions, but you'll also be able to carry more items in your bag! This is a much greater incentive to focus on improving your explorer rank than your rescue rank in the previous game, but I suppose we're getting ahead of ourselves. The important thing for now is tha twe have a treasure bag that can carry several items at once!

Inside the treasure bag, we can find a Power Band which is a held item that increases attack, and a Sky Blue Bow which reflects the color of our aura from our personality quiz. This held item increases the offensive and defensive stats of the pokemon holding it, so it's all around better than the Power Band.

There are several different Bows you can get in this way, but they're all functionally identical to each other so there's no real reason to have any concern over it.

And with that, we've been spoiled enough and it's time to get started on our new life!

Well, there is one last spoil to be had, it's getting late, so we'll need to rest up in our room! It sounds like things are going to get real busy real quick, so we should take the opportunity to rest up while we can!

It seems that Pep is just a bit too excited about his future here to go to sleep just yet, so he continues to talk about how much he's looking forward to working with us until he eventually drifts off to sleep. Who can blame him, really? With how worked up he's been over this, it must be exciting to have finally come this far!

Of course, we've got our own problems to worry about. In an all too familiar dilemma, we find ourselves more concerned with our own existential crisis. Who are we? Why are we a pokemon? What's going on in our lives? There are so many mysteries to uncover, this is especially curious considering I can't imagine the answer to these questions would end up being the same thing as they were in the previous game.

For now, we decide to continue focusing on our responsibilities as an exploration team member for the Wigglytuff Guild. Hopefully all our questions will be answered as we continue down this path... and hopefully we haven't pissed off any Ninetales this time, either!

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

The next morning, we're awoken by a loud and booming voice!

The voice belongs to a Loudred who's trying to get us to stop sleeping in so late! Of course, his loud voice isn't exactly the most pleasant sound to listen to.

Loudred introduces himself as another apprentice to the guild and insists that we're going to regret being late.

Apparently Wigglytuff has a really bad temper if things don't go his way, and it's enough to scare even Loudred! Perhaps we've discounted his wrath a bit too quickly. It's sounding like being late really isn't something we're gonna wanna make a habit of here.

Pep is dazed from all the yelling, but quickly remembers the events of the previous day! We've gotta hurry up and get going to the briefing!

Loudred immediately calls us out when we arrive later than the others, but he's immediately scolded by Chatot for his obnoxious voice. It's good to know we're not going to be the only ones looked down on, here!

With everyone here, it's time to conduct the morning address with perfect attendence!

Wigglytuff steps out of his chamber, but is evidently still asleep despite his eyes being wide open!

This feat of sleeping with his wide open is a point of fascination by all the apprentices, Chatot is a bit embarrassed but passes the snoring off as words of wisdom to treasure!

Everyone seems to go through a daily cheer to hype themselves up for work before going off and getting to their duties! This cheer seems to include the rules they're expected to follow. Don't shirk work, run away and pay, and smiles go for miles. Exploration Teams are expected to work hard, never back down, and stay positive! Something tells me as time goes on those three rules are going to be a lot harder to stick to when we get to tougher situations, but we'll need to try and stay true to them ourselves!

We briefly gain control here where we can look at our menu a bit. You may have noticed my top screen looks a little different than it did before. Just like in Blue Rescue Team, you can customize the top screen to display various types of info. My favorite is this one that displays the portraits and status of all of your active party members. You can also have the top screen display the message log, the map, and the list of controls as we saw in the tutorial section. You can change this up in the options under Others. Other than that, we can look at the summaries of our teammates, but we can't actually do anything in the overworld right now. As far as I can tell, we can't actually equip our held items until we're actually inside of a dungeon which is a little bit disappointing.

As we try to go off and begin exploring, Chatot calls to us and tells us to follow him so he can show us what exactly we should be doing as new recruits.

Chatot leads us to the Bulletin Board on the first floor to decide our first assignment as rookies.

It's here that we get our first drop of background for what's been going on in the world. Apparently something strange is going on with the flow of time in the world and it's causing a lot of pokemon to act irrationally. It sounds a lot like the strange natural calamities that plagued the world in rescue team. Those were caused by the presence of a falling star that threatened to destroy the world. Perhaps some similar catastrophe is threatening this world as we speak? Well, only time will tell, of course.

Beyond this, there's also been a mass outbreaks of mystery dungeons which we should be all too familiar with. Pep explains it to us just in case, but they're the dungeons like the one we explored the previous night. They're different every time and getting KO'd inside one can cause you to lose your money, items, and other things as well. But, the items we'll find inside a mystery dungeon will be different every time as well.

These two phenomenon are a big reason the guild has been receiving a lot of requests on its bulletin board. So, as rookies, it'll be our job to take on a lot of the lower-ranked missions, just like as a rescue team.

After all of that exposition, Chatot takes a look at the bulletin board and selects a mission that looks like it should be simple enough for us. He hands us a request.

The request seems to be from a Spoink whose precious pearl has been stolen by an outlaw. Spoink expresses hope in having heard that his pearl has been seen at a dungeon called the Drenched Bluff, but laments that it's too dangerous for them to go after it, so they are leaving a request for an exploration team to retrieve the item for them!

Pep is initially a bit insulted by this request, it's not very exciting just going to pick up some lost item, but Chatot immediately scolds him and reminds him about the importance of starting off with these humble jobs.

After a quick summary of everything we've discussed, Chatot ushers us off to take on our first official request at the Drenched Bluff.

Using our Wonder Map, we make our way to the Drenched Bluff where Spoink's pearl has supposedly been spotted on B7F. It sounds like we've got our work cut out for us!

Drenched Bluff

This is the second dungeon of the game and I suppose you can consider it our first "real" dungeon, but I'm not quite sure if that's accurate to say. There's still not a whole lot going on here, but it is a bit more complex. It is, however, where we're going to start to have to make a few more decisions than before, though.

Throughout the floors of this dungeon, you'll find Poke, Geo Pebbles, Apples, Oran and Pecha Berries, as well as Blast, Heal, and Sleep Seeds. All of these items are the same as they were in Rescue Team.

Geo Pebbles are projectile items that can be set and thrown at targets from a great range, making them great if you don't have any attacks that can hit the target.

Apples restore hunger which may start to become a factor if you're a bit careless with your movement. Every step and action you take will deplete your belly stat, so you'll usually want to make sure you have some sort of food item like an Apple in order to refil your belly when you're low. If you're hungry, your HP will rapidly deplete with each action until you eventually faint. You definitely don't want that to happen! Other food items, like berries, will also replenish your belly, but Apples do so significantly more with the only drawback being that their only purpose is to fill your belly.

Oran and Pecha berries heal your HP or Poison if you find yourself compromised.

Heal Seeds will heal any status condition, making them all-around better than berries that heal specific status conditions. I'm not really sure why the berries exist at all if I'm being honest.

Now, one immediate difference I was not aware of about Explorers compared to Rescue Team is that it seems version exclusivity extends beyond just pokemon availability. It seems the presence of certain items in certain dungeons is also determined by version! That's a bit worrying, but I can't imagine these items are totally exclusive to other versions. Still, I'll try to note version exclusive items separately whenver they come up.

In explorers of Time, you'll find Blue, Grass, and White Gummis along with Stun Seeds and Warp Seeds across all floors of this dungeon.

Gummis are used to slightly fill the eater's belly but also increase their IQ. Blue gummis are associated with Water types, Grass with Grass, and White with Normal. The gummis will increase IQ by more for pokemon of the same type, but they're also effective for pokemon that type is weak against. For example, a Water type will get the most benefit from a Blue Gummi, but they'll get more benefit from a Grass Gummi than a Normal type. In Rescue Team, IQ boosts from gummis were determined slightly differently in that dual-typed pokemon had a distinct advantage over single-typed pokemon as the IQ boost from both types were calculated separately and added together. However, now it simply gives you the better of the two boosts. Dual-typed pokemon still have an advantage, but they won't leave single-typed pokemon completely in the dust. IQ is a stat you'll want to increase as high as possible, especially for postgame content, so start feeding into it as early and efficiently as you possibly can!

The stun seed (read that backwards, I dare you), is used to stop a target in place similar to a Sleep Seed. A stunned pokemon can't move at all but may still have a chance to attack in place. This can be great for adjusting your positioning but usually isn't really worth the hassle.

The Warp Seed will warp the target to a random tile on the floor. You can eat it yourself to get out of danger or throw it at an enemy to hopefully get it away. It's generally a good idea to stay close to your teammates, especially this early on, so I recommend using these for enemies only.

As for Explorers of Darkness, you'll find Pink, Red, and Yellow Gummis along with X-Eye Seeds and Violent Seeds throughout the dungeon.

Pink, Red, and Yellow Gummis are associated with the Poison, Fire, and Electric types respectively.

The X-Eye Seed was previously called the Allure Seed. It gives the cross-eyed status which will replace enemies, allies, and items with substitutes which can cause some erratic behavior in enemies. It can be a good way to turn them against each other in a pinch!

The violent seed is a pretty powerful item that maxes out the user's offensive stats! Make sure you don't throw this one at an enemy! It might save your ally in a pinch, though. Remember that you can throw items at your allies to get them to use them instantly!

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

Drenched Bluff [B1F - B2F]

For the first couple floors here, the only pokemon you'll be running into are Lileep, Anorith, and Shellos. Lileep and Anorith can be a bit annoying since you likely only have Normal attacks to use against them, but power through a bit and you shouldn't be too far off from learning an elemental attack depending on your starters! Again, don't be afraid to use Tackle and the like even if it's resisted, it'll still do more damage than a generic attack. Shellos don't post much of a threat at all, you can mow them down pretty easily.

You may have thought I was done with the items, but no, it seems items are generally a bit more complicated in this game. I hope this isn't a consistent thing, but right now, they seem to be all over the place. This is especially convoluted with the X-Eye Seed which I just covered as a version exclusive for Darkness, but actually, it's only version exclusive that it's available on every floor of the dungeon in Darkness. In all versions of the game, this item can be found on any of the first three floors.

Alongside the X-Eye Seed, you can also find the Max Elixir which will restore the PP of all of your moves.

These Max Elixirs can be incredibly helpful for the longer dungeons you'll be facing later on, especially when we get into stronger attacks that have less PP. You might want to hang onto them for now while we're exploring these shorter dungeons. They aren't too terribly rare, but they are incredibly useful to carry with you at all times!

Before getting too carried away with progress, I recommend taking the time to equip your held items! I gave the Power Band to Pep and the Sky Blue Bow to myself. This will make our attacks slightly more powerful!

While exploring the second floor, I learned Razor Leaf! This is a fantastic move to get early-on. It's a physical Grass attack that can hit from a long range! You might notice that I specified Physical, keep in mind this is a Gen IV spinoff, so the Physical/Special Split is now in full-effect! Be mindful of an attack's affiation! Depending on your stats, a weak, physical attack might still do more damage more consistently than a stronger special attack and vice versa!

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

Drenched Bluff [B3F]

Chingling begins to appear on the 3rd floor! It's a pretty weak Psychic-type pokemon, but its Constrict can trap you in place until you take it out, so it might be a bit annoying in unfortunate circumstances. Still, use your moves and take them out quickly to keep them from ever being a problem.

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

Drenched Bluff [B4F]

The pokemon on this floor are all the same.

It seems as though you're guaranteed to always find one Max Elixir on this floor, so scour the floor for it here if you really feel like you must have it!

In addition the X-Eye Seed will not be available on this floor in Explorers of Time.

Instead, you'll be able to find the Vile Seed only on this floor. This item is similar in purpose but has the opposite effect of the Violent Seed. Rather than boosting the eater's offensive stats, it'll plummet the eater's defensive stats to the minimum. This is a much more powerful effect against bosses because unlike its Darkness counterpart, it's only available on this one floor.

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

Drenched Bluff [B5F - B6F]

Once again, the pokemon here remain the same.

The Big Apple can always be found on B5F. Nothing much to say about it, it's the same as a regular apple but better at its job.

The vile seed is gone on these floors and replaced again with the X-Eye Seed, the Max Elixir also returns as a regular random item spawn.

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

As we arrive on the 7th floor, we discover Spoink's lost Pearl! We immediately recover the lost item and return to the Wigglytuff Guild after a job well done!

Spoink is ecstatic to be reuinited with their pearl!

As thanks, they reward us with a Calcium, Protein, and Iron which are all vitamins to help boost their respective stats: Special Attack, Attack, and Defense respectively.

In addition, we're also given a generous reward of 2,000P!

Pep is ecstatic about the huge reward we'd just earned, but his excitement is cut short when Chatot intervenes.

It seems as though we only get to keep 10% of the monetary reward. For how simple the mission was, 200P seems like a more reasonable reward, but still, ya gotta love the capitalism at play here.

But there's nothing that can be done. These are the guild's rules and, to be fair, they are providing a lot for us for otherwise free. I mean, as long as we're a part of this guild, we get free food, free housing, and lots of support!

And speaking of the food, it sounds like it's dinner time!

We all eat our fill in the dining hall before turning in for the night. All in all, I don't think working here could really be all that bad.

Pep confides in us his feelings about what just went on. How he was upset about most of the money being taken, but that the most important thing was that we were able to make a difference for Spoink. He was glad our first mission turned out to be a success and hopefully we'll remain successful as we venture forward!

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

We wake up the next morning to the same familiar booming voice as before. Oddly, we're only given a prompt to save after the title card for the next chapter which I don't recall happening in the previous game. Oh well, next time, we'll have to see what happens next!

June 17, 2022

Wigglytuff's Guild

Today's our second day as apprentices for the guild! Let's get ready on time this time and see what today has in store for us!

The morning cheer plays out all the same, though now everything is skipped up to the last part of the cheer. It's a good thing we don't have to go through the whole rigamarole again every day! I could see that becoming a hassle.

Once again, Chatot notices that we don't quite seem to know exactly where to go, so he decides to provide us with another assignment.

Chatot leads us this time to a second bulletin board across the room from the one that held the standard requests. This board depicts the portraits of various tough-looking pokemon.

Pep at first assumes these pokemon to be famous explorers, but Chatot corrects him by explaining that these are outlaws with bounties waiting to be collected.

The expectation to hunt bounties on dangerous outlaws definitely seems like something completely out of Pep's pay grade, to which Chatot agrees humorously. But, Chatot assures him that not all the outlaws on here are so dangerous. The outlaws on this board range from major criminals to petty thieves, so there are certainly targets that someone of even our skill level would be capable of taking on. Chatot encourages us to select a weak-looking outlaw and go to capture them.

Of course, a task such as this does require some degree of preparation, so Chatot arranges for another apprentice to give you a tour of the facilities around Wigglytuff Guild.

Chatot calls Bidoof into the room to give us this tour. Bidoof joined the guild not long before we did, so he's ecstatic about finally having an underling of his own. Something's telling me, though, that we're ultimately going to end up inspiring him than the other way around. Maybe that's just protagonist syndrome at work.

The first thing Bidoof does is take us downstairs to the apprentice level, pointing us to Croagunk who he admits he doesn't really know anything about. I suppose we'll just have to learn more about that later on.

Of course, we also know our way around this lower floor pretty well by now, he points us to the mess hall where we eat, crew rooms where we sleep, and guildmaster's chamber where we can find Guildmaster Wigglytuff himself. There isn't much practical reason to visit these areas regularly, but it's good to know your way around and there might be some cute details to spot if you return to them every once in a while.

But, our tour extends to more beyond what's inside the guild. Bidoof next takes us to the town outside!

Treasure Town

This is Treasure Town! Just outside of Wigglytuff's Guild, this place is Explorers' answer to Rescue Team's Pokemon Square! This is where you'll be handling most of your shopping and resource management between explorations. Even Pep knows his way around here pretty well!

Duskull Bank is exactly what it sounds like. Just like Felicity Bank, you can leave the bulk of your accumulated cash with him to prevent it from being lost mid-dungeon. If you have a surplus of cash, though, it may be a good idea to keep some money on hand in case you run into a merchant with some rare items! But for now, it's generally best to keep any money you don't spend in the bank to avoid losing it if you end up getting KO'd.

The next facility is Electivire Link Shop which sounds like it operates just like the Gulpin Link Shop, but Electivire doesn't seem to be home just yet, so I suppose there's no need to cover linked moves just yet.

Next we have Kecleon Market which is where you can buy items. Just like in Rescue Team, there are two Kecleon here. The green one sells you more generic items like apples, berries, and seeds, whille the purple one sells you rarer items like Wonder Orbs and even TMs! You'll want to check back with these guys often as they can net you some really valuable items and their selection of items is random every day! There are certain items I recommend you always carry with you on every trip including Reviver Seeds and Escape Orbs. If you're running short, you may also want some Apples or Max Elixirs, too. Unlike in Rescue Team, the green Kecleon can also sell you gummis which can make IQ boosting a bit more consistent than before. You no longer have to dedicate entire excursions to hunting down for specific gummi types when you can just check the store every once in a while. We're still in the beginning of the game, though, so it might not be worth it to get too spend-happy just yet. I'd focus exclusively on covering the essentials you're still lacking. You might be surprised how easy it is to get KO'd in this game, even this early!

Of course, while managing your inventory, inventory space is a major hassle. Kangaskhan Storage is incredibly important for that reason. Any items you don't have any need for can be left with Kangaskhan for safe keeping to avoid losing them if you get KO'd. It's important to store rare items you have no current use for here! It's also useful for unloading extras of items you don't need to bring with you as well. You probably don't need to carry 5 Max Elixirs with you, so go ahead and dump the excess and hold onto one or two at a time. But, it's always important to be prepared for what's to come! If you find yourself starved for resources, it's not wrong to use an Escape Orb to try again with a better selection of items for the dungeon you're tackling.

Bidoof is impressed by how much Pep seems to know about Treasure Town, so he decides to leave us to our prep work and tells us to find him at the bulletin board so that he can help us select the right outlaw to take on!

Pep insists that we go to visit the Kecleon Market before we head back. Sounds like a story flag to me! But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's take a minute to explore the local area. Just like in Rescue Team, you can run into various other Exporation Team members hanging around Treasure Town which really brings some extra life to this world, even more so I think than Rescue Team ever had.

The first of these exploration teams is Team Seedgey, composed of a Seedot and Pidgey as well as an abundance of creativity.

We can also find Corphish and Sunflora who are both apprentices at Wigglytuff's guild as well.

Nearby, there's a facility called Marowak Dojo that seems to have collapsed in an accident. It sounds a lot like Makuhita Dojo, so I suppose we'll need to check it out once it's operational again!

There's also this Chansey-shaped hutt by a river nearby. I'm not sure what exactly this is here for, but it looks like some sort of service might be offered here later on. I guess we'll just need to check back here, too!

Just outside the Electivire Link Shop is a humorous team of a Swellow and Wurmple named Team Tasty. The name was apparently Wurmple's idea because he seems afraid of Swellow wanting to eat him even though Swellow is completely oblivious to that fact... hopefully things turn out well between these two!

There's a Vigoroth who seems like he's always going to be ready to work.

Then there's Team Ebony over here, comprised of a Shuppet and Murkrow. Murkrow seems to be a bit of a kleptomaniac but Shuppet keeps her in line.

At the edge of town, there's a cliffside overlooking the sea similar to the one just beyond Pelipper Post Office in Pokemon Square.

In the southern part of the marketplace, we can find another hut shaped like Xatu. Once again, we don't have any information to go off of here, so we'll just have to come back later to see what's going on with this place.

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

Anyway, my first step is to drop some items off with Kangaskhan and this is where I think my biggest complaint with this game comes into play. You might notice my Power Band and Sky Blue Bow are no longer equipped. That's right, items cannot be equipped between dungeons. They have to be carried into the dungeon, take up a slot in your treasure bag at all times, and have to be manually equipped at the start of the excursion. It is a genuine headache to have to remember to do this every single time and I cannot fathom why they would make this change when the system worked just fine in the original games. To make things even more annoying, items like Protein, Calcium, and Gummis can't be eaten outside of a dungeon either! Considering how many of these items you get as rewards, it's a hassle to have to go into a dungeon just to use up some items. It's genuinely irritating that the inventory management is so much worse in this game than Rescue Team's considering even Rescue Team's inventory system was a bit cumbersome at times. Oh well, we'll just have to remain mindful of the items we carry with us and try to remember to bring unused stat boosting items with us on excursions.

Anyway, I checked in with the Kecleon but it didn't seem they had anything I was particularly interested in investing any of my limited cash flow on just yet. The sale of Gummis looks like something really promising to save my money for, though!

While in the middle of shopping, we're interrupted by a cute Marill and Azurill who run up to the market to buy an apple!

These two siblings are absolutely precious and you just can't help but immediately fall for them! Their mother Azumarill has gotten sick so they're helping to pull the weight by doing the shopping.

To add to the charm of these sweethearts, Azurill immediately comes running back when he notices he was given an extra Apple he hadn't paid for! He and Marill are overjoyed when the Kecleon reveal the gift wasn't a mistake and that the extra apple is on the house and politely thank the Kecleon brothers before taking their leave.

On his way out, Azurill ends up tripping and dropping the apple, which we're happy to pick up and give back. But then...

...A cry for help?

We could've sworn we just heard a cry for help, but nobody around us seems to be responding to it.

The two brothers leave together now that they're done with their shopping, leaving that surreal experience unexplained for now...

Pep seems satisfied to watch the two wonder off blissfully, but he notices something's up with us. We ask him about it and he reveals that he, also, hadn't heard anything, and neither did the Kecleon, so perhaps we're just hearing things? But this wasn't just some simple mistake, it was a very distinct sound...

It sounded exactly like Azurill's scream... just what was going on here?

Well, there's not much that can be done about this oddity for now, so let's get back to our prep work.

The other Kecleon was selling an Escape Orb, so I decided to invest some money into that, it could potentially save us from some really dirty RNG. With that out of the way, we'll need to make our way back to the guild now.

On our way back, we bump into the brothers again, this time with a friendly-looking Drowzee who seems to be helping them with some problem they've been having.

We ask about what's been going on and apparently this Drowzee has located an item Marill and Azurill had lost and offered to help them look for it!

Drowzee seems more than happy to help the two siblings out.

The squad of three quickly head out to search for the item they're missing.

On his way out, Drowzee bumps into us, causing another dizzy spell...

Pep remains completely ignorant at the moment, but something isn't quite right and it's clear...

This time, we see a clear vision of Azurill in danger of... the very same Drowzee! Could this be a vision of the future? That can't be good!

Pep notices we're acting strange again and starts to ask us about what's going on. He's shocked by what we tell him!

While he doesn't want to admit to not fully trusting you on this, he just can't bring himself to believe that Drowzee could be a bad person after how kind he was to the two brothers. It's frustrating, but it seems like Pep is going to take some convincing. I suppose visions of the future aren't exactly an explanation we can just assume to be the case here, so I imagine it could be hard to convey the certainty of what we saw when it's something that hasn't even happened... Still, it's unnerving and frustrating that we can't do anything about it right now.

Pep does draw us back into reality, though. We are only apprentices, so if Drowzee happens to be a real threat, it's likely a better-equipped Exploration Team will be able to handle him. Until then, we'll just need to focus on our own task at hand!

Before we head back, it's always important to make one final stop at Duskull Bank to store our cash! We don't wanna lose any of it due to an unfortunate mistake!

If you head south at the junction outside Wigglytuff's Guild, you can revisit the beach from the intro, but there doesn't appear to be much here at all and we can't go very far before being told we should head back to the guild.

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

Wigglytuff's Guild

Back inside the guild, we can find Team Glee in front of the bulletin board! Comprised of Togepi, Politoed, and Ledyba, they're focused on spreading happiness and cheer wherever they go!

If we check in with Croagunk, he doesn't seem to have much more to say about himself than Bidoof, so I suppose he'll continue to be a mystery for now.

In the mess hall, we can find Chimecho alone who just tells us that dinner isn't ready yet and we'll just have to wait.

If you ever find yourself uncertain as to where to go, you can always speak with Chatot for a reminder of what to do next. He'll remind us this time to go to the Outlaw Notice Board and pick out an outlaw to go after.

If we go down to the crew rooms, there are actually two other forks off the main hallway that lead to other rooms.

The first room is home to the team of Sunflora and Loudred. We can find Sunflora's diary here! It seems this diary will be expanded over time, so let's try and check back often! A little invasion of privacy doesn't matter in a video game, right?

It seems Sunflora is a bit self-aware in her writing. She opens up gleefully greeting anyone who reads her diary before realizing the implications of someone besides herself reading her diary. What a strange creature.

To the south, there's a second room where we can find Bidoof's diary!

In Bidoof's diary, he reveals that it's been a long time since he's apprenticed here. He seems to be a bit of a lacky and beats himself up over operating so slowly, but he remains persistent in pursuing his dream of becoming a first-class explorer! You do gotta respect his commitment!

One last step you'll probably wanna take before heading out on any adventures is to save. You can do so at any point by returning to your bed in the guild. Now, we're ready to get started on today's task!

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

We meet up with Bidoof at the Outlaw Notice Board and decide to start looking through the selection of outlaws when...

A loud voice speaks up announcing that the notice board is being updated! The entire board flips over and Bidoof explains the system that goes into keeping the bulletin boards up to date.

Updating the listings is the duty of Dugtrio, who burrows up behind the notice boards, flips them over, updates the boards, and then flips them back. It's a simple task, but it's one Dugtrio takes pride in. By doing this, they can make sure the latest job requests and outlaws are posted asap.

Shortly after, the update is complete and the panel is flipped over, but something on the updated listings immediately sends chills through Pep.

As soon as we catch wind, it's immediately apparent what's got him so worked up. The very same Drowzee that left with Marill and Azurill is a wanted criminal.

With no time to waste, without even thinking, we have our heading and rush out to fix our mistake, leaving Bidoof a bit confused in the dust. But there's no time for that now. This is something we have to stop before it's too late!

We run into Marill outside the guild and he explains that he got separated from Azurill and Drowzee and that they wouldn't come back when he called out to them. He points us in the direction they went, afriaid they may be wandering into dangerous territory. Even Marill might not know how dangerous things are!

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

Mt. Bristle

Marill leads us to the mountain Drowzee had led them to. We recall that my vision took place at a rocky summit, so we don't hesitate to get climbing!

This dungeon is the first major difficulty spike for the game. Comparable to Mt. Steel in Rescue Team, the pokemon here are shockingly tough though the dungeon itself is a bit shorter than Mt. Steel is.

Throughout the entire dungeon, you can find Poke, Geo Pebbles, Oran, Pecha, and Cheri Berries, Blast, Heal, and Reviver Seeds, Max Elixirs, and an assortment of Wonder Orbs.

Cheri Berries heal paralysis, can't get any simpler than that.

Reviver Seeds are some of the most valuable items in the game. If you're surprised by an enemy's strength and end up getting KO'd, this item will revive you with full HP potentially buying you an opportunity to use another item to get away, or an opportunity for one last attack that could take that enemy out. It's very important to know your limits! Make it a point to carry at least one of these everywhere you go because you never know when something stupidly unexpected might happen!

Just like in Rescue Team, I'm not going to be detailing every Wonder Orb in the game. I'll note specific ones that I find to be particularly useful as I play, but there are so many of these things with so many odd effects I think you're just best off experimenting with them yourself. Note, however, that some Wonder Orbs are more common in one version of the game than the other. One Wonder Orb that can be found easily in both versions is the Escape Orb which will allow you to escape from any dungeon instantly without having failed the dungeon and enduring the harsh punishments for failure. Like the Reviver Seed, I strongly recommend you always hold onto at least one of these everywhere you go.

As for version exclusive items, in Time we have Iron Thorns, Blue, Grass, Orange, and White Gummis, as well as Sleep, Stun, and Warp Seeds.

Iron Thorns are a throwable item that is thrown in a straight line ahead of you. Unlike Geo Pebbles which are lobbed overhead, these will collide with the first target they hit, ally or not, making them a lot less enticing overall. They're also weaker so I've never really been sure what the appeal of these items are. They're also weaker than Geo Pebbles, so... just pass on 'em, really.

Orange Gummis are associated with the Fighting type.

In Darkness, you'll instead find Sticks, Clear, Pink, Red, and Yellow Gummis, Rawst Berries, and X-Eye Seeds.

Sticks are even more useless than Iron Thorns as they deal less damage.

Clear Gummis are associated with the Ice-type.

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

Mt. Bristle [1F - 3F]

As foreshadowed earlier, the pokemon in Mt. Bristle are actually pretty tough this early on. Machop and Geodude can take a couple hits and deal out some pain in the process. Doduo is a bit annoying with its Run-away, but Geo Pebbles and Thorns in a pinch can help pick them off before they can get away. Spinarak is also a little annoying because of its tendency to poison you, so Pecha Berries might prove useful to carry around. But the real powerhouse might come as a surprise: Starly. These things are freaking terrifying. They already know Quick Attack which can hit you from two tiles away and they consistently deal around half of my HP. If Starly draws near, take it out immediately because it will tear right through your HP and Reviver Seeds, especially if you're a Grass-type because it also knows Wing Attack already!

While on these early floors, you can find Apples.

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

Mt. Bristle [4F - 9F]

Starting on 4F, you'll start to also run into Nidorina and Nidorino! Before even Nidoran! These guys aren't actually all too threatening, though. You can generally take them out with your attacks before than can work up too much damage. The scariest part is their Poison Point which can poison you if you attack them while adjacent to them, regardless of whether the attack would normally make physical contact in the main series. Just one of those Mystery Dungeon quirks you've gotta watch out for.

On the fourth floor, Pep leveled up and learned the move Bubble! I learned my lesson from my playthrough of Red Recue Team and immediately turned it off! The last thing you want is your obnoxiously aggressive ally picking fights you don't need to get into by blasting them with ranged attacks from across the room. Just remember if you want your ally to use these moves you'll need to manually reactivate them!

On the fifth floor only, you can't find regular Apples, but you'll always be able to find a Big Apple, so seek it out if you're wanting to build up a surplus early! Regular Apples begin to appear again from 6F onward.

Also on 5F, you can start to find Rawst Berries in Explorers of Time as well, they're just available earlier in the dungeon in Explorers of Darkness.

Mt. Bristle Peak

As we reach the 10th floor, we're treated to a scene of Azurill and Drowzee who seem to have reached a dead end. Azurill starts to get nervous and begins asking about the item.

It's here that Drowzee lets the cat out of the bag. He reveals that he intentionally separated Azurill from Marill so that they would be alone together, it was all part of a trick to get Azurill up here to help him with something of his own. He never had an interest in helping the brothers find their lost item at all.

Drowzee reveals his motivation for this crime is actually quite simple. There's rumor that there's a thieves' treasure hidden behind a small hole at the peak of Mt. Bristle, but he's too large to squeeze in himself, so he needs the help of a small child like Azurill to do the deed. His terms are simple, he wants Azurill to squeeze in, get the treasure, and then they can both go home. Rightfully, of course, Azurill is frightened by this approach and wants to go home.

The scared Azurill immediately tries to make a run for his brother, but he's stopped by Drowzee.

After cornering Azurill again, Drowzee threatens him just like in our vision and we hear Azurill's familiar cry for help! Well, the dialogue doesn't quite matchup which is admittedly a little irksome to me, but I'll look past that.

Thankfully, we're able to arrive just in time to stand up to the outlaw before us!

Drowzee is shocked that we've been tracked all the way out here, but as Team Persevere, we've come to stop this crime and save Azurill!

Of course, Pep has a lot of talk but he's clearly still just as nervous as he was when he stood up to Koffing and Zubat before. Drowzee is amused to realize that and puts together that we must be total rookies! He proceeds to taunt us and explain that several Exploration Teams have come after him, but he's never seen any group as sorry as ours! But we've got to steel ourselves, this is no time for words. We've got a villain to defeat!

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

Team Persevere

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

Aura (Chikorita M); Lv. 8

Item: Sky Blue Bow

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Tackle, Growl, Razor Leaf

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

Pep (PIplup M); lv. 8

Item: Power Band

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Pound, Growl, Bubble

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

Vs. Drowzee

This fight is actually a little bit intimidating. Drowzee's attacks are really powerful and his Insomnia ability makes him immune to the Sleep Seeds you might be inclined to rely on. X-Eye Seeds and Stun Seeds are decent alternatives but for the most part you're going to be relying on using items to heal off the damage he inflicts on you while keeping a constant stream of attacks on him. There's no point in reducing his Attack or buffing your Defense since he has Confusion, so your best bet is to get some distance and hit him with ranged attacks from afar.

I let him walk up to me and used a Stun Seed to petrify him before pelting him with attacks. I had a bit of a learning curve with this fight, so I didn't do it totally optimally, but I ultimately decided the best approach would be to not bother using Growl, turning it off for Pep, and letting him pull out Bubble. STAB is the largest multiplier in Mystery Dungeon, even surpassing type matchups, so this is the most damage we're capable of dealing, even in spite of Drowzee's higher Special Defense. These moves are also simply significantly stronger than Pound and Tackle and Bubble even has a chance of reducing his movement speed allowing us to get in extra attacks or put some distance between us!

Perhaps the scariest thing Drowzee is capable of doing to you is putting you to sleep with Hypnosis, so try and keep your health up as long as possible because while you're asleep you can't use any items on yourself or your allies! If your ally is put to sleep, you can use a Heal Seed to wake him up to help double down on damage output. Of course, Warp Seeds can also be used if you find yourself really pressured and need to get Drowzee away from you so you can recuperate a bit and pepper him with ranged attacks from afar.

Eventually, admittedly with some degree of luck, we were able to overcome Drowzee's strength and defeat him! It was a genuinely tough battle. The threat of Sleep made this battle much more challenging than Skarmory in the original game, it's pretty clear this game isn't playing around with the difficulty. You're definitely expected to have played the first game first. I guess I'll just have to be extra careful with future encounters!

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

Real quick, I wanted to touch up on Team Outreach's experience on this encounter as well.

Team Outreach

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

Aura (Liz F); Lv. 8

Item: Red Bow

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Scratch, Growl, Ember

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

Sprout (Turtwig M); lv. 8

Item: Special Band

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Tackle, Withdraw, Absorb

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

The encounter was mostly the same, though these two had access to fewer healing items but we did get our hands on some Reviver Seeds to help us power through the battle instead! It was a little rough, but we made it through!

I also wanted to note something I hadn't actually taken note of before. It seems that I started with a Special Band rather than a Power Band in Explorers of Darkness. At the time, I just assumed I was misremembering so I didn't bother mentioning it, but no, it's clearly a different item. That's strange. I'm not sure if it's dependent on your starter and partner choice or if it's completely random which item you get, but this difference might actually subtly affect the difficulty of the beginning of the game. I don't think the difference is enough to blame whole failures on, mind you, but it might make certain encounters a tad easier having one item over the other.

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

After defeating Drowzee, we check up on Azurill to see if he's okay before escorting him back to his worried brother. It's good that he's safe and unhurt! It would've been terrible had anything happened to the poor guy in all this.

At the base of the mountain, we're introduced to Magnezone who is the head of the police force. He thanks us for our help in apprehending the criminal.

After promising to send the reward to the guild, he leaves with the criminal in toe, leaving us alone with Azurill.

The two brothers get their heartwarming reunion and can thankfully both run home happily together! It's such a simple scene but something about how endearing these two have been so far already has me charmed!

Marill and Azurill thank us for everything we did and we all make our way home safely!

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

As a reward for completing our first outlaw mission, our treasure bag has been expanded! We can now carry more items than before! Hopefully the promises of an expandable inventory will offset the frustration of having to carry our held items around in our pockets, but only time will tell on that one, I suppose.

Of course, the guild receives the bounty from Magnezone and gives us our... "fair" share of 10%. Being an apprentice really sucks, huh? But hey, if this guild is enabling acts of heroism like this, it must be going to a great cause! If we were capable of saving Azurill from that scary Drowzee, no doubt there are tougher Exploration Teams capable of handling much worse threats in the world! It's important to chip in and help out however we can!

Pep is still bummed about having so much of the reward taken, but he's still glad we were able to rescue Azurill. This task was far, far more rewarding than just finding some pearl for a Spoink.

Pep calls to attention that we were only able to act so quickly because of the strange vision I'd had back in Treasure Town.

Of course, this leaves us with a lot of questions. Why were we able to see a vision of the future like that? Maybe it's related to the flow of time? Perhaps it's related to how we became a pokemon? At this point, there's no telling what sort of explanation could lie ahead, but either way, today's events make it clear that we're in the right place. If these visions continue to happen, maybe we can save others from terrible fates just like we did with Azurill!

Well, dinner time rolls around and we all stuff our faces before making our way back to our room to turn in for the night.

The night is stormy, much like it was the night before we turned up on the beach.

This connection causes Pep to try and check on our memory. He asks if anything comes to mind but, still, we can't remember anything about where we came from or what happened before we woke up. I guess it wouldn't be a mystery if we knew these things, huh?

Pep insists that it's fine and that we should just focus on remembering a little at a time. For now, we should get ready for another busy day tomorrow.

In the middle of the night, Pep starts talking to us about a theory he's starting to form about the vision we experienced. That perhaps it could be a clue to who we are. After all, the ability to see the future isn't exactly a common ability for any random Chikorita. It's especially curious considering we aren't even a Chikorita at all, but a human transformed into one for reasons we don't know.

Pep insists that, though he doesn't know what we were like as a human, we must've been a really good person. If that dream is related to our role as a human, then it made saving Azurill possible so it must be a good thing! The topic slowly shifts to the bad pokemon that have been popping up more and more recently. Caused by the oddities in the flow of time.

Pep then begins to talk about a thing called Time Gears.

These are ancient artifacts supposedly hidden away in remote locations of the world.

He explains that these Time Gears are said to protect the flow of time in the region the gears are found.

He wonders what could happen if a Time Gear is lost and seems to be under the impression that something wrong with the Time Gears could be the cause of the oddities in the flow of time. Maybe there is some villain after the time gears for some nefarious purpose...

While discussing this, we get some ominous imagery of a silhouetted pokemon approaching a Time Gear in a distant forest.

Pep suggestions that if a Time Gear is removed, the flow of time in the region might stop entirely in that area. There's no telling what kinds of horrible things would occur from a calamity like that.

It doesn't seem too crazy to imagine why everyone in the world would want to avoid interfering with the Time Gears. They seem so critical to the balance of the world and if anything went wrong with them, who knows what kinds of problems would occur! Even the most hardened criminals would never dare to interfere with them. So the idea that anyone would approach to tamper with them for any reason is unheard of... and yet...

Perhaps there really is someone out there... intent on tampering with these Time Gears and causing problems with the flow of time... if something like that is happening, maybe, just maybe, it'll explain why we became a pokemon and why we're getting these visions. Maybe these visions will lead us on an adventure to save the world from a villain whose eyes are set on the Time Gears! But for now, there's not much more we can do than what we're already doing.

June 18, 2022

Wigglytuff's Guild

So last time we went on our first outlaw pursuit and rescued Azurill from the criminal Drowzee. The encounter was a bit tougher than I would've liked, but we ultimately came out on top! We'll need to continue doing our best going forward if we want to stand a chance against the tougher opponents that will inevitably be standing in our way in the future.

Going forward, as we find ourselves in the standard gameplay loop, each day will begin by cutting through the morning ceremony and everyone getting to work.

And this is where the game will let you enjoy a brief window of peace. Just like in Rescue Team, we'll have a small window of time here where we're expected to complete requests from the two bulletin boards. At this point, we have a bit more freedom as to what we do and can progress at our own leisure. That also means that today's update is likely to be a bit more relaxed than usual as we cover what the game is like in the standard gameplay loop you'll find yourself returning to time and time again.

But before we begin, we've got more diaries to sneak a peek at!

Sunflora's second entry features her complaining about going on explorations with Loudred. He's reckless and tends to charge headfirst into dungeons without thinking of properly preparing first. He often ends up getting himself KO'd and consequently forcing Sunflora to retreat as well, causing them both to lose their money and items whenever it happens.

It's pretty clear these diaries are just a cute way the devs decided to slip gameplay hints into the game's world, but I appreciate that they're presented in such a way that makes the world's characters feel that much more relatable. Even Sunflora with all her positivity can't quite deal with Loudred's behavior.

Bidoof's new entry is all about how excited he is to have underlings! He rededicates himself to picking up the pace so that he doesn't end up getting overshadowed by the new rookies. It looks like we might have some friendly competition ahead of us!

If we speak with Croagunk, he still isn't quite ready to provide us any sort of service, but he does seem a bit more talkative than before, though I suppose he still seems to be talking down to us a bit. It was only one mission, after all. We're still rookies!

Speaking with most of the guild members will lead to them commenting on your success in capturing Drowzee! We probably shouldn't let this one success go to our heads, though. Like I said, there's bound to be much tougher foes in our future.

There's another Exploration team here in the form of Team Poochy! It's a team of three Poochyena that work together to hunt down outlaws from the Outlaw Notice Board. Seems simple enough.

Anyway, while we're here, let's go ahead and check out the boards! Just like Rescue Requests in Rescue Team, each of these boards are regularly updated with new randomly generated missions. Each mission is on a random dungeon on a random floor and is assigned a difficulty ranking based on the mission type, difficulty of the dungeon, and how deep in the dungeon the mission takes place. The tougher the mission, in general, the greater the reward will be. Usually the reward will be something like poke or standard items like berries and gummis, but occasionally you'll find really nice rewards as valuable as TMs!

The Job Bulletin Board features standard missions not unlike the Rescue Requests from the first game. These are usually requests such as delivering certain items, rescuing missing or lost pokemon, etc. Missing pokemon are somewhat new in that the game doesn't tell you upfront what floor they're located on. However, when you arrive on the same floor, you will get a notification that there's a mission objective on that floor.

Normally, there are outlaws posted on the Outlaw Notice Board. Strangely, though, there wasn't a single one this time! I definitely had some outlaws listed here in Explorers of Darkness so I guess this is just unfortunate RNG. Don't worry, we'll cover these soon enough. But long story short, Outlaw missions are similar to standard Jobs but instead force you into a mini bossfight against a particularly tough enemy at the designated floor of the designated dungeon. They usually involve you retrieving stolen goods or taking out troublesome goons. Be extra careful when preparing to take on an outlaw, though! These aren't just standad "kill 10 wolves" quests. These really are tougher mini bosses that might throw you for a loop with how dangerous they actually are. And when you arrive on the same floor, they'll spawn immediately next to you, so it may be important to come prepared with seeds or orbs to help get yourself into a better position for battle with a tough opponent. Try to take note what floor they'll appear on and be sure to heal up before taking the stairs on the previous floor.

Like in Rescue Team, you can grab multiple missions at once, mixing together both Job Requests and Outlaw Notices. I imagine, like in Rescue Team, RNG will ensure that no two missions will be generated on the same floor, and I imagine that might be why Missing Pokemon missions don't clarify the floor ahead of time to make them easier to slip into other floors and make it easier for more missions to appear.

Anyway, since there were no Outlaw missions available just yet, I went ahead and loaded up with the missions that had the best rewards and went ahead to do all the missions from the same dungeon. Make sure after accepting the jobs that you activate them by navigating to the Job List and selecting "Take Job" on each one. If you change your mind, you can suspend the job to do later, or delete it altogether to make room for jobs with better rewards.

Speaking of rewards, you might be concerned with the low amounts of poke listed. Don't worry, these listed rewards are your cut. The 10% earnings detail is still present, but you'll just receive the printed reward on the job listing. For example, if the reward is listed as 150P, your client will actually pay 1500P but you'll only receive the promised 150 and the rest goes to the guild.

Of course, before we go, we're going to want to poke around Treasure Town a bit to do some preparation.

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

There's an Ursaring and Teddiursa here in Treasure Town. Teddiursa is a bit worried about the dangerous times we're living in.

The reason I bring this up is because Ursaring calls attention to an important detail. Just like how the upset in the World's Balance made it so that pokemon couldn't evolve in Rescue Team, it seems as though pokemon also can't evolve here. So if you were looking forward to possibly being able to evolve a lot sooner, let's not be so hasty. I imagine the functional purpose of this is to ensure all the possible player characters can be properly animated for the various cinematic cutscenes throughout the story. I don't expect to be able to evolve until the postgame, and as Ursaring suggests, I imagine it's once again tied to the story explanation of time being out of wack.

Just like the people of the guild, the Kecleon Bros. will also praise you for rescuing Azurill from Drowzee! This sort of thing just feels good.

And off at the very edge of town, we'll find Dugtrio staring out into the sea. He seems a bit... emotional over it for some reason. I suppose we should just leave him be. It's hard to tell if he's going through something or if he just really likes the view. Maybe we'll want to check up on him.

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

Once you've done all your prep work in Treasure Town, you can speak with Corphish at this crossroads in front of the guild to be pointed in the direction you need to go to head to the dungeons you've previously visited.

By heading off to the East from here, you can access any dungeon that's available. Dungeons of story interest will be marked with an '!' but right now there's no central story objective. Dungeons with active missions will appear with an open envelope next to them like this! If you don't see that envelope, it means you haven't activated the missions you've accepted, or you haven't accepted any missions at all. Make certain you do this because it can be an easy waste of time and resources to go through an entire dungeon having forgotten to activate the missions you were going to do! It's a lot easier of a mistake to make than you might think!

As a side note, I don't think it has any particular benefit, but by heading South to the beach, you can access Beach Cave directly from the overworld. You can also access it from the dungeon list to the east, so I guess this is just a flavor difference. I imagine every once in a while you might be able to find NPCs down here on the beach, though, maybe bottles with rescue requests or something, so maybe this area will have a bigger purpose later on. But right now, there's no real reason to come down here unless you just want to take in the environment.

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

Drenched Bluff

Now we get into completing these Mission Objectives! It all works just like it did in Rescue Team, get to the floor, find the objective, and complete it. I'll try and cover each unique type of mission as we find them. Just like in Rescue Team, some are a lot more complicated than others.

You can access your list of Active Missions in the Mission Objectives menu. This will give you insight onto what each mission is and what floor it's on. Use this to gauge how best to use your resources. It might not be worth it to eat an apple right now if your final mission is on the very next floor, for example. This is especially useful for if you're doing any outlaw missions and happen to forget what floor they're on. You always want to be prepared before landing on the floor.

While navigating the dungeon, I leveled up and learned the move PoisonPowder! While I'm not certain how useful this will be for me, it can help me to deal constant damage in the event that I find myself unable to pursue a particular enemy. Ultimately, though, with my experiences with Toxic in Rescue Team, I don't think this move is actually all that worthwhile. You're probably better off just pelting the target with strong attacks to guarantee a faster KO.

Whenever you reach a floor with a mission objective on it, you'll be notified that you're on a destination floor! It's important to keep this in mind as there's no way to go back to a previous floor after you take the stairs. Make sure you complete your mission objective on the floor before you take the stairs to the next floor! There's no harm in forgetting a mission as you can always come back and try again later, especially important if you find yourself in a compromised situation and need a desperate escape. The mission on this floor is to Deliver an Escape Orb. (Don't mind the mission I've already completed, I forgot to take a screenshot of it, but I have a similar one later).

I brought an Escape Orb with me specifically for this delivery, so we'll just need to navigate the floor for our client who will show up on our map as a yellow dot separate from our party.

Once we've found our client, we simply deliver the requested item and he'll escape from the dungeon with delight. Note that for these Delivery type requests, you have to have the item requested in your inventory or you will not be able to complete the mission. Consequently, these are sometimes some of the tougher missions to justify cost vs. reward. Often the item you have to give up isn't really worth the Poke or item you'll receive as a reward, so be careful about the types of missions you accept!

After completing a mission, you can freely escape with the client if you like with zero cost to resources unlike using an Escape Orb to escape a dungeon early of your own accord. This can be a little annoying because the game defaults to "yes" when it asks you if you'd like to escape the dungeon after completing a mission. If you're like me and like to pile on a bunch of missions at a time, you might find yourself accidentally cutting your trip short. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Patience is a virtue and you could potentially find a lot more rare items in the shops, new missions, and stuff by taking several trips through the same dungeon. So perhaps consider how well your trip is going and accept that sometimes multiple trips can be a lot more efficient.

Our next mission is a rescue request! Rescue Request clients might be lost and aimlessly wandering the floor or KO'd and completely still on the floor. You'll need to scour the floor in search of them. Once you find them, simply speak with them and you can use your badge to teleport them back to the guild!

The final mission type we have here right now is a Search request! These involve a client who is searching for a friend that has disappeared in a dungeon. These requests don't tell you ahead of time what floor a pokemon is on, just that they're missing somewhere in the dungeon. When you're on the same floor, you will be notified that you've reached a destination floor, you just won't know what floor this will occur on. Once you're in this situation, the mission is pretty much identical to a rescue mission except you'll be rescuing the client's friend rather than the client themselves.

And after you've completed your final job, you can feel free to escape back to the guild with the completion of that last job. Alternatively, you can push yourself to continue to the end of the dungeon if there happens to be something of interest like a rare item you'd like to look for.

After returning to the guild, you'll receive the rewards for the completed jobs and your team will earn Explorer Rank Points towards your next rank up! Team Rank has a more practical purpose than it did in Rescue Team, but we'll go over that shortly. For now, we should just focus on trying to rank up from Normal Rank to Bronze Rank.

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

After a long day of completing missions, we take a trip to the dining hall and turn in for bed.

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

So, normally I'd cut the session here, but we haven't actually done much at all in this update, so I figured I might be able to continue playing for a bit longer. I'd also like to see if I could actually do any Outlaw Missions before moving on with the game's story. Of course, that does mean getting tied up in the next day's events but that's probably fine, this is a pretty slow update anyway.

After the typical morning routine, Loudred approaches us and tells us they need our help with something! This is out of the ordinary, I wonder what's up?

So, apparently we're in charge of covering Diglett's sentry duty. Apparently his father, Dugtrio, asked him to fill in for the duty of updating the bulletin boards so they need somebody to fill in his place.

This is essentially the other side of the process we experienced in the beginning of the game, where we stepped on the grate in front of the guild and had our footprint checked before proceeding.

They go through a rather elaborate method of describing how the whole security system works, but long story short, Diglett watches the grate for pokemon, announces to Loudred what pokemon he identifies, and Loudred decides whether or not to let that pokemon in. It seems that, usually, pokemon are let in regardless considering I was let in despite being a total stranger, so I imagine this is their way of specifically keeping known criminals away.

Anyway, since we're filling in for Diglett, it'll be our responsibility to watch the grate and identify the footprints as they come.

As you might have been guessing by now, this turns out to be a minigame in which we'll be trying to identify as many pokemon by their footprints as possible. We can only make two errors, but thankfully it's not so bad if you're careful and take your time.

You'll be given the footprint and asked to identify the pokemon the footprint belongs to. You're probably not an expert on identifying pokemon by their footprints, though, so if you hesitate on your choice, more hints will become available to you. First, only the names of the four options are displayed on the bottom screen. After a little while, the pokemon's portraits will appear to make them more immediately identifiable.

Take a little longer and you'll get a hint referencing the pokemon's pokedex entry. If you hang out for even longer, it'll even outright tell you the pokemon's pokedex category like "It's a Penguin Pokemon". If you can't immediately identify the fingerprint, I recommend holding off until you can get a few of these hints to narrow down the choices. I didn't worry too much about this while playing in Darkness and made the mistake of focusing too much on getting things done quickly leaving to me answering one of the questions wrong, but the rewards for getting every answer correct are far too good to pass up, so I strongly recommend taking your time to make sure you get every answer correct and not worrying so much about how long it takes you to get there.

Once you've analyzed 6 footprints, you're done for the day!

If you can get through, Chatot will give you high praise for completing the task with perfect accuracy!

Chatot promises to reward us generously and generously he does!!

500P, a Joy Seed, a Ginseng, and a Life Seed are our rewards for a job well done! These are shockingly powerful rewards this early in the game and they're only available just this once, so I strongly encourage you go for them even if you have to soft reset for it! I'm a bit upset I didn't know about this when I did it in Darkness, but at least I was able to get it arguably where it matters most!

In case you're unaware, the Joy Seed is essentially a rare candy that grants you a free levelup. It could be incredibly handy for evolving pokemon in the original game or getting a pokemon to learn a new move. The Ginseng is a powerful item that will permanently upgrade your set attack. If you have a favorite attack, make sure to use this to get the most out of it! But make sure not to waste it on a weak attack you're going to replace later on. And the Life Seed is an item that will permanently boost your maximum HP.

So yeah, these are definitely extremely valuable items that don't just grow on trees, so you'd better make the most of this opportunity! Take your time and don't get in a rush!

After sentry duty, it's off to dinner and back to bed. Again, not a super eventful day.

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

And the next day we're back to the typical gameplay loop! Our task again is to simply do jobs from the bulletin boards. I suppose the game probably wants me to rank up before we progress with the story. Whatever the case, maybe we can get some Outlaw missions this time!

If we check back at the Diaries, we can find more entries again! Let's see what we got here.

Sunflora is set to go on an expedition with Bidoof today, so she decides to pack extra food because of his tendency to wander off. This is more or less just a brief tutorial on the importance of conserving your belly while exploring dungeons. It's not so important right now but it does become fairly important as the dungeons get longer and more complex.

Bidoof, on the other hand, is writing about a major goof in which he's never actually known tha the had to activate the jobs he accepted from the bulletin board. He's been trudging on his whole career without ever successfully completing a single job! But, it looks like he's learning at least! I guess we really are inspiring him to try a little harder, huh?

If we go and speak to Croagunk again, Pep will actually ask him directly what he's all about, but...

Yeah, we don't really get a particularly informed reply. This guy just kinda gets weirder the more you try and talk to him, I guess.

Anyway, we have outlaw missions this time! Two of them located in Drenched Bluff! They're both C-rank in difficulty making them pretty tough for what's available to us right now. But, I really wanna cover these since they're brand new. Both of these missions are thief missions in which we'll have to defeat thieves and recover stolen items. I'm not sure yet if there are other types of outlaw missions, but I can only assume there are at least missions where you just have to defeat the opponent.

We can find outside the guild that Sunflora is trying to help build up Bidoof's confidence before they set out on their expedition together. I suppose we'll just have to leave them to their business.

We can now find Marill and Azurill in Treasure Town again, reminding us of the good we've done.

Around town, we can find a tough-looking Exploration team called Team AWD. They're all pokemon that look stereotypically like villains and call themselves a band of thieves. I'm not really sure yet whether to label them as villains per se, I find it odd that they'd openly announce themselves to be thieves. They consist of an Arbok, Weavile, and Drapion, with Weavile being their designated leader. It's quite possible that being thieves gives them a knack for treasure, so perhaps they use their thief skills to steal from villains and the like? Or, perhaps they really are just criminals. I guess I'll just have to keep an eye on these guys.

Arbok seems less than impressed about the local area.

If we speak to Weavile, we might get a hint as to their motivation for being here. He asks about a place called Zero Isle which even Pep has never heard of. This is a very curious cast of characters here. I kind of hope they aren't just supposed to be blank slate villains like Team Meanies and that they're actually friendlier than they appear, but I'm pretty certain this won't be the last we see of these three.

Anyway, after doing getting our prepwork ready, we prepare for another journey into the Drenched Bluff!

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

While inside the Drenched Bluff, I went ahead and used the Life Seed to boost my maximum HP a little bit. I figured I might need it more than Pep since Grass-types are weak to a lot of different types of attacks.

Outlaw Spotted!

Now we have our first outlaw mission! These are a lot less friendly than the standard job requests we've been doing! The moment you set foot on the floor of a thief mission, you'll be ambushed by the outlaw right at the entrance to the floor! There's nothing you can do about them spawning right in your face and I can't stress enough that these guys are not normal enemies. They'll take several more hits to KO and do a lot more damage. Be very careful when accepting an outlaw mission because it could spell your doom right away if you're unprepared. Recall that some pokemon can already be pretty devastating on their own, and if you're really unlucky these outlaws could spawn in a room already filled with enemies! If you can recall some of the trash luck we've had with Monster Houses in Rescue Team, I'm sure you can invision how much of a potential RNG nightmare these encounters can be. I strongly recommend coming prepared with items to protect you incase of awkward scenarios. Warp Seeds, Totter Orbs, even Stun or Sleep Seeds to at least put some distance between you and the outlaw can be a major help.

This first outlaw I have is a Starly, and if you recall Starly was a pokemon I specifically cited as already being a pretty terrifying opponent with some really deadly attacks even as a regular enemy. So fighting an outlaw variant is an especially unwelcome surprise. Technically, I knew what I was getting into when I accepted the job, but still, this guy can seriously pack a punch.

My first step here was to use a Stun Seed to get some distance in. That Anorith nearby isn't too much of a threat because at this point I can wipe it out in a single attack. My main intention is to get out of the range of Starly and its Quick Attack so that I can hit it from a safe distance with Razor Leaf.

This is where I ran into some major frustrations, though as I quickly found out that I don't actually have the tactic command to tell Pep to wait where he was, so it was difficult to navigate in such a way that he would stand and fight Starly while I moved to a more strategic location. Infuriating as it is, I had to make it work with what I had access to.

Eventually, I was able to get into this position which wasn't at all ideal since Pep couldn't contribute any damage from here, but there was nothing I could do without him attacked to my hip. For some reason, I couldn't even get him to approach Starly if I had him set to Go After Foes. These are just the types of frustrations that really get in the way of my enjoyment of more challenging encounters in Mystery Dungeon games, but I suppose at this point it's just par for the course. Anyway, from this range I could at least pepper Starly with Razor Leaf and he'd be unable to hit me with a Super-effective Wing Attack without first stepping into the range of Pep's attacks. He can still hit me by stepping one tile toward me and hitting me with Quick Attack, but that isn't too much of a cost. From here, I just started spamming Razor Leaf. He may resist it, but the STAB boost makes up for the poor type matchup in this game, so I'm still able to get some decent damage off this way.

Since Pep isn't able to do much from where he is, I set him to use Growl so that maybe he can at least reduce Starly's Attack while he's not contributing anything else. But, of course not. That Starly may as well be invisible to him right now and I have no idea why that is or how to get him to use the damn move.

Eventually, I do manage to defeat the Starly, causing the Heal Seed he stole to drop to the ground. At some point, Pep must've woken up and realized there was an enemy in front of us because he started to approach and attack finally, but that was absurdly stressful. Thankfully, you no longer have to make sure to have a direct line of sight with your partners when they're fighting as simply using a healing item from a menu can get them to eat an Oran Berry straight from the inventory. You simply select them instead of yourself when you go to use the item. That's a nice change I don't recall being in the original game!

Anyway, once the thief is defeated, the stolen item is dropped and the final step to completing the mission is to retrieve the item. This will complete the mission and you can either escape on the spot right there or continue going. Note, however, that if you don't immediately return, you will have to lug the stolen item with you until you leave the dungeon because you need to return it to the client. If you had a particularly nasty battle, it might be for the best to escape after defeating an outlaw to recoup. Again, no need to push yourself too hard. These missions aren't going anywhere!

Again, I can't stress enough that these outlaws can be deceptively tough. I actually wound up getting KO'd a few times leading to a lot of frustrations which I've voiced yesterday in a public status. But there wasn't much progress lost since these are early game dungeons, so I just soft-reset each time. But this is not a very good precedent. I'm hoping that as the game goes on I'll be better prepared to deal with these dangerous foes with better teams and stronger attack combos, or just outright OP attacks like Bullet Seed and Sleep Powder! As always, time will tell. But it's seeming really important right now that you have some way to jam these outlaw's attacks so that you can get some distance in and not get totally wiped out right away! Perhaps after a few outlaw missions, you'll get a feel for how tough they can be and what to expect when you take the missions on. These missions are tougher, but seem to provide much better rewards!

Upon returning to the guild after recovering the stolen items, we'll be thanked by our clients and given our rewards.

Upon completing these missions, Team Persevere ranked up to a Bronze Rank Exploration Team!

Upon ranking up, the amount of items we can keep in Kangaskhan Storage is increased and we're also rewarded with a Sitrus Berry! Admittedly, Kangaskhan Storage being expanded is a little unnerving because it implies a limit is there at all. I don't recall there being a limit in the original game, but there probably was. I'm hoping this inventory limit never becomes an overhead issue as there are a lot of items I would leave in there just in case. Maybe this should be an incentive to actually use or sell the items I collect over time, though.

The Sitrus Berry is a slightly weaker version of the Life Seed. If you use it while at full HP, it'll permanently increase your maximum HP by 2! We'll need to remember to bring this with us.

Anyway, once again, we're off to bed for the night with another day of Exploration Team schenanigans ahead of us! I think having ranked up is a pretty solid way to end the session. Maybe next time we'll get some narrative progress again!

We've certainly got a title card foreshadowing something to that effect...

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

Before we sign off for the day, though, I do want to call attention to the fact that Team Outreach also ranked up to Bronze Rank. Though they didn't get the same reward from Sentry Duty, they did get a leg up with some really good luck with mission availability. I'm not really sure if I did something different or if it really was just RNG, but I found they had a lot more missions with better rewards to the point where I actually had to keep playing a bit longer in order to actually finish all the missions I'd grabbed across multiple dungeons. I mean, where the best rewards Team Persistance got were things like Gummis, Team Outreach was getting missions with rewards like the TM for Shadow Ball and Gyro Ball!

I also found that, in general, Liz was a major help for completing the Outlaw Missions as she could generally keep the outlaws subdued with SmokeScreen to dramatically reduce their damage output while also whittling away at their HP with Ember and Burn. Even still, though, these missions aren't exactly free the way regular rescue missions are. So even if you're confident with setups like this, still be wary of all the things that can go wrong! And always bring escape orbs!! Right now it's not exactly guaranteed you'll even have an Escape Orb to your name, but try to make sure you have one with you at all times wherever possible.

June 20, 2022

The next morning, Chatot seems to have an important announcement during the morning ceremony.

In shocking news, it seems that the flow of time has ground to a halt in a remote location known as Treeshroud Forest.

This is obviously an announcement that comes as a shock to the many explorers of Wigglytuff's Guild. The flow of time has been wonky recently, but it seems that time outright stopping isn't something anybody had expected!

Chatot paints a picture of a completely still world. No wind, no motion, dewdrops just suspended in midair. It's kind of scary to imagine what an environment like this might be like. How does it affect pokemon in the area?

So, this begs the question. How has time stopped in this forest? Well, I think we all have an inclination of what transpired by now based on what we've recently learned.

As it turns out, the Time Gear located in Treeshroud Forest has been stolen.

A crime as absurd as stealing one of the Time Gears and tampering with the flow of time seems like an absolutely reckless thing to do! As Pep said, even the most hardened of criminals know to avoid tampering with the Time Gears! Who would do such a thing and what sort of motivation could they possibly have!?

While Chatot doesn't have any answers and this case is just as mysterious for them and Officer Magnezone as it is for each of us, Magnezone has requested any suspicious characters to be reported immediately.

After a rather heavy morning announcement, Chatot dismisses everyone back to their daily routines.

For us in particular, Chatot seems to specially address us. He was quite impressed with our ability to handle Drowzee and has decided to assign us a proper exploration team mission!

Chatot points to a location on our Wonder Map that he wants us to go and explore. The location is a seemingly unassuming waterfall, but the guild has received intel that there may be something more to the location. The purpose of our exploration mission is to investigate the waterfall and see if there's anything to find inside.

Pep is getting all emotional from finally getting his first real exploration mission! This must mean a lot to him! So, let's not disappoint!

Of course, we've got some diary entries to check out again. Sunflora this time writes about her experience exploring with Bidoof the other day. She was shocked by how little he seemed to understand, but apparently he was actually able to improve quite a bit with a bit of coaching! Perhaps he just needs a patient helper like Sunflora to get the ball going! Maybe he's really got something good going!

Bidoof, likewise, recounts his experience of exploring with Sunflora. He recounts his amazement at the various simple tricks Sunflora used, such as attacking in place to trick opponents into approaching her so that she could get the first attack in. Simple things like this have never even crossed Bidoof's mind and it's kind of cool to see him learning so much from her!

As mentioned before, these diary entries are pretty obviously just a way to slip some extra tips and tricks without outright tutorializing you on them, but I really love that they managed to implement these in such an endearing way that helps to make these characters feel more alive and dynamic. I really wanna see how much Bidoof can learn from those around him! I can't say a simple tip system has ever had me more invested in character development.

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

As we make our way out of the guild, we're stopped by Chimecho who seems to have set up some sort of stand here on the first floor of the guild!

Chimecho has just started an Assembly to allow exploration teams to easily assemble teams of new members! You may have been wondering when we'd get the ability to recruit new team members like in Rescue Team, and this is where!

Chimecho will ring her Friendship Bell which will grant us the ability to recruit new members while exploring dungeons! Essentially, this Friendship Bell completely replaces the Friend Area mechanic from Rescue Team. Now, any pokemon capable of recruitment can potentially be recruited on defeat!

Recruitment generally follows the same rules, You'll need your group leader to be adjacent to the target and deliver the final attack. This unfortunately means unexpected attacks might still cause you to miss out on potential recruits. Once a pokemon has been recruited, you'll need to successfully escape the dungeon either using an Escape Orb or by reaching the end in order to permanently add that pokemon to your exploration team. If they get knocked out along the way, you won't be able to keep them, so take extra care not to let them get KO'd too easily!

However, a few new QoL improvements make recruitment far more convenient in this game. For one, you no longer have to worry about Friend Areas. Any pokemon can be recruited from the start of the game as long as you can get their recruitment rates above 0%. In addition, party size no longer seems to be an issue. If a pokemon would exceed your allotted party size for the dungeon, the additional pokemon will instantly be warped home. This is a major game changer for recruitment as it means you no longer have to go out of your way to bring as few party members as possible if you're interested in recruiting new pokemon and that in turn gives you a lot more freedom to bring a full team with you.

Note that, for arbitrary reasons, pokemon in Beach Cave cannot be recruited similarly to pokemon from Tiny Woods in Rescue Team. It's a really strange limitation but I suppose they must have their reasons. No pokemon we've encountered so far has any negative recruitment rates, the lowest you have is Nidorina and Nidorino's 0.5% recruitment rate which is really low but not impossible. So, as long as the pokemon isn't found only in Beach Cave, you should already be capable of recruiting it! Just know that, like in Rescue Team, your base recruitment rates for all pokemon can be boosted based on your leaders' level and the use of certain rare items hidden in later parts of the game. So I wouldn't recommend exhausting yourself trying to recruit every single pokemon you have your eyes set on just yet. However, if there's a particular pokemon you think would be really useful, be my guest and see if you can get them on your side! Most pokemon in the beginning of the game seem to range around a 6-8% recruitment rate, so odds are you'll get the one you're after after a few trips through a dungeon.

Anyway, in preparation for your first Exploration Team mission, you may find yourself wanting to prep up a bit. If that's the case, you can always feel free to stand back and continue doing some more job and outlaw requests. All the while you'll also be building up a valuable buffer of standard supplies and some extra exp, so it might very well prove worth while to take your time! In general with these Mystery Dungeon games, patience seems to be a very important skill that I tend to lack, though, so we're just going to march straight on ahead and see what fate brings to our doorstep!

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

A little bit more flavor before we go, we can find some new exploration teams around. Here we have Team Slacker, an exploration team comprised of a Slowpoke and Slakoth whose motivation even Bidoof outshines. Not... entirely sure how these guys could possibly achieve exploration team status but maybe they've got hidden talents?

One of my favorite exploration team dynamics is Team Flame here, comprised of a Camerupt, Ponyta and... Bellsprout? Ponyta and Camerupt are really powerful fighters that rely on the leadership of their tiny Bellsprout friend. The obvious drawback being that Bellsprout is incredibly nervous around the flames Camerupt and Ponyta rely on for their attacks, leaving him feeling rather small and useless in battle.

Out in Treasure Town, we can find Team Razor Wind who specialize in their sharp claws that allow them to explore areas other pokemon have difficulties with.

And if we make our way to the edge of town, we'll find Dugtrio once again expressing his eccentric obsession with the vast sea before him. What a strange character this guy is, but maybe he sees some divine beauty in the expansive sea!

Anyway, once we're ready to start our expedition to the Secret Waterfall, we can head out the gate and make our way there!

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

Before we progress, I think I should follow-up on the fact that I mentioned my session with Team Outreach had so many more missions to do that it actually bled into this chapter. Well, I went ahead and finished the rest of the jobs I accepted before moving on to the Secret Waterfall. Normally I wouldn't call attention to this detail if it wasn't for the fact that, since the Friendship Bell for Team Outreach had been rung by this point, I actually got my first new recruit during these missions!

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

New Recruit: Team Outreach

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

Strength (Machop F); Lv. 6

Item: None

Ability: Guts, No Guard | Moves: Leer, Low Kick

Strength has very quickly proven himself to be a really useful addition to the team. With a bit of leveling, his offensive attacks can pack quite a punch against particularly dangerous pokemon and Fightinng isn't a terrible type considering it helps to cover for Liz's weakness to Rock better than Sprout can without evolution. I imagine Sprout might ultimately contribute more than Strength in the long shot, but it'll be nice to have the extra firepower at least for the near future.

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

As we arrive at the location in question, we find that, indeed, it appears to be a rather unassuming location.

As Pep approaches the waterfall, he immediately gets repelled by the harsh force of the waterfall!

Indeed, we try to touch the waterfall to the same effect. The force of the water is pretty intense and painful. Anyway, it's time to start our investigation, but where should we begin?

Well, it isn't too long before our answer seems to hit us with a familiar sensation...

Before us flashes a vision of a rather familiar-looking silhouette standing where we are now.

Without explanation, we watch as the mysterious figure leaps bravely into the waterfall to discover a mysterious cave hidden inside!

We explain our vision to Pep who is shocked, but after our experience with Azurill, it's not exactly too much of a stretch to believe us as crazy as it seems. Of course, trusting us with something like this is a bit easier said than done. Things could end really badly if it turns out the vision is inaccurate and we end up just getting smashed by the force of the waterfall.

Pep ultimately decides to take the risk. After all, my vision hadn't steered us wrong before with Azurill and he had his doubts back then. He must feel resolved to trust in us a bit more now.

So, he psychs himself up and prepares to bravely jump in with us!

We jump into the waterfall together at full force and, though the water definitely hurts, we manage to force our way through to the mysterious cave we saw in the vision!

With the cave now discovered, we'll need to explore it in detail! Though, did we really discover this cave if we're only copying what some pokemon did in our vision? If it's a vision of the future, didn't that pokemon already do all the work to discover this place? Are we just taking credit for their work by exploiting our powers? Well, we are just here to do our exploration mission, so maybe things will clear up a bit as we progress.

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

Waterfall Cave

No surprise, this cave is another Mystery Dungeon! Let's waste no time in covering it, shall we?

Throughout the dungeon, you'll find Poke, Power and Special Bands, Geo Pebbles, Apples, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Blast, Heal, and Reviver Seeds, Max Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs.

Time-exclusive items include the Blue, Grass, Orange, and White Gummis alongside the Sleep, Stun, and Warp Seeds. Some Wonder Orbs are also version exclusive.

Darkness has Clear, Gray, Pink, Red, and Yellow Gummis, X-Eye Seeds, and its own version exclusive Wonder Orbs.

Gray Gummis are associated with the Rock type.

In addition to all of this, this is the first dungeon in which you can potentially encounter a Kecleon Shop! Just like in Rescue Team, Kecleon merchants like this one like to set up shop in mystery dungeons. They can carry a wide variety of rare items so it's always a good idea to browse their wares. Be absolutely careful not to steal from them, though. They are highly defensive about their merchandise and if you thought they were scary in Rescue Team, you haven't seen nothing about them yet. Kecleon are even more threatening here in Explorers, so your best bet is to just do honest business with them or you'll regret it! If you can't afford an item, you can drop items from your inventory to sell them, just make sure you have enough to buy any items you take with you or he'll be infuriated by your attempted thievery. Beyond that, don't try outsmarting the system, either. In fact, be wary of using any items that so much as relocating items. Kecleon is highly sensitive about this sort of thing and you can set him off even on a total honest accident! These shops can be a seriously unfortunate ender of a run. But, they aren't useless. You just might stumble across some really valuable items from these guys, especially in certain dungeons down the line.

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

Waterfall Cave [B1F - B4F]

Throughout this dungeon, you'll run into Psyduck, Poliwag, Grimer, Tangela, Wooper, Lotad, Surskit, and Barboach. As seems typical at this point, pokemon that are easy to understimate often prove to be some of the more dangerous pokemon. I found myself consistently underestimating how many hits Surskit would take to KO and its Quick Attack of course makes it annoying to approach, too. However, Poliwag is probably the scariest threat in this dungeon, especially considering it's the first dungeon with particularly large, more complex floors. There are lots of corridors to get stuck in and these Poliwag can snipe you from a long range with Bubble. They're capable of crossing water tiles, too, so I strongly recommend steering clear of narrow paths between water tiles as you might become a sitting duck for an unfortunately positioned Poliwag. Poliwag are also threatening because, once they get in close range, they can also hit you with Hypnosis to put you to sleep! I've already detailed why Sleep can be terrifying in this game as exemplified by Drowzee, but having to pass several turns with no ability to use items or even change tactics for your teammates can be a recipe for disaster! If you have to fight a Poliwag up close, it's for the best to let your allies handle the fight. At least then you can offer support if they happen to fall asleep so that you aren't a total sitting duck.

As you can imagine, these Poliwag made this dungeon especially scary for Team Outreach with Liz being weak to their water attacks, but Team Persevere here is far better equipped for this team. Even if a Poliwag is putting the pressure on me, I can just throw a Razor Leaf right back. I just have to be careful about letting Pep use Bubble himself. Poliwag and Wooper both have Water Absorb which can allow them to heal from any water attacks used against them.

Anyway, most of the other pokemon are pretty standard to pick off on their own. Grimer was one pokemon I needed to be careful around, though, since I'm weak to Poison as a Grass-type. But the dungeon was a much scarier experience for Team Outreach by far. I had to be extra wary of spending as little time in hallways as possible and would often resort to hiding behind Sprout and throwing Geo Pebbles wherever I could.

While exploring floor 3, it seems Team Persevere has also found their first new recruit!

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

New Recruit: Team Persevere

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

Party (Lotad M); Lv. 10

Item: None

Ability: Rain Dish, Swift Swim | Moves: Astonish, Growl, Absorb, Nature Power

I can't honestly say that this is a particularly exciting recruit considering Lotad is the exact same type as both of my starters and doesn't really seem to offer a whole bunch of anything, but I suppose occasional cringing with Astonish might be helpful. I have to be wary of Nature Power though because I recall some dungeons in Rescue Team where Nature Power could become moves like Magnitude which could potentially spell disaster. Absorb, Swift Swim, and Rain Dish could also all contribute a lot of fun in the rain. But, I can't imagine this guy will be staying too closely to the main squad for too long. Still, I suppose there's no harm in bringing him along for the ride for now.

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

Waterfall Cave [B5F - B8F]

In the later half of the dungeon, you can start to encounter Whiscash. That sounds a little scary, but it's really not much more of a threat than Barboach. Especially if you've got a Grass-type with you. They just take a few more hits.

Curiously, where I'd expect a Whiscash to be unrecruitable in Rescue Team due to being a fully evolved pokemon, Whiscash actually has a recruitment rate of 0.5% like Nidorina and Nidorino. So you can potentially recruit one right here if you really buckle down for it. I can't tell you how useful it would be, but it's curious that it's an option at all. I suppose Explorers simply has different merits for general recruitment rates. So far it's seeming like first-evolved forms seem to hover around the 0.5% mark. Maybe second-evolved forms will be in the negatives or outright unrecruitable. Or perhaps it's more strategically decided on a case by case basis. Either way, it's something I'll try to keep an eye out for and see if I can't catch any further patterns. Maybe we'll be surprised by some of the pokemon we can recruit!

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

Anyway, while the individual floors are larger, the dungeon itself is only 8 floors long, so you'll reach the end at the 9th floor. Oh, how I wish we'd get easy dungeons like these forever! Well, again, I can't stress enough how much scarier this place was for Team Outreach, but with only 8 floors even that wasn't too rough.

Anyway, at the depths of the cave we'll find a deposit of rare gemstones!

Of course, our attention is drawn greedily to the largest gemstone in the very back of the cavern that couldn't be more ominously lodged into a pedestal like an obvious trap. But Pep is more fascinated by the idea of bringing such an impressive treasure back to the guild.

Of course, Pep tries to remove the stone but he just can't get it to move. It is pretty large, so it must be really heavy.

After giving up on trying to remove it, he asks us to see if we can get it to budge.

Of course, we're also unsuccessful at removing the treasure from its lodge.

It seems difficult, but Pep is determined to retrieve this treasure. He's not quite ready to give up just yet!

He continues to try and remove the stone with all his strength...

Meanwhile...

We once again receive another vision of the scene before us.

The same familiar pokemon from before seems to run into the same struggle as we do with this very same treasure.

At some point, a click is heard and the pokemon suddenly gets washed away in a torrent of water!!

We cut back to reality and Pep is still trying to remove the gemstone, but now we're aware of a potential threat!

Before we're able to warn him, Pep accidentally pushed on the gem, causing the same click we heard in the vision which can only mean one thing...

The torrent of water floods through the clearing and washes out of the depths of the cave and out into the open sky on a geyser!

We ultimately fall from the sky an dland in what appears tob e some sort of hot springs surrounded by various pokemon we've seen around Treasure Town.

Teddiursa explains that we've just landed in the middle of a hot spring, to which a Torkoal who seems to oversee the Hot Spring decides to elaborate further.

Torkoal shows us on our map where we wound up and apparently the water has carried us quite a distance away from the Waterfall Cave!

Torkoal is shocked that we'd been carried so far by the water alone, so he encourages us to rest up here at the Hot Spring before our long trek home. And with that, we're given a save prompt which I suppose is a good stopping point for today's update! These save prompts are a bit sporradic. Sometimes they appear before and sometimes after the splash screen for the next chapter. I do wish it was a bit more consistent like the first game. But I imagine if we're getting a save prompt here, we're probably not too far off from the next chapter. So we'll continue from here next time!

June 21, 2022

When we return from our mission, we report our findings to Chatot.

Though Pep initially assumes Chatot would be disappointed we weren't able to recover the treasure, he assures us that this is not only not a disappointment, but in fact a major development! We have just discovered a rare treasure that nobody had known about before!

While Pep is cheered up by this response, there is something still bothering us...

The pokemon we saw in those visions looked very familiar...

There's no doubt the silhouette belongs to Wigglytuff! I'm kind of glad this game isn't trying to play coy about such an obvious silhouette because, I'll be honest, I kind of expected them to make it out to be some big mystery who that was. But why did we see Wigglytuff at the waterfall? Was it a vision of a future where he goes to find the treasure we discovered? But if it wasn't for us seeing that vision, we wouldn't have found the treasure ourselves and Wigglytuff never would've known about it, either... Could it be possible that it wasn't a vision from the future but rather... the past?

Pep notices we're lost in thought again, so we explain what's on our mind which is a shock to Pep!

Chatot cannot possibly fathom such a strange suggestion. If Wigglytuff had already discovered that treasure, why would he send us to investigate? But then again, the intel about this secret location had to have come from somewhere... So, Chatot goes off to ask the Guildmaster about our suggestion.

As it turns out, the Guildmaster really had already been there before!! That's a bit of a damper on Pep's spirits, but it almost says more about Wigglytuff's quirky nature! I wonder if he might know more than he lets on? Could it be possible he knows about these visions and sent us there to test our ability to use them? Or is it possible that he really is just this ditsy that he'd send us to investigate a place he simply forgot he'd already discovered? Wigglytuff really is one strange pokemon. Even Chatot seems completely dumbfounded by this revelation.

Well, it's dinner next and then off to bed!

Pep starts talking to us about how he felt on that adventure. Even though it was disappointing we hadn't actually discovered anything new, he expresses that he had a lot of fun on the adventure.

This experience has Pep really excited about the future of his career as an explorer and rejuvenates his enthusiasm about the mystery surrounding his Relic Fragment.

Of course, he also takes the opportunity to thank us once again, because again, it was because of us that he was able to find the courage to do anything he'd done. Without us, he'd never have been brave enough to jump into the waterfall the way he did!

This seems to bring him to his next point. He noticed that our visions always seem to occur after touching something!

Our first vision was experienced when we picked up the Apple that Azurill dropped at the Kecleon Market.

And the other times were when Drowzee bumped into us, when we were blasted back by the waterfall, and when we touched the gem at the end of the cave...

So then, perhaps this means that our visions require us to touch something? While that might be a useful clue for figuring out how this whole system works, it's not like we can just call forth visions related to objects at will. Still, it's an interesting point to note and touching something might be worth a try if we ever find ourselves at an impasse...

Pep also calls out the fact that this vision is now confirmed to be a vision from the past, rather than the future! I've certainly already noted that, but it's interesting that we now know these visions work both forward and backward in time... the only problem there being that if we were to see something like what happened with Azurill, we can't say for sure it isn't something that's already happened... but, information is always useful...

As we're talking, Chatot arrives and announces that the Guildmaster would like to speak with us. Could there be something important going on?

Wigglytuff explains to us that the guild is planning an expedition! They're going to arrange a large party to explore a far-off area. Because it's far away, it'll be more difficult and require a lot more planning and organization than a typical exploration mission like we were sent on. Normally, rookies like us would never be considered for an expedition like this. However, due to our continuous impressive achievements, Wigglytuff has decided to include us among the list of potential candidates for the expedition!

Chatot immediately goes into containing our excitement. While we are potential candidates, the members of the expedition have yet to actually be selected.

We'll need to continue to prove ourselves in the coming days, but Wigglytuff encourages us to keep trying our hardest! But this does raise the stakes a bit for our performance these next few days, huh?

Excited by the possibility of being selected for the expedition, we prepare to put only our best foot forward these coming days and be the best exploration team we can be!

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

Team Skull? Wait a minute, is it time for Alola already?

Anyway, it's time to return to our daily duties and do the best we can!

It's during the morning ceremony that Chatot makes the official announcement of the upcoming expedition to a mysterious lake in the far east.

Naturally, the members of the guild are all excited to hear this news! Apparently an expedition has been a long time coming! This really must be a big deal, then!

Chatot explains that over the next few days the members of the expedition party will be formed from the best apprentices in the guild. So he encourages everyone to go forward and show their very best if they want to be selected for the expedition!

The expedition immediately becomes the talk of the town, so it's looking like competition is going to be pretty rough! We'll really need to give it our all!

After everyone is dismissed, we're given our task for today which is to focus on more bulletin board jobs. So, looks like we're right back in the swing of things!

Of course, more diary entries are here! Sunflora's new entry comments about how she got careless and wound up taking a lot of damage from a super-effective attack! She laments her mistake and reminds herself that she needs to be more careful, but she also notes that she was glad Loudred was there to help her out after such a blunder. She then goes on to explain that she regrets being so rude to Loudred's carelessness in a previous entry and writes out an apology for it.

Bidoof's new entry is about his new fascination with Moves! He calls attention to the fact that if you use Moves rather than regular attacks, you'll gain extra Exp for defeating the target! As long as you hit the target with at least one move before it's KO'd, you'll gain that bonus exp. He also notes that using Moves instead of regular attacks results in a higher crit chance and just in general does a lot more damage. However, he also laments that he got a bit too careless with his moves and ran out of PP, so it's important to meter your usage of them to last you for the entire dungeon!

As we make our way up to the bulletin boards, Pep is hyped up about doing as many requests as we can today so that we'll be selected for the expedition for sure!

But, who's that over by the bulletin board...?

It's the Koffing and Zubat from the beginning of the game! What are these guys doing here!?

Koffing and Zubat reveal the shocking news that they're actually an exploration team as well! Though they clearly aren't exactly upright citizens as they even openly admit to not exactly doing things by the book. They're certainly sounding a bit like Team Meanies from the first game...

Koffing taunts Pep again wondering what someone like him would be doing in a place like this, to which Pep reveals that we're an exploration team now!

Koffing and Zubat are both surprised by this news...

The two don't hesitate to pick Pep away and try to pressure him into giving up, but he sands his ground this time and marches to our side, admitting that he may be timid but that he's here to train and overcome those inhibitions!

Resolved to show these two what-for, Pep even announces that he plans to be selected for the guild's upcoming expedition!

I find it kind of funny that these guys would press so hard onto Pep considering we wiped the floor with them before and have since only gotten stronger.

Even Pep immediately throws that back in their face! Nice!

Of course, Koffing does have a reason for his cockiness... he comments that the only reason they lost last time was because they weren't with their Chief.

The two start to hype up the leader of Team Skull. If they're so confident after our altercation before, then we might have a rather scary pokemon on our hands...

As it turns out, the Chief is coming down right now and the two can already smell him...?

The chief of Team Skull, Skuntank arrives on the scene with the anthem of Team Skull. He's already got an unpleasant aura abound, but I think it's pretty clear now why they could smell him while he was outside of the room!

When we find ourselves in his way, he immediately gasses us down with a powerful stink cloud.

The stink fills the entire room with Skuntank's unpleasant presence. Right away, this guy is probably the most hatable character in this game. But things are only going to get worse from here.

Pep doesn't have quite the confidence to stand up to someone like Skuntank on his own just yet, so he cowards out and stands aside to let Skuntank over.

His lackies cheer him on, but Skuntank immediately dismisses their approval and cuts right to the chase. He wants to know if they found any jobs with high rewards.

They comment that all the jobs on the bulletin board are low-paying, but they tell him all about the expedition Pep just brought up.

With that, the three goons march off with some plotting about the expedition. This certainly can't be good if this jerk gets involved...

Pep apologizes for not being able to challenge him, and feels ashamed, but let's not shirk how much he's grown already! In case you can't read the room, I don't think anybody in here except Zubat and Koffing liked that guy.

You have an option to be a little mean here, but I don't know if I have the heart for that, it seems a bit too mean-spirited to tease him right now.

Pep thanks us for trying to cheer him up, but confesses that he knows he's a wimp. Even still, he's resolved to do the best he can. He'll only find the courage to stand up for himself if he keeps working at it!

With that, he's able to energize himself once again and prepare for adventure! Once we get some jobs going, we'll be right back in the swing of things!

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

While exploring Waterfall Cave doing some missions, I was able to recruit not one, not two, but three new members!

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

New Recruits: Team Persevere

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

Cover (Tangela M); Lv. 10

Item: None

Ability: Chlorophyll, Leaf Guard | Moves: Ingrain, Constrict, Sleep Powder, Absorb

Admittedly, not the most exciting new recruit being a third grass type and second pure-grass type. Cover doesn't really contribute too terribly much to the team, but Sleep Powder is admittedly a very nice plus! That could help out a bit in handling tough outlaws by disabling their ability to attack before they can do anything. Chlorophyll and Leaf Guard both help Cover out a bit in the sun. Ingrain isn't a very fun move to rely on in Mystery Dungeon since it traps you in place, so I immediately turned that one off. It's nice to have a full party now, but I don't think Cover's going to be seeing much limelight. But, Sleep Powder might buy him a bit more screentime than Party, admittedly.

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

Slick (Grimer F); Lv. 9

Item: None

Ability: Stench, Sticky Hold | Moves: Poison Gas, Pound, Harden, Mud-Slap

This is a much more exciting team member for us right now! Grimer can take some hits and while Stench is annoying to deal with, it could actually potentially save me from some really awkward scenarios if we find ourselves surrounded. I'm not opposed to investing some resources into buffing Slick out a bit! She's certainly the most diverse type we have access to and provides coverage for the Bug and Poison types I'm weak to. Beyond that, Mud-Slap can help reduce damage the party receives from tough enemies. All in all, Slick I think might actually see some time in the sun for a while!

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

Skippy (Surskit F); Lv. 11

Item: None

Ability: Swift Swim | Moves: Bubble, Quick Attack

This one is definitely not sticking around for much. Surskit really doesn't offer anything my other recruits don't already have and it's just yet another Water-type so I'm not really keen on that, either. But, Skippy here can hang around the assembly if she likes!

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

I actually found not one, but two Kecleon shops in this trip through Waterfall Cave. I can't tell you how tempted I was by these Grass Gummis in the second one here, but I didn't have the funds for them nor the death wish to be KO'd by Kecleon after eating them. So, regretfully, I had to leave them on the wayside.

Among the rewards we received for completing these missions, I received a TM for Rock Slide! This is actually pretty solid since it covers a major weakness of Flying! And, Slick is capable of learning it! So I'll likely teach it to her next time I'm in a dungeon.

In addition, I also got a TM for Shock Wave! This also covers for Flying types and is just an all-around solid attack, but I don't think I have anyone who can really use it properly just yet. I might've considered teaching it to Slick if I didn't also have Rock Slide which I think she can use much better.

Another fantastic item I got was a Persim Band which can help protect me from confusion! While confusion isn't a status ailment I've been particularly threatened with yet, it's definitely a scary one before you get the Nontraitor IQ skill!

After a long day of work, it's off to dinner and then bedtime.

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

The following day, we're assigned sentry duty again.

We go through the whole rigamarole with the Sentry Duty and it plays out all the same as the last time, no harder than it was before.

Just like before, you'll be rewarded handsomely for getting perfect results, and you'll even get an additional prize if you can beat your high score!

The prize we get this time is 400P, a Pecha Scarf, a Reviver Seed, and a Max Elixir... admittedly not a bad haul of items but dramatically disappointing compared to the truckload of incredible items we got the first time around! I mean, Reviver Seeds and Max Elixirs are nice, but I've already stocked up a decent buffer of them already and the Pecha Scarf is pretty okay but Poison really isn't too terribly threatening in the heat of battle.

But yeah, as I said, the amazing rewards were a one-time deal. Even if you didn't get them on your first try, these four rewards are the best you can get now. A much more realistic standard, to be fair.

And yet again, it's off to dinner and then to bed.

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

During the announcements the next morning, Chatot reveals that the guild has just made a new ally!

The apprentices are already wondering if the guild might've taken on new apprentices already...

But with an all-too-familiar cloud for an appearance, it's clear something really ugly is afoot.

The stench irritates everyone in the room.

Before long, Team Skull reveals their ugly mugs to be this new ally to the guild. You have got to be kidding me.

The three members of Team Skull formally introduce themselves to the apprentices at the introduction by Chatot.

The guild has decided to partner with Team Skull for the purpose in assisting with the upcoming expedition. So, for the next few days these guys are going to be clowning around the guild and there's nothing we can really do about it. What a nightmare.

Of course, absolutely nobody is happy with this decision and just the mere presence of these losers seems to sap any and all enthusiasm out of the expedition everyone was looking forward to.

Chatot tries to get everyone to cheer off, but seems quite inept at reading the room...

When Chatot asks where everyone's spirit is, Loudred starts to protest when suddenly the whole room begins to shake!

Is.... is this the guildmaster's legendary temper...?

The sight of Wigglytuff so upset sends Chatot into a quivering frenzy!

Everyone desperately fakes an enthusiastic cheer to soothe Wigglytuff and avoid whatever terrifying fate we narrowly avoided just now before everyone clears out and goes about their daily lives... ignoring the disgusting monster before them.

Pep is probably the most downtrodden about these happenings. We all know something's up, there's no way these guys just wanna be friendly and help out. We've got ourself a good ol' fashioned two-faced enemy who's clearly going to do everything in his power to screw with us. For now, we'll just have to cope.

And with that, Chatot gives us our task to once again focus on the boards. I guess there's nothing else to do but get back to work!

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

It seems like the only person besides Chatot and the guildmaster who enjoys the presence of Skuntank is Croagunk who seems to enjoy the smell... that's... kinda gross, but I guess he's a poison type.

But, for the first time, we do get some sort of information out of what's going on here with Croagunk. Apparently he's been repairing his Swap Cauldron and he's almost done fixing it. Once he's finished, he'll let us know what the deal is with his weird stall. So I suppose we have something to look forward to.

We'll find Team Skull standing by the bulletin board, openly mocking us.

Nobody here is content with these guys wandering around and everyone is steering as far away from them as they can. A good idea, really. I don't want anything to do with them, either. But for now, I wanted to call attention to Chimecho again. Now that we have a surplus of party members, we can make use of Chimecho's Assembly.

Chimecho's assembly, as explained before, replaces the Friend Area system from Rescue Team. Every member of Team Persevere can be accessed from the Chimecho Assembly and we can freely adjust our team. It's a bit sad we don't get to go out to the friend areas and watch as they get populated over time, but this method is without a doubt a lot more convenient and I'll gladly let go of the requirement of having to buy the right friend area for the right pokemon in order to even have a chance to recruit them. This, along with the QoL improvements to recruitment in general are by far the biggest positives I can voice about gameplay changes between Rescue Team and Explorers.

Anyway, using Chimecho's assembly, you can form a squad of specific teammates to explore with! Changes to your team will now stick between days unlike in Rescue Team, so you no longer have to track down your favorite allies over and over. They'll simply stay with you until you put them on standby. Because of this, it really feels a lot more like your individual favorites are static parts of your party.

Because you're not constantly having to gather your team for every single adventure, this system lends itself better to forming a squadron more like a party in the main series. As a result, I find myself wanting to try and focus on making a single squad of the best allies I have so far. So, for now, I assembled the best team I could, though there's a bit of a caveat here we'll cover in just a bit.

===========

New Squad: Team Persevere

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

Aura (Chikorita M); Lv. 11

Item: None

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Tackle, Growl, Razor Leaf, PoisonPowder

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

Pep (Piplup M); Lv. 11

Item: None

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Pound, Growl, Bubble, Water Sport

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

Slick (Grimer F); Lv. 9

Item: None

Ability: Stench, Sticky Hold | Moves: Poison Gas, Pound, Harden, Mud-Slap

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

Cover (Tangela M); Lv. 10

Item: None

Ability: Chlorophyll, Leaf Guard | Moves: Ingrain, Constrict, Sleep Powder, Absorb

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

We have a few new types of jobs available to us! In addition, I do believe this is our first time dealing with B-rank missions? Anyway, these new jobs are escort jobs and lost item retrieval jobs. I'm unsure if the Lost Item jobs replace the item hunting requests from Rescue Team or if they're their own separate type of task, but I definitely prefer the way these are handled!

Let's start by describing the more intrusive of these two: Escort jobs.

If you enter a dungeon with a full team and accept an escort job, the last member of the team will be booted back to the assembly to make room for the client instead. In this case, our client is a Barboach.

Just like in Rescue Team, your client is going to be really weak, delicate, and you can't access their tactics or moves lists, so you just have to deal with the unpredictability of their AI. It can get you into some messy situations. Rescue Team escort missions generally had you lead your client to a friend on a particular floor, essentially making them regular rescue requests with additional baggage.

This time, your client simply requests to be taken to a particular floor of a dungeon. As soon as you arrive at the requested floor with the client still in your party, the job will be a success automatically!

As for the lost item search missions, apparently I forgot to take a screenshot of this one but it's pretty self explanatory anyway. In Rescue Team, there were jobs where clients would ask for an item that can appear in a dungeon. There was no guarantee you'd find that item just by playing through the dungeon and these missions weren't associated with specific floors so they'd essentially boil down to bringing the item with you into the dungeon pre-emptively and keeping the item in your inventory the whole time. If you're lucky, you'd find a replacement along the way. Well, here in Explorers, these Lost Item requests are similar but instead clearly identify a floor to search for the item. Once you find the item, the job will be completed and you can instantly leave the dungeon.

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

After another day of completing missions, it's back to dinner and back to bed again.

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

In the middle of the night, however, it seems Team Skull are up to their shenanigans. They're gonna steal food from the guild!

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

Our task for today doesn't come as too much of a surprise given what we just saw by the power of dramatic irony last night. Chatot has discovered large quantities of food have turned up missing, so we'll need to restock on food to ensure that everyone can eat. Most importantly, we'll need to stock up on the Perfect Apples the guildmaster loves so much. I think we've already seen a bit of a preview as to what might happen if Wigglytuff doesn't get his favorite food, so we should probably get right on this task!

Of course, Team Skull here is ready to continue making a mess of things. We'd better be ready for whatever tricks these jerks are gonna pull on us.

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

Real quick, before we get involved with our next dungeon, I want to call attention to the Electivire Link Shop which is open now! This store is identical to Gulpin's Link Shop in Rescue Team. You can link moves together so that you can use them both in the one turn. The main drawback to this is the fact that the moves will de-link if one of them runs out of PP. Beyond that, unless you delink the moves yourself, which can be done at any time, you can't use one move without using the other. In general, it's a good idea to make sure you only link moves that are useful in the same situation. For example, it's often a good idea to link a move like Leer with a standard attack like Scratch to get a little bit of extra damage in. You want to make sure the moves have similar range so that you never feel pressured to use a move that won't hit just because a pokemon is in the range of another move.

The only linking I decided to do right now was link my own Razor Leaf to Growl. It's not the most effective thing in the world, but I never really use Growl anyway and this might get some use out of it.

Anyway, once we're ready to go, we make our way out toward the Apple Woods!

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

So, we'll need to get to the depths of the Apple Woods in order to find the Perfect Apples for Wigglytuff.

Of course, we're being tailed by these jerks so we already know things are going to end badly here.

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

Apple Woods

This is the first dungeon where things start to get a little bit more complex, but also a bit more standard at the same time. Maybe you'll see what I mean in a bit.

The standard items you'll find throughout the dungeon are Poke, Power and Special Bands, Sticks, Apples, Big Apples, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Blast, Heal, and Reviver Seeds, Max Elixirs, as well as assorted TMs and Wonder Orbs.

Time-exclusive items include the Blue, Grass, Orange, and White Gummis as well as Stun, Sleep, and Warp Seeds.

Darkness-exclusives include the Twist Band, Clear, Pink, Red, and Yellow Gummis, and the X-Eye Seed.

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

Apple Woods [1F - 3F]

The pokemon available on the first few floors include Caterpie, Hoppip, Budew, Burmy, Oddish, Butterfree, and Paras.

Burmy, however, will only appear in Explorers of Darkness while Butterfree will only appear in Explorers of Time.

Despite being fully evolved, Butterfree is fairly easy to recruit at 5.5%, though I suppose that's probably because it evolves at such a low level normally. Anyway, none of the pokemon here are particularly threatening. Oddish is somewhat of a threat against me because of its poison attacks, but it's not too tough to get through.

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

Apple Woods [4F]

On the 4th floor, Weedle and Exeggutor join the fray. Weedle, like Caterpie, can be a little annoying because of String Shot, but they're total pushovers. Exeggutor, on the other hand, is capable of putting you to sleep, so try to take them out quickly or avoid them altogether! Don't get egg on your face!

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

Apple Woods [5F]

Caterpie is gone on the 5th floor.

It was on this floor that I ended up leveling up and learning the move Synthesis! Free heal is absolutely not a move I imagine myself passing up.

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

Apple Woods [6F]

And on the 6th floor, Hoppip, Budew, and Burmy are all gone in favor of Combee who is the Time-exclusive counterpart to Burmy.

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

Apple Woods [7F]

On the 7th floor, Oddish is replaced by Gloom, a tougher counterpart. Interestingly, Gloom is harder to recruit than Executor, only being a 0.1% recruitment rate as opposed to a 0.5% for not only a fully-evolved pokemon, but one that requires a rare item to evolve in the first place! I'm not sure why Gloom is so tough to recruit specifically, but they probably had their reasons, I'm sure.

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

Apple Woods [8F - 9F]

Starting on the 8th floor, you'll no longer find Butterfree and instead Kakuna and Beedrill. As you can probably guess, Beedrill is the Darkness exclusive counterpart to Butterfree.

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

Apple Woods [10F - 12F]

Finally, at 10F, Weedle retires.

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

After the 12th floor, we arrive at the depths of the forest.

Before us is a giant tree bearing the Perfect Apples we seek for our mission! But we've gotta figure out how to get to these apples on such a huge tree!

Of course, that familiar guffaw rings out and the trouble rolls in! What is Team Skull after here!

As it turns out, these guys got here before us and have been munching on those very Perfect Apples we're after for our mission!

Ready to stand up for himself this time, Pep prepares for a battle with Team Skull, ready to give 'em a pounding so that we can teach them a lesson and get those apples! Only, that's not quite the game Skuntank's playing at...

Skuntank of course decides to play the two-face card, pretending that he's only here to help us. He even knocks all the apples out of the tree for us to pick up. But it's obviously just a ruse to further bully us for no reason at all.

They wait along for us to approach and try to get to the apples, but even Pep knows what's going to end up happening.

After a major back and forth, Skuntank and Koffing both flood the area with a powerful stink cloud that leaves us completely dazed.

When we come to, we find that Koffing and Skuntank have disappeared completely with the rest of the Perfect Apples! They even left Zubat behind! Zubat runs off to rejoin with Team Skull, leaving us alone with not a single Perfect Apple left on the tree...

It looks as though, despite our best efforts, we weren't able to defeat Team Skull. And with that, our mission is a failure... Why are Team Skull so insistent on interfering this badly with us and the guild!? Surely this is something we've got to report, but even then, Skuntank has somehow managed to charm Chatot right into his pocket. He's somehow able to completely discredit us just with a few smooth words. This guy is the worst!

Well, at this point there's a save prompt and, good lord, this was a much longer post than I ever expected it to be. Hopefully long posts like this aren't so frequent and this is just a bit of a fluke, but if this becomes a consistent thing I might have to reconsider the approach of glazing over job days like the ones sprinkled throughout this post. Maybe it would make sense to detail these in a more friendly light like that.

Anyway, next time we'll pick up right where we left off tonight and see what happens as a result of our failure...

June 24, 2022

My appologies once again for the long wait for our next update! Once again, if you've been following my recent statuses you'll know I've been going through all sorts of technical issues with Imgur recently and I'm not really sure where these issues are coming from as I don't recall ever having them to this degree of intrusiveness before. I'm trying to work on ways to reduce the load of images I upload in bulk to hopefully at least reduce the overhead when something does go wrong, but for now we can continue on.

To avoid these updates becoming too time consuming, I will go ahead and set the expectation that updates for this playthrough will likely be made every other day, and rather than follow the typical formula of playing until I get to a new dungeon in each post, I'm just gonna play it by ear. Some posts, like today, are going to mostly be focused on narrative progress between dungeons while others might be entirely focused on a single new dungeon. I think overall this approach will make these posts a lot easier to manage. One of the things that has been leading to a bit of confusion as to when I should stop a session is that this game's narrative is actually divided by chapters. In hindsight, Rescue Team was not. While the story was delivered in an episodic nature, there weren't distinct title cards for individual chapters. Normally I'd like to cover a chapter per post as that's the way the game divides up the story, however, I worry that some chapters might be absurdly long compared to others. I think it's more reasonable to focus on cutting things during any points where the game issues a save prompt. Again, worth noting is that I am doing two separate playthroughs, so I can play Darkness a bit ahead of Time to know with greater confidence right when I'm on the cusp of a major story development. Hopefully as the playthrough goes forward, I'll get better at finding consistent places to end each update! Please bear with me as I try to figure all this out.

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

After the events of our last expedition, Team Skull had forced us to return to the guild empty handed after having eaten and stolen every last Perfect Apple. This sends Chatot into a panic and, while Pep tries to explain what happened, Chatot furiously refuses to accept any excuses.

As punishment for our failure, Chatot tells us we'll go without dinner! Doesn't that seem harsh?? Well, Chatot doesn't seem to think so due to how terrified he is of the Guildmaster's temper. He decides that we'll be going with him to inform Wigglytuff of our failure because he absolutely will not bear the full brunt of Wigglytuff's fury alone because of our failure.

So, as dinner rolls around, we get to stand by and watch as everyone else eats their dinner, including Team Skull who are the reason we got in trouble in the first place! It's infuriating to see them get off scott free!

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

After dinner, we go with Chatot to report to Wigglytuff who mistakenly expects us to have brought him some Perfect Apples.

It's really difficult for Chatot to quite find the words he has to say knowing how badly disappointed Wigglytuff will be.

Chatot explains our failure, but Wigglytuff happily disregards and tells us not to feel bad over it. We're all friends in the guild, of course!

Unfortunately, it seems that Wigglytuff hasn't quite processed the message yet. He asks Chatot where the "other" Perfect Apples are. Perhaps she didn't realize that we had none in reserve? Chatot struggles to break the news to him again...

When the news finally hits Wigglytuff, Chatot tries to play it off with friendly laughter in an effort to ease tension, but of course the guildmaster starts to cry...

As Wigglytuff's crying grows louder, the room begins to violently shake and spontaneous explosions begin to fill the room! This must be that legendary temper everyone in the guild is so terrified of!

But at the last minute, a voice tears through the screaming, catching Wigglytuff's attention. Someone has brought a Perfect Apple! And it only takes one guess to find out who that is.

Team Skull have arrived just in the nick of time to deliver a Perfect Apple to the guildmaster, continuing to wiggle the guild staff into their pockets. Now, not only have they made us look incompetent by making us fail our task, but they also get to steal our glory by completing our task for us! The writers really know how to make these guys absolutely vile! I just wanna punch them in the face right now!

Chatot immediately insists that we show our respect to Team Skull, but of course we know everything that's going on and Pep just can't stop staring daggers at the bastards.

After they leave, Team Skull talks amongst themselves about what Skuntank's plan of action is here. He explains that the important part of their plan is to gain the trust of Wigglytuff first and join the expedition. He notes that he's surprised by how much of a baby Wigglytuff turned out to be. He's confident now that, once the expedition is underway, if any valuable treasure is discovered, they can wipe out the guild and take the treasure for themselves.

Pep sadly reminisces about the events of today and complains about how hungry he is having been forced to skip dinner. I seriously cannot wrap my mind around this being any sort of punishment, it actually kinda bothers me. It seems like it would've been much more reasonable for us to have to do some sort of menial labor or something, not go starving for the night! Maybe it's a Japanese culture thing? I'm really not sure, but this honestly rubs me the wrong way about the guild. It's not the first questionable thing they do, but it's certainly the one that stands out to me the most.

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

The next morning, Chatot announces that the members of the expedition party are planned to be announced very soon, so that's something the apprentices have to look forward to!

Everyone is excited to see who will be selected, and Chatot encourages everyone to do their best to make a positive impression!

Chatot assigns us our task to do the jobs on the boards again, today, so it's looking like another free day more or less.

He also adds one final note... that we should give up on being selected for the expedition. After our failure the previous night, he believes the guildmaster to be furious with us and that we shouldn't bother getting our hopes up when the time comes for the expedition party to be announced.

Chatot walks away leaving Pep feeling totally out of it.

But, while we're feeling sorry for ourselves, we hear a hushed voice calling out to us from nearby...

It's Bidoof! As well as Sunflora and Chimecho! They want to keep a low profile for some reason...

They lead us into the quarters to talk in secret.

Apparently everyone banded together to save parts of their dinner for us after noticing we had to go without! As much as I went off about not really liking that the guild would resort to such an absurd punishment, this is actually a really heartwarming scene that shows the camaraderie between the apprentices of the guild and I really appreciate this moment! This shows a degree of teamwork that has gone unspoken until now! If one of us is suffering, we know now that the others will pick up to help us.

Everyone encourages us to keep doing our best so that we can be chosen for the expedition!

Pep breaks the news that Chatot warned us not to get our hopes up, which the rest of the apprentices immediately blows off. It's the Guildmaster's decision in the end, not his, and there's no telling what could happen in the end! We can't let ourselves get all bogged down by one failure, we'll just have to do our best and prove ourselves by working as hard as we can for the next few days!

Pep is a bit confused as to why everyone is being so encouraging for us. If we were to be selected, that just means someone else didn't, so you'd think everybody would be trying to put themselves ahead of each other.

As it turns out, everyone here really wants to go on the expedition with us! To the point where everyone's okay if it means they don't get to go because they'll just cheer each other on from the guild!

With that, everyone agrees to keep on doing the best they can and to see if they can get picked for the expedition!

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

On our way back out, wer're called over by Croagunk from the other side of the room!

Apparently Croagunk has finished repairing his Swap Cauldron and now the Croagunk Swap Shop is back in business!

This is a strange shop that I can't say I quite understand the mechanics of just yet.

From what I currently understand, if you ever get an item marked with a star, such as a Shinx Claw and Shinx Fang, you can swap them for an item called a Fist Crest... I have absolutely no clue what this means beyond what I just wrote. From what I understand, though, these swappable items aren't something we can actually get our hands on yet, so I suppose we'll be coming back to Croagunk's Swap Shop after gathering some of these items. I can't quite tell yet whether or not this is going to be a particularly exciting feature or just one of those weird mechanics I ultimately don't interact with much. I feel like the fact that I don't remember anything at all about it might be a bit telling but who's to say for sure?

Anyway, I actually forgot to check in with Sunflora and Bidoof's diaries last time, so let's take a quick peek again! There are three more entries with each since we last checked.

In this entry, Sunflora recounts the events of the day Skuntank arrived at the guild. She comments about how disgusting the smell was but that absolutely nobody would own up to the stench, but she has no idea who it was.

In this one, Sunflora writes about her excitement regarding the upcoming expedition. She recounts that it's been a long time since the last one and happy memories with having shared the fruits of the expedition with Treasure Town. She's excited to be able to do it all over again! She and Chimecho have been talking nonstop about where they think the expedition will take them.

This entry focuses on what happened the other night. Sunflora was confused as to why we weren't allowed to eat when she noticed that Bidoof wasn't eating all of his food which was strange because he normally has a voracious appetite. As everyone began to notice, they all followed Bidoof's lead and chose to leave parts of their meals untouched, too! Ultimately, they all shared some of the smaller things from the collective of food and presented us with the largest portions of the leftovers they'd spared! I think it's a really cool touch that Bidoof was the one who started this whole thing without even realizing it. He really did just have a kind enough heart to look out for us!

Bidoof's first entry also recounts the events of Skuntank's introduction. Apparently he was really embarrassed because he has a tendency to cut the cheese at embarrassing times and everyone immediately assumed it was him that made this big stink, so this whole entry is about him getting really defensive and insisting that this one wasn't him!

This one focuses on Bidoof's thoughts about the expedition. Unlike Sunflora, he has no experience with expeditions. Of course, he doesn't have a whole lot of confidence that he'll be picked for the expedition. Even still, he looks at us and how much we've improved and tells himself he's going to give it his all to be picked for the expedition!

The last of Bidoof's entries has him recall the events of the night everyone saved their dinners. A really sweet detail here is that Bidoof writes "it turns out everyone else had the same idea!" showing again that he is completely oblivious to the fact that he's the one who inspired that act of kindness in everyone else. I'm really glad they gave Bidoof such a fantastic character trait like this!

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

Back to business here, we've got a more traditional escort type mission. I suppose I counted my chickens before they hatched by claiming the escort missions were changed to the ones where you have to bring your client to the requested floor. These missions are identical to their counterparts in Rescue Team. Just escort your client to their friend on the requested floor. It's the same as the other escort missions except with the added step of locating their friend, too, like in a rescue mission.

You might notice this particular mission's reward is ???. We'll see what that means in a bit.

While completing missions, Slick leveled up and learned the move Disable! I figured Paralysis would probably be much more consistently helpful than Poison, so I opted to replace Poison Gas.

One potential reward for completing a job is that the client will ask to join your exploration team! These recruits... really aren't worth it for much because they'll be really low-level. In this case, it's especially unfortunate because I already have Party, so I really have no need for a second Lotad... sorry, bud, but I'm gonna have to pass on this one.

If you turn down the recruit, you'll still receive a hefty monetary reward! You might actually find more use for the money than the recruit, so this might actually be a more viable choice!

While completing these missions, Team Persevere ranked up to the Silver Rank!

Along with receiving a Zinc to increase Sp. Def, the Kangaskhan Storage has been dramatically expanded from 96 to 200! I don't think we were even close to reaching the limit already, so now we've definitely got a lot of room to work with!

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

And with that, it's off to dinner and bed for another day at Wigglytuff's Guild!

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

Things seem to be returning to normal, at least for now, but the expedition is still around the corner!

We've got Sentry Duty again, today.

At this point there's nothing really to talk about with Sentry Duty anymore, the rewards are the same on all attempts after the first one. You get a better reward if you beat your high score, so you do want to keep improving, but the rewards aren't really anything to sneeze at anymore. The Reviver Seed is probably the most exciting reward and you get it regardless of whether or not you reach the high score, so at this point it's mainly just about seeing how well you can do, but it's not really worth risking a perfect run over. Just take your time and wait for those hints to roll in.

Of course, Sentry Duty lasts all day yet again.

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

And once again, our task is to focus on the bulletin boards. I'm starting to notice a pattern here...

While completing missions this time, I actually stumbled across a couple of Recycle TMs! These TMs are actually incredibly useful in Mystery Dungeon! Whenever you use a TM, it'll become a Used TM which is just a junk item. However, if a pokemon uses the move Recycle, that Used TM will return to a usable state, making it infinitely reusable! Recycle can't be used on a Used TM that contains itself, though, so ironically Recycle is one TM you'll still need to discard after use.

Also, for the record, I think I really did not do Butterfree justice when I dismissed it as "not a major threat" during my initial coverage of this dungeon. While I didn't run into any dangerous encounters with these guys my first run through of Apple Woods, holy crap did they piss me off the second time through doing these missions. Their main annoyance is that they just layer status problems onto you between Poison Powder, Sleep Powder, and Stun Spore. Beyond that, they use Confusion which can potentially confuse you as well! I ran into a situation where I was literally stunlocked for a solid 5 minutes because this thing just kept spamming Sleep Powder and Stun Spore, putting me and my allies to sleep and paralyzing us so that even when we wake up we can't do anything before he puts us to sleep again. It was an absolute nightmare and I basically just had to put the game down and let it play itself for several turns before I finally got a point where I was able to make a move. Remember that if your leader is asleep, you can't so much as access your tactics menu to issue commands or turn on moves for your allies, so everybody is on their own until you wake back up.

Another fantastic reward that completely caught me off guard was that I receive a TM for Giga Drain! That said, I actually don't plan to use this on myself just yet. I think Synthesis is more convenient for the purpose of healing even though it won't heal as much in bad weather. I think it's really convenient to be able to heal myself on command at any point regardless of the presence of nearby enemies and I think it'll be an especially useful ability in the late game. There might come a point where I feel the need to replace Synthesis with Giga Drain in order to maintain a stronger offensive presence against bosses, but I have a feeling if I can get my hands on Bullet Seed, that might not end up being necessary...

As we're getting ready for dinner, it seems Chatot has something to say...

There's an announcement!

The guild isn't too happy about being kept from eating! I guess he'd better hurry up with the announcement!

To calm everyone down, Chatot hastily announces that the final decisions for the Expedition members have been made! Tomorrow morning, the expedition party will be announced! Everyone is excited all over again to find out who got selected! We know there's no negative feelings behind held for anyone who gets selected, so we'll just have to see how things ultimately play out!

Everybody eats their dinner before heading off to bed once again.

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

Pep seems to be taking this whole thing really well. Even though we'd been treated so unfairly, he resigns to the fact that we did the best we could with the cards we were dealt. He seems like he'll be disappointed if we're left out, but he has no regrets.

As we sleep through the night, we think to ourselves about Pep and how tomorrow will affect him. He'll be fine in the end, for sure, but that doesn't change the fact that he'll be crushed. But that expedition is something out of his life-long dream. It's his calling, it's the whole reason he wanted to join an exploration team in the first place. I don't think there's anyone in the guild who wants to go on the expedition more than him. And as for us, we still have the mystery of those strange visions. We haven't had any visions in any of our recent adventures. Why is that? It's an ability that might come in useful on the expedition, but we still don't fully understand it. I wonder if an expedition might be a great time to learn about it? It would certainly be really nice to go on the expedition and have that opportunity!

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

Meanwhile, we once again see a familiar figure approaching another of the Time Gears... this thief must have stolen the Time Gear in Treeshroud Forest and now he's found his way to the second of five. What could he possibly be gathering these gears for?

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

The next morning is the moment we've been waiting for! Chatot will now announce the members of the expedition from Wigglytuff's memo.

Everyone is excited to hear who will be called for the expedition and waits with baited breath!

The first member selected is Loudred!

The second is Corphish!

Bidoof turns out to be the third member, surprising even Chatot!

It seems Bidoof is in such shock at having been selected that he can't even bring himself to move! We'll just need to give him some time, I suppose.

And next on the list are Chimecho and Sunflora!

And... that seems to be the end of the list. Unfortunately, it seems Pep wasn't selected...

Of course, Team Skull chimes in with some rude remarks, but at this point nothing can really be done, huh?

Oh, but apparently there's something else written on the memo Chatot hadn't noticed before...

Apparently it's really hard to read because of Wigglytuff's messy handwriting.

Apparently there are more names written on the memo! Diglett, Dugtrio, Croagunk, Pep and myself! But... isn't that...?

As it turns out, Wigglytuff ultimately decided to include every single member of the guild in the expedition!!

Chatot immediately calls attention to the fact that including everyone in the expedition renders the entire selection process pointless and that having everyone go would mean the guild would be left completely empty! Wigglytuff chimes back with the simple suggestion that we'll lock up properly!

Skuntank, of course, intervenes, suggesting that maybe we have too many members and that it might make things more difficult.

Wigglytuff expresses some concern as to why Skuntank would inquire about such a thing. What reason would you have for wanting to exclude anybody? Skuntank asks what the point is of having everyone participate when not everyone is needed?

Wigglytuff's response couldn't be more simple: More people means more fun!

Skuntank is completely dumbfounded by Wigglytuff's childish response. There is absolutely no logic or reasoning to his decision besides the fact that it would be fun.

So, Wigglytuff cheers everybody on about the fun times ahead of them and everyone is enthusiastic about this great expedition! It's really satisfying to see Team Skull's efforts to get us shafted completely fall to the wayside so quickly! This is certainly going to complicate his plans, but we still gotta keep an eye out for them. There's no telling what kind of trouble they'll bring to us out in the wild...

So, Chatot dismisses everybody with the instructions to prepare for the upcoming expedition.

The apprentices all gather around and have an emotional exchange before agreeing to work together and do their best to make this expedition a great one!

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

At this point, in preparation for the upcoming expedition, our Treasure Bag has been upgraded allowing us to carry more items than before! Now we can carry up to 32 different items with us! With this upgrade, even with carrying a held item for four party members, we now have more inventory space than we did in Rescue Team. Before this, we could only carry 24 items compared to Rescue Team's 20, but carrying four held items meant we still had the same amount of inventory space. These 8 additional slots can make a world of difference in our ability to prepare!

The expedition is the talk of the town, now, so talk to the locals for some friendly words of encouragement!

Even the shopkeepers have some things to say!

Of course, there are people around Kecleon Market and Kangaskhan Storage as well!

And these shopkeepers also have some kind words to share!

Team Skull are also hanging out around here. Being as shady as always, of course...

Of course, we'll find Dugtrio out here at the cliffside shouting out at the sea he's strangely obsessed with.

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

Anyway, now let's start talking about preparation for the expedition. Quite frankly, I think we're pretty well-prepared. We've got a pretty solid buffer of items we've gathered together across our several excursions for mission completion and the like. You'll want to make sure you have a decent buffer of Reviver Seeds, Max Elixirs, and Escape Orbs in storage. It can't hurt to make sure you also have some Big Apples as well. You're basically going to be going from dungeon to dungeon similar to the fugitive arc in Rescue Team, so any resources you find yourself using regularly you'll want to make sure you have an abundance of. It might be considered a bit of a spoiler because I don't think you could do this in Rescue Team, but you will have remote access to your storage between dungeons while on the expedition, so you don't have to worry about carrying all your supplies with you on your person.

That said, I do recommend checking the bulletin boards in the guild as they just might hold some rewards that will be useful, like TMs or even specific Gummis. Note, however, that, as Chatot said, this is a guild-exclusive expedition. Only trusted guild members are permitted to go on the expedition which means, just like the fugitive arc, we can't bring any recruits from outside of the guild with us.

I do recommend carrying a decent handful of money with you, as well. With no access to Treasure Town, you might want some cash on-hand in case you stumble across a Kecleon Merchant in a dungeon with an item you need. Just be wary that if you get KO'd in the dungeon you will lose all of your on-hand money, so make sure to leave at least half of your money in the bank.

Once you are fully prepared for the expedition and you're confident there's nothing left you want to do, speak to Chatot to prepare for the briefing!

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

During this briefing, Chatot explains the purpose of the expedition is to explore a location called Fogbound Lake.

Fogbound Lake is a mysterious location rumored to be found in the far east. It is a mysterious location that is enshrouded in perpetual fog that makes its actual existence difficult to confirm. It exists in rumor alone until brave explorers like us can go out and search for it. Of course, the main reason to investigate is because of a rumor that a treasure of exquisite beauty is located there!

In order to get to Fogbound Lake, we'll have to travel a great distance from our guild, so we'll be setting up camp at the foot of the highlands. But if we were to travel in one large group to this location, our mobility would be restricted. So, we'll be splitting off into several smaller groups in order to make the trip to the camp more efficient.

The first group consists of Sunflora, Loudred, Diglett, and Croagunk,

The second consists of Dugtrio, Chimecho, and Corphish,

Chatot and Wigglytuff will be traveling together,

Chatot just can't seem to get a break! You almost have to feel sorry for him sometimes, but he kinda deserves it at the same time the way he's been brushing us of!

Of course, Team Skull will be traveling on their own as well.

And that, of course, just leaves us with Pep and Bidoof! Thank god we're not stuck with any of those Team Skull harlequins. I'd rather be paired with a pet rock.

And with that, the expedition will officially begin!

And with the expedition beginning, I think this is a really good place to stop the update. Even though we haven't actually gotten to any dungeon exploration just yet, I think it's important to start pacing ourselves a bit better. Next time starts the true beginning of our expedition! Let's see what the world has in store for us!

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

Ah, but of course we can't forget about Team Outreach! I haven't updated you guys on their progress at all in a while, but they've been keeping up! Since we last checked in on them, they've gotten quite a few new recruits and also ranked up to Silver Rank!

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

New Recruits: Team Outreach

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

Shelly (Shellos M); Lv. 4

Item: None

Ability: Sticky Hold, Storm Drain | Moves: Mud-Slap, Mud Sport, Harden

Shellos is a pretty solid pokemon with some solid range options once it learns Water Pulse, but Shelly comes at a really low level to the point where I'm not so confident in bringing him along. That said, I do have a decent balance of pokemon on my team so I might find myself bringing Shelly along if I really need a decent Water type. However, Shelly being a Water-type is an issue. I don't know if I've commented on this yet, but Gummis are handled really weirdly in Explorers of Darkness and Time in that they're version exclusive items. Blue Gummis happen to be exclusive to Explorers of Time, not Darkness. I really resent this approach as it makes using certain pokemon needlessly difficult for no apparent reason and kind of puts its fingerprints on the types of pokemon you can comfortably use in each version. It's especially unfortunate considering you have no control over your starter. I seriously can't fathom why this is the direction they went with this game. I'd love to use Shelly, but I have a hard time justifying training him up when I'll inevitably have to drop him for his low IQ.

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

Spike (Weedle M); Lv. 12

Item: None

Ability: Shield Dust | Moves: Poison Sting, String Shot

Weedle is just here because he asked to be. String Shot has its theoretical uses but overall, it's a Weedle. I mean there's really not much more to say. Without it being able to evolve, there's not much more to talk about here.

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

Stars (Starly F); Lv. 8

Item: None

Ability: Keen Eye | Moves: Tackle, Growl, Quick Attack

Starly is a really nice addition to the team! While he's a Normal/Flying type and both White and Sky Gummis are exclusive to Time (Why????), I've stressed how difficult they could be to fight in Mt. Bristle and being able to have one on my side feels great! He might not stick around forever, but he'll definitely have his spot on the team until I can find someone better suited for his position.

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

Shoal (Corsola F); Lv. 1

Item: None

Ability: Hustle, Natural Cure | Moves: Tackle

Corsola joined my team as a reward for completing a mission.

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

There were two new mission types Team Outreach found that I've yet to stumble across with Team Persevere. I'll try to cover them in detail if/when they show up in Time, but I'll cover what they were here.

The first was a Sealed Chamber mission which got me really excited at first, but it's ultimately a giant troll. It's a mission in which the client has a key to a sealed chamber and you have to escort the client to a sealed chamber on the designated floor. The client will unlock the chamber for you to go inside and collect the item, but it's ultimately a glorified lost item mission as, once you collect the item inside, it goes to the client and you just get the generic reward for the mission in the end. (Seriously??)

The second one really blew my mind, it was a Prospecting Mission. It's essentially an escort mission combined with an item hunt in which you travel with a client in search of a rare item on a particular floor.

In this case, I traveled with a Budew to search for a Mystery Part on the 12th floor of Apple Woods. I didn't think much of this at the time. The item sounded intriguing, but I figured it was just like the Sealed Chamber mission where the mysterious item would just go to the client and things would be saved. As it turned out, I couldn't be further from the truth! I didn't notice until visiting Kangaskhan Storage that this item actually stayed in my inventory! It turns out, it's actually a really, really important key item for some rare recruits! I don't know how rare this particular item is, but all the resources I see online seem to imply I'm not supposed to be able to get this item until way later in the game, so it kind of boggles my mind that this mission just so casually popped up on my bulletin board so early on in the story. And it wasn't even a particularly challenging mission! If I had known this was such a significant mission, I would've noted the wonder mail code for it, I genuinely did not believe I'd get a rare item like this so early on. I'll try to cover exactly what this is used for when we get to where it can be used, but for now it'll be safely tucked away in storage. I suppose I have my own little Relic Fragment just like Pep!

Anyway, that about covers it for our updates! Next update is probably actually going to be a lot more brief as it's pretty much just going to be an isolated dungeon. I've already played a bit ahead in Darkness so I do know what's coming up in Time! So next time, look forward to the beginning of the expedition!

June 27, 2022

Last time, we left off just before setting out on our great expedition! As we covered the plan, our first goal is to travel with Bidoof to the campsite which is quite a distance away. There, we'll reunite with the other groups that make up the expedition party. To get there, we're going to have to pass through several dungeons. Similar to the fugitive arc in Rescue Team, we'll have to trudge through a few dungeons as we travel across the region to our destination.

As Pep checks the map, he plans a route through the mountains and selects a midway point on the way to the camp for us to break at.

As he plans things through, we begin to notice something is definitely changing in him. Perhaps the excitement of finally living out his dream as an explorer is giving him a new wave of enthusiasm and confidence.

As we try to find our way forward, however, there are two paths we can take. There's the Craggy Coast and the Side Path. These are two separate dungeons. We'll start with Side Path since it's technically an optional and missable dungeon. Though, for reasons you're about to see, you aren't missing much if you choose the other option.

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

Side Path

Much like similarly named dungeons in Rescue Team's fugitive arc, Side Path is an optional dungeon here in case you find yourself walled by Craggy Coast. Since you don't have the option of returning to Treasure Town and focus on doing missions to gather supplies and gain exp, this is a short and simple dungeon for you to go through as many times as you want to gain more exp and collect some basic items to help you going forward.

Since this expedition is guild-exclusive, as Chatot warned, you cannot bring any friends from Chimecho's Assembly. Instead, you'll have Bidoof tag along with you. Bidoof mostly lends a support/tank roll. His Headbutt is pretty strong but he mostly seems to like using Growl and Defense Curl, so you might find him best used as a wall to hide behind and throw geo pebbles. Unfortunately, Bidoof functions somewhat like an escort client, so you can't issue any commands to him nor turn on or off any of his moves.

An additional consequence of the expedition being guild-exclusive is that the dungeons here do not allow you to recruit any pokemon within them during the expedition. You'll need to come back to these dungeons later in order to recruit any pokemon you're missing. In Side Path's case, you won't be able to revisit. But, any pokemon available here can be found in the other dungeon as well, so you aren't missing out on much in that regard.

The items you can find here are likely the main reason to come here if you happen to find yourself low on supplies. There's not much of interest here, but you've got some basic essentials covered. Poke, Geo-Pebbles, Apples, Cheri, Oran, Percha, and Rawst Berries, Max Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs.

In Darkness, you can also find Blast and X-Eye Seeds.

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

Side Path [B1F - B5F]

Across all five floors of this dungeon, you'll find Wingull, Spheal, and Gastrodon. Spheal was pretty scary in Rescue Team because of moves like Aurora Beam and Ice Ball. But they're not so bad at the low levels you find them here. Wingull can be a bit annoying with SuperSonic, but they go down fairly easily. Gastrodon takes a few hits but ultimately doesn't seem to do much. Do be wary of their Water Pulse, though, as it can hit you from a range!

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

Once you finish Side Path, you'll wind up right where you started! Now you'll get the chance to either go back through Side Path to continue building your supplies, or continue forward through Craggy Coast.

An additional luxury is that you'll now be given control in this small little hub area.

From here, you can check this Kangaskhan Rock! Just like the Kangaskhan Rocks in Rescue Team, you can use these to save the game. But a new addition here in Explorers is that you can also remotely access Kangaskhan Storage from here! You can store any excess items you collected in Side Path or replenish any items you've used, so long as you have extras in storage. Don't let your inventory get cluttered with a bunch of junk and store your valuables, too!

If you happen to get KO'd during either of these dungeons, you'll return to this area to save and access your storage to replenish your lost items. Unfortunately, you won't be able to replenish your lost money so you'll probably be SOL if you stumble across a Kecleon Shop.

Once you're ready to go, make your way to the cave and tell Pep where you'd like to go next! I think we've wasted enough time, let's get going through Craggy Coast and make some actual progress!

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

Craggy Coast

Normally I'd do only one dungeon in a post, but Side Path isn't really much of a dungeon so much as a side piece of Craggy Coast. I think it's fair to cover them both in the same post. The structure of these posts I think is already going to make this expedition feel like it's padded out a bit, but it just makes sense to me to cover one dungeon per post like this.

Anyway, Craggy Coast is the required dungeon you'll have to travel through. The music here is really upbeat and exciting to match the mood of the grand adventure we're embarking on! It's exciting and really pumps you up for some exploration! This dungeon is a bit longer than Side Path and contains all the pokemon and items from Side Path as well as some extras. The only excluded items are the Blast Seed in Darkness and the Rawst Berry which was a bit of a strange addition in the first place considering there's no Fire-types here.

Once again, you can't recruit pokemon in this dungeon thanks to the expedition, but unlike Side Path, we'll actually be able to revisit this place later on, so you can come back here later in the game if you're interested in recruiting the pokemon you find.

The items available here are Poke, Geo-Pebbles, Apples, Blue Gummis, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Blast, Heal, and Reviver Seeds, Max Elixirs, and Wonder Orbs.

As it turns out, it seems I may have jumped the gun a bit in complaining about version-exclusive gummis. As it turns out, the gummis are only soft version exclusives. I suppose I should've seen this coming as it is pretty silly to make half the gummis completely inaccessible. It's just that gummis tied to the opposite game are far rarer and not found generically. Still, the fact that these gummis are so rare heavily discourages you from leaning too far toward particular types. But, if you, for example, started with a Water-type in Explorers of Darkness, you may find yourself going through this dungeon a few times looking for Blue Gummis.

In Time, you'll find Brown, Grass, Green, Orange, Sky, and White Gummis as well as Sleep, Stun, and Warp Seeds.

Green Gummis are associated with the Bug type, Brown with Ground, and Sky with Flying.

In Darkness, you'll instead find the Clear, Gray, Pink, Purple, Red, Royal, and Yellow Gummis as well as X-Eye Seeds.

Purple Gummis are associated with the Ghost type.

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

Craggy Coast [B1F - B5F]

Fir the first five floors, you'll find Spheal, Krabby, Dratini, Wingull, and Gastrodon. Not much to say about Krabby and Dratini. Watch out for Krabby's Bubble and Dratini's Wrap and Thunder Wave.

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

Craggy Coast [B6F - B9F]

After B5F, Spheal is replaced by its evolution Sealeo. As per usual, it's just a stronger counterpart to Spheal, just be wary that it'll be tougher to KO. Probably the most threatening pokemon in the dungeon, but a bit of a pushover as long as your mindful of its range.

On B6F, I did stumble across a Kecleon shop, but its wares were pretty disappointing so I didn't bother buying anything. I wouldn't put it past Bidoof to unwittingly steal from the shop and cause us to foot the bill, but he behaved himself!

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

Once we've gotten through the dungeon, we arrive at a point deeper in the mountain range.

We've closed the gap between our initial location and the camp! But we've still got quite a ways to go.

After mulling it over, we decide to set up camp here for the night. Otherwise it'll be night before we get over the mountain. It's good to be prepared!

Once we're all rested up, it's time to continue our journey! But we get control around here, so I think it's time to save at the Kangaskhan Rock and call it a day. Next time, we'll continue onward and make our way to the campsite so we can get to the real fun of the expedition!

June 28, 2022

Last time we made it to the midway point on our way to the campsite where we are to rendezvous with the rest of the guild! This time we'll need to close the distance and finish our journey by crossing through the mountains!

Once you're good and prepared with the Kangaskhan Rock, speak with Pep to get going!

Just like before, we're given a choice between two dungeons: Mt. Horn and Rock Path. We'll of course start with Rock Path as it is an optional and technically missable dungeon. Like Side Path, it's also very short and we can breeze right through it real quick.

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

Rock Path

Just like Side Path, Rock Path is a short, optional dungeon designed to allow you the opportunity to grind out some levels and restock on items in order to make up for the lack of access to Treasure Town in the event that you find yourself walled by the difficulty of Mt. Horn. Just like Side Path, this is a dungeon you can only explore during this part of the game and you'll never be able to visit and, consequently, any pokemon within it cannot be recruited. Still, any pokemon that can be found here can also be found in Mt. Horn which you will be able to revisit later on.

Items available throughout the dungeon cover your basic essentials: Poke, Geo Pebbles, Apples, Cheri, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries, Max Elixirs, and various Wonder Orbs.

In Darkness, you can also find Blast and X-Eye Seeds here.

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

Rock Path [1F - 5F]

The pokemon you'll fight throughout Rock Path include Natu, Shroomish, and Bonsly. Natu can be a little annoying due to their use of Teleport to move away from you. Shroomish can also be annoying due to their Stun Spore as well as Effect Spore ability. Try to pick them off from a distance. But none of these pokemon are especially threatening as they're mostly pretty lacking in the HP/Defense department.

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

Of course, just like Side Path, Rock Path loops us right back to where we were, so we can go there again and again if we need to replenish our supplies or just get a little bit stronger. If we wish to continue onward, it's Mt. Horn we'll need to take!

Once again, as soon as you're prepared, speak to Pep and set out for Mt. Horn!

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

Mt. Horn

This is the actual mountain we'll need to climb to get to the campsite! Any preparation in Rock Path is to help you overcome the challenges presented here. This area is a little bit tougher than Craggy Coast, but it shouldn't be too much more difficult. You might notice that Bidoof is a few levels higher! He may not be gaining exp through gameplay, but he is getting stronger!

The items available throughout the dungeon include Poke, Geo-Pebbles, Iron Thorns, Apples, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Blast, Heal, and Reviver Seeds, Max Elixirs, assorted TMs and Wonder Orbs.

In Explorers of Darkness, you can find Black, Clear, Gold, Gray, Pink, Purple, Red, Royal, and Yellow Gummis, as well as X-Eye Seeds.

Black Gummis are associated with the Dark type while Gold is associated with the Psychic type.

In Explorers of Time, you'll instead find Blue, Brown, Grass, Green, Orange, Silver, Sky, and White Gummis as well as Sleep, Stun, and Warp Seeds.

Silver Gummis are associated with the Steel type.

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

Mt. Horn [1F]

On the first floor, you'll find Beautifly, Shroomish, Parasect, Natu, and Ariados. Parasect was in Rescue Team due to Spore having room-wide range (which is absolutely absurd for a move like that, mind you!) I don't know if Spore still works the same in this game, but either way, Parasect is too low level here to actually have it. Still, be wary of its Stun Spore and Effect Spore. I believe Parasect may be our first example of a pokemon with a negative recruitment rate, though that's irrelevant your first time through here anyway. We'll cover how to recruit these pokemon in the future, but it's not much different at all from the way it worked in Rescue Team.

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

Mt. Horn [2F]

Cascoon joins the fray on the 2nd floor. Like Kakuna, they just kind of sit there and only attack if you walk up to them, so they're easy to ignore most of the time. Cascoon is another pokemon with a negative recruitment rate, so it's strangely difficult to get!

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

Mt. Horn [3F]

Beautifly is gone on the next floor.

On the third floor, I got the TM for Wide Slash! This is an original move for the Mystery Dungeon series that was introduced in Rescue Team. It is a typeless attack that hits the three tiles immediately in front of the user. I briefly considered teaching it to myself, but I figured I'd wait until I could either get a duplicate or find a pokemon who can learn Recycle!

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

Mt. Horn [4F - 5F]

And then the next few floors, Beautifly is back and Cascoon is gone! Yeah, this is a bit of an annoying pattern to cover for reasons I think you can see now.

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

Mt. Horn [6F]

Once again, Beautifly is gone and Cascoon is back!

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

Mt. Horn [7F]

The 7th floor again makes room for both Cascoon and Beautifly in exchange for Shroomish's absence.

From this floor onward, you can start to find Pecha Scarves as well as Power and Special Bands!

In Explorers of Darkness, you can also find the Twist Band here.

Not sure at all why these items are tied to the higher parts of the dungeon considering we've seen them all before but, sure. I'll bite.

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

Mt. Horn [8F]

The following floor, most of the available pokemon get flushed out in favor of new ones: Venomoth, Aerodactyl, Pineco, and Bonsly. Venomoth can potentially ruin your day with SuperSonic as well as Silver Wind, so be careful in your approach with them. Similarly, Aerodactyl can really tank your PP with its Pressure Ability while also just being a general nuisance. Take it out ASAP. Pineco is prone to SelfDestructing, so be careful about approaching it near valuable items or with low HP.

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

Mt. Horn [9F]

Cascoon is back in place of Beautifly.

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

Mt. Horn [10F]

Beautifly returns.

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

Mt. Horn [11F]

Cascoon is gone again.

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

Mt. Horn [12F]

And Cascoon is back.

On floor 12, Pep leveled up and learned Peck! I decided to replace Water Sport. Even though Water Sport does help to cover for my weakness to Fire, but I figure Peck would offer some more type coverage among our team.

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

Mt. Horn [13F - 14F]

Finally, for the rest of the dungeon, Beautifly and Cascoon can live together in harmony.

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

After scaling Mt. Horn, we descend on the other side to finally arrive at the campsite!

Chatot scolds us for arriving to the camp late and insists that we hurry to set up before listening to the briefing.

Everybody starts to walk off, but something seems to bother us...

It seems that we seem to recognize this location! We can't quite put our finger on why that is, but this area feels familiar to us, almost like a strange sense of deja vu.

Chatot begins to go into his briefing, speaking to the entire guild. He goes into detail about how many exploration teams have come to explore the area in search of Fogbound Lake, but it's yet to be officially discovered!

Chimecho chimes in with a theory on why Fogbound Lake has never been charted... she recalls a legend that claims Fogbound Lake is home to the Knowledge Pokemon said to be able to erase the memories of anyone who looks into its eyes. It is believed that Uxie keeps the lake's location a secret by wiping the memories of anyone who discovers it.

This news naturally causes everyone to feel a little concerned, but Chatot assures everyone that rumors like these will naturally spread over any area as mysterious as Fogbound Lake. He assures us of the guild's reputation and that they are no stranger to difficult challenges. But still, this whole situation sounds like the pieces are starting to fit together. We couldn't remember anything, this place seems familiar... perhaps we discovered the location of Fogbound Lake before and Uxie wiped our memories? There's no telling for sure, even Rescue Team had a lot of red herrings like this. The only question is, what were we doing here? And why would Uxie erase our memories? Perhaps we were exploring the area searching for the rumored treasure? Beyond that, it still doesn't answer the question of how we became a pokemon... Still, it's really sounding like finding our way to Fogbound Lake is the biggest lead we've to unlocking the door to our past, so we've definitely got a lot more personal investment in this journey now!

So, Chatot gives us not one, but two objectives. The first is to seek out the hidden lake, but the second is to try and find a way to lift the fog in the area. It is suspected that the fog is the reason the lake has never been discovered, so it may be possible that we can't find the lake at all until the fog is cleared. It's important that we search for a solution to both problems if we want to clear the area.

Once everybody is dismissed, they all make their way toward the next area, leaving us alone with Pep.

Now's our chance to save it at the Kangaskhan Rock and next time we'll begin exploring the area around Fogbound Lake to see what we can discover! Here's hoping our memory isn't simply wiped clean again! Yikes...

July 1, 2022

Now that we've arrived at the campsite, we've got some time to get prepared! Chatot and Guildmaster Wigglytuff are encouraging us to go on ahead!

Just like the last few checkpoints, there's a Kangaskhan Rock here for you to use in making preparations.

As always, once you're ready, make your way forward. And, once again, we've got our choice between two dungeons: Foggy Forest and Forest Path. I think you get the drill at this point.

After selecting your choice, Pep will march on ahead and we're stuck behind thinking more about this place. Last time we came to the conclusion that perhaps this area is associated with our loss of memory at the hands of Uxie. Just what is going to happen when we reach the lake? Well, there's no use worrying about it just yet.

As we're lost in thought, it seems that Pep has found something! A strange red gem that's warm to the touch. Maybe this'll be important for later...

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

Forest Path

I probably don't need to tell you again, but just like the other paths, this is a short 5-floor dungeon that serves as a mini preview of the types of challenges you'll be facing in Fogbound Forest as well as an opportunity to restock on basic essentials.

Items available here include Geo Pebbles, Apples, Cheri, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries, Max Elixirs, and Wonder Orbs.

Explorers of Darkness also allows you to find Blast and X-Eye Seeds here.

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

Forest Path [1F - 5F]

The pokemon you'll be dealing with throughout the dungeon are Pinsir, Dunsparce, Swinub, Houndour, Linoone, and Kricketot. Nothing much to really say about these guys. Linoone might be a bit dangerous, I didn't actually have to deal with either Team Persevere or Team Outreach. Swinub's Powder Snow can be dangerous, though, as a room-wide attack, but I didn't find myself at the receiving end of it at all.

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

Of course, upon completing Forest Path, you'll return to the campsite and be greeted by Chatot.

This results in a comical scene in which Chatot gets excited by our return, thinking we've made some discovery. When we disappoint him with the fact that we haven't found anything, he's angered by us getting his hopes up and tells u sto get going already! Alright, alright, we will!

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

Of course, the only other option here is Foggy Forest. Without further ado, let's get going!

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

Foggy Forest

This is the first dungeon to contain natural weather. As the dungeon's name implies, every floor is covered in a thick fog. Not to be confused with the fog from Diamond and Pearl, this fog works the way it did in Rescue Team. It merely cuts the damage of Electric-type attacks and transforms Castform into its Rainy form.

Items available throughout the dungeon include Poke, Power and Special Bands, Sticks, Apples, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Blast, Heal, Reviver, and Sleep Seeds, Max Elixirs, and assorted TMs and Wonder Orbs.

In Darkness only, you can find the Twist Band, Black, Clear, Yellow, Gray, Pink, Purple, Red, Royal, and Gold Gummis, and X-Eye Seeds as well as version-exclusive TMs and Wonder Orbs.

In Time, you'll instead fine Blue, Brown, Grass, Green, Orange, Silver, Sky, and White Gummis alongside Stun and Warp Seeds.

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

Foggy Forest [1F - 5F]

For the first five floors, you'll run into Hoothoot, Dunsparce, Smeargle, Cherubi, Skiploom, Zigzagoon, and Pachirisu. Smeargle can be a little scary if you happen to miss and they trace a strong attack, but they're easy, quick KO's. Pachirisu and Zigzagoon both have Run Away, so they can be a bit annoying, but a simple Tackle followed by a Geo Pebble can typically take them out. No need to bust out your ranged attacks.

Pachirisu is a version exclusive for Explorers of Time, so you won't be bumping into these in Darkness.

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

Foggy Forest [6F]

On the sixth floor, Hoothoot, Dunsparce, Smeargle, and Cherubi are gone and replaced with Noctowl, Stantler, and Buneary. Of course, you'll need to be wary of Noctowl and Stantler's Hypnosis, try to fight them from a distance.

Buneary is the Darkness counterpart to Pachirisu, so you won't be finding them in Explorers of Time.

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

Foggy Forest [7F - 11F]

Pinsir and Breloom join the fray on the following floor. Watch out for Breloom's Effect Spore and Stun Spore.

On the 9th floor, Pep grew to level 16. I just wanted to note this milestone to demonstrate that, just like in Rescue Team, pokemon don't automatically evolve and need to be taken to a special location in order to do so. When that location will be opened up to us we'll have to wait and see.

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

As we reach the depths of the forest, we find strange pools of water flooded with waterfalls from above. Of course, the fog is so thick that we couldn't possibly see wherever this water is coming from.

The fog has gotten quite rough for navigation it seems, Pep is finding it difficult to see anything at all, it's starting to feel like a dead end.

Before long, we're reunited with Corphish! He asks us if we've found anything yet and we both reveal that we don't quite have any ideas about the fog or the location of the lake. But, Corphish has found something of interest!

It's a statue of a giant, terrifying, and quite familiar pokemon for us outside of the game! Nobody seems to know who the pokemon is.

Pep inspects the statue and discovers an inscription in... "footprint runes" which I guess he's familiar with. An odd choice to base a language around but, sure, I suppose I can buy it.

"Reignite the life that burned within Groudon, Then the sky shall blaze with the sun's heat, The path to the treasure shall be revealed."

Everyone starts to discuss what the inscription seems to mean. We come to the conclusion it must be some sort of riddle related to a puzzle that must be solved to lift the fog and reveal the location of Fogbound Lake. But what could it mean by "reignite the life that burned within Groudon?" Under normal circumstances, I'd agree that it's a little unclear what's expected of us. But after having found a strange heated rock earlier, I feel like the answer should be a bit more obvious for our adventurer Pep who's already privy to the concept of stones being used as keys...

The party is stumped, however, and Pep insists that we touch the statue! Maybe we'll see another vision!

As always, it takes a little bit after we touch the statue...

All we hear is an unfamiliar voice that seems quite excited about the location. This "vision" doesn't come with any visuals, only the sound of a voice, similar to the very first one we had where we heard Azurill's scream.

We didn't get much information at all from that one...

Suddenly, however, a second dizzy spell starts to come over us!

This time, we hear another voice. Is it the same one? Is it different? It's not clear. But they're clearly speaking to someone. The voice mentions plaing the Drought Stone in Groudon's heart to lift the fog before congratulating its partner on a job well done.

Of course, we're left perplexed by this strange vision.

We slowly put together the meaning of the vision and recall the stone Pep found on our way out the first time.

The stone was brightly colored and mysteriously warm, after all.

Inspecting the statue closer, we find a small hole in the chest area of the statue that seems to be a perfect fit for the stone!

We tell Pep about our interpretation of the vision and so he places the red stone he'd picked up before into the chest of the statue.

As soon as he places the stone inside, the statue's eyes begin to glow and soon the statue itself explodes into a powerful burst of light!

When it's over, we find that the fog has been cleared up and the sun is shining harshly!

Pep seems alerted to something looming overhead, and the others are shocked by the sight as well!

It seems we now understand why Fogbound Lake couldn't simply be stumbled upon by exploring within the forest...

Because the lake was actually looming overhead!

===========

And this is where we're going to cut things off for this session. Next time, we'll be continuing our expedition toward Fogbound Lake and perhaps we'll finally learn the secret of who we are!

July 3, 2022

Last time we were able to reach the depths of Foggy Forest and solved the riddle of the Groudon Statue which brought harsh sunlight to the forest and cleared out the fog that masked the location of Fogbound Lake! We discovered the lake is atop an oddly-shaped plateau overhead, so we'll need to make our way up there in order to find it! Corphish decides to run back and tell the rest of the guild and encourages us to go ahead and start making our way forward!

As we try to make our way forward, however, we're suddenly stopped.

It's Team Skull!

They must be here to stir up some trouble for their little scheme.

It seems these guys were waiting around for us to solve the riddle of the statue before getting rid of us and going to take the treasure for themselves.

This time, Pep isn't willing to back down without a fight.

Of course, Skuntank doesn't hesitate to remind us how our last face-off went down.

Skuntank and Koffing prepare their special combo again and even though Pep is confident enough to stand up for himself against these guys, he still seems prepared for the worst.

As they prepare their attack, however, a voice cuts through the tension!

Suddenly, an apple rolls into the fray and I think we can guess exactly who this is... have we just been saved by the bell?

Wigglytuff arrives on the scene, finally catching up to the Perfect Apple he's apparently been chasing for a while!

Of course, the guildmaster misconstrues the situation and is excited to see a bunch of his friends together in one place!

Wigglytuff's appearance couldn't have had worse timing for Team Skull, but it also couldn't be better for us!

The guildmaster takes the opportunity to encourage us to continue onward with the expedition.

Pep tries to warn the guildmaster about Team Skull, but he doesn't seem interested in listening to us. Instead, she just boos us!

Pep seems a bit worried about leaving Wigglytuff alone with Team Skull, but he seems insistent on us going off to continue exploring, so we're left with no choice but to obey and trust that he'll be alright.

Everyone watches as we take our leave, to Team Skull's frustration.

In an effort to continue the chase, Skuntank offers to go and help us explore the forest, but Wigglytuff insists they should stay back and wait for our report for now.

Team Skull discusses among themselves what they should do. They're worried that we'll swipe the treasure before they can if they don't figure out some way to slip away from the guildmaster. So, Skuntank decides the best course of action is to take out the guildmaster a bit earlier than they'd planned.

Koffing and Zubat are a bit concerned about fighting Wigglytuff, after all, they've all seen how dangerous Wigglytuff's tantrum can be that night we failed to bring him his Perfect Apples.

Skuntank insists that it'll be fine and that he's privy to the fact that Wigglytuff has a valuable treasure that he was planning on mugging him for eventually anyway, so since this fight was going to happen anyway, he figures now is the best time to do it, and then they can start chasing us toward Fogbound Lake as well!

Skuntank and Koffing prepare their attack once again, this time on Wigglytuff.

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

Chapter 9: The Mystery of Fogbound Lake

As we approach the base of the overhead plateau, Pep finds a fissure that we can enter through!

There's steam spewing from the cliffside, so we suspect it'll be really hot on the inside, but there's no backing down now!

Pep seems quite excited about adventuring into truly unknown territory! But that's no surprise. It's time to make our way to the top of the plateau and make our way to Fogbound Lake!

Of course, you'll want to prepare with the Kangaskhan Rock. You might want to bring a Pecha Scarf or some Pecha Berries, just a head's up. Some Rawst Berries aren't a bad idea to bring as well. In case it isn't obvious, you'll be encountering a lot of Fire types that also know Smog. You're probably not really starving for inventory space at the moment, but if you need more, you can always resort to relying on Heal Seeds to cover for both statuses.

Unlike the other dungeons we've gone through recently, there's no alternate path this time to restock on items, so you're on your own at this point if you're running low. Make sure you're prepared!

===========

In the meantime, we cut back to Team Skull and Wigglytuff. It seems that Skuntank is hesitating to actually unleash his noxious gas combo. Koffing and Zubat are getting confused as to why exactly that is.

It seems that something about Wigglytuff's presence is intimidating even to Skuntank! He can't quite bring himself to attack out of concern for Wigglytuff's sheer strength even in spite of his childish antics...

Finally, Skuntank works up the courage to initiate the attack and he and Koffing unleash their Noxious Gas Combo on him!

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

Steam Cave

We now cut back to our journey through Steam Cave, climbing up to Fogbound Lake. There isn't too much to say just yet about this dungeon on the surface.

The items available throughout the dungeon across both versions are Poke, Pecha Scarves, Power, Special, and Stamina Bands, Iron Thorns, Apples, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Blast, Heal, Reviver, and Sleep Seeds, Max Elixirs, and assorted TMs and Wonder Orbs.

Version exclusive items for Explorers of Darkness include the Twist Band, Black, Clear, Yellow, Gray, Pink, Purple, Red, Royal, and Yellow Gummis, X-Eye Seeds, and version-exclusive TMs and Wonder Orbs.

And Explorers of Time presents you with Blue, Brown, Grass, Green, Orange, Silver, Sky, and White Gummis as well as Stun and Warp Seeds and version-exclusive TMs and Wonder Orbs.

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

Steam Cave [1F - 8F]

Throughout the dungeon, you'll bump into Snubbull, Slugma, Magby, Numel, Farfetch'd, Yanma, and Kricketune. Yanma and Slugma are probably the most threatening among these guys due to their ability to burn and poison you. Yanma can also be a bit of a pain with Quick Attack and Subbull likes to tank your stats with Charm which can make dealing with Kricketune's Bide a bit annoying, so stay on the lookout for Wonder Tiles to restore reduced stats while on the search for the stairs!

If you do get burned, it's worth noting that pokemon capable of traveling through water can cure the burn by stepping through the water tiles.

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

As we pass the 8th floor, we'll arrive at a rather familiar-looking checkpoint!

But before we can celebrate, too much, we hear what sounds like a loud roar off in the distance... ominous.

Anyway, you soon get control again and can make your way to the Kangaskhan Rock. Unfortunately, you can't access your storage from this one and it only serves as a checkpoint to save at much like the ones in Rescue Team. That works for me, though! Of course, just like these checkpoints in Rescue Team, your team will be fully healed at these rest areas allowing you to move forward with a fully refreshed team as if you'd returned home.

Once you're ready to move on, get going!

As we prepare to move on, we hear the roar again, and it's a bit louder this time!

We find ourselves lost in thought again and realize we haven't said anything at all about where our mind has been to Pep this whole time. It might be important to tell him what we've been thinking.

And so, we do. We tell him all about how this whole place seems familiar to us and how we think that Uxie may have wiped our memory.

Pep just sees this as another reason why we can't back down and uses it as further encouragement to continue climbing through the cave!

===========

Upper Steam Cave

This is the first dungeon split in two, with Upper Steam Cave being a slightly tougher variation of the lower cave.

The items available throughout the second half of the dungeon are identical to the items available in the lower parts.

This extends to the version-exclusive items.

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

Upper Steam Cave [1F]

Most of the fire pokemon from the earlier floors are gone in the upper caves. Snubbull, Slugma, Magby, and Numel are replaced with Granbull, Shuckle, Volbeat and Illumise. Volbeat and Illumise can be really annoying with their tanky nature as well as their ability to heal, confuse you, and attack from a range with Quick Attack. You'll likely be using your stronger attacks to deal with these jerks. Of course, Granbull is a tougher counterpart to Snubbull and Shuckle doesn't actually accomplish a whole lot.

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

Upper Steam Cave [2F - 3F]

On the second floor, the heat seems to pick back up and discourages Farfetch'd and Yanma. Magmar seems to be the cause. These are tougher variations of Magby, complete with all the annoying status conditions they can layer on you as well.

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

Upper Steam Cave [4F - 7F]

After the third floor, Kricketune drops off as well.

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

Eventually, we arrive at the peak of the cave, but Pep notes that there's a mysterious sense of tension in the air.

Suddenly we're reminded of the roaring we'd heard earlier, only this time it's much louder than before...

As we speak, large, thudding footsteps shake the entire area, leaving Pep more than a little shaken.

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

We cut back to the Groudon statue to find that both Wigglytuff and Team Skull seem to be missing! Corphish is leading the guild to the statue.

Corphish explains that he saw the guildmaster on the way back, but Wigglytuff was too preoccupied chasing a Perfect Apple to respond to him, so he left him be and continued to gather up the other members. He suspects we've gone ahead to look for the lake.

Suddenly, the earth begins to shake and everyone seems to grow concerned when...

The same roar is heard!

Everyone is startled by the roar, and grows concerned about us.

They all immediately rush for help!

Diglett stops for a moment, thinking he'd heard something from the other way, but Dugtrio insists that he must've just imagined it, so the two continue to catch up with the others.

As they leave, the camera pans over to the west and reveals Team Skull has been completely wiped out!

Apparently Wigglytuff was able to not only power right through Skuntank and Koffing's infamous combo attack, but delivered a much more powerful blow to the three of them that bowled right through all three of them! Clearly, Wigglytuff is a lot more powerful than we've given him credit for. Just another reason to steer clear of his explosive tantrums!

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

Cutting back to the peak, the stomping and roaring continues to grow louder until...

The source of the noise finally appears! Groudon is much more menacing in person than it was as a statue!

And now that it's up close, its roaring is far more intimidating as well!

Groudon seems infurated by our presence and reveals himself to be the guardian of Fogbound Lake. This doesn't look very good...

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

The rest of the guild soon arrives at the mouth of the cave and everyone pours into the dungeon to come to our aid asap!

Along the way, Corphish begins to ask Chatot about Groudon to see if they can gleam any information about it. Chatot begins to explain to the guild the legend of Groudon and how he supposedly formed the continents by raising the land from the sea.

Chatot insists that to do battle with a legendary pokemon like Groudon would be like throwing your life away! That certainly doesn't bode well for our upcoming encounter...

And, in person, we can certainly attest to the physical intimidation factor of this towering titan. He's massive and furious with us...

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

Team Persevere

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

Aura (Chikorita M); Lv. 16

Item: Sky Bow

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Tackle, Razor Leaf+Growl, Synthesis

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

Pep (Piplup M); Lv. 17

Item: Pecha Scarf

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Pound, Bubble+Growl, Peck

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

Vs. Groudon

It's been a while since we've had a boss fight! And just like Drowzee, this one is no pushover! At least, not for Team Persevere. We'll cover Team Outreach soon enough.

To open up, Groudon's Drought ability will automatically start the fight with sunny weather. He doesn't actually have any Fire-type moves, so this is generally more of a detriment to him. The only advantage is that it helps to nullify his weakness to water attacks. In this case, that's actually significant for him since it'll be weakening Pep's super-effective Water attacks. It won't have any effect on my Razor Leaf, however!

The first step here was to try and get into a strategic position. I stepped diagonally so that Pep would be close to him before setting him to "Go after foes" while I could circle around to his side and hit him from a range with Razor Leaf whiel simultaneously reducing his attack with Growl thanks to the linked moves.

Eventually, Pep started taking too much damage so I had him step away and approached myself. I'm the better tank all things considered, so this should work out pretty well overall.

Unfortunately, just like Rescue Team, there doesn't seem to be a way to get my partner to stand still and attack with Bubble from a range. If I set him to "go after foes," he'll get right up in their face before attacking. So I was left with no choice but to heal him up with an Oran Berry so he wouldn't die.

One of the more frustrating things about this fight, particularly with Team Persevere, was Groudon's reliance on Bulk Up. While we're able to keep his Attack at bay with Growl, his defenses grow so high that physical attacks are near useless. The only special attack we have right now is Pep's Bubble, so I turned off his other two moves to have him rely exclusively on that move.

As I started to run out of PP with Razor Leaf, my attacks became less and less useful, so I figured there was no point.

One more tactic I've yet to mention is that Groudon is capable of stepping backward during this fight which can force you into some awkward positions if you're laying it thick with attacks. Not approaching can buy him time to freely set up with Bulk Up, so you'll need to be aggressive. This might be a good time for a Sleep Seed if you have one. In this case, however, due to Pep's range, it actually allowed us to get into this more favorable position where Groudon was no longer adjacent to us both and I was able to swap places with Pep and set him to "Let's go together" so that he would stay where he is and be able to attack from a range with Bubble. I gave him a Max Elixir since Bubble was running low on PP and it was the only move that was doing any significant damage.

Eventually, we ran out of Oran Berries which was a little bit scary, but I was able to put Groudon to sleep with a Sleep Seed while Pep's HP was low, buying him time to pelt Groudon with a few Torrent-boosted Bubbles in order to finish the fight!

In the end, Groudon was defeated!

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

Upon defeat, Groudon collapses to the ground in exhaustion. By some miracle, we've managed to defeat a legendary pokemon!

Even though it wasn't an easy fight, it certainly felt... a lot more manageable than it probably should have. Let's not forget how badly Groudon beat down so many rescue teams in the previous game. Something's not right here and Pep seems suspicious of it...

Suddenly, Groudon begins to glow brightlyb efore disappearing in a flash of light!

A voice speaks out to us confessing that the pokemon we defeated was not Groudon, but an illusion conjured up by the owner of the voice.

Pep inquires about the voice which repeats that it is the guardian of the lake and continues to refuse our entry.

Pep insists we're only here for information and not to cause any sort of trouble.

Pep insists that, while we are an exploration team and would like to leave with treasure, we are not the greedy sort and wouldn't steal it if it would be an issue.

After a bit of thought, the voice soon decides that it might be okay to trust us. And so, it begins to appear in a shining light...

Before us is the mythical guardian of Fogbound Lake: Uxie, the spirit of Willpower.

Pep is surprised to hear the name so casually dropped! This is the pokemon capable of erasing our memories after all, so we'd best avoid causing any trouble around it! Uxie offers to escort us to the lake after choosing to trust our suggestion that we do not seek to steal its treasure.

...And on that cliffhanger, we're going to leave things off on another save prompt. Next time, we'll have to see what this mysterious treasure of Fogbound Lake really is...

July 4, 2022

Fogbound Lake

By the time Uxie escorts us to Fogbound Lake, night has fallen over the plateau. The lake itself is dark, but Uxie is proud to reveal it to us.

Though Uxie said it may be hard to see at night, the beauty of the sight before us seems like it would be unmatched during the day. We can see the glow of many creatures hovering around the lake along with a large glowing object in the center, perhaps this is the treasure of Fogbound Lake?

Pep is rightfully amazed by the beauty of the sight before him. It certainly is a fascinating sight to behold!

Uxie explains the origins of the lake, how it formed from geysers of water from deep below the plateau to fill the lake.

Uxie then invites us to take a closer look at the glowing light in the center...

It's a time gear! Of course, our meager exploration team doesn't quite know what they look like just yet.

While we can't identify the item, it seems to give us a mysterious feeling that makes our heart race. Is it nervousness? Unease? Perhaps excitement? It's not quite clear to place.

When Pep asks about the object, Uxie finally identifies it as one of the Time Gears. Just like the one stolen from Treeshroud Forest.

It now makes sense why Uxie is so protective of the lake. They're in charge of protecting the Time Gear and preventing it from being stolen or tampered with.

Uxie explains that we're not the first to try to get to the lake, but that Uxie was always able to use the illusion of Groudon to scare the intruders away.

Uxie demonstrates this power by conjuring the illusion right before us with their psychic power! This Groudon is actually rapidly flickering, so some of these screenshots it may randomly disappear because these are still images. So that's why you might notice Groudon mysteriously disappearing between screenshots. Nothing more than the limitations of the format! Sorry!

Of course, we aren't the only ones capable of defeating Groudon and forcing their way to the lake. The consequence? Of course, Uxie would use their power to remove their memories.

This explanation reminds Pep of the main reason we wanted to get here besides the treasure!

Uxie seems surprised to hear from Pep that we were a human once,

So, Pep finally gets around to asking the big question on everyone's minds. Has Uxie ever met us before? And have they taken our memories of being a human?

Uxie reveals that they could not be the reason we lost our memories because they're only capable of erasing memories of Fogbound Lake specifically. Beyond that, they have no means of transforming a human into a pokemon, nor could they possibly fathom how such a feat would be accomplished. So, they are not related to that mystery, either.

Pep is a bit disappointed that our mystery couldn't be solved so easily. As it turns out, this whole expedition has really only left us with more questions than answers. In fact, it's hardly given us any answers at all!

Before we can get wrapped in up in discussion, we hear a voice that belongs to none other than the guildmaster! It's a surprise to see him here! I suppose it shouldn't be too much of a surprise for us given how easily he was able to steamroll Team Skull. Guildmaster Wigglytuff seems to immediately identify the treasure as a Time Gear, and is a bit disappointed since such a treasure simply can't be taken.

Even still, Wigglytuff is mesmerized by the beautiful sight before us! We introduce Uxie to Wigglytuff.

Wigglytuff introduces himself to both Uxie and the illusory Groudon.

Even with the disappointment of not finding a treasure to take home, the view of Fogbound lake is certainly one to treasure for a long time to come.

The other guildmembers aren't far behind us!

As they approach, they notice a figure in the distance...

They charge forward, only for Chatot to be terrified by the presence of Groudon!

The guildmembers begin to panic, completely unprepared to battle with the Groudon before them.

Wigglytuff happily greets everyone, giving everyone a bigger shock that the guildmaster is just over here peacefully next to Groudon! But Wigglytuff seems more interested in something else!

It's a beautiful fountain!

This must be the water flowing up from underground just as Uxie described. It forms an absolutely beautiful fountain that launches high into the sky! The Volbeat and Illumise floating around really make it that much more of a stunning sight!

Everyone watches the beauty of the geyser as Uxie explains the geyser launching water up to the lake and how the additional color comes from the glow of the Time Gear. Together with the pokemon surrounding it, it is a truly beautiful sight unlike any other!

While everyone, including us, is taking in the beauty of the scene before us, we just can't help allow our mind to wander over the questions that are still lingering... if Uxie never met us, why is this place so familiar?

And why did we have the reaction we did when we saw the Time Gear? It's such a strange sensation.

Due to the peaceful way we've gone about our approach to the lake, Uxie decides to allow us to leave without erasing our memories. However, she requests that we all remain tight-lipped about it.

It's only natural that we'll agree to such a deal, after all, if a time gear is located here then it's important to keep its location a secret. After all, we wouldn't want another Time Gear to be stolen...

With that promise made, the expedition seems to be over. It's time to pack up our things and make our way back to the guild!

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

We're soon shown a brief animation of the clouds clearing out over the part of the map that obscured the expedition, expanding the boundaries of our knowledge of the land!

In addition, upon completing the expedition, our treasure bag is expanded yet again! Now we're able to carry up to 40 different items! I've yet to run into any notable inventory issues with the previous bag size, but I definitely still remember the struggle of inventory management in the first game so I will absolutely not complain about some generosity in the inventory department!

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

Anyway, while my session today did actually continue, I ultimately decided this is a good place to cut this update short.

The main reason being, I wanted to discuss Team Outreach's experience with the expedition! Because they experienced something I was hoping I'd stumble across in Explorer's of Time as well.

From the start of the expedition, whenever you KO an enemy, you actually have a chance of the enemy dropping a treasure chest! This is a new feature in Explorers that we'll cover in a bit more detail in the next post. During the expedition, you can't really do anything with these so you'll just want to dump them into storage as soon as you get the chance, but you'll want to hold onto them for some lovely rewards soon!

The treasures come in a variety of colors and names, I'm honestly not sure how exactly they differ, but the name and color of the chest might give you a hint as to what sorts of items you might get from them. Anyway, Team Outreach actually got three chests over the course of the expedition which makes me that much more surprised that Team Persevere didn't find a single one. I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles sometimes.

Anyway, with Liz and Sprout, this journey was a lot less scary toward the end. While Sprout was more vulnerable to the Fire types in Steam Cave, Liz could make pretty quick work. Liz also simply has a lot more offensive prowess than I do as a Chikorita, and that's certainly the way I like things to be. Probably the scariest dungeon was, ironically, Craggy Coast, but it was simple enough to push through and Sprout was there to help with any slightly awkward encounters.

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

Team Outreach

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

Liz (Charmander F); Lv. 17

Item: Red Bow

Ability: Blaze | Moves: Scratch, SmokeScreen, Dragon Rage, Ember

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

Sprout (Turtwig M); Lv. 17

Item: Persim Band

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Tackle, Absorb + Withdraw, Razor Leaf

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

Of course, the main point of interest is their battle with Groudon. Except, this actually went way smoother than Team Persevere. Team Outreach was simply better equipped. Remember how I said Groudon's Drought is actually pretty detrimental since he doesn't have any way to capitalize on it? Well, this is more-so where that came from. The sun definitely helped us far more than it helped Groudon. Liz's Ember was far more powerful than ever before and SmokeScreen made it so that Groudon couldn't lay a finger on us! He was done for before the battle even began! Despite Liz and Sprout acting all scared and intimidated, we had Groudon constantly stepping back and ended up bullying him into a corner. It was almost sad to see.

Anyway, there isn't too much else to cover. Everything across the expedition plays out the same between versions. Next time, both teams return home and it's back to business as usual!

July 7, 2022

It's almost nostalgic at this point to wake up to Loudred's booming voice again.

We're finally home from the expedition and things are starting to return to normal.

Pep is hyped up to get back to our regular training at the guild, so let's give it our all! Maybe we'll get to go on another expedition eventually!

It seems like there's an issue with Diglett on Sentry Duty today. Diglett is normally fantastic at his job, the only time he's ever been unable to catch a pokemon is our own and we certainly seemed like an exception to the norm. But now we have an issue at hand, another mysterious guest has arrived at the entrance to the guild. Do we let them in? Keep them out?

The moment this mysterious guest names himself as Dusknoir, he seems to have the immediate attention of everyone in the guild! Apparently this Dusknoir's a really big deal!

Wigglytuff and Chatot don't hesitate to meet Dusknoir at the guild's entrance. He seems like an extremely polite character.

Pep asks about Dusknoir and Loudred is surprised to hear we haven't heard of him! But Sunforla explains that Dusknoir's fame seemed to come out of nowhere. He's apparently an extremely talented explorer. Loudred proceeds to explain two things he's known for: Dusnkoir usually works alone and is considered extremely knowledgable. It's rumored that there is nothing to be known that Dusknoir doesn't already know. Many pokemon revere Dusknoir for the many accomplishments he's achieved using his knowledge and skill.

It seems Dusknoir has come having received word of our expedition to search for Fogbound Lake. However, if you recall, Uxie asked us to keep tight-lipped about the location of the lake, and Wigglytuff seems to be sticking to his guns on that promise! He lies pretty well to Dusknoir's face, apologizing and claiming to have not learned a thing at all!

Dusknoir claims he plans to stay in Treasure Town for a while and asks if he could make use of the guild's stream of news and up-to-date information.

Wigglytuff agrees, of course, and introduces Dusknoir to everyone in the guild!

Wigglytuff and Chatot both ask everyone to interact with Dusknoir in moderation.

Of course, Dusknoir responds quite humbly to the high praise.

It seems the people of the guild are excited to have Dusknoir around!

Dusknoir says he'll go for a stroll around town and takes his leave. Finally, Chatot gets around to giving us our assignment for today: We're back to doing bulletin board jobs!

...But as for the rest of this update, we're actually going to be focusing on exploring Treasure Town ourselves!

But before we get ahead of ourselves, we've got new diary entries about the expedition!

Sunflora's entry recounts the beauty of Fogbound Lake?? What are you doing! She even addresses that she probably shouldn't say any more because it would upset Uxie.

Bidoof also makes the same mistake of writing about the sight at Fogbound Lake, but, curiously, the most exciting part of the expedition to him was actually arriving at the camp with us! He admits to making things a bit more difficult for us, but I actually don't recall him getting in the way all that much. It was pleasant having him around!

We bump into Team AWD at the Bulletin Boards and Drapion end sup asking us once again if we know anything about Zero Isle. He lets slip some info about it, and this seems to be foreshadowing this game's ultimate challenge similar to Purity Forest in Rescue Team. It's a dungeon where you can't bring any items and your level is reset to 1, but supposedly the greatest treasures are there.

Weavile scolds Drapion for giving away too much information and Drapion apologizes to her.

===========

Grabbing some missions from the bulletin board, we find one with a mysterious location. For once, it looks like Team Persevere found something RNG-related that Team Outreach has yet to see! Let's capitalize and accept this mission now! It seems to be from a Pachirisu who wants to explore a new dungeon they've discovered that nobody seems to know about.

Upon accepting the mission, the location of the new dungeon is revealed to us! It's a place called Tiny Meadow. Of course, we'll have to escort our client there on our first visit. I wonder what we'll find?

Now that we're back from the expedition, we can bring along some of our recruits from Chimecho Assembly!

Expecting to go on an escort mission, I just brought Slick along for now, leaving that fourth slot open for Pachirisu. Soon, however, my plans would change and I'd come back for Cover.

Around town, the guildmembers are going to be commenting on their excitement over Dusknoir while the townsfolk are more focused on their disappointment over nothing significant coming out of the expedition.

Of course, Dugtrio is as ecstatic as ever just to be reunited with his precious sea.

Of course, the shopkeepers all have something to say as well!

Try as I might, searching Treasure Town high and low, I couldn't find Dusknoir himself. It seems we'll just have to wait a bit longer to meet with him personally.

What I did find was that, in our absence, several shops around Treasure Town have opened up!

The first of these is Chansey Day Care! Apparently, starting now we can start to receive eggs as mission rewards! If we ever get one, you can bring it to Chansey who will nurture your egg for a few days until it hatches! According to serebii, the egg will hatch into the first form of a pokemon form the dungeon the mission took place in. You can recruit them at level 1, but they can know Egg Moves and many baby pokemon can only be recruited through eggs.

In a world entirely driven by pokemon, I think there's some sort of ethical concern with bringing a newly-hatched baby on an exploration trip through a mystery dungeon, but I suppose we're just not to think too hard about it...

Anyway, I'll try and note this process whenever I end up stumbling across an egg. At the rate we've been going, it'll probably happen first in Explorers of Darkness.

The next store to open up is Xatu Appraisal! Here, we can bring any treasure boxes we've found while exploring dungeons to open each one up for 150P! In Team Persevere's case, we've yet to actually find any treasure boxes, but, if you recall, we did find some with Team Outreach!

x2

The chests Team Outreach got ahold of include a Dainty Box, Heavy Box, two Light Boxes, a Cute Box, and a Sinister Box. I'm not sure if the type or color of chest affects the types of items you can obtain from them, but I imagine each type of chest does pull from a different list of collectibles, so I thought it important to note which items came from which type of chest.

From the Dainty Box, I got a Pecha Scarf!

The Heavy Box held a TM for Energy Ball.

My Light Boxes contained an Elekid Card and a Brown Gummi.

The Cute Box held a Cast Card

And the Sinister Box held a Mudkip Card.

Those three cards might be a bit strange at first. These are the species specific items related to Croagunk's Swap Shop! I made a bit of an error when I introduced the Swap Shop where I mentioned these items would be denoted with a * in their name. They're actually denoted with blue text. The * Croagunk mentioned is found by checking the item's info in your inventory! It's referring to the rarity of the items.

You might think we can use these with the Swap Shop now, but that's not quite how these things work. Their info page will tell you what specific other items you'll need to trade alongside them in order to get rarer and more powerful items.

For full detail on what items you can get from what, check out this page on Serebii. Just note that this is after the Japanese version of the game, so some names might not be translated accurately. For example, the Cast Card is called Castform's Card.

In general, these cards boost the special defense of the pokemon they're named after and any pokemon in their evolution family. Most of the time it'll contain the full name, but sometimes, like with the Cast Card, the name will be abbreviated. You can check its info to see which pokemon it applies to, in this case, Castform.

From my understanding, these items only have to be kept in your treasure bag in order to take effect, so their effects should be able to stack with held items!

Anyway, we'll cover how these items interact with the Swap Shop better once we get a set of items that can be exchanged together for rarer items.

The final new location to open up I intentionally saved for last: Marowak Dojo!

When you first enter this dojo, Marowak will gleefully visit you! He seems like he's been quite eager for his first visitors to the point where he's almost in disbelief when we walk in!

Marowak explains that the dojo ended up collapsing at some point, but he's finally rebuilt it and we are his first visitors since the dojo opened up!

In case it isn't clear, this is Explorers' counterpart to Makuhita Dojo... I think you can see now why I chose to cover exclusively Treasure Town this time. That's right, we're going to be binging through all of Marowak's dungeons in one go, just like we did with the Makuhita Dojo in Rescue Team!

However, Marowak Dojo differs a bit from Makuhita Dojo. Makuhita Dojo sent you through standard, but very short 3-floor dungeons with a specialized boss fight on the final floor against various enemies of the dungeon's type. These dungeons followed typical dungeon rules. You'd enter with anything you had on hand and losing penalized you with the loss of any items or money you brought with you.

In the Marowak Dojo, however, the dungeons have special rules. You cannot bring any items with you. Any items in your inventory when you enter will be permanently lost, so make sure to dump them all into Kangaskhan Storage or sell whatever you don't need! Each dungeon is five floors instead of the 3 from Makuhita Dojo, and there's no boss fight on the final floor. Instead, the enemies get progressively tougher the deeper you go. If you're underlevel, you're not expected to get to the end cleanly, but you can with a bit of luck! The lower floors do get a lot larger and more labyrinthian, though, so it takes a lot of good luck to end up next to the staircase early on in the lower floors and you're more likely to end up having to deal with the enemies.

To make up for this, the consequence of failure is completely removed. Any items and money you find in the dungeon is yours to keep and since you can't bring any items in, your valuables aren't at risk, either! So, there's no penalty at all for just bashing your face against the wall over and over, you can even quickly exit to sell your loot at Kecleon Market. The items in these dungeons aren't worth much, but it's better to at least get a few pennies and nickels out of them than to just throw them away.

The longer dungeons along with the lack of bosses and penalty for death makes Marowak Dojo a much more friendly place to train up weak recruits than Makuhita Dojo ever was!

After depositing all of your items, when you're ready to delve into a maze, you can enter this passageway in the back.

You'll notice one extra difference in these mazes compared to the ones offered by Makuhita in Pokemon Square: Many of these mazes cover two types rather than just one. This reduces the number of mazes you'll have to do. Mazes with two types always feature at least one pokemon with both types. All of the typed mazes are also available from the very start of the game!

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

Marowak Dojo

All of the dungeons contain the same itemset, for better or worse: Poke, Oran Berries, and Escape Orbs. Being unable to bring items into the dungeons makes these items a lot more valuable. The Escape Orbs are almost meaningless, but this is a great place to get them quickly if you need to restock! Once you have access to Marowak Dojo, I guess there's no real reason to hold onto a buffer of Escape Orbs. The Oran Berries, however, might prove really useful in keeping you alive on the later floors.

The specific pokemon you encounter vary between the mazes, but the levels are always the same. On the first floor, Level 1. On the second, Level 10, Level 20 on the 3rd, then 25, then 35. The Level 35 foes can take a lot of time to KO, especially when you're dealing with bulkier pokemon and your starter is something like a Chikorita who barely has enough attack power to damage through Shroomish's goddamn healing with Leech Seed!! cough.

Just like Makuhita Dojo, you can't recruit any of the pokemon in these mazes, so don't bother trying.

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

Normal/Fly Maze

The Normal/Fly Maze features Doduo and Staravia. Naturally, you can expect a lot of Quick Attacks that can put a lot of pressure on you. Attack from a range where you can!

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

Dark/Fire Maze

The Dark/Fire Maze is home to Houndour, Magby, and Poochyena. The most dangerous thing about this dungeon is Burning and Poison since you can't bring or get any Rawst or Pecha Berries in here.

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

Rock/Water Maze

Omanyte and Kabuto can be found in this one. Nothing much to be said here, they weren't particularly tough, though it was a bit of a chore to deal with them with Team Outreach.

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

Grass Maze

The Grass maze is home to Shroomish and Carnivine. Both of these monsters can cause a lot of problems if you don't have an easy out to them like Liz from Team Outreach. I really struggled with this dungeon toward the end due to a mixture of bad luck with finding the stairs in the winding corridors and getting boxed in by Shroomish! Shroomish are terrifying when you can't kill them quickly because Effect Spore can layer status effects on you. Shroomish also knows moves to inflict status problems on you directly and can use Absorb and Leech Seed to heal off damage you've dealt to them. The general approach I took was to set up Reflect before getting close to them and then hitting them with Tackle over and over. It was not uncommon at all for me to run out of PP for Tackle and get completely walled by these guys, they were menaces. More often, though, I'd just get wiped out due to their attack power.

Carnivine are a bit less threatening, but they're still no pushovers. They set up Stockpile to build their bulk and then they can give you a death sentence with Spit Up.

For the record, you can generally gauge how difficult a maze was by looking at the levels my team gains between dungeon excursions.

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

Elec/Steel Maze

I actually forgot to take a screenshot earlier in the dungeon, so this one's a bit later on.

Magnemite, Mareep, and Mawile can be found here! There's a lot of Thunder Wave going around here, so be ready to swap places with the partner behind you!

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

Ice/Ground Maze

Swinub and Phanpy can be found in this one. Swinub can be really scary with Powder Snow, so pick them off where you can! Phanpy can also be a little annoying thanks to Endure keeping them alive. With no items to get away from them, this can be a run ender.

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

Fight/Psych Maze

Machop and Meditite can be found here. Machop aren't too threatening though Seismic Toss can be threatening at the higher levels, but Meditite are the true terror. Their Detect makes them completely invincible to anything you can do to them all the while they can build up their stats and unleash powerful hits with Hi-Jump Kick and Force Palm.

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

Poison/Bug Maze

Spinarak and Skorupi can be found here. Spinarak are all about trapping and speed play while Drapion can take some hits. The real scary part though is that both of these guys have loads of multi-hit attacks ready. Skorupi are especially terrifying in this regard with Pin Missile attacking from a range. At high levels, they can tear right through your HP.

This was another maze that took me several attempts to get through.

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

Dragon Maze

The only pokemon you'll find here is Bagon and he's not very threatening at all.

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

Ghost Maze

Misdreavus is the only pokemon that can be found here. If you're familiar with my playthrough of Rescue Team, you'll know how terrifying Ghost-types can be. Most flying Ghost-types are capable of traveling through the walls. Ghost types are also often built around annoying the opponent with Curses, Confusion, and PP drainage. Guess what Misdreavus loves to do from the safety of a wall? And while a pokemon is hidden in the wall, you can't really cleanly deal with them this is where the stupidity of the AI can get the most frustrating. It's not an uncommon situation for a Misdreavus to ambush you from the wall in the middle of a corridor and lock you in place with Mean Look before draining the PP of your most valuable moves with Spite and Confusing you by the time you're free from Mean Look, leaving you helpless to back off. Fuck. These. Things.

Normally you can combat all of these issues with items. You can cure Confusion with Heal Seeds, you can use Warp Orbs to send them away from you, Geo-Pebbles and Gravelerocks can damage them from the walls, you can use Max Elixirs to heal off PP lost from Spite, there's all sorts of options. But, need I remind you, the only items you have access to in these dungeons are Oran Berries and Escape Orbs, none of which can really help you.

I was able to get through the dungeon on my first try, but it was a very painful experience with all of my offensive attacks being taken away by Spite.

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

Upon clearing every one of these mazes, Marowak gives you high praise!

Marowak offers to give you the dojo's sign as a sign of respect, but... the dojo doesn't actually have a sign. So, he decides to give you his personal treasure!

It's a Joy Seed!

I'll be honest, as much as I complained about how rough some of these dungeons could get, it wasn't actually all that difficult overall considering there's no penalty for dying and all a successful run requires is a bit of luck to find the staircases with little opposition. Even when you fail, it's not really wasted time because you still keep all of the exp and money you gain along the way.

Of course, the real prize here is the training! As you've probably noticed, my team has gotten a lot stronger from training at the dojo!

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

Team Persevere

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

Aura (Chikorita M); Lv. 24

Item: None

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Tackle, Synthesis, Reflect, Razor Leaf

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

Pep (Piplup M); Lv. 25

Item: None

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Growl, Peck, BubbleBeam, Fury Attack

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

Slick (Grimer F); Lv. 23

Item: None

Ability: Stench, Sticky Hold | Moves: Rock Slide, Minimize, Disable, Sludge

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

Cover (Tangela M); Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Chlorophyll, Leaf Guard | Moves: Sleep Powder + Poison Powder, Growth, Vine Whip

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

Team Outreach

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

Liz (Charmander F); Lv. 23

Item: None

Ability: Blaze | Moves: SmokeScreen, Scratch, Ember, Scary Face

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

Sprout (Turtwig M); Lv. 24

Item: None

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Absorb + Withdraw, Razor Leaf, Bite

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

Strength (Machop F); Lv. 20

Item: None

Ability: Guts, No Guard | Moves: Leer, Focus Energy + Karate Chop, Foresight

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

Shelly (Shellos M); Lv. 19

Item: None

Ability: Mud-Slap, Harden, Water Pulse, Mud Bomb

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

With these newly buffed up teammates, I think we're going to be pretty well prepared going forward, but only time will tell if that's true! Next time, we'll be taking on that mission with Pachirisu and exploring a surprise new dungeon!

July 9, 2022

Today we're going to be picking up right where we left off yesterday. We normally play through to an in-game save prompt, but in this case, I wanted to do a manual save after dedicating a session to Marowak Dojo which doesn't actually pass things off to the next day. Now, though, it's time to get back to explorer training! Last time, we got this strange mission that revealed a new dungeon: Tiny Meadow. This is a new type of mission about exploring an unknown dungeon. These missions are basically escort missions except you'll be escorting your client through a dungeon you've never explored before and accepting the mission will open up the new dungeon to explore!

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

Tiny Meadow

Tiny Meadow is the first dungeon we're exploring that has traps in it! I've already shared my frustrations with traps back in Rescue Team, so I'll spare you my rants about them. Long story short, I'm not a fan of them and find them to be a needless and incredibly frustrating addition to an already rather stressful game. Thankfully, this dungeon is pretty short and brief, so we don't need to worry too much about it.

Throughout the dungeon, you can find Poke, Apples, Iron Thorns, Silver Spikes, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Max Elixirs, Heal Seeds, and Wonder Orbs.

In Explorers of Darkness, you can find Blast Seeds as well. TIme only offers a different selection of Wonder Orbs.

As for traps, thankfully, they are actually version exclusive just like items, meaning you don't have to deal with all of them in either version like in Rescue Team! Still, that doesn't change how devastating they can be if triggered at the wrong time...

The only trap shared between both versions is the Trip Trap, which will cause a pokemon to drop its held item. Interestingly, this trap was apparently present in Rescue Team, but was left unused.

In Explorers of Time, you might run into Grime, SelfDestruct, Slow, and Summon Traps, all of which return from Rescue Team.

The Grime Trap will convert a random food item in your inventory to Grimy Food, a bad food item which slightly fills the eater's belly at the cost of inflicting a random status effect. Eat it as a last resort if you're starving. But at that point you're probably better off using an Escape Orb.

The SelfDestruct Trap is a landmine, as its name implies. When stepped on, it will explode destroying any walls or items adjacent to it and dealing a quarter HP of damage to any party members on or adjacent to it. Wild pokemon will instead receive a static 40HP meaning they could potentially be KO'd by it. Be wary of these when approaching a valuable item! Remember that you can check for traps by using your standard attack on squares before stepping on them.

The Slow Trap is pretty self explanatory, it reduces your speed!

The Summon Trap will span 1-4 wild pokemon to surround you. Be prepared to take some damage from these or bring your Escape Orb!

The counterparts in Explorers of Darkness include the Gust, Poison, Pokemon, Slumber, and Spin Trap.

The Gust Trap will blow a pokemon away as if it was hit by the a move like Roar or Whirlwind. This will send the pokemon backwards in a straight line until they collide with a wall or another pokemon at which point they'll take 5 points of damage. A pokemon they collided with will also take 5 points of damage. This thing is mostly threatening with its potential to split up your party in a bad situation forcing your teammates to fend for themselves. If you land on terrain you can't normally walk on, you'll be warped to a random tile on the map. If you're worried about this, a Rollcall Orb can bring your teammates to your side.

The Poison Trap, as its name implies, poisons any pokemon that step on it.

The Pokemon Trap will convert a random number of items on the floor into pokemon. This could likely remove valuable items from the floor and there's really not much you can do about that.

The Slumber Trap is, again, self-explanatory. it puts any pokemon that steps on it to sleep.

The Spin Trap is by far the most obnoxious trap in the game. Stepping on it confuses you. If you can't heal that confusion, you'll be forced to wander in random directions which can lead to massive disaster as you can end up stepping on other traps in the process of trying to outlive your own confusion, or even have your random directions lead you right back into the Spin Trap, confusing you all over again! Once you step on this thing, you're entirely at the mercy of RNG.

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

Tiny Meadow [1F - 4F]

The pokemon you can encounter here are pretty modest in level, so they're much less of a threat compared to the traps you'll have to be wary of. You'll find Skiploom, Breloom, and Staravia. Since we're no longer in Marowak Dojo, these guys are recruitable! Skiploom and Breloom both have a 0.5% recruitment chance, though, while Staravia has a much more reasonable 8.2% chance.

Starting on 2F, the music changes from Cave and Side Paths to the song played in Apple Woods.

And it was on the second floor where Team Persevere finally found their first treasure box! This one is a Nifty Box!

On the third floor, the weather is foggy and the music returns to Cave and Side Paths.

In addition, this is the first time I've encountered an island! This is a phenomenon where a small patch of land is surrounded on all sides with difficult terrain, in this case, water. These islands usually have items on them and they can be a bit of a headache to get if your starter can't traverse the terrain. Even if you have a partner who can, not being able to take control of them during the dungeon still makes this a pain.

On 4F, the music changes once again to that of Mt. Bristle.

We also got a Dainty Box! Another treasure box to open a bit later on!

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

Tiny Meadow [5F]

On the final floor, the music changes to the more serene On the Beach at Dusk, it wasn't too terribly difficult of a trek to get here, but we did make it in the end! And this is where Explorers does a much better job of incentivizing you to do these optional dungeons.

Unlike Rescue Team where you'd just abruptly leave the dungeon, the final floors of these dungeons contain rare treasures! In this case, two Deluxe Boxes are lying in wait for us!

These Deluxe Boxes can hold Heal or Reviver Seeds, or Blue, Grass, Red, or Yellow Gummis. We'll need to take these to Xatu to see what we got!

Once you're done, make your way to the Warp Zone at the end to exit the dungeon!

Upon clearing the dungeon, your undiscovered dungeon mission will be accomplished, and you can now come and go to that dungeon as you please!

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

Of course, after our day spent exploring a new dungeon, it's off to bed.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the night...

We find Team Skull standing just outside the guild, Skuntank seething over his humiliating defeat at the hands of Wigglytuff.

Once again, it looks like we haven't quite seen the last of Team Skull... They're probably gonna turn up again real soon...

========

Well, that's gonna be that for this update. It was brief, I'm aware, but we did explore a new dungeon, and though the dungeon was short and rather uneventful, I like to keep them isolated to their own posts. Next time, perhaps we'll see a bit more about where the story will take us next!

July 11, 2022

It's another day at the guild!

It seems Chatot has a special assignment for us again, today!

Chatot requests that we check in with Kecleon Market to see if there are any plans to stock Perfect Apples at the store. Apparently, Team Skull aren't the only ones who raid the guild's storage of its supply of Perfect Apples as even the Guildmaster himself has a habit of doing so! So, it'd be a nice help to be able to simply buy Perfect Apples from the store in an emergency situation rather than having to send an exploration team out to Apple Woods every time.

So, it's off to the market for us!

===========

At Kecleon Market, who would we happen to run into besides the famed Dusknoir himself? We take the opportunity to introduce oursevles!

Apparently Kecleon flagged down Dusknoir for a chat. Not only is Dusknoir extremely polite, but Kecleon can attest to his vast wealth of knowledge. He simply sounds amazing!

Getting to the point, Kecleon asks if we're here to shop, but Pep returns by asking the question about the Perfect Apples.

Unfortunately, it seems that Kecleon has no plans to stock Perfect Apples at his store, so we'll have to report back about this disappointment. Though I'm not really sure why this conversation would end here rather than simply bringing up the guildmaster's insatiable appetite for them and hinting that it might be a wise investment... then again, perhaps it might be a good thing the guild doesn't have the option to dump all of its funds into buying up the lot of Perfect Apples from the local market.

As we chat, we hear some familiar voices approaching!

It's Marill and Azurill!

The two brothers bring up their lost item, this time clarifying that it's a Water Float!

The mention of a Water Float peaks Dusknoir's interest as it's apparently an especially rare item. The two brothers explain that apparently their Water Float has been spotted on the beach, so they're off to go get it!

Unfortunately, it seems some uninvited guests have been tailing us...

After the brothers leave for the beach, Kecleon inquires about the Water Float, which Dusknoir explains as an item that benefits Azurill. He alludes to the fact that the Water Float is one of many species-exclusive items that can be obtained through the Swap Shop. Again, I'd like to explain this in more detail sometime if we ever get any items in Explorers of Time in order to properly demonstrate it. It's a pretty cool feature if not a little limited in scope.

Of course, Kecleon begins to fantasize about selling such a rare and valuable item, but laments that it's unlikely to ever occur. Something so rare can't simply be found in a dungeon and anyone who obtains one is unlikely to be willing to just give it up.

The mention of selling reminds Pep that we need to report to Chatot about the Perfect Apples ASAP!

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

Chatot is of course disappointed to hear the news, though without offering any business negotiations, I'm not sure what other result we could've expected. We offer to go to Apple Woods and restock for Chatot, but he immediately shoots down the idea. While we've definitely proven ourselves after the expedition, he just can't shake the memories of the traumatic incident last time he entrusted this task to us. Instead, he leaves us to our task of completing jobs from the bulletin boards as he sets of to collect Perfect Apples himself.

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

Back in Treasure Town, Dusknoir can now be found in front of the Market where we last met him. He just talks about how much he's taken a liking to the town.

The most important part of today, however, is Xatu Appraisal!

x2

From our previous expedition in Tiny Meadow, we obtained four chests! A Nifty and Dainty Box as well as two Deluxe Boxes!

The process is pretty simple. Xatu takes the box, turns around, cries out to the heavens just like in Rescue Team, and then the box is mysteriously opened revealing its contents...

The Nifty Box contained a Wiggly Card, which corresponds to the Wigglytuff line, boosting their special defense.

The Dainty Box contained Cherrim Dew, boosting the Cherrim line's physical Defense.

And then the Deluxe Boxes contained a Reviver and Heal Seed.

===========

Anyway, with all that out of the way, it's time to turn our attention to our task for the day, except we're actually going to be handling things a little bit differently today.

===========

Team Outreach

You see, where Team Persevere just just had some mundane missions this time around, Team Outreach actually got another Undiscovered Dungeon mission! But it wasn't the same as the one Team Persevere had. So, I figured I'd go ahead and cover this dungeon!

image from bulbapedia

Serenity River

Since I'm exploring this dungeon in Explorers of Darkness and don't have access to it yet in Explorers of Time, I won't be providing screenshots of the adventure. Instead, I'll just be recounting details from memory, so their may be lapses and inconsistencies.

This dungeon is only available as part of an Undiscovered Dungeon mission which means the first time we're exploring it involves having an escort with us!

In this case, it was a Mawhile.

Just like Tiny Meadow for Team Persevere, this is Team Outreach's first dungeon to incorporate Traps.

Just like in Tiny Meadow, the only trap shared between versions is the Trip Trap.

The Time exclusive traps are Grime, SelfDestruct, Slow, Summon, and Warp Traps.

Meanwhile, the Darkness exclusives include Gust, Poison, Pokemon, Slumber, and Spin Traps.

Items available throughout the dungeon include Poke, Apples, Iron Thorns, Sticks, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Max Elixirs, Heal Seeds, and assorted Wonder Orbs.

In Explorers of Darkness, you can find Blast Seeds as well as version-exclusive Wonder Orbs. Time only offers its own Wonder Orbs.

One last new mechanic to note this time around is Monster Houses! This is our first dungeon in which Monster Houses are possible to run into! Randomly, a room will generate as a Monster House in which rare items can appear, only for the player to be ambushed by a hoard of wild pokemon on entry! These can be incredibly scary when they come at a bad time. Generally, it's good to be suspicious if you notice a room with a lot of items inside it, especially if you happen to notice they're particularly rare items like Gummis or TMs.

Poke and select TMs are the only items you can find in Monster Houses that are consistent between both versions.

The typical version exclusive Gummis and TMs are available here as well.

At least during the dungeons available pre-credits, the items available in Monster Houses are consistent, so I won't typically be going over these. If I ever say Monster Houses can appear in a dungeon, these are the items you can assume are included unless specified otherwise.

The wild pokemon that can appear in these monster houses are the same pokemon that naturally appear on the floor the monster house appears on. Some general useful tips, Monster Houses are a great time to pull out room-wide items like Totter, Spurn, or Sleep Orbs among many others. Use your items to give yourself an edge if you feel you need it! Certain moves also damage all enemies in the room which can completely change the game for you! And make sure to move very carefully as every action counts when you'll have to endure attacks from all angles.

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

Serenity River [B1F - B5F]

For the first five floors, you can run into Poliwag, Wooper, Lotad, and Barboach. These pokemon are a lot lower level than even the ones in Tiny Meadow, so they're total pushovers and can't really put up much of a fight at all.

On the second floor, the music changes from Crystal Cave, a dungeon we've yet to see, to that of Mt. Bristle

On the third floor, the music changes back to Crystal Cave and the weather becomes rainy.

On the fourth and fifth floors, the weather becomes Cloudy. Cloudy weather reduces the damage from all attack types except Normal-types.

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

Serenity River [B6F - B7F]

Masquerain joins the fray on the 6th floor, and for the 6th and 7th floors, the weather becomes foggy. The music also changes to that of Waterfall Cave.

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

Serenity River [B8F]

Just like in Tiny Meadow, the final floor is a bonus floor with the music track Welcome to the World of Pokemon, the song that plays during the game's personality quiz.

This one contains three Deluxe Boxes!

The same items can be obtained from these Deluxe Boxes, so I suppose I can imagine this item pool is consistent as well. I suppose I can stop listing them and consider these the "standard" unless a future dungeon shows otherwise.

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

As we return from our missions and prepare for dinner, it seems Chatot has another important announcement.

As always, the guild isn't too fond of having to wait for their food!

Chatot announces that another Time Gear has been stolen.

This news, of course, comes as a shock to the entire guild. To steal one Time Gear is unheard of, but two? Things are starting to look uneasy, and there's one burning question on everyone's minds...

Bidoof finally asks the question, but Chatot thankfully confirms it was not the gear from Fogbound Lake that was stolen.

Once again, Chatot stresses the importance of keeping our discovery at Fogbound Lake a secret lest we anger Uxie for breaking our promise.

Everyone seems a bit offended that Chatot felt the need to double down on his insistence that we keep quiet, Loudred ironically exclaiming that he doesn't have a big mouth.

But before we know it, we're back to our regularly scheduled dinner!

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

As we head off to bed, of course Pep wants to talk about the Time Gears again, and we're stuck on our strange feelings from when we first saw the Time Gear at Fogbound Lake.

Pep brings up a really peculiar point... he mentions that he has this feeling that the expedition to Fogbound Lake took place "a long time ago." But that can't be right... it was only a few days ago, right? I don't know if I'm looking too far into this line, but I'm starting to wonder fi maybe there may be some time shenanigans going on here?

Then, Pep starts to wonder about Uxie and how he's fairing at the lake...

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

...And it seems things aren't going so well at all.

It looks as though another pokemon arrived and fought right through the Groudon illusion produced by Uxie...

...for much more nefarious purposes. They stole a Time Gear!

Uxie immediately regrets having not wiped our memories, assuming this was the way this mysterious pokemon was able to find their way to the lake.

This pokemon claims to have already known for a long time about the presence of a Time Gear. They don't seem to know anything about us and it seems a leak about Fogbound Lake has nothing to do with this pokemon's discovery of the Time Gears location. They somehow knew about it before even we did!

And that's where our story is going to be left off. I can't help but imagine these events are going to bring anything but bad news to our guild in the coming days...

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