All the Pokemens

April 24, 2023

We've get yet another event to cover today!

This time, it's Oak's Letter! This item was first distributed on April 18th, 2009 in Japan and September 28th, 2009 in North America and Europe. Just like with the Member Card, this item and the event it's tied to do exist in Diamond and Pearl, but were left entirely unused as the item was simply never distributed for those games. The Wonder Card for the distribution, just like the Member Card, urges players to visit the official website for information on how to obtain the mythical pokemon Shaymin! So it looks like we're off to catch another mythical pokemon!

The description of Oak's Letter says that it's a request from Professor Oak to meet him on Route 224 which is the mysterious dead-end route that we have to travel through Victory Road to arrive at.

Route 224

So we make our way to the northern most edge of Route 224 where the mysterious stone slab was before, the very one that Marley mentioned before. Perhaps Shaymin was the mysterious "pokemon among the flowers" she was talking about?

As we reach the end of the route, Marley will bump into us! She's certainly taken her slow sweet time getting here! It's a bit awkward to suddenly run into her here now after all that buildup with no payoff before, yet one more reason why I think locking this content behind arbitrary mystery gift events is a really lame way of handling things. Regardless, she confesses to you here why she's so quiet. She says she chooses her words carefully for fear of hurting people by saying something wrong, and she often clams up as a result. That's why she's enamored by a particular pokemon she's come here hoping to see: A pokemon that conveys feelings of gratitude in a nice way. She's drawn to the stone tablet at the edge of the cliff.

And it's at that stone tablet where we find Prof. Oak waiting for us! Prof. Oak explains that a Stone Tablet like this one was recently discovered in Kanto and he adds that a trainer who has grown greatly over the course of their journey is to write the name of someone to whom they wish to give their thanks. I tried to think carefully about who I would put here. It doesn't matter what you actually write, you could write "poop" here and the game will still allow you to progress. But I tried to think about who the protagonist would be most thankful to in-character. Cynthia? Prof. Rowan? Percy? Lucas? Ultimately, I settled on one character: "Mom." After all, she's been modestly supporting and encouraging us from the very beginning!

As soon as we write the name on the Stone Tablet, our feelings of gratitude are recognized by Shaymin. Suddenly a bridge of flowers appears at the edge of the cliff and across the bridge, an adorable little hedgehog, Shaymin, appears! It happily greets us before retreating along the flower path! Marley seems delighted to have finally been able to see the Gratitude pokemon Shaymin and thanks us personally. Ugh, I have such a soft spot for soft-spoken characters like her. It's really cute! Anyway, of course let's not let this distract from the fact that we've got a new area to explore! Let's follow after Shaymin!

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Seabreak Path

This land bridge turns out to be incredibly massive. It's a long, long, long road covered in a rainbow of flowers! It takes a decent while to cross as it goes from the northern edge of Route 224 all the way up to the northern border of the Sinnoh Region, beyond even the Battle Zone! There's absolutely nothing of interest on the path itself, what we're after of course is what lies at the end.

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Flower Paradise

After the long pilgrimage across the Seabreak Path, we'll eventually arrive at the Flower Paradise at the other side where Shaymin lives among the flowers, just as Marley mentioned! And it's here where we'll get our chance to battle this mythical pokemon.

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My Team:

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Moon (Empoleon F); Lv. 69

Item: Shuca Berry

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Ice Beam, Aqua Jet, Surf, Drill Peck

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Radio (Rotom); Lv. 69

Item: Colbur Berry

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Discharge, Thunder Wave, Ominous Wind, Overheat

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Comet (Togekiss M); Lv. 67

Item: Razor Fang

Ability: Serene Grace | Moves: Water Pulse, Air Slash, AncientPower, Baton Pass

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Meteor (Garchomp M); Lv. 69

Item: Yache Berry

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Dragon Claw, Fire Fang, Aerial Ace, Earthquake

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Satellite (Porygon-Z); Lv. 68

Item: Magnet

Ability: Download | Moves: Psychic, Charge Beam, Recover, Tri-Attack

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Polaris (Froslass F); Lv. 66

Item: Kasib Berry

Ability: Snow Cloak | Moves: Ice Shard, Destiny Bond, Ice Fang, Shadow Ball

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Vs. Shaymin, Lv. 30

Strangely, Shaymin only has the regular Wild Pokemon battle theme when encountered, and it's only at Lv. 30 despite, once again, only being encounterable in the postgame! Clearly, you're going to have to approach this little critter very carefully if you want to catch it.

Shaymin is a very annoying pokemon to catch. Right off the bat, it's a low-level Grass-type pokemon, so I'm not even going to bother trying to freeze it. We'll have to jump straight into paralysis with Radio. But even then, there's another limitation in that it also always holds a Lum Berry to recover form any status ailment once! I recommend throwing a Quick Ball right away in hopes of catching it because it can be a pain otherwise. Anyway, Radio is capable of softening Shaymin up a bit without killing it by using Discharge which it resists. However, leaving Radio in isn't the best option. This is because Shaymin also has multiple means of healing off damage. This thing knows both Leech Seed and Synthesis. Coupled with its low level, it can be really difficult to keep its HP in a catchable range. But that's where my secret weapon comes in.

In order to get here, we need to pass through Victory Road's side path, which means we need to bring Shuttle anyway! Shuttle is perfect for this matchup! Not only is very well equipped to endure any attacks Shaymin can dish out, it's a Grass type meaning it's immune to Leech Seed and it's nearly the same level as Shaymin, too! Fly does a decent chunk of damage to Shaymin without KOing it, so this is a great counterpick to keep Shaymin's HP low while I throw Pokeballs at it.

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Voyager (Shaymin); Lv. 30

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Growth, Magical Leaf, Leech Seed, Synthesis

Contrary to what it might look like, I didn't actually catch it on the first turn with a Quick Ball. I just ran out of Nest Balls and felt the Quick Ball was the next ball that best fit the pokemon aesthetically.

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Oh, and even though they're normally inaccessible, here's the Diamond and Pearl counterparts to Seabreak Path and Flower Paradise. Like Newmoon Island, these areas are only accessible by hacking or exploiting glitches due to the event for Oak's Letter never being distributed for Diamond and Pearl. I actually quite like the way the paradise looks in Diamond and Pearl better with the little specks in the grassy hills that look like tinier flowers. But the Platinum one is a bit less rough around the edges.

This one is even more strange to never distribute for Diamond and Pearl. While there was also a small plot thread that alluded to Darkrai's presence in Diamond and Pearl, that one at least went somewhere with Cresselia and the Lunar Wing. Marley alludes to the Flower Paradise in Diamond and Pearl, and you even guide her to the exit to Route 224 so she can make her way toward the Stone Tablet in hopes of seeing the pokemon among the flowers and yet that whole thread just awkwardly stops in its tracks when she just disappears! Her story about looking for Shaymin is simply never resolved! What makes this even more baffling is that there actually were Shaymin distributions explicitly for Diamond and Pearl, but they were direct distributions, not Oak's Letter allowing you to catch your own! Doesn't that just take away from the value of encountering it for the first time at the Flower Paradise!? You're gonna see me complain about these events a lot more going forward. I really wish this content could just be in the base game and I see absolutely no reason for it to be gated like this, especially when it results in whole plot threads going completely unexplored when the event simply never distributes, and our next update is going to probably be the most nonsensical decision that irritates me the most, so prepare for yet another rant next time, too. If you're familiar with these events, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about, but until then, you'll just have to wait and see.

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And... that's really it for Flower Paradise! But there's actually a little bit more to Shaymin, and this next part of the event is exclusive to Platinum.

Floaroma Town

Do you remember talk of a tradition in Floaroma Town involving a special flower as a symbol of thanks? Well, if we bring Shaymin with us to Floaroma Town and talk with the blonde lady near the entrance, she'll recognize our Shaymin and tell you that you should have a special item.

This is the Gracidea! If you thought Rotom's forms were arbitrary bullshit, get ready for the most bizarrely specific and annoying transformation in Pokemon history!

Only during the daytime, if you use the Gracidea Flower on a Shaymin that's in your active party, it'll transform!

This is Shaymin's Sky Forme! In this form, Shaymin gains the Flying type, the Serene Grace ability, and its stats are redistributed slightly in favor speed and special attack at the cost of its defenses, as opposed to the even spread of its Land Forme. Shaymin's Sky Forme only exists in Pokemon Platinum, not in Diamond and Pearl. Therefore it'll revert to its Land Forme if you try to bring it into the Union Room just like Rotom. And the Gracidea Flower can't be obtained in Diamond and Pearl. Shaymin will revert to its Land Forme when night falls or, get this, when it's frozen. It is incredibly rare, without actively trying to make it happen, that Sky Forme Shaymin would ever get frozen due to its reduced defenses and its quad weakness to Ice attacks. Most of the time it'll just go down if it gets hit with an Ice attack, but on the offchance that it does survive, it'll revert to its Land Forme. To be fair, that'll give it a bit more stall potential as it'll boost its defenses, but it's still a Grass type and it's frozen, so those defenses aren't going to be doing you much good anyway. I cannot fathom why they would ever bother programming such an arbitrary means to revert this pokemon to its base form, but it is what it is. Anyway, Shaymin will also revert to its Land Forme if it's deposited in the PC. These three conditions means trying to actually use this thing is a bit of a nightmare as you'll constantly be needing to use your Gracidea on it every single day and it can't maintain this form half the time. I really don't get why this arbitrary restriction had to be applied and, unlike Giratina, there's no special held item that can simply cause Shaymin to maintain its Sky Forme at all times. So we're just gonna have to settle for what we can get.

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So yeah, there's just all kinds of oddities surrounding Shaymin and the bizarre decisions that went into this event. Everything about it feels like it wasn't designed at all to be tied to an event distribution to me. This one honestly feels like they wrote this all to be one cohesive event where Marley would join up with you at the Stone Tablet and you would figure out together to write the name of someone you're thankful to on the tablet, and then she would thank you personally for helping her see Shaymin and encourage you to go and catch it. What role did Prof. Oak even have in any of this?? And I've already gone on record to explain how disappointing this route was to explore in the base game. None of it makes sense to me. Regardless, them's the breaks. Next time, we'll be setting our sights higher than ever before with a very special distribution! One that was so special in fact that it was never even distributed! That's right, we're technically cheating! Not that we haven't been already, but this one's a little bit different. I'll elaborate when we get around to it. See you then!

April 29, 2023

Oreburgh City

It's that time again! Time for another Pokemon Platinum event! But what event could we possibly be covering now? We've already seen the Secret Key, the Member Card, Oak's Letter, even the Regigigas event that unlocks the Legendary Golem encounters! Isn't that it? Well, yes and no. Today, we're gonna cheat a little bit to gain access to something special that has never been made officially available.

Hidden in the code of Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum, is yet one last event-only item that was never officially distributed: The Azure Flute. If you've played certain future pokemon games, this item may sound familiar to you. And if you weren't around to experience Gen IV in its hayday, you might be surprised to discover this item was only known about at the time thanks to hacking and datamining. The thing that baffles me most about the refusal to distribute the Azure Flute is that it's the key to accessing the area that I think explores the entire theme of the Sinnoh Region at its core.

The Azure Flute is the most mysterious of the event items. Not only because it was never officially distributed, but unlike the others, its description doesn't point you to where to take it. It just mentions that the flute makes otherwordly sounds when played, and nobody knows where it came from. Also unlike the other event items, the Azure Flute can be used anywhere. It'll just make noise that echoes and doesn't seem to do anything.

Had this event been distributed, it's likely the official website would've been updated with how you can obtain the mythical pokemon Arceus.

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Spear Pillar

In order realize the purpose of the Azure Flute, we'll need to make our way back to Spear Pillar at the top of Mt. Coronet. At this point, we've made enough pilgrimages up here to be the rulers of Sinnoh ourselves! But we're not stopping at Spear Pillar this time, no. We're going even further beyond!

Have you noticed that strange inscription on the ground at the base of the stairs leading up to Spear Pillar? Well, this is where we'll need to use the Azure Flute...

When we play it, we'll hear a familiar sound...

The sound we hear is the very same sound that plays every time you turn the game on right before the intro! This is by far the coolest connection! And as the music plays, a mysterious staircase begins to appear...

Hall of Origin

To further the connections to the intro of the game, the music here is a variation of the same music played on the title screen! This image of the area really doesn't do the event justice. As you climb the stairs, the camera shifts and you really get a sense of perspective for just how high up these stairs go, they tower over Spear Pillar. You truly feel like you're at the top of the world as you climb skyward toward the Hall of Origin where you meet the one who's no doubt been watching everything unfold this whole time. This pokemon entrusted the Azure Flute to us, no doubt, and now, it has decided to test our abilities one last time.

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My Team:

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Moon (Empoleon F); Lv. 71

Item: Sitrus Berry

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Ice Beam, Aqua Jet, Surf, Drill Peck

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Radio (Rotom); Lv. 70

Item: Sitrus Berry

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Discharge, Thunder Wave, Ominous Wind, Overheat

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Comet (Togekiss M); Lv. 71*

Item: Razor Fang

Ability: Serene Grace | Moves: Water Pulse, Air Slash, AncientPower, Baton Pass

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Meteor (Garchomp M); Lv. 72*

Item: Yache Berry

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Dragon Claw, Fire Fang, Aerial Ace, Earthquake

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Satellite (Porygon-Z); Lv. 70

Item: Sitrus Berry

Ability: Download | Moves: Psychic, Charge Beam, Recover, Tri-Attack

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Polaris (Froslass F); Lv. 69

Item: Leppa Berry

Ability: Snow Cloak | Moves: Ice Shard, Destiny Bond, Ice Fang, Shadow Ball

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*Comet and Meteor were boxed for HM-Users.

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Vs. Arceus, Lv. 80

If you need further proof that this is a pokemon unlike anything we've faced yet, just listen to that intense battle music. This isn't just any ordinary legendary encounter. This is the most serious trial we've been faced with yet. We do not want to disappoint Arceus, so we'd better come at it with all we can!

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The strategy begins the same as normal, but there are a few new layers to it because, perhaps unsurprisingly, Arceus has the most obnoxious moveset of all legendary pokemon for the purpose of capture. It knows Recover to restore its HP and Refresh to heal off status conditions! As such, if you manage to freeze Arceus, I recommend chucking Pokeballs at it ASAP without trying to reduce its HP further. You're not likely to get it so low on HP. But there's another reason it's good to lead with Polaris: The Ghost type. Arceus can only hit Polaris with Future Sight. Since Arceus is still technically a wild pokemon, it attacks randomly and thus I can often get Arceus to squander all of its Hyper Beams wasted on my Ghost types, leaving it with only Future Sight to attack with. At that point, it's mostly just a matter of patience, switching between weakening it and throwing pokeballs until it Recovers again. Eventually, it'll run out of PP for Recover, leaving it with only Refresh and Future Sight. You may have noticed I gave Polaris a Leppa Berry. This is to help it get consistent hits on Arceus without running out of PP for Ice Fang. I can pretty frequently get at least one freeze due to the extended stalemate that usually comes out of this matchup. It takes three Future Sights for Polaris to go down and Arceus has a 1-in-4 chance of using it every turn. I can generally use up all the PP for Ice Fang before Polaris goes down. The Leppa Berry helps Polaris get additional uses of Ice Fang, which means more chances of Freeze which means more chances to catch Arcues!

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If Arceus still has Hyper Beam, then my best chance is to bring out Radio. Radio isn't quite as resistant as Polaris, so it'll go down in two Future Sights. But it can still hang in there for quite a while and hopefully get Arceus to drop a few more Hyper Beams or waste a bit more Recover and Refresh. Ideally, I can get it to run out of PP for Refresh and leave it permanently paralyzed. In the meantime, though, I'll just have to focus on keeping its health low with Discharge and paralyzing it with Thunder Wave when its HP is low and it's not already paralyzed. Arceus constantly has to heal or recover from paralysis, and thanks to the off turns where it doesn't get to attack due to paralysis, I can often get some pokeballs thrown in here as well!

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Usually, by the time Radio goes down, Arceus is already on the ropes and in pretty desperate condition. It's time to switch back to trying to Freeze it. This time using Ice Beam! Arceus can't really get past Moon. This is where the battle ends, either with me catching it or Arceus KO-ing itself with Struggle.

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Andromeda (Arceus); Lv. 80

Item: None

Ability: Multitype | Moves: Refresh, Future Sight, Recover, Hyper Beam

While it certainly wasn't my first attempt, as usual, all catching Arceus took was plenty of patience. In my winning attempt, I was even able to capture it without a status effect in a Luxury Ball! You've always gotta love when you can catch these pokemon in aesthetic pokeballs!

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Oh, and before we take our leave, this is what Hall of Origin looks like in Diamond version. It's pretty much identical except for the arrangement of the structures on Spear Pillar. And of course, the structures are mirrored in Pearl version.

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So that's the story of the event that never was, and I simply think that's the biggest crime these events have ever pulled. This event was clearly designed to be the epitome of your journey through Sinnoh. You can tell the artists creating the music and atmosphere around Spear Pillar gave it their all to ensure this event was unlike anything you'd ever experienced in the game only for the whole thing to be dropped.

The reason to never distribute this event? Junichi Masuda explained that the Azure Flute was simply too confusing to use. I have absolutely no idea what that's supposed to mean. What exactly is so confusing about bringing the Azure Flute to Spear Pillar? What makes this so much different compared to any other event in the game? My best guess is that maybe there were a lot of customer service calls from confused parents trying to figure out these events to help their kids get the event pokemon form previous distributions and the whole ordeal was simply decided not to be worth it. Going forward form Gen IV, these event item distributions would generally be much less ambitious for better or worse, and before long, they'd be entirely phased out in favor of simple Mystery Gifts delivering the mythical pokemon directly to you. I've already said my piece about that and how unsatisfying of a way it is to get a new entry in your pokedex, and I hope it's clear why I decided to go this route of obtaining Arceus instead of simply using PKHex to add the official distribution into my save instead.

And yes, that is the route the devs ultimately took. Arceus was made available in Diamond and Pearl, but only through a Mystery Gift distribution directly. This particular pokemon is relevant for yet another event in a future game within this gen, so we're not quite done yet. You might be worried that said event won't work since my Arceus isn't a Fateful Encounter, similar to how trading over a Regigigas caught in Diamond and Pearl wouldn't work for the Legendary Golems in Platinum, but supposedly it will work with a Hall of Origins Arceus as well, even though the event was never distributed.

It is incredibly disappointing that the devs who designed this area never got to see people experience the event as intended. As I mentioned before, this feels like the ultimate culmination of everything the Sinnoh Region has been building up to. It's been foreshadowed from the moment you first booted up Diamond and Pearl. Arceus has been watching you from the very beginning and has been guiding the Lake Spirits and Creators to help you. The devs have stated that the theme of the Sinnoh region was "ultimate," they wanted Sinnoh to explore the peak of what pokemon can be, the limits of technology both in-universe and with the DS hardware, as well as the origin of the Pokemon world as a whole. What better way to complete that theme than to allow you to come across the creator of the universe himself?

This is, of course, the "Original One" spoken of by the plates we've been gathering. The one who draws power from the plates. While a lot of the mythos surrounding the origin of the pokemon world is still left somewhat to interpretation, I like to imagine that Arceus created Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina, and commanded the three to create the universe. The Lake Spirits were created by Arceus to maintain balance in the universe. Arceus is essentially God in this game's world. Of course there's all sorts of memes about some 10 year old catching God and conquering the world, but I interpret it more as Arceus is willing to lend you its strength because it knows the protagonist's (canonical) heart.

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Anyway, we aren't quite done with this post just yet. Just like Shaymin, there's a little bit more we can do with Arceus. Namely, it's alternate forms!

As previously foreshadowed, Arceus has a special quality that allows it to draw special powers from the mysterious plates we've found throughout Sinnoh, which means these items just got a little bit more interesting! While holding one of these plates, Arceus' unique Multitype ability causes its type and appearance to change to reflect the type the plate benefits. This means Arceus will not only gain the standard 20% boost from the held item, but an additional 50% boost from STAB when using moves of the Plate's type.

Let's take a quick trip around the world to sum up where we can get them all, shall we?

The Draco Plate can be found in Eterna City, hidden behind the statue of Palkia/Dialga.

While holding the Draco Plate, Arceus will transform into a Dragon type pokemon.

The Insect Plate is obtained in Eterna Forest just outside the Old Chateau.

The Insect Plate transforms Arceus into a Bug type! I hope it's not a glitch!

The Dread Plate was found in the westernmost bedroom in the Old Chateau.

It transforms Arceus into a Dark type. How cruel!

The Spooky Plate can be found at Amity Square. Here in Platinum, you'll need to enter from the east entrance and warp your way to the plateau near the entrance using the huts. Your starter should be able to get you in here!

BOO! Arceus is a ghost type now!

The Mind Plate hails from the depths of the Solaceon Ruins!

With this, Arceus becomes Psychic type. It boggles the mind, doesn't it?

The Fist Plate is found on Route 215. You'll need to Cut down a tree to get to it.

With this one, Arceus becomes a Fighting type! Don't pick a fight with it now!

The Toxic Plate is found in the Great Marsh. In Platinum, it's in a slightly different location in the northeast corner, at the edge of the deep mud between the two fallen trees.

This makes Arceus a Poison type! He's been acting a bit toxic recently, though...

The Splash Plate is located at Route 220. It's not exactly hidden, but it is a fairly remote part of Sinnoh.

If you're thirsty for more, this can change Arceus into a Water type!

The Iron Plate is found in Iron Island, in the room you originally met up with Riley. It's hidden in the little crater in the southeast corner.

This one makes Arceus Steel type! It's pretty stubborn, now!

The Earth Plate was located in the depths of Oreburgh Gate, you have to return here after obtaining the Mine Badge to be able to reach it since you need Strength.

This one transforms Arceus into a Ground-type. This'll shake things up!

The Icicle Plate is obtained from Route 217 if you try to return HM08 to the Hiker in the western house.

The Icicle Plate transforms Arceus into an Ice type, how nice!

The Zap Plate can be found in Sunyshore City, hidden right in front of the lighthouse!

This makes Arceus an Electric type! Shocking, isn't it?

The Meadow Plate is found on northern Route 210, though it requires Waterfall so you'll have to come back for it after having obtained the Beacon Badge.

Now Arceus is a grass type! Doesn't he seem more relaxed to you?

The Stone Plate is located at Mt. Coronet, in the same small room you find the Adamant and Lustrous Orbs in. You'll need to return after obtaining the Beacon Badge.

This makes Arceus a Rock type. Let's hope you aren't fighting paper.

The Sky Plate is found just outside of the Pokemon League! It's hidden so you may have to scan around with the Poketch.

With it, Arceus flies high as a Flying type!

The Flame Plate can actually be found in two locations. One is in Stark Mountain, but the more easily accessible one if you already have Arceus is in Oreburgh Mine. Strangely enough, if you have an Arceus in your party, you'll run into a Hiker at the entrance who will give you the plate. I believe this is the only plate you can obtain like this. It's really quite odd.

Anyway, this plate will transform Arceus into the Fire type! It's hot!

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With that all of the plates in your bag, you can transform Arceus into any type you want! Unfortunately, it doesn't learn any moves by changing type, so you'll have to go out of your way to teach Arceus new moves using TMs, HMs, and Tutors. Thankfully, Arceus can learn nearly any TM and Tutor move in the game, so you've got a lot of flexibility to work with on that front! You shouldn't have any problems finding a STAB move for Arceus to use of any type!

Also, fun fact, there's an additional 18th form of Arceus that is ??? type, a hidden typeless type that is rarely seen. This form is impossible to obtain since no plate is associated with the ??? type and even if it's hacked in, it'll only be treated as a Normal type because Multitype won't actually change Arceus's type unless it's holding a plate.

Anyway, that's it for the Azure Flute and the Hall of Origin! But we're still not quite done with Platinum. There's just a little bit more I'd like to touch on around the world of Sinnoh before we finish things off with one last challenge against the Elite Four. See you again soon!

April 30, 2023

Battleground

We're back with another update! Last time we finished our coverage of the many Wi-Fi events and now I'd like to go over a few more things. Today, we're going to be returning to the Battleground because, over the time I've spent between updates, I have been keeping on top of things in-game to continue growing berries and doing battles at the Battleground. When I first arrived here, I explained that I didn't bother taking notes on my battles here because I figured there was no guarantee I'd battle everyone that was available by the time coverage of this game would end. That was when I foolishly thought I was nearly about to end coverage of the game and only had one or two more posts to do. Obviously, that wasn't the case.

Between the number of updates we've had since then as well as the amount of irl time between updates, I've had plenty of time to not only battle everyone available here, but battle them all multiple times. You may have noticed that my levels seem to have been arbitrarily growing each time I summarized my party: This is how.

Anyway, I don't have specific notes on my first battles against each opponent here, but after battling them all several times, I can share my general strategies for battling them all to give you an idea of what the experience is like. So, it's time to get covering these rematches!

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Vs. Leader Roark

We start with the gym leaders, up to 3 of which can spawn a day at the tables on the west side of the building.

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Aerodactyl, Lv. 62

Roark opens up with an Aerodactyl that can be a bit of a pain whenever I'm trying to levelup Polaris or Satellite. Both of them tend to come just shy of being able to one-shot Aerodactyl with Ice Fang or Charge Beam respectively, and let's not forget how deceptively fast Aerodactyl can be. If I'm not lucky enough to dodge a Stone Edge, he'll do some heavy damage against my lead. The best lead against Aerodactyl was Radio who can outspeed Aerodactyl just as well as Polaris and actually manage to get a one-shot with Discharge.

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Tyrannitar, Lv. 65

Since I'm doing these battles daily alongside growing berries, I try to minimize my consumption of berries during these battles as much as I can. That means when Tyrannitar hits the stage, it's my cue to switch out of there or my Colbur Berry is getting wasted on Tyrannitar's Crunch!

You might think I'd switch to Moon who can resist Crunch, but I actually find that Meteor is the better switch. This is mainly because of Tyrannitar's Sand Stream ability. I'm not sure if I've covered this yet, but starting in Gen IV, Sandstorms actually boost the special defense of Rock-type pokemon and this is very much felt when I try to face Tyrannitar with Moon's Surf. Thanks to the Sandstorm, Surf is a 2HKO turned 3HKO when Tyrannitar eats its Sitrus Berry. The worst part about that is that Tyrannitar is typical left with a sliver of health which will lead to Roark simly dropping a Full Restore to heal it up. While Meteor doesn't resist Crunch like Moon does, it still doesn't do too much damage and the Standstorm also triggers Meteor's Sand Veil, meaning Crunch has a slim chance of even missing! With Meteor out, all it takes is an Earthquake to wipe the floor with Tyrannitar.

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Rampardos, Lv. 63

At this point, we're prepared for a clean sweep. Roark's best counter for Meteor is his Rampardos which knows Avalanche. But it's not surviving an Earthquake to get Avalanche off. Even if it could by some miracle, Meteor does have a Yache Berry to fall back on.

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Golem, Lv. 61

Golem goes down to a simple Earthquake as well.

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Probopass, Lv. 61

And poor Probopass doesn't stand a chance, either.

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And that's that for Roark! Worth noting, when I lead with Polaris and defeat his Aerodactyl, he tends to follow up with Golem and go for Stone Edge, allowing me to switch into Moon where he for some reason saves Tyrannitar for last, buying me a fairly clean sweep with Moon. When I lead with Satellite, if I can get over Aerodactyl, then he'll also follow up with Golem. I can use Psychic to take Golem out and then, depending on whether or not I got a stat boost from Charge Beam on Aerodactyl, I may try and stick it out against Probopass and the rest of his team. Or, I'll just switch to Meteor.

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Vs. Leader Gardenia

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Jumpluff, Lv. 61

Gardenia is one of the easiest gym leaders to take care of. Jumpluff can easily be eliminated with an Ice Fang from Polaris right away.

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

She tends to follow up with Torterra which will go for Stone Edge to try and take out Polaris. Obviously, that's no good because its defense will protect it from Ice Beam.

This is where Moon comes into play! Torterra does know Earthquake of course, but its Stone Edge isn't going to do anything to Moon and Ice Beam will take it out before it gets the chance to catch its breath. I sometimes try for Radio, but Overheat falls just short of the OHKO, leading to Radio taking two hits, a stat drop, and only being faced with a healing Torterra. Not much of a w.

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

Bellossom, Lv. 61

Bellossom comes next and Moon can't quite get the One-shot. You might expect a Sunny Day here, but Bellossom actually comes with a nasty surprise of Drain Punch. Instead, the optimal decision seems to be a switch.

We're going right back into Polaris, here! Being immune to Drain Punch is a boon! Bellossom will try and stall me out with Ingrain, but it will only last so long against Polaris' Ice Fang.

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

Roserade, Lv. 65

Roserade knows Shadow Ball, so this is time for another switch.

Comet is immune! Satellite is as well. Both work really well for this particular matchup, but Comet is better suited for the battle overall. An Air Slash or two is usually enough to deal with Roserade, though Comet is likely to get Badly Poisoned by Toxic here.

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

Cherrim, Lv. 62

All that's left is Cherrim which is pretty helpless against Comet. It can try for Leech Seed or Sunny Day, but it's not going to last long enough for Toxic damage to build up enough to pressure me into switching, so Comet can usually take it out with Air Slash.

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

And that's Gardenia! Probably the 2nd easiest of the opponents for me to defeat.

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

Vs. Leader Fantina

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

Banette, Lv. 61

Polaris is capable of one-shotting this little guy with Shadow Ball. Couldn't ask for a better start!

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

Dusknoir, Lv. 62

Dusknoir certainly isn't going down anytime soon and it's Shadow Punch is gonna hurt bad.

I tend to bring out Comet for this one. With Dusknoir's bulk it's difficult to take him out very easily, so the Air Slash flinch hax strat is nice to fall back on.

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

Mismagius, Lv. 63

From here, Mismagius tends to come at me with ThunderBolt. Not exactly the most fun situation to be in as Meteor can't easily take it out with Earthquake due to Levitate. I might be able to switch into Radio to resist the ThunderBolt, but I'm no tlikely to take Mismagius out with a Discharge right away, so I generally just try to stick through this matchup with Comet. I can usually come out on top, though! But by that point I've taken a hefty amount of damage. It may be optimal to switch into Meteor anyway and get Mismagius using a different move that's easier to switch in on, but this has worked for me thus far.

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

Gengar, Lv. 65

Gengar comes next and it knows Thunder! Sometimes I can flinch hax him away, but usually by this point Comet is about to go down, so I find it best to retreat.

By switching into Radio here, I can minimize damage from Thunder and bait Gengar into using Shadow Ball.

...And then I can more painlessly switch into Satellite! From here, it just takes Psychic to get that win!

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

Drifblim, Lv. 61

And this one is pretty much a joke. With Charge Beam, I can take Drifblim out in a couple of hits.

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

And that's Fantina! Her ghost types are a little bit tricker to deal with, but with some clever switching we can overcome that.

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

Vs. Leader Maylene

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

Hitmontop, Lv. 62

Hitmontop is a bit of an awkward lead for Maylene. I tend to just go with Polaris since she's immune to most of its attacks, but it's not helpless as it can hit her with Aerial Ace. I just push through with some Shadow Balls and eventually Hitmontop goes down.

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

Medicham, Lv. 63

Medicham comes next and also goes down pretty easily to Shadow Ball due to its Psychic type.

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

Machamp, Lv. 64

Machamp is up next and it's not quite so easy for Polaris to counter on her own. I can expect a Stone Edge here, so it's time for an obvious switch.

Meteor comes in on Stone Edge and tears things up with Earthquake!

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

Breloom, Lv. 62

Breloom can be a little bit scary due to Effect Spore, but I can usually get by hitting it with Aerial Ace for the KO.

If not, Satellite can pick up the slack with Psychic.

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

Lucario, Lv. 66

If Meteor is still healthy, then I can obviously counter Lucario with a simple Earthquake. If it's Satellite that's out, I'm gonna need to do a switch here.

Lucario is obviously going for a Fighting attack, so I can easily retreat into Radio to dodge Close Combat and take Lucario out with Overheat!

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

And that's Maylene! She looks a little intimidating due to her pokemon's higher levels compared to the other trainers, but her pokemon aren't all that tough.

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

Vs. Leader Wake

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

Sharpedo, Lv. 61

There are a handful of pokemon that handle Wake's lead really well. But I like to lead with Satellite in hopes of building up some Special Attack with Charge Beam.

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

Ludicolo, Lv. 65

Ludicolo comes next and, if I've gotten any stat boosts with Charge Beam, I can probably handle Ludicolo just fine with Tri Attack. But if not, it's best to switch for fear of its Focus Blast.

While I do have Ghost types I can switch into, Comet is really good at shrugging off Focus Blast and can take Ludicolo out easily enough with a super-effective Air Slash.

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

Quagsire, Lv. 61

Following up on Ludicolo is Quagsire! It knows Stone Edge so it can be a bit of a pain. If Satellite is still out, then it can take it out with a Tri-Attack. Otherwise, I tend to just stay in with Comet and go for Air Slash. Depending on how this plays out, Comet may go down to a Stone Edge, or may come out on top. If Comet goes down, I can bring Satellite back out to finish the job with Tri-Attack.

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

Floatzel, Lv. 63

Things tend to divulge a bit here. If I'm using Comet, Floatzel comes next because it has Ice Fang to try and finish me off. If I'm using Satellite, I'll see Gyarados instead which is a much easier matchup. This is usually where Comet ends up going down.

In such a case, Radio can come out and take on Floatzel. Satellite is also capable of taking on this battle, especially with prior stat boosts.

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

Gyarados, Lv. 62

There are many outs to Gyarados. Satellite can take it out with Charge Beam, Radio can fight with Discharge, and if Comet has stuck it out this far, AncientPower also works really well! Intimidate doesn't do much to slow special attackers, does it?

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

And that's Crasher Wake! I definitely consider him one of the trickiest of the gym leaders here.

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

Vs. Leader Byron

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

Skarmory, Lv. 61

Just like before, Byron has a team that mirrors his son's but with the Steel type instead. Skarmory is a much more preferrable lead though because I can cleanly open up with Satellite and take it out thanks to its low Sp. Defense allowing Download to boost Satellite's Sp. Attack. This can set up for a really nice series of KOs, but I'm not qutie at clean sweep potential just yet.

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

Steelix, Lv. 61

Byron's toughest counter to Satellite is Steelix. Steelix resists all of Satellite's moves. Even still, if I'm lucky enough to get two stat boosts from the previous matchup, I should be good to just hit Steelix with a Tri-Attack. Even though it's resisted, its low Sp. Defense doesn't allow for it to take the hit very well anyway. Even if I don't get the boost, there isn't much this Steelix can actually do to me. It just tends to set up Sandstorm, so a few Tri-Attacks should be good enough. Whatever I did, I had to train myself to resist the urge to switch into Moon here because bringing Moon out prematurely always ends with a hard punish from Magnezone trapping it into battle with Magnet Pull.

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

Aggron, Lv. 65

Unfortunately this Aggron is really tough. Thanks to the Sp. Def boost from its Rock type during Steelix's Sandstorm, I can't actually get over its bulk even with my stat boosts, so this is where I've gotta make a switch.

Since it's Sp. Defense that's the problem, Meteor is the obvious choice here! And from here on it's a clean sweep with Earthquake!

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

Bastiodon, Lv. 63

Bastiodon is also quad weak to Earthquake...

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

Magnezone, Lv. 62

...and so is Magnezone! Funny how much less scary this pokemon is when I actually plan for it ahead of time.

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

And that's Byron! I like how even here his team still mirrors Roarks: They both have a Flying-type lead, a Mt. Coronet Sinnoh Evolution, a fully-evolved Sinnoh Fossil pokemon, and a Kaiju-esque pokemon. The loosest connection I'd say is Steelix and Golem which are both trade evolutions and final forms of pokemon traditionally used by Rock gym leaders of the past.

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

Vs. Leader Candice

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

Weavile, Lv. 62

Candice was actually originally one of the scarier opponents as Weavile was just durable enough to survive an Overheat from Radio and it made choosing a lead very uncomfortable. However, it didn't take long at all to realize that Weavile's only Ice attack was Avalanche which always goes last. That means Meteor can easily lead off here and take it out with Earthquake.

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

Abomasnow, Lv. 61

Abomasnow is a bit more resilient but thanks to Fire Fang doesn't stand much of a chance.

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

Mamoswine, Lv. 61

This would be followed up by Mamoswine who I was initially worried about Mamoswine's bulk, but it turns out I can easily tear right through it with Earthquake.

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

Froslass, Lv. 63

Froslass was a little scary on the surface. In-game, I would assume it to know Ice Shard and refused to stay in with Meteor. Turns out it doesn't know Ice Shard at all, but that's irrelevant. Switching also helps me get Exp on other pokemon!

Since I typically have a higher level, switching to Polaris is a pretty solid move. Polaris has Snow Cloak all the same as her Froslass, so we're on even playing grounds in regards to evasion in the hail. And Shadow Ball will dish out a lot more pain than her Ominous Wind.

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

Glaceon, Lv. 65

Last but not least is her Glaceon. It's inevitably gonna go for Shadow Ball, so this is a good opportunity for another switch.

Both Satellite and Comet are capable of handling things from here. Worst case scenario, Garchomp can also hit it with Earthquake for another easy KO.

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

And that's Candice! She was pretty tricky at first, but once I came to understand the limitations of her movesets, she was a lot easier to overcome.

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

Vs. Leader Volkner

Can you guess what the strategy for Volkner is? You'll never guess.

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

Jolteon, Lv. 61

For his lead of Jolteon, I think I'll lead with Meteor and go for Earthquake.

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

Luxray, Lv. 62

For his next pokemon, Luxray, I need to be really careful of Ice Fang. Just to be safe, I should probably go for Earthquake.

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

Lanturn, Lv. 63

Up next he has a Lanturn! He's got more defense against Ground types now! This knows Ice Beam, too, so I should be careful. Again, I think I should go for Earthquake.

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

Electivire, Lv. 65

Oh man, Electivire! I should probably go for Earthquake here, just to be safe.

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

Raichu, Lv. 61

Okay, Raichu... do you think Earthquake will be enough? I think I should go for it. Whew! It worked!

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

Poor Platinum Volkner is forever doomed to be crippled by Earthquake and nothing else. Really doing him dirty, guys.

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

Vs. Pokemon Trainer Cheryl

And now we step into the territory of the Ally trainers. These trainers only have regular trainer battle music which is a bit of a shame. I kind of wish they'd at least have given them the rival battle theme. Regardless, don't understimate them because these are some of the trickiest Battleground trainers you can face, with some of the scariest pokemon, too! They aren't limited by type but rather EV yield! If you find the right trainer, you may find them especially useful for EV training. Only one of them can appear a day and they can always be found at the bar. Considering some of them look especially young... well, I hope there's no alcohol being served here.

The first of these is Cheryl from Eterna Forest, who sepcializes in HP!

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

Wobbuffet, Lv. 61

Cheryll opens up with a Wobbuffet which I can usually catch trying to set up Safeguard to take it out in two hits with Shadow Ball without fear of Mirror Coat. Sometimes, though, it does use Mirror Coat instead of Safeguard on that first turn which can just ruin your day.

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

Hariyama, Lv. 62

Of course, this thing's gonna go for Stealth Rock which means it's time to switch away.

Meteor is gonna have to do. With an Earthquake I can take Hariyama out no problem.

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

Wailord, Lv. 63

This is another matchup I had to retrain myself to approach differently. No, Meteor's Earthquake is not strong enough to OHKO Wailord at full HP, and it will use Avalanche and it will OHKO me despite my Yache Berry.

The best approach here is to simply bring Radio into the battle and go for Discharge. That's an easy OHKO!

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

Blissey, Lv. 65

Next is Blissey who is a bit tricky to handle.

I could generally switch back into Meteor to take Blissey out painlessly with Earthquake, but I generally prefer to get that massive Exp boost on Polaris who I find to usually be falling behind in levels compared to the others on the team. This matchup is a bit of a stalemate, but I can usually come out on top if I stay consistent with Ice Beam. Blissey does try for Toxic and stall tactics, though, so this can be a bit of a mess if things don't go too well for me. I may have to give up and bring Meteor or Satellite in to do the finishing blow depending on how much HP Blissey has remaining.

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

Drifblim, Lv. 61

If I had a really lucky matchup against Blissey, then I might be able to also beat Drifblim with an Ice Fang and Ice Shard combo here. But more likely than not, Toxic damage has built up too much by this point, or Polaris won't be out at all.

Drifblim likes to stall out Toxic damage with Protect and Fly, so it's generally pretty easy to switch in on it and catch it off guard. THat's where Moon comes in. A couple of Ice Beams and Drifblim is down for the count.

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

And that's Cheryl! She's come a long way from the worried girl in the forest.

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

Vs. Pokemon Trainer Mira

Next up is Mira, the lost girl of Wayward Cave who specializes in Sp. Attack!

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

Porygon-Z, Lv. 61

I find the best approach for this matchup is a simple mirror match with Satellite. Tri-Attack does plenty of damage against her Porygon-Z.

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

Togekiss, Lv. 63

Staying in on this matchup isn't wise.

While another Mirror Match is tempting, I think going for Radio is the smartest choice. I can switch in on an Aura Sphere for free and take it out with a couple of Discharge.

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

Gengar, Lv. 61

It's tempting to stay in and use Ominous Wind, but that's obviously a bad choice. It's time to make another obvious switch.

This time we bring Satellite into play and go for Psychic to pick Gengar off.

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

Alakazam, Lv. 65

Once again, we've gotta switch because Alakazam knows Focus Blast!

This time, we go into Polaris who comes at Alakazam with a couple of Shadow Ball! He tries to build up his defenses with Calm Mind, but it's just not enough to keep it alive and well.

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

Magnezone, Lv. 62

Lastly, we have Magnezone. There's obviously not much I can do with this matchup.

The obvious switch here is into Meteor, but I like to go for Radio to spread out Exp better. Both can easily take out Magnezone with Overheat and Earthquake. Radio has the added bonus of resisting Flash Canon for the switch-in!

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

And that's Mira!

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

Vs. Pokemon Trainer Riley

Our next opponent is Riley from Iron Island who specializes in attack!

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

Absol, Lv. 61

I lead off with Comet against Absol, opening with Water Pulse to try and turn Absol's attack stat against itself. A few Water Pulses and/or Air Slashes later and it goes down.

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

Ursaring, Lv. 61

Ursaring is up next and, while a series of Air Slashes can get a good foot in, I think the best approach is to simply retreat here.

Moon can switch in on an Avalanche and take Ursaring out with a few Surfs.

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

Metagross, Lv. 62

Metagross is up next and that's not too great for me.

I can switch Radio in on a Hammer Arm and hit Metagross hard with a Overheat for the KO.

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

Salamence, Lv. 63

Up next is Salamence and again, I can retreat to avoid losing my berry to Crunch.

The obvious switch here is Empoleon who can take Salamence out easily enough with Ice Beam.

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

Lucario, Lv. 65

Once again, we've gotta switch.

We can bring Radio back in on Lucario's Close Combat. And now, with our Sp. Attack restored, we can take out Lucario with Overheat as well!

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

And that's all it takes for Riley!

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

Vs. Pokemon Trainer Marley

Up next is Marley, the quiet girl from Victory Road who specializes in Speed!

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

Ninjask, Lv. 61

Marley's Ninjask is totally unprepared to deal with Polaris. An Ice Fang and Ice Shard later and it's done for.

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

Weavile, Lv. 63

Weavile is next and it's not a good matchup for Polaris, so it's time to retreat.

I can bring Moon in on this Weavile's Night Slash. Unfortunately, this lady does have Ice Shard, so Meteor isn't the smartest idea. With a couple of Surfs, though, it'll eventually go down.

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

Electrode, Lv. 61

I always expect these guys to explode when I see them, but that's not entirely accurate. This Electrode doesn't have Explosion at all.

This is where we bring Meteor back in on Electrode's Thunder for an Earthquake to tear right through Electrode!

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

Crobat, Lv. 62

This Crobat likes to try and boost its evasion, so it's best to try and KO it ASAP before I have to rely on Meteor's Aerial. Ace to chip away at its health.

Switching over to Satellite and going for Psychic is one way to accomplish this. I can hit it with a couple of Psychics and hopefully not miss. If I do and Satellite ends up going down, I can usually bring Meteor back out and finish the job with Aerial Ace to avoid the headache of Double Team.

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

Arcanine, Lv. 65

Lastly we have Arcanine, who I'm best off dealing with after another switch.

Meteor winds up switching in on a Flare Blitz if it's not out already, and a single Earthquake is enough to take out Arcanine.

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

And that's Marley!

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

Vs. Pokemon Trainer Buck

Last but not least, we've got Buck from Stark Mountain who specializes in Defenses!

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

Shuckle, Lv. 61

Funnily enough, this thing is absolutely helpless against Steel types. Its only means of harming the opponent are Sandstorm and Toxic, neither of which work on Moon. So, I can take my time ramming it with Surf and even stall out for the Sandstorm to mull over before finishing it off so the Sandstorm doesn't end up benefitting other pokemon.

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

Claydol, Lv. 65

Claydol tends to come out next. Buck likely has the intention of exploiting Moon's weakness to ground. Luckily, I have a good switch, too.

Comet can dodge Earth Power and counter with a Super-effective Water Pulse. A couple of those and Claydol shuld go down!

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

Dusknoir, Lv. 63

This one's a bit of a toss-up, but I can try and take Dusknoir out with a couple of Air Slashes. It's likely he can get a Thunder or Ice Punch off, though.

Depending on Dusknoir's remaining HP, I can either bring in Polaris and go for Shadow Ball to finish him off, or I can bring in Meteor and go for Earthquake. Both should work decently well.

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

Torkoal, Lv. 61

Up next is Torkoal who is obviously going for Eruption.

I can bring in Meteor to go for Earthquake and finish it off easily enough.

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

Umbreon, Lv. 62

Last but certainly not least is the most annoying of Buck's pokemon, Umbreon. Its Confuse Ray paired with Double Team is the main hassle. I'm not going to OHKO it with Earthquake and that Confuse Ray can cause problems, especially if Umbreon already gets a breakaway in building its evasion. It's rough, but with a little bit of patience, even if Meteor ends up going down, it just takes one more solid hit to KO Umbreon with any other pokemon.

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

And that's Buck, the last of the trainers here!

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

Now, I'd like to note that all of these strategies are purely off of memory. They aren't necessarily set in stone and there may be certain details I have wrong. But for the most part, I'm able to win these battles consistently and get a decent spread of Exp for the most part. Individual battles also often differ based on what pokemon are lower level and need Exp over others. I might push myself to use pokemon like Polaris and Satellite more than pokemon like Moon and Meteor who are easy to use in any situation.

But in addition to everyone you can battle inside the Battleground, there's also another you can battle outside.

In Diamond and Pearl, your rival could be found in the Fight Area where he could be battled every Saturday and Sunday, and his team would get stronger based on how many times you've entered the Hall of Fame, causing him to become the toughest opponent in the game by the end. Unfortunately, that requries a massive amount of grinding beating the Elite Four 20 times. Considering the only thing that changes is his levels and my levels will be significantly higher after accomplishing such a feat, I don't think the tougher battles will actually be all that interesting. That said, I still intend to battle Percy every change I get alongside the battles inside the Battleground. So without further ado, let's get on with the show!

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

Vs. Percy #7

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

Starptor, Lv. 61

As per usual, Percy starts with his Staraptor. The most obvious counter to this lead I have is Radio. A simple Discharge is enough to take Staraptor out right away.

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

Torterra, Lv. 65

If Overheat isn't quite enough to take out Gardenia's Torterra, it's certainly not enough to deal with Percy's. So we'll have to apporach this the same way as with Gardenia.

I switch Moon in on a Crunch and then wipe Torterra right out with an Ice Beam!

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

Heracross, Lv. 61

Heracross comes next, but it goes down to a simple Drill Peck from Moon, no need for any special treatment here!

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

Floatzel, Lv. 59

Floatzel knows Brick Break, of course, so it's not good to keep Moon out here!

I switch Radio in on a Brick Break to avoid damage and spit out a Discharge to dispatch Floatzel quickly.

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

Snorlax, Lv. 63

Now it's a Snorlax! It knows Crunch so I need to be careful using Radio. I'm not actually sure if Meteor is capable of OHKO-ing Snorlax from full health, so I try to approach this more carefully than just switching straight into her.

I switch Comet in on a Crunch. From here, I go for a few AncientPower in hopes of stat boosts to baton pass to Meteor. Eventually, Comet runs low on HP so I either switch if I don't have any stat boosts or Baton Pass if I do.

The stat boosts aren't totally necessary, but they certainly feel good to have! An Earthquake from Meteor can tear right through Snorlax at least as long as it's damaged a little bit.

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

Rapidash, Lv. 59

And then there's that poor, poor Rapidash who simply always gets shafted at the end of every battle. They can't all be winners!

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

And that's that for Percy!

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

Now then, there are at least a few more features I'd like to touch on before moving on to our final update on this game for now. Among these are another online feature I haven't really discussed yet as well as the fact that I'd like to at least go over some surface-level coverage of the Battle Frontier. For our final update, we'll be climbing the Pokemon League and rematching with the Elite Four! Everything else from then on is really just a grind to see a little bit of extra content. I don't think any of that is actually necessary to cover for this thread.

So, next time, we'll be taking a look at the Wi-Fi Plaza! See you then!

May 1, 2023

Before we get ahead of ourselves and jump into our final post for Pokemon Platinum's initial coverage, we're going to take a step back and cover some basic wi-fi functionalities that I've yet to mention.

First off, there's a very small feature I noticed on the main menu that I don't think was available for Diamond and Pearl. "Wii message settings." Apparently, you can connect your copy of Pokemon Platinum to your Wii and after the initial setup, anytime a trade occurs over the GTS, a notification will appear on your Wii Message Board! I imagine this might've been a pretty convenient feature back in the day. Of course, with Wifi being defunct now, it's not a very useful tool anymore. Still, I've been talking about all of this Wifi stuff being defunct this whole time but there are fanmade proxy servers designed to keep these Wifi services online. You can find ways to access them online today, but I'm not going to be digging that deep into it. Mainly because my router still doesn't work with old DS games.

Unfortunately, that means accessibility to the major feature we'll be discussing today is limited to whatever I can find online. But before we get into that, there's just one more thing that I'd like to discuss.

===========

Battle Frontier

As I mentioned before, we're not going to cover the Battle Frontier thoroughly just yet for reasons that'll become clear by the time we finish Gen IV. But just like in Emerald, I also feel like it just makes sense to save the Battle Frontier for the end of Gen IV rather than smack in the middle of it all. But I figured this is such a major part of Platinum's post-game, and it's tangentially related to the Wi-Fi Club, so I figured it was a bit of a prerequisite for today's main topic.

When you first enter the Battle Frontier, your Vs. Recorder will be upgraded by the attendants at the entrance. It turns out the hidden features I alluded to when we first got the item are actually not added until now. They allow the Vs. Recorder to record battles at the Battle Frontier as well as online! But let's not get too distracted and with all that and focus on what the Battle Frontier has in store for us.

This Battle Frontier is significantly smaller than the one in Emerald, and it only consists of five battle facilities as opposed to the seven in Emerald. That said, only two of the five facilities are similar to facilities that were in Emerald: The Battle Tower and the Battle Factory. The Battle Frontier functions similarly to how it did in Emerald. You'll participate in one of the Facilities. Each facility has its own unique rules forcing you to alter your strategies in order to test your skills in ways that standard battling might not allow. Each facility differs, but in general you'll have to win 7 battles in a row in order to clear a "round" and win BP. Your winning streak will increase each round and as your winning streak gets higher, your opponents will get tougher and the BP you obtain will increase, too! And if you can clear three rounds in a row without losing your streak, you'll be challenged by the facility's Frontier Brain, the mastermind of the facility's ruleset, for the chance to earn a Silver Print of a photo depicting you, the frontier brain, and the facility, these prints are Gen IV's counterpart to the Frontier Symbols of Emerald. And if you continue for seven rounds in a row, you'll get the chance to battle the Frontier Brain with a tougher team for a Gold Print! In addition to the prints, you'll also win bonus BP for battling the Frontier Brain. These BP can be exchanged for various goods in the little marketplace at the center of the frontier.

Most facilities have a Single and Doubles format. The frontier brains can only be battled in Singles format, so if you're after the Prints, make sure you're playing there! There are also two divisions provided at most facilities: Lv. 50 in which every pokemon is scaled down to Lv. 50, and open level in which every opponent is scaled to the level of your highest-level pokemon, or to the minimum of Lv. 60. I'm not sure if your pokemon have to be Lv. 50 or under to participate in Lv. 50 division like in Gen 3, or of pokemon above Lv. 50 will be scaled down to Lv. 50 while battling at the facility.

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

Battle Tower

The most prominent of these Battle Facilities is the Battle Tower that overlooks the entire frontier at the opposite end of the entrance, and this is the most straightforward of the facilities. It's become somewhat of a staple, appearing in every Pokemon game since Crystal with or without a Battle Frontier. Just like in Emerald, though, the Battle Frontier's Battle Tower looks significantly larger than the Battle Tower form Diamond and Pearl.

The Battle Tower is a series of standard 3v3 battles, or 4v4 in Doubles or Multi- format.

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

Battle Factory

This is the other battle facility that returns from Emerald. This one's less of a staple so it's a bit more exciting to see again now! The rules here are similar to the Battle Tower, but with a special twist that you'll be selecting from a small selection of rental pokemon, rather than using your own pokemon. This makes the facility a lot more beginner-friendly as you don't have to worry about training up a competitive team. You'll need a lot of knowledge, and a bit of luck, to build the best team you can. After winning a battle, you can choose to swap one of your pokemon with one of your opponents'. This is often a good idea because, as the rounds go on, your opponents will be using progressively tougher and tougher pokemon while you'll still be using Round 1 pokemon if you're not swapping. But make sure to keep your team well balanced and prepared for anything! In double format, these battles are still 3v3 rather than 4v4. This is the typical standard for Double Battles even if it may seem a little strange.

Since you can't provide your own pokemon, instead of Lv. 50 and Open level, this facility offers a format with Lv. 50 pokemon and a format with Lv. 100 pokemon.

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

Battle Arcade

Continuing clockwise around the frontier, the Battle Arcade is next! This facility keeps you on your toes by introducing an extra element of luck to your battles. Pokemon that enter here have their levels temporarily reduced to 50 and held items temporarily removed. Before every battle, a roulette decides various effects that could apply to your team, your opponent's team, or both teams. These effects can include things like applying status conditions to pokemon, adjusting the weather conditions for the battle, giving pokemon held items, even increasing pokemon's levels or reducing their HP!

I like to see this facility as an advancement of the Battle Pike from Emerald, where luck would dictate the sorts of hazards your pokemon might face. But it's streamlined to focus exclusively on battles.

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

Battle Castle

The Battle Castle is a sort of endurance challenge. Like the Battle Arcade, your pokemon will be temporarily stripped of their held items and scaled down to Lv. 50. The main gimmick here is that your pokemon will not be automatically healed between battles. So HP and PP conservation is a must! You're really going to appreciate having moves like Flamethrower over moves like Fire Blast here. Of course, it's going to be difficult battling through 3, let alone 7 rounds without healing at all. So to assist you, along the way you'll be earning Castle Points (CP). These are a special currency used only within the Battle Castle and they can be exchanged for healing, items, and special advantages during battle. You'll start your first round with 10 CP. After the fact, you'll earn CP based on your performances in battle. By winning battles quickly and minimizing damage received, you can earn lots more CP. You can also spend CP to increase the level of your opponent's pokemon, which will earn you large returns on a small investment if you can come out on top.

CP can be spent in various categories: Advantages, such as peeking at your opponent's pokemon and increasing pokemon levels, healing, and purchasing held items. Each category can be ranked up with CP in order to expand the options in that category. By ranking up advantages, you can see your next opponent's movesets. By ranking up healing, you can heal PP as well as HP. And by ranking up Held Items, you can purchase a wider variety of held items.

CP, as well as the ranks of each category, will carry over from round to round as you build your win streak. Of course, if you lose your win streak, you'll lose all CP you've gathered, too, and have to start over from Round 1 with 10 CP.

The Battle Castle seems to be an advancement of the Battle Pyramid from Emerald with its endurance challenge. Again, it's more honed in to focus exclusively on the battling and resource management. That said, the means of earning additional CP by performing well in battles reminds me a bit of the Battle Arena's judgment as well.

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

Battle Hall

The Battle Hall is the most unique among the new facilities. This facility is designed around rounds of 10 quick 1v1 battles. You'll select a single pokemon to battle with, or two pokemon if you're playing doubles format. That pokemon must be, at minimum, Lv. 30. At the start, your opponents will be notably low level. Before each battle, you'll choose a type to battle against. Your opponent will use a pokemon of your selected type. The catch is that every time you battle the same type, that type will rank up. The higher the rank of the type, the smaller the level gap will be between their pokemon and yours. As your winning streak gets higher, the level gap will shrink more as well independently from the type's rank. The key to large win streaks is to save the types you're good against for later rounds and push yourself to struggle against the tougher types early on when the level gap is largest. Don't get any bright ideas of trying to switch up your pokemon between rounds to always have the advantage against the lowest-ranked types for easy wins. If you enter with a different pokemon, you'll lose your current winning streak.

I'm not sure I can really say this facility comes off as an advancement on any of the previous battle facilities. Though the focus on stardom is thematically reminiscent of the Battle Dome. And the focus on the pokemon more than the trainer is also thematically reminiscent of the Battle Palace. But gameplay wise, this facility doesn't quite play out like the others.

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

The BP you obtain from the Battle Frontier can be exchanged for various items at the marketplace. The blue and red stalls offer the same prizes as the receptionists at the Battle Tower in Diamond and Pearl. Nothing too crazy there. As for the green stall, it's a bit special. You can purchase Scratch-off tickets, 3 for 1BP!

You can choose three of four colors: Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow. Each scratch-off ticket has a list of possible prizes at the top screen. On the bottom screen, you'll scratch the squares off with your stylus. Once you start scratching, you have to finish scratching the square, so no cheating! If you can match up three of the same pokemon, you'll get the corresponding prize! Ditto counts as a wild card and can stand in for any pokemon.

These scratch-off tickets aren't at all worth it, if I'm honest. They always have a chance of giving you a Nugget which is the best possible prize. Other than that, it's just berries that you can get for free from the Berry lady in Pastoria City and grow infinitely. Maybe there's more excitement with this if you don't spend the time plating and farming berries every day like I do, but it's still not very worth it in my eyes, especially since you're not even guaranteed the reward you might want. I'd really recommend just saving the BP for the much better rewards from the other stands.

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

Of course, I'll cover all of the facilities in greater detail when we get around to actually playing through them. I'm also going to be avoiding talking about the Frontier Brains themselves until we get around to them. I just wanted to cover the facilities themselves now because they're relevant to our next feature.

===========

Wall all know that, in the basement of Pokemon Centers, you have the Pokemon Wi-Fi Club where you can receive a Pal Pad, register friend codes, and connect with friends all over the world for battles, trades, poffin making, etc. There's even a voice chat! But in Platinum particularly, there's a couple of new options. You can now invite friends to take on Battle Facilities together with you. But in addition to that, there's also the Wi-Fi Plaza.

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

Wi-Fi Plaza

Unfortunately, my knowledge of the Wi-Fi Plaza is very limited as I've never had access to it even as a kid due to my router's security not being compatible with my DS. Even today, the same thing holds me back from using proxy servers to access these features.

What I do remember, though, was that this place was one of the biggest focuses of Platinum's advertising... for... some reason. Honestly, form what I'm looking at of it, it doesn't seem like anything all that significant. Certainly not as big as the Battle Frontier.

Basically, you would enter the Wi-Fi Plaza from the Wi-Fi Club in Pokemon Centers. Inside, you would arrive in one of five lobbies: A green lobby themed around grass-types, a red lobby themed around fire-types, a blue lobby themed around water types, a supposed yellow lobby themed around electric-types that I can't seem to find screenshots of online, and finally a secret, rare, white lobby themed around the pokemon Mew.

From what I understand, this Mew lobby was introduced as part of an event and was added into the regular rotation as a rare lobby.

The specific lobby you would enter is random every time you enter the Wi-Fi Plaza. So, what can you do in the Wi-Fi Plaza? Well, for one, you can actually run around and interact with other players! At the time, it was a pretty cool feature because the only other place you could really do that was locally in the Sinnoh Underground.

When you arrive in the Wi-Fi Plaza, you'll find a random tap toy on the bottom screen. These tap toys will have various effects when you tap on them. You can exchange tap toys with your friends. These toys have various visual or auditorial effects that can be heard or seen by anyone around you in the room.

In addition to the bells, cymbals, popper, and balloons you see above, there's also a "Signal," "Sparkle," "Ripple," "Whirl," and "Drum."

Each of these tap toys can be upgraded by winning against your friends in the plaza's minigames! There are three minigames that can be played with 2-4 players and they're all designed around the DS's touch screen controls. I'm not really sure what "upgrading" a tap toy means. I assume the effect becomes more dramatic. It seems like the objective of the Wi-Fi Plaza is to win the most minigames and upgrade your Tap Toy the most.

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

Swalot Plop

In Swalot Plop, you'll toss berries from the bottom screen by sliding them upward toward a rotating 3D Swalot machine on the top screen. You'll earn 100 points for landing a berry in Swalots mouth. You'll gain 200 points if you land a second consecutively, and 300 points for the third consecutive berry on.

Once time is up, a second round will begin where the Swalot will begin to open and close its mouth. It's much harder to land berries during this round, so each berry is worth triple what its original value would be!

The winner gets their Tap Toy upgraded.

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

Mime Jr. Top

This game tasks you with keeping a Mime Jr. balanced on a ball. It's kind of difficult to get a mental image of how this game plays out, but from what I understnad, the goal is to have your Mime Jr. stay on the ball longer than your opponents. The Mime Jr. on the touchscreen is yours and your opponents are on the top screen. You'll spin the ball around to keep Mime Jr. from losing its balance and the longer it maintains its balance, the higher your score! Keeping Mime Jr. on the ball without it falling off will resort in a combo multiplier of sorts. But from what I can tell, the game ends when you're the last one standing so I'm not really sure what the purpose of the score is since you're always going to have the highest score for staying on the longest.

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

Wobbuffet Pop

The last minigame of interest here is Wobbuffet Pop, and it's perhaps the most vaguely described. It's hard for me to wrap my head around the details of this one in particular. From what I can tell, this is a cooperative game as opposed to the other two where you compete for victory. The objective is to pop 10 balloons by pumping them up with the Wobbuffet-shaped air pump on the bottom screen. All four players' pumps go to the same balloon. On the top screen, you can see the balloon you're trying to pop as well as some Wynaut that look like they're bouncing around the screen. Both Bulbapedia and Serebii describe them as "obstacles," but fail to elaborate on what exactly they do to impede your ability to pop the balloons. I really have no idea what they do. Maybe they'll block your air flow forcing you to time your pumps more carefully? I suppose that makes the most sense.

Anyway, if all 10 balloons are popped within the time limit, then everyone's Tap Toy gets upgraded!

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

In addition to the minigames and Tap Toys, one last attraction in the Wi-Fi Plaza are the footprint panels. This is just a cute little minigame where you and your friends can select the footprint of one of your active party members and stamp them on the board. Pokemon that don't have footprints will instead stamp a wifi icon on the panel. Arceus apparently stamps a special wifi icon that's differently colored, according to Bulbapedia. Serebii claims that if a pair of footprints are stamped together, they'll walk off the edge of the screen. And if enough footprints are stamped, a special animation will play that clears the board.

Aside from gameplay features, there's also a globe that allows you to see the locations of all players who've registered their location at the GTS, and you can see a list of recent events. You can also check special trainer cards to see players' current Tap Toys and recent activities in the Wifi plaza.

There's also a survey on a machine tied to a balloon at the center of the lobby which you can answer. The survey would change every week. You can see the answers to the surveys of previous weeks.

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

Your time in the WiFi Plaza is limited, unfortunately. So make sure to do everything you want to do! You can tell when the plaza is about to close because the lights will begin to dim and fireworks will begin playing. It's a neat little festival! Near closing time, you can see the results of the latest survey topic.

When it's closing time, you ride off on a special boat themed after a pokemon! Tapping on the bottom screen will cause the boat to play a special animation, such as Charizard breathing fire!

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

So yeah, all in all, the Wi-Fi Plaza is a cute little feature, but there isn't much of actual substance to it. I can see myself enjoying it a bit as a kid if I had access to the wifi features of the game. I suppose the minigames are trying to emulate some of the charm of the kid's corner minigames, much like the Joyful Game Corner in FRLG and Emerald, but I just don't think it scratches the same itch since they require me to hit up friends over wifi just to play some silly time-wasting minigames. I imagine most people getting together to play Pokemon want to battle or trade rather than do stuff like this. It might be a fun novelty, and there are some pretty cool details in here that I really do wish I could experience at least once, I can't say it's something I could see myself coming back to very often just because of how much preparation it requires.

Now, it would be a different story if the Wi-Fi plaza allowed you to play with randos online. But from what I can tell, the only other players who show up in your lobby are your registered friends. Even still, this is clearly just a fun feature for kids and I'm sure it was able to generate a lot of excitement for its target audience. When I was a kid I got a lot more amusement than I probably should have just setting off my own traps in the Sinnoh Underground, so I can imagine some of these features actually being pretty fun for me.

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

Anyway, as far as I'm aware, that's the extent of our coverage of online features! Sorry I wound up kind of frankensteining two posts into one! I actually had completely forgotten that the Battle Tower was also included in Wi-Fi funtionality and it would only stand to reason that would extend to the rest of the Battle Frontier as well. But I do believe that's... pretty much all of the miscellaneous content of the game.

Next time should be the finale of our initial coverage of Platinum as we rematch the Elite Four! See you soon for that!

May 3, 2023

Pokemon League

We finally return to the Pokemon League! We've covered everything I intend to cover for now, but there is one last thing I'd like to touch on and that's the Elite Four rematches. Much like in FireRed and LeafGreen, the Elite Four actually gets tougher after you clear the event at Stark Mountain here in Platinum. This is why the initial levels were slightly lower than in Diamond and Pearl, because the teams you'll be battling on these rematches are actually higher level than in Diamond and Pearl. Admittedly, I'm not actually sure these rematches are totally necessary to cover, though. Unlike in FireRed and LeafGreen, the Elite Four members don't use a wider variety of pokemon like I would've expected. They continue to just use the same pokemon and the same movesets, but all their pokemon have an additional 16 levels. Though one particular opponent might surprise you with some unexpected differences.

Without further ado, let's get into the rematches!

===========

My Team:

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

Moon (Empoleon F); Lv. 74

Item: Shuca Berry

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Ice Beam, Aqua Jet, Surf, Drill Peck

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

Radio (Rotom); Lv. 73

Item: Colbur Berry

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Discharge, Thunder Wave, Ominous Wind, Overheat

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Comet (Togekiss M); Lv. 74

Item: Razor Fang

Ability: Serene Grace | Moves: Water Pulse, Air Slash, AncientPower, Baton Pass

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

Meteor (Garchomp M); Lv. 75

Item: Yache Berry

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Dragon Claw, Fire Fang, Aerial Ace, Earthquake

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Satellite (Porygon-Z); Lv. 73

Item: Chople Berry

Ability: Download | Moves: Psychic, Charge Beam, Recover, Tri-Attack

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Polaris (Froslass F); Lv. 73

Item: Kasib Berry

Ability: Snow Cloak | Moves: Ice Shard, Destiny Bond, Ice Fang, Shadow Ball

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

Elite Four

With our team brought together again, we march forward to test our strength!

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

Elite Four [1F]

Up first, we've got the Bug specialist Aaron! Unfortunately, the dialogue doesn't seem to change at all, which is a bit disappointing.

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

Elite Four #1: Aaron

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Yanmega, Lv. 59

Right away, we've got an easy KO. With AncientPower, this matchup is free. I even got a stat boost!

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Drapion, Lv. 69

Anticipating Ice Fang, the best option here was to retreat with Baton Pass to pass my stat boost along.

I brought in Radio figuring he'd be a better matchup. I didn't expect an easy KO with Moon and I'd probably take an Earthquake or two. Radio is immune to Earthquake and resistant to Cross Poison, plus Overheat can take care of the following Bug-types, so this seemed like the best option. Even with the stat boost, though, it still took two Discharges to take out Drapion.

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Scizor, Lv. 65

Overheat is the obvious check here. Take care of Scizor right away.

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Heracross, Lv. 67

I may have been good for another Overheat, but if not I'd be taking a night slash which wasn't on my agenda. Instead, I went ahead and retreated.

Out came Moon who took the Night Slash like a champ and took Heracross out with Drill Peck before it could even consider using Close Combat. The Elite Four is a whole different experience when you're higher level!

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Vespiquen, Lv. 66

Vespiquen was a bit of a joke this time around. Two Ice Beams was all it took to get the win, all it tried for was Defend Order which was just too little too late. Aaron didn't even bother dropping any Full Restores!

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

And with that, our first Elite Four member is down! On to the next one!

MVP: Radio

Every participating pokemon pulled their weight pretty equally, but I think Radio contributed the most with this victory. Drapion was easily the toughest opponent here and Radio took it out like a champ.

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

Elite Four [2F]

Up next is Agatha's Sinnoh Doppelganger: Bertha!

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

Elite Four #2: Bertha

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Whiscash, Lv. 66

Once again, I led with Comet. With a couple of Air Slashes, Whiscash was done. I was lucky enough to get a flinch, too!

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

Golem, Lv. 68

And then came a foolish decision to send Golem out. The poor thing didn't know what hit it when I went for Water Pulse.

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Rhyperior, Lv. 71

And the same story with Rhyperior. How unfortunate...

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Gliscor, Lv. 69

There really wasn't much Bertha seemed capable of doing against Comet. Gliscor also went down to a single Water Pulse.

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

Hippowdon, Lv. 68

But hey, at least her Hippowdon got to get some damage off! Water Pulse didn't OHKO it! ...I did confuse it and it hit itself in confusion the one chance it got to attack but, hey, Sand Stream did a little bit of damage!

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

Sorry Bertha, it looks like you weren't quite prepared for a clean sweep.

MVP: Comet

A clean sweep means an obvious MVP, of course.

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

Elite Four [3F]

Maybe the third time will be the charm? No, probably not. It's the ever-Earthquake-fearing Flint.

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

Elite Four #3: Flint

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Houndoom, Lv. 68

Look, I'm sorry I gotta do it to 'em, but if it ain't broke, I'm not gonna fix it. I can't be held responsible for the fact that the devs didn't want to do anything to protect him from the Garchomp they know everyone and their grandmother is gonna be using. Earthquake takes out Houndoom.

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Magmortar, Lv. 73

Magmortar's his toughest pokemon and it quaked faster than the earth.

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Rapidash, Lv. 69

Not at all gonna work there.

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Flareon, Lv. 71

Or there.

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Infernape, Lv. 71

And certainly not there either.

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

Look, I love the characters of Flint and Volkner, but their teams are both equally atrocious. I have more difficulties with Roark and Byron.

MVP: Meteor

Who would'a guessed this one?

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

Elite Four [4F]

Last but not least, it's the psychic bookworm Lucian!

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

Elite Four #4: Lucian

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

Mr. Mime, Lv. 69

A couple of Shadow Balls from Polaris did the trick for Mr. Mime. Simple enough here, though Mr. Mime was able to set up Light Screen which was a little annoying.

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

Bronzong, Lv. 70

And of course in comes Bronzong to capitalize on that extra protection. I'm obviously not staying in with this matchup.

Here comes Meteor with Fire Fang! A solid counter to the Light Screen Bronzong! I switched in on Calm Mind, but it ultimately didn't matter since it didn't help Bronzong survive any Physical hits. Two Fire Fangs was enough to put him out of his misery.

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

Espeon, Lv. 71

Up next it's Espeon who went down to an Earthquake... yup, I think you know where this is going.

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

Alakazam, Lv. 72

Alakazam was actually able to outspeed Meteor! But even still, it couldn't do much and an Earthquake took it out anyway.

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

Gallade, Lv. 75

How scary! Gallade could outspeed Meteor, too! And I had to use two Earthquakes to take it out! Yeah, it still couldn't do enough to finish me off.

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

And that's the last of the Elite Four. But of course, as we all know, the challenge isn't over until we take the last step and have our fated rematch with Cynthia!

MVP: Meteor

It was mostly a clean sweep. Close enough that the decision is easy enough!

===========

My Team:

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

Moon (Empoleon F); Lv. 75

Item: Shuca Berry

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Ice Beam, Aqua Jet, Surf, Drill Peck

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

Radio (Rotom); Lv. 74

Item: Colbur Berry

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Discharge, Thunder Wave, Ominous Wind, Overheat

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

Comet (Togekiss M); Lv. 76

Item: Razor Fang

Ability: Serene Grace | Moves: Water Pulse, Air Slash, AncientPower, Baton Pass

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

Meteor (Garchomp M); Lv. 76

Item: Yache Berry

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Dragon Claw, Fire Fang, Aerial Ace, Earthquake

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

Satellite (Porygon-Z); Lv. 74

Item: Chople Berry

Ability: Download | Moves: Psychic, Charge Beam, Recover, Tri-Attack

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

Polaris (Froslass F); Lv. 74

Item: Kasib Berry

Ability: Snow Cloak | Moves: Ice Shard, Destiny Bond, Ice Fang, Shadow Ball

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

Elite Four [5F - Champion's Chamber]

This is it, the final battle of Platinum! At least, for now.

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

Vs. Champion Cynthia

Unlike the other rematches, Cynthia's team actually has some surprises in store! Not only are the levels increased, but some of her movesets are also altered slightly. Expect some unexpected attacks!

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Spiritomb, Lv. 74

I decided to open up guns-a-blazing with Meteor to take care of Spiritomb with a couple of Earthquakes. She took some damage from Dark Pulse, but it's nothing too major!

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

Garchomp, Lv. 78

Now this was a mirror match I was confident I couldn't handle. So, I did the obvious thing and retreated!

On the surface, Moon was a questionable choice. But she resisted Dragon Rush and her Shuca Berry helped protect her from Earthquake as well. Of course, this buys me plenty of time to unpack Moon's Ice Beam for the KO!

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

Lucario, Lv. 76

I had a pretty obvious plan to deal with Lucario. Naturally, I was expecting a Fighting attack, so...

In comes Radio! But to my surprise, Lucario actually went for an Earthquake! I was still able to dodge that, too, but this was the point where I realized the movesets differed. Cynthia's Lucario definitely didn't have Earthquake before! Anyway, one Overheat later and Lucario was done for.

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

Roserade, Lv. 74

While I'd love to stay and chat, the drop in Sp. Attack probably wasn't going to do me any favors, so I had to let Radio pull back for now.

I switched Comet in on a Shadow Ball which was a pleasant surprise! I was actually expecting Energy Ball or Extrasensory. Good call on my end, then! From here, we had a rather interesting stalemate where Comet hit Roserade with an Air Slash and caused her to flinch, but Cynthia healed off the damage. On the turn Cynthia healed, I happened to miss with Air Slash, so Roserade was able to get a hit in. She went for Sludge Bomb which was only able to do so much to Comet. One more Air Slash and Roserade was done for!

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

Milotic, Lv. 74

Milotic is a tad more annoying than before. Anticipating an Ice Beam, I decided to retreat.

I didn't really have a good switch-in on Ice Beam that could also do a whole lot to Milotic. So in came Satellite! However, this time I was caught off guard by the fact that Milotic knows Aqua Ring now! Oh, goody... This matchup wound up being a pretty drawn out stalemate. I used Charge Beam and got a stat boost, was hit by Mirror Coat. Thankfully, due to Milotic's high Sp. Defense, I was able to avoid serious damage. The next turn, I went for recover to heal off the damage expecting her to go for another Mirror Coat. I was hit by a Surf this time. We played some mind games here as I called her bluff and went for another Recover. This time she did go for Mirror Coat. Now I could go for another Charge Beam. This time, she predicted correctly and hit me with another Mirror Coat, yet I still didn't get KO'd despite having a stat boost earlier! I was lucky enough to get another Sp. Attack boost and went for Tri-Attack this time hoping it would do enough to guarantee the KO with the stat boosts, and it did! A bit of luck was at play for that win, but Satellite pulled through in the end! Of course, if it wasn't for those stat boosts, I likely would've used Meteor and/or Radio to finish Milotic off. It wasn't that big of a deal.

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

Togekiss, Lv. 76

Satellite fought a hard fight, it's fair to give it the rest it deserves.

Anticipating an Aura Sphere, I switched into Radio and was instead hit with a Psychic! I guess she read my switch? Anyway, I got hyped for a moment when I went for Discharge and nearly KO'd Togekiss, but it turned out it was just a crit and didn't even take Togekiss out. That meant Discharge would be at least a 3HKO. Yikes. Still, I stick with it. She was obviously going to use a Full Restore, so I could get another two Discharges in. The second one even paralyzed her! But with one more Psychic, Radio was done for.

Victory was close enough that I could almost taste it! Just a little further! I expected another Full Restore, so I went for Ice Fang instead of Ice Shard. To my surprise, she didn't heal and my Ice Fang landed for the KO!

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

And that's it for Champion Cynthia! I'm gonna be honest, I was definitely expecting her to be a lot tougher than she ended up being. Full disclosure, I accidentally crossed Cynthia's levels with the levels of the final rematch with Percy. I thought she was going to have pokemon in the Lv. 80 range and thought I was still significantly underleveled. I still was a little underleveled, but nowhere enough to make this fight nearly as challenging as the initial battle. That said, I still think we had a really entertaining battle regardless. At least I couldn't just sweep her with Meteor!

MVP: Satellite

It's hard to really narrow down a specific MVP for this battle as most of my team played a key role in our victory, but I think Satellite had the biggest clutch plays of them all. I was admittedly more worried about Cynthia's Milotic this time around than her Garchomp and that mental back and forth with Milotic's Mirror Coat was really fun!

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

Hall of Fame

Anyway, with all that out of the way, our team is once again registered in the Hall of Fame.

===========

My Team:

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

Moon (Empoleon F); Lv. 76

Item: Shuca Berry

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Ice Beam, Aqua Jet, Surf, Drill Peck

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

Radio (Rotom); Lv. 74

Item: Colbur Berry

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Discharge, Thunder Wave, Ominous Wind, Overheat

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

Comet (Togekiss M); Lv. 76

Item: Razor Fang

Ability: Serene Grace | Moves: Water Pulse, Air Slash, AncientPower, Baton Pass

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

Meteor (Garchomp M); Lv. 77

Item: Yache Berry

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Dragon Claw, Fire Fang, Aerial Ace, Earthquake

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

Satellite (Porygon-Z); Lv. 75

Item: Chople Berry

Ability: Download | Moves: Psychic, Charge Beam, Recover, Tri-Attack

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

Polaris (Froslass F); Lv. 75

Item: Kasib Berry

Ability: Snow Cloak | Moves: Ice Shard, Destiny Bond, Ice Fang, Shadow Ball

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

And with that's that for our final journey across the Sinnoh Region!

We have the option to watch the credits again, but after the first time, they're skippable, so you don't have to wait through the whole thing.

Anyway, as always, there's still a little bit more we need to cover with this game, but as I mentioned before I'd like to save the remaining content for a generational cleanup. So this is the last we'll be seeing of the Sinnoh Region for quite a while. While I was admittedly less than impressed with a lot of what this game had to offer, I still had a fun time raising up these pokemon! It was really cool being able to use a Rotom as intended for the first time in my life! As you can probably tell, I quickly found a preference for Heat Rotom, though that's likely just due to the composition of my team and lack of a strong Fire attack. As I alluded to before, I was planning on replacing Radio with an Electabuzz partway through, but I figured there was another game down the road where that would make for a more comfortable place to use Electivire without it waiting until practically the end of the game to join my team.

Besides Radio, it was also really cool to explore all of the Wi-Fi events I missed out on way back when. Much like accessing the parts of Pokemon Stadium 2 locked behind Gold and Silver cartridges, this filled a similar niche for my interest in the project. It's a real shame I had to lose Comet in the process, though. I still feel bad about having to replace him with an imperfect copy. Going forward, I'll definitely need to be more careful about how I utilize the Action Replay to access event content. There are still quite a few events we'll still need to touch on, though. But in future games, there's actually some really neat lore content that comes out of certain events which I can't wait to explore.

Anyway, you might look at our list of games and think we're jumping back to Mystery Dungeon, but actually, we're going to be switching back to My Pokemon Ranch for a little bit of an update. I'll give you a small warning though that the update might take a little bit as there's some things I'd like to set up to experience myself. But it's going to involve switching back to Diamond for a little bit and doing some breeding/trading. You'll definitely see what I mean when we get there.

So, I'll see you soon for our return to My Pokemon Ranch!

May 9, 2023

It's been a long while but it's time to revisit our Pokemon Ranch! I didn't intend for the wait for this update to take so damn long and I do apologize for that. A small task I'd assigned myself to prepare for this return was breeding a bunch of certain specific pokemon for a specific feature of this game. But for now, let's focus on catching up on all of the things that have gone on in our ranch since our previous visit.

Through the beginning of my playthrough of Platinum, I was regularly visiting the ranch and dumping a bunch of my pokemon from Diamond into the ranch. Let me tell you, it's a major relief to free up all of that space. By the time I'd dumped all of it in and transferred a handful of pokemon over from Emerald, my Ranch was around Lv. 18 with over 400 pokemon! Of course, I've still got a ton of pokemon in Emerald since I can only transfer 6 pokemon every 24 hours and it's really not worth all the hassle to get every pokemon transferred over. At this level, we can keep a maximum of 800 pokemon, 20 miis, and 4 toys at a time!

And speaking of toys, over these several days of updates, I've of course encountered a lot more toys, so let's go over the rest!

Before, we'd only covered four of the various toys that can appear: The Parade Drum which a mii uses to start a parade of pokemon who follow single-file behind them, the Slippery Peel which has pokemon and miis comically slip and fall when they step on it, the Challenger which pokemon can spar with and either get knocked back or rewarded for dodging its attacks, and the Poke-Pendulum which hypnotizes pokemon and dazes them or lulls them to sleep. But there's a lot more where those came from!

The Attractor is another tool used by Miis. It's a strange device that a mii will pick up by the handles and point at the pokemon around the ranch. When activated, the Attractor pulls pokemon to the user like a magnet! It's kinda creepy if you think about it too much. This is a weird one. The pokemon are certainly very confused when affected by it and it can cause a bit of chaos, too, with large numbers of pokemon getting drawn in at once.

The Bonfire allows miis and pokemon to simply relax and watch. If a pokemon gets too close, it'll get burned! Water pokemon can also dowse the fire temporarily.

The Bounce-Back Ball is a funny one. As it gets knocked around, it can build up speed and knock miis and pokemon back when it hits them!

The Burst Ball is... a bomb. It's just a bomb. When it's touched, it explodes and sends all nearby pokemon flying! Don't worry, they're okay!

The Fountain can lift characters up on a spurt of water from the middle. Fire-type pokemon don't like to get wet, though, so they'll stay away.

The Leader Flag is another prop used by Miis. Like the Parade Drum, the Mii can lead a parade of pokemon in a large group rather than a single-file line.

Pokemon and Miis can fall into the Pitfall if they're not careful! If they do, they'll land safely from the sky. No death in this E-rated game!

The Poke Balloons can be worn by Pokemon or Miis allowing them to fly into the air!

The Poke Bell is a tool used by Miis to attract attention from pokemon in a less... violent way than the Attractor. It's kinda cute to see all the pokemon get excited by the sound of the bell!

The Cushion is worn on a Miis head to invite nearby Pokemon to jump on. Smaller pokemon will cutely rest on top of the Mii's head, but heavier pokemon will comically knock the Mii over.

The Poke Microphone is a tool that can be used by Pokemon. They'll cry into the mic and the sound will be played on the Wii Remote's speaker!

The Poke Rocket is a Canon that'll fire pokemon through the air!

The Round Rock can be attacked by pokemon. Other pokemon can try to dodge the rock as it barrels toward them or get flattened by it. It seems fun to them!

The Snowman is a chilly addition to the ranch! Similarly to the Bonfire, it'll freeze anything that gets too close and Grass types steer clear of it. If a Fire type draws near, it'll melt slightly for a little while before returning to its original size.

The Spin Ride is exactly what it looks and sounds like. A Pokemon or Mii can hop on and spin around in place until they're dizzy.

The Spring Stand launches pokemon high into the sky! They'll land nearby after a little while. It's a good thing Pokemon don't take fall damage!

The Stinky Ball is a strange item. When a Mii picks it up, it releases a foul odor and other characters will run away from them. Eventually, the Mii will throw it away.

The Training Bag is as simple as it looks: It's just an object for pokemon to beat down on.

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

The next thing I'd like to address that occurred since our last visit is something that occurs once you've deposited a minimum of 250 pokemon into the ranch:

Hayley will make a special request for you to bring a Leafeon to the Ranch.

This isn't too tall of an order, you can just breed an Eevee and level it up in Eterna Forest to get it real quick.

And once you've deposited your Leafeon, you'll be surprised to find that Hayley is offering a trade with you! She'll offer you her own Phione for your Leafeon!

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

Phione; Lv. 50

Item: None

Ability: Hydration | Moves: Grass Knot, Rain Dance, Rest, Surf

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

This... is a really bad trade, I'll be honest. Unless you just really like Phione specifically, like you think it's really cute or something, this pokemon is one of the most pointless pokemon in the world. It is technically extremely rare in the sense that it requires a Manaphy to get for yourself, but once you have a Manaphy, you can simply breed it with Ditto to get as many Phione as you want. So in that sense, it's not rare at all. If this were a Manaphy, there's certainly some merit to the trade. Still, there are some bragging rights for this particular Phione since it's OT is Hayley and it comes in a special Cherish Ball!

Aside from this Phione, Hayley will also offer to trade one of the pokemon she brought to the ranch with one of your pokemon that you brought. Unfortunately, it won't be just any pokemon she brought, only a select few pre-determined trades are possible. She'll make the trade offer, when applicable, whenever you bring one of her requested Wanted pokemon. Be careful not to trade a valuable pokemon away by accepting the trade offer recklessly!

Here's a list of the pokemon Hayley can offer to trade. They tend to have special egg moves or hold rare items. So even though the species might not be too terribly exciting, you might get some hidden surprises!

At the very bottom of that list, you might notice a very special certain pokemon which we'll be discussing further down the line.

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

Now, let's talk about what took this update so long to come out: The breeding. And I've got a little bit of a rant to cover about my experience here and how unexpectedly painful this experience was.

So, if you recall, there are special events that can play out every 15 minutes if you remain idle at the ranch. These events are generally cute animations such as pokemon dancing around a bonfire. Each event has a specific minimum requirement that has to be met before it's able to occur. Now, I'm not going to provide visual references for these specific events until our next post as it'll be easier to cover them if I can use a resource that's relevant to our next update. But I will go over what the events are called and what their requirements are here!

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

Attention: At least 1 pokemon of any kind.

The pokemon will all stand at attention and the camera will pan over them from various angles. All pokemon and miis will face the camera as it moves.

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

x 25

ZigZag Parade: At least 25 Zigzagoon.

The Zigzagoon will arrange in a square shape and march in a zigzag pattern around the ranch.

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

Dash: At least one of each: Bulbasaur, Pikachu, Meowth, Teddiursa, Munchlax, and Torchic

This one is a reference to Ambrella's previous project: Pokemon Dash! The six playable charactersf rom that game all line up side by side and race to the finish!

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

x 11

Sky Parade: At least 11 Pokemon that levitate.

The pokemon all line up in a v formation and float over the ranch.

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

Totem Pole: Minimum 5 different pokemon.

The pokemon all balance on top of each other to form a tall tower that eventually topples over. The more pokemon you have, the higher the tower can be!

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

x 20

Hop-Hop: At least 20 Cleffa

The Cleffa all bounce around a bonfire, perhaps a reference to the Clefairy Dance from Gold and Silver.

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

x 20

Pikachu Party: At least 20 Pikachu

The Pikachu gather together and tag each other at random by zapping them with Thunder. When a Pikachu is tagged, all the other Pikachu turn to look at them until they tag another.

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

x 20

Circle Dance: At least 20 pokemon of the same species

The pokemon gather around the bonfire and dance in a circle.

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

Ring Dance: At least 20 pokemon of the same type

The pokemon gather around the bonfire similarly to the circle dance, but they dance differently.

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

x 20

ZigZag Dance: At least 20 Zigzagoon

Yet another Bonfire Dance. This time featuring Zigzagoon moving in ZigZags around the Bonfire.

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

x 10

Slow Waltz: At least 10 Volbeat and at least 10 Illumise

Yet another Bonfire Dance. This time, the Volbeat and Illumise dance in the air around the bonfire. They slowly circle around each other and exchange partners.

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

x 8

Do the Wave: At least 8 Plusle and at least 8 Minun

The Plusle and Minun arrange themselves in a checkerboarded square pattern and bounce in a coordinated wave vertically, horizontally, diagonally, even inward and outward. I honestly think the effect would work a little better if it involved 10 of each instead of 8 because they cover such a small area, but it's a cute animation nonetheless!

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

x 10

Chorus: 10 of any mixture of Igglybuff, Jigglypuff, and Wigglytuff

The pokemon assemble in a chorus and perform Jigglypuff's famous song, putting nearby pokemon and miis to sleep.

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

Carousel: 40 of any mixture of Ponyta, Rapidash, Stantler, and Girafarig

Another bonfire. This time, the pokemon hop around like a merry-go-round. Miis can even ride on the pokemon's backs!

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

Clock: 20 or more pokemon

The pokemon form the shape of a giant clock and slowly tick away. I'm not actually sure if the clock accurately represents the Wii's system clock, but the clock does slowly tick away and then rings once a certain time is reached.

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

Keyboard: All 28 forms of Unown

The unown arrange themselves in the shape of a qwerty keyboard and they bounce down and back up as if their key is being pressed in the order of the alphabet.

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

And that's all the events available. At least, in the version that I'm playing. In case it's not obvious, the reason I'm bringing all of this up is because this is what wound up taking so long with my breeding. I had completely underestimated how much time it would take to breed and hatch this many pokemon. For reasons we'll cover likely later on during generational cleanup, I didn't mind investing a large sum of my time to breeding pokemon right now, but holy hell were some of these circumstances annoying.

Let's go over what I needed: First of all, most of these requirements were redundant or already accomplished due to the pokemon I already had. The ones I needed most were the ones that required several of the same type of pokemon. That was fine, I could just leave a pokemon in the daycare and pick up eggs as I hatch them. Pretty standard stuff, really. But two in particular were especially problematic:

20 Pikachus was one that, on the surface, didn't seem too terribly bad. That is, until it clicked that Pikachu eggs hatch into Pichu. Still, I figured that wasn't so bad. I could just powerlevel them real fast to boost their happiness and evolve them into Pikachu! But I always seem to forget just how much time it takes to brute force a happiness evolution like that. These pokemon require a lot of time, attention, and care in order to max out their happiness. And the higher level they get, the less happiness they get from each levelup. I did the math and in order to evolve a Pichu from an egg with only levelups, you'll need to level it up to Lv. 37. There are other ways to boost a pokemon's friendship, such as the special berries that increase a pokemon's happiness but decrease their EVs, but those are generally more useful for the latter effect. Then there's the daily massages. Including the special treatment at the Ribbon Syndicate, which by the way was actually a lot easier to get into than I realized at first, but those are once a day and can only affect a single pokemon. So great, you got one Pikachu as early as Lv. 23. You still have to level all the others to Lv. 37 or evolve one a day.

But that's not really all that bad. What I wound up doing was just catching a bunch of Pikachu in the Trophy Garden. No problem there.

No, the one that proved to be the biggest nightmare of inconvenience for me was 10 Volbeat and 10 Illumise. Those numbers are really low. Next to Plusle and Minun, these were the lowest numbers I had to worry about for individual species. I just needed 9 eggs of each, right? After all, they don't have baby forms I have to evolve like Pichu. Well, there was one complication I knew about ahead of time... you see, Volbeat and Illumise are essentially male and female equivalents of the same pokemon despite technically being different species, similar to Nidoran M and F. So a Volbeat egg can hatch into an Illumise egg and vice versa. At least, that's what I thought initially. So I prepared for that complication by breeding an excess of Volbeat eggs until I double checked on Bulbapedia and saw a little asterisk next to this fact. Apparently, this was only added from Gen V onwards! Great! That simplifies things a lot! So, I went ahead and swapped Volbeat out for Illumise, bred 9 more eggs, and swapped Illumise out for the next pokemon on the list. Everything's looking great so far! All my Volbeat eggs are hatching into Volbeat and all my Illumise eggs are hatching into... wait, is that a Volbeat? Uh-oh, I must've gotten some mixed up when I was shuffling my eggs around in the PC. That's okay, I specifically counted out 9 Illumise eggs. So even if they got mixed in, I'll eventually come across those Illumise eggs if I just hatch them all.

So I continued on my merry way, breeding the rest of the pokemon while hatching egg after egg. It wasn't too long before I realized... wait a minute, I haven't seen any Illumise in a while. I've only hatched 4 of them. Where did all those Illumise eggs go?? Well, I looked it up on Bulbapedia again to find out that I was only half-right about the Volbeat egg thing. Yes, it's only true that Volbeat eggs only hatch into Volbeat in gen IV. But Illumise eggs do hatch into Volbeat or Illumise. So, goddammit, had I just bred these two pokemon in the opposite order, I would've had no issues at all and I'd even have had a head start on breeding for Volbeat. But because of this stupid complication, this dumbass bug had me paranoid into thinking I'd gotten my eggs horribly mixed up. I was constantly looking for where those missing Illumise eggs were because it was late at night when I was doing some of this breeding. I wouldn't have been shocked if I accidentally placed them in the wrong box or something. Let me remind you that there is no way to identify the pokemon inside of an egg until after it hatches! And when you've got boxes and boxes of eggs stacked up, it becomes a nightmare to sort it all out if you accidentally get them mixed together. It's nothing too terribly major since you're gonna hatch all your eggs anyway, but the issue stems from not knowing how many more eggs you actually need.

To further explain why this stressed me out so much, let me explain my process. I'd simply keep a Ditto in the Daycare along with the first pokemon I'm trying to breed. Every time I get an egg, I'd use the Poketch Counter app to keep track of how many eggs I've received. I try to keep 5 eggs in my party along with a Magmar to help hatch them faster. If my party is full when a new egg appears, I'll simply drop the latest egg in a PC box dedicated to the pokemon I'm breeding then go and claim the new egg. That way I don't get stuck in an endless loop of nearly hatching eggs before getting new ones and I maximize the amount of eggs I receive in a designated time slot. The obvious issue with this system is that, if I'm not paying attention, I can accidentally forget to increment the counter or put an egg in the wrong box. So I often end up with redundant pokemon and overcorrecting can causes major issues. That's not too bad, because I'm gonna need to breed an abundance of pokemon anyway to max out the ranch. So it's best to err on the side of caution and just breed an extra egg if I'm worried I may have misplaced one. And there certainly are cases of misplacing eggs. When you're shuffling so many around, mistakes are bound to happen.

So now you can probably imagine how annoying it was to realize that I was still missing so many after hatching every single egg in the Illumise box and the boxes next to it. I'd long since taken Illumise out of the Daycare thinking I was done breeding for it. So this is the only pokemon I had to put back in the daycare. By this point, I was still convinced Illumise would only provide Illumise eggs and I was probably overcorrecting by breeding additional Illumise, because I felt it was inevitable I'd stumble across other Illumise eggs further down the line. Then you can imagien my surprise when these eggs, which I knew were Illumise eggs, hatched into Volbeat as well! That's when I looked it up and was absolutely dumbfounded that I'd worked myself up so much over finding these stupid eggs only to realize I had never made a mistake to begin with and that the eggs I thought I'd gotten mixed in with Volbeat eggs were infact Illumise eggs that hatched into Volbeat. Oh. My. Fucking. God.

So, for the third time, I had to put Illumise in the Daycare and I refused to take that little bitch out of there until I had 9 Illumise hatched. Needless to say, I wound up with an absurd amount of Illumise and Volbeat after the fact. A goddamn infestation of these cockroaches. No, they are not fireflies or lightningbugs. They are goddamn Cockroaches. Vermin.

This was when I started to realize that this stupid idiot bug is the ugliest, dumbest, stupidest little shit I've ever seen in my life. I fucking hate Illumise and wish it would go extinct now. Maybe if it were to go extinct somebody would actually give a shit about it and actually want one just because it's rare. Because goddammit nobody, fucking nobody, willfully breeds for a goddamn Illumise just because they like Illumise. No. This is nobody's favorite pokemon. This thing sucks, it's bad in battle, it's a stupid ugly little cockroach idiot dumbass bug and I want it gone.

So for the next several hours I was stuck hatching every single one of these fuckers. I'd hatch 'em by throwing them against a brick wall if the game would let me. All the while hearing its stupid little cry and watching is stupid-ass shimmy-shimmy dance as if to fucking taunt me when it really just makes me want to clip its wings and feed it to a better pokemon. And every now and then when I expect an actually worthwhile pokemon to hatch, I'm disappointed to find out it's just anther shitty doo doo bug.

And yes, my nicknames for these guys went from cute ones like shimmy and sparkle to ones like "fucknstpd" and "go away" because I want them all to hate themselves so much they want to end their own lives because that'll save me time murdering them.

So yeah, I don't like Illumise anymore. I have never been so massively inconvenienced by a pokemon merely existing in my life.

....so anyway, next time we'll be discussing the Japanese-exclusive Pokemon Platinum update as well as one additional toy we didn't quite have access to until all this breeding fiasco.

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

~~Also for the record, in case anyone is actually concerned about my mental state, don't worry, the whole rant was just a bit.~~

May 10, 2023

Before we get into the main source of our update today, I wanted to add on one additional toy I skipped over last time and that's the Poke Palette. I didn't mention this because I haven't actually unlocked it yet. This is a toy that can only appear after you've deposited 500 pokemon in the ranch. I've gotten to the cusp of this number but haven't quite reached it yet. We will be revisiting My Pokemon Ranch after we finish the main series games of Gen IV, but for now we haven't quite reached it.

Anyway, the reason this toy requires so many pokemon is because it's kind of like one of the events from before. When a pokemon ues the Poke Palette, they'll call all the other pokemon to assemble together in the shape of that pokemon's sprite.

Here's an example of the what it looks like when Purugly uses the Poke Palette. It's a cool idea, I think, and it looks like the pokemon try their best to match the color of the pixel art, too. I suppose 500 pokemon are required because that's the minimum number of pokemon needed to color in every sprite in the game. I can actually imagine the algorithm for this taking quite a while to work out, so it's a really cool little detail that I imagine a lot of people have never seen in action.

Anyway, that's it for content in the base game, at least, content we'll be exploring right now. So let's move on to what we can't play over here.

My Pokemon Ranch: Platinum Update

On November 5th 2008, the Japanese version of My Pokemon Ranch, みんなのポケモン牧場 (Mina no Pokemon Bakujyu; Everyone's Pokemon Ranch), received an update. First of all, it's hilarious that the international version completely flipped the pronoun in the title from "everyone's" to "my," but that's just something I only found out just now. Anyway, since this was before Nintendo had really worked out simple software updates like on the eShop from the Wii U onward, this was a patch you had to manually download from the Wii Shop Channel.

As you can certainly guess from the name, this was an update to add compatibility with Pokemon Plaintum! Unfortunately, this patch was never localized to America which is a major shame because I would absolutely appreciate being able to deposit pokemon directly from Platinum instead of having to do all of that breeding in Diamond. The international version of My Pokemon Ranch is and will only ever officially be compatible with the original Diamond and Pearl versions.

As you can probably guess right off the bat, the most obvious addition to the game is support for the new forms added in Platinum! Giratian's Origin Forme, the various Rotom forms, and Shaymin's Sky Forme can all now exist on the ranch!

But that's not all that was added. The highest level your ranch could reach originally was Lv. 25 which allowed a maximum of 1000 pokemon in the ranch at once. But this update adds an additional 26th level which boosts that cap further to 1500! That's admittedly kinda baffling to me because even at around 490 pokemon, I'm starting to notice some very noticeable frame drops. But I'm sure there are culling techniques employed by the game to handle the larger numbers. So if your Ranch was stuffed, you can bring even more friends over! Unfortunately, there is no additional reward for reaching 1500 pokemon like there is for reaching 1000 in the base game. So no, you won't be getting a free Celebi or Jirachi or anything like that.

There are also a bunch of new toys added to the game!

The Apple Box comes in two sizes. Pokemon can hop inside to play around in it. They can run around in circles in the large box and a Mii can carry a pokemon around using the small one.

The Birthday Cake is a toy that only appears when it's the birthday of one of the Miis on the ranch. If that birthday Mii approaches the cake, confetti will rain and all the nearby pokemon and miis will celebrate before the birthday Mii blows the candles out.

The Bounce Pad is an object pokemon can tackle and be bounced back by its jiggly nature.

The Dice can be rolled to apply various effects. If it lands on 1, it'll let out a foul odor. If it lands on 2, it'll play Jigglypuff's Lullaby and put everything nearby to sleep. If it lands on 3 or 4, nothing happens. If it lands on 5, it'll drop treats on the ground for pokemon to chow on and if it lands on 6, it'll drop a lot of treats!

It's the Gracedia Flower! If you were wondering how Sky Shaymin would work int he ranch, this toy is how! If a Land Forme Shaymin touches this Flower, it'll transform into its Sky Forme and fly around the ranch! It'll also spread pollen if pokemon interact with it.

The Lamp is another oddly hazardous "toy." It can turn on and off and electrocute characters that get too close. If an Electric type approaches, though, the lamp will begin to shine brighter.

The Picture Frame is an empty frame that pokemon can stand behind, kind of like a face cut-out stand. Apparently pokemon can "push against it and be flicked away," though I have a hard time envisioning that in my head. Maybe it'd make more sense if I could see it actually happen.

The Tree is just a small decorative ornament that can be nudged around by pokemon but doesn't seem to really do anything.

The Twirler is a strange turbine that pokemon can spin by tackling causing it to generate a jet stream.

In addition to toys, there are several new random events added! Some of these utilize new pokemon forms from Platinum but most of them are simply new ideas using pokemon you can already add to the game.

Even though I can't actually access these events myself, I was originally planning to breed for them anyway, just for the sake of the numbers. But after the headache of trying to get those bugs, I'm a little burned out on breeding for a while.

x 20

Dizzy Dance: At least 20 Spinda

x 20

Sumo Parade: Any combination of 20 of Makuhita and Hariyama.

Tournament: At least 8 Fighting-type Pokemon

x 12

Whack-a-Mole: Any Rock-type pokemon and any combination of 12 of Diglett and Dugtrio.

x 20

Oshikura Manju: 20 Wynaut

x 20

Flower Dance: Any combination of 20 of Bellossom, Skiploom, Sunflora, and Cherrim.

This is another one that looks like a major pain to deal with. Since Bellossom and Sunflora both require Sun Stones to evolve, it seems the best approach is to just breed Hoppip and evolve them. They do evolve at a fairly low level so it shouldn't be too terrible to make happen.

x 20

Joruney: At least 20 Jumpluff

Yes, as annoying as it is, you need both Skiploom and Jumpluff, so you'll be breeding a lot of Hoppip. Of course, Skiploom isn't necessary for the Flower Dance event, it's just the most convenient to breed for. You'll likely have to breed for around 37 Hoppip, evolve all of them, and evolve 19 of them into Jumpluff.

Orbit: Lunatone, Solrock, and at least 2 "Round" pokemon (Bulbapedia lists Wailmer, Shelgon, Togepi, Gastly, Tangrowth, Seedot, Drifloon, Spheal, Exeggcute, Glalie, Forretress, Natu, Marill, Chansey, and Jumpluff. It's possible others can work as well, but these are probably safe bets.

Resurrection: At least 7 Fossil Pokemon

x 10

Facing North: Any combination of 10 of Nosepass and Probopass

Surfing Jump: At least 10 Water pokemon that live in the Water... apparently Piplup is included int hat list? It looks like the safest best are pokemon that can be caught while fishing or diving in Gen III.

Showdown: two "Rival" Pokemon. Examples documented on Bulbapedia include Dialga and Palkia, Kyogre and Groudon, Zangoose and Seviper, Kingler and Crawdaunt, Krabby and Corphish, Farfetch'd and Farfetch'd, Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee, Beautifly and Finneon, Beautifly and Lumineon, Heracross and Pinsir, Cranidos and Shieldon, Rampardos and Bastiodon, Elekid and Magby, Electabuzz and Magmar, Electivire and Magmortar, and Dragonite and Salamence.

Rotom Roulette: All six forms of Rotom

Last time, I mentioned a resource I'd like to use to better describe all these events. Well, now that we're discussing the Platinum event, I think I can now share that resource with you. Here is a video of every event and what they're like!

In addition to all of the above content, there's also new QoL additions. You can now change the music in the menu and save up to 30 images in-game instead of the 20 before, and images can be transferred to your SD card in bulk instead of one at a time.

One final thing this update touches on is Club Look-See. Not only are there three new members to Club Look-See, but you can now revisit ranches you've visited before! Many of the older ones have been updated with this patch as well, so be sure to check them out if it catches your interest!

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

With that, I do believe we're finished with My Pokemon Ranch for the time being. I've already alluded to the fact that there's one final end goal we've yet to talk about, but I'll be addressing that when the time comes. For now, we're going to turn our attention to what's to come next which is a game I've admittedly been dreading a little bit. Anyone following this thread probably knows exactly what I'm talking about. We're gonna have to bite the bullet eventually, though, so may as well get it over with ASAP!

See you soon with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky!

May 11, 2023

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky

On April 18, 2009, a new version of Mystery Dungeon Explorers was released in Japan! This was Explorers of Sky! This was essentially a sister game to Explorers of Time and Darkness somewhat akin to Platinum or Emerald in the main series. It's an enhanced version of the original games with additional content including new dungeons, special stories that expand on the background of the supporting cast, and new quality of life features for overall convenience.

The main story is almost exactly the same, but there are new additions such as new items and starters that can change your experience. I was honestly a bit torn on how I should handle this game back when I started All the Pokemens because I didn't think it would be a bit redundant to cover this alongside Explorers of Time and Darkness. But, in the interest of getting the authentic experience of playing all the games as they released, I figured it would be important to play Explorers of Time and Darkness when they released and this game when it released as well. I could've covered Sky alongside Time and Darkness, but this game features content from Platinum.

If you recall, when I finished my coverage of Time and Darkness, I mentioned that I'd be doing the postgame a bit later on. Indeed, I'll be doing the postgame here, there's no putting it off any longer and there's still plenty of content I haven't even peeked at. That's where our attention will lie for now. But in order to get there, we're gonna have to play through the story again. Since I've already covered the story, I figure there's no real reason to focus too much on individual cutscenes or dialogue. If you're interested in all that, please check out my coverage of Explorers of Time and Darkness starting on page 24. Do note that I will be discussing spoilers from the original games up to the end of the story since we've already covered all of that.

I'll be summarizing the important details of the story, but I'll be leaving a lot more dialogue out. However, as we play through the game we'll unlock special bonus episodes which I will be covering in full detail as we unlock them for the sake of mixing things up and keeping things from getting too stale for too long. In the mean time, I'll mainly be focusing on the gameplay applications, similarly to how I covered Explorers of Darkness. That said, I will be playing on an emulator and I will shamelessly utilize save states. After my experience with Red and Blue Rescue Team, I really don't have any qualms with handling the game in this way. Especially as we get into postgame, Mystery Dungeon is clearly designed as a long-term game and if you fail too much, you're expected to take a while to regroup before trying again. You're clearly not intended to just binge the whole game's content in a marathon but that's exactly what this thread is, so I think some adjustments are necessary and the only alternative to abusing savestates to make sure things don't go horribly wrong is to use cheat codes. The former feels better for me.

As you've come to expect, upon starting a new save file in Explorers of Sky, you'll be met with a personality quiz to determine your starter. A lot of people like to reset at the start to get the starter they want, but I really like the pseudo-random element of letting the game choose your starter for you based on your truthful answer to the questions presented.

In this game, there's a special question at the beginning of the quiz asking if you've played Explorers of Time or Darkness previously. Answering Yes to this question adds extra heat to the questions related to the natures of the new starters. Answering "no" will just treat the quiz like normal making it a more fair distribution across all pokemon. Since I've already played both Time and Darkness, I'm obviously really wanting to play as one of the new starters added to the pool here in Sky. Plus, it is only being truthful, after all.

If I were to arrive for a party and found nobody was there, my first thought would likely be "am I in the wrong place," but having the wrong day or time is certainly a question that would probably pop into my head shortly after.

This one's a pretty difficult question. I would probably think something was wrong with them. I usually assume they have something on their mind and get concerned, but I'd also not feel entitled to their attention or to any answers. I'd still probably try to talk to them and figure out what's wrong, but I think "They're lost in thought" is the most fitting response from me.

I don't always see my decisions through to the end. In fact, recognizing that issue is a big part of why I started this thread in the first place. I do take pride in the fact that I've been managing this thread for so long and am still updating it three years later. And when I catch up to modern day, I even have plans to revisit some old games and maybe do some challenge runs to add to it. I'd also like to do series for other franchises, but I might switch off of forum posts and instead focus on doing YouTube playthroughs.

But, I also have grown a lot since I've started this thread and I've since come to the understanding that not always seeing things through to the end isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's not uncommon that you might simply make the wrong decision or realize something isn't right for you. That's not a bad thing at all, it just means you aren't stubborn and that can make you a lot more agreeable!

This question I was actually stumped on a bit. It's kind of hard to understand what this question is even really asking, Do I take the wide path up the mountain or the narrow path? In my head, I imagine both of these paths lead me in different directions. There's a lot of circumstance that surrounds such a decision. But in general, I imagine the wider path would make me more comfortable. And that especially holds true in gameplay here. I hate floors that are filled with long hallways. So maybe I overthought the prompt a bit, but Wide path it is!

Anybody who knows me knows that I'm not a morning person at all. A good morning is great, but I'm never in a rush and they're never perfect either. I'll usually stay in bed as long as I can. So I suppose "They are OK" is the most accurate answer of these three.

Absolutely I've blurted things out without considering the consequences! All the time! ADHD makes me wanna blurt out everything that comes to my mind before I forget it and sometimes I wind up speaking over or interrupting people when I don't mean to. Sometimes I even say things that pop into my mind without even processing why I said it at all.

It might come as a surprise to some people, but I do enjoy Karaoke! I don't claim to be very good at it, but that's not what the question asked, is it?

If I fell on my face at the start of a marathon, I'd probably just laugh about it, honestly. I don't see myself running marathons anytime soon, but if I've put myself in that position then surely I have the resolve to at least not quit at the very beginning.

The last question, just as before, is about your gender. This question isn't arbitrary as it's a contributing factor to the species you'll play as. In Explorers of Time and Darkness, every species of pokemon was available for either gender. But this time, it's once again like Rescue Team where certain species are bound to a specific gender. I'm not a fan of this decision, but I suppose it's used as an excuse to squeeze more starters in, so I suppose I can give it a pass.

My result? The Jolly Nature, that makes me an Eevee!

I made a savestate at the gender choice. Had I chosen a male character, I would've been a Totodile just like in Rescue Team. I'm definitely going to favor the new starter here!

These are the possible starters in this game! As you can see, they selection is mostly the same, but Meowth and Munchlax have been omitted. A new quadruped starter is added from each gen: Vulpix, Phanpy, Skitty, and Shinx. Riolu was also added likely due to popularity. I really like these more remote choices for starters because the official grass, fire, and water starter pokemon are usually seen just about everywhere. These other pokemon make the whole experience feel just a bit more... genuine?

Anyway, a lot of these atypical starters also come with special egg moves to help make them a bit more viable: Vulpix has Faint Attack, Eevee has Flail, Phanpy has AncientPower, Skitty has Zen Headbutt, Shinx has Quick Attack, and Riolu has Bite.

Male characters of the Lonely Nature become Bulbasaur while girls become Mudkip.

Docile boys become Charmander while Docile girls are Bulbasaur

Quirky boys are Squirtle and quirky girls are Piplup

Brave boys are Pikachu and brave girls are Charmander.

Calm boys are Chikorita while calm girls are Cyndaquil.

Timid boys are Cyndaquile while timid girls are Turtwig.

Relaxed boys are Phanpy while relaxed girls are Vulpix.

Quiet boys are Treecko while quiet girls are Chikorita.

Hardy boys are Torchic while hardy girls are Treecko

Rash boys are Mudkip and rash girls are Torchic.

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

Hasty boys are Shinx while hasty girls are Pikachu.

Lastly, sassy boys are Riolu and Sassy girls are Totodile.

As mentioned before, some pokemon can only be certain genders as starters. Vulpix, Eevee, and Skitty can only be female while Phanpy, Shinx, and Riolu can only be male.

If you wanna take a full quiz containing all of the questions, you can find one here. It turns out after answering all of the questions, my overall stats lean me toward equal parts Naive and Relaxed (15 points each). Had I gotten Naive, I probably would've gone with Skitty, and for relaxed I'd have gone for Vulpix.

If you'd like to not minimize your reliance on fate for your starter's choice, feel free to use a guide like this one.

Of course, after your starter is decided, your partner. I believe Shinx, Riolu, Phanpy, and Vulpix are bumped to the top only because I said I've played Time and Darkness before. Otherwise, this list would probably be entirely in national pokedex order instead. Just like previous games, you can pick from any of the above starters to be your partner, but all pokemon of the same time are omitted. This means you'll have the widest selection of starters if you started with Riolu or Phanpy as no other starter matches their typings, and you'll have the fewest options if you started with Vulpix, Charmander, Cyndaquil, or Torchic.

Since I started with Eevee, Skitty and and Eevee can't be selected as my partner. You might think that's the extent of the omissions, but that's actually incorrect.

Even though they aren't available as standard starters, you actually can select Meowth or Munchlax as a partner if your starter wasn't a Normal type.

For my partner, I decided on a Riolu named Icarus. I always associate Riolu with the Explorers of Sky and it certainly seems to be one of the most popular choices as, if you look up any gameplay of this game, it's almost always on a save file with Riolu as the starter, or at least as the partner. I had a few other ideas for my partner, but I didn't really want to use any of the pokemon from the previous game and Eevee doesn't have a weakness that's covered particularly well by any of the other pokemon. So Riolu it is! As for the name Icarus, I thought it paired well with the idea of a character who's enthusiastic about exploring the sky! Thankfully, we already know his story is going to conclude on a bit of a higher note than the actual legend of Icarus.

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

Chapter 1: A Storm at Sea

We begin our adventure washing ashore in the Pokemon World. We now know who the voice in the beginning belongs to, none other than Grovyle. And now we've transformed into a pokemon and have amnesia, unable to remember a thing about our mission to gather the time gears and return them to Temporal Tower.

Meanwhile, not too far away at the entrance of the guild is Icarus, who wants to enter to join an Exploration team, but can't seem to work up the courage. Team Skull overhears him talking about his personal treasure and plots to steal it from him.

Music: On the Beach at Dusk

Icarus makes his way to the beach to cheer himself up with the beautiful sight of the Krabby's bubbles over the water, glistening in the setting sun. As many negative feelings as I have about what waits for us in the postgame, I can't not enjoy the moments like these in the game. Once again, I seriously have to praise how incredible the atmosphere, art, and sound design is in this game.

It isn't long before Icarus finds us unconscious on the beach and rushes to see if we're okay.

We introduce ourselves as Skye, and Icarus is shocked to hear us claim to be a human!

Shortly after this, Team Skull arrives, steals the Relic Fragment, and runs off with it.

Icarus requests our help to get the stone back. You actually have some alternative dialogue options this time around. I suppose this is just to make it seem less like your partner is forcing you to come along. But regardless, we've gotta move the story along!

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

My Team:

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

Skye (Eevee F); Lv. 5

Item: None

Abilities: Run Away, Adaptability | Moves: Tackle, Tail Whip, Helping Hand, Flail

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

Icarus (Riolu M); Lv. 5

Item: None

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

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

Beach Cave [B1F - B4F]

And so we begin our first dungeon! For dungeons that are identical to the original, I'm not going to bother listing everything that's the same, similar to the way I covered Platinum. I'm just going to focus on differences to hopefully make these posts a lot easier to manage.

And speaking of new things, let's go over new menu options! By selecting the squad leader, you can now hold a "Tactics meeting" which will change the tactics for every party member. You no longer have to go through everybody on the team individually!

You can also change the frame type around the message boxes and menus. but you can't change the color. That's still tied to your gender.

Anyway, on the third floor Icarus learned Counter, which can be a pretty powerful tool for boss fights, so I let him learn it in place of Foresight. With Bite, he doesn't really need Foresight to help deal with Ghost types.

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

We soon arrive at the pit of Beach Cave where Icarus stands up to the goons from before.

And thus our first boss fight begins!

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

Vs. Koffing & Zubat

Just like before, we're given a bit of space to set up on these losers. So let's get to doing that!

Since they're two spaces away, I can set Icarus to attack from a safe distance with Quick Attack. And in the meantime, I can use Helping Hand to boost his attack. It's clear that I'm gonna be playing a support role at least for a little while, but I think I'm okay with that at least for now.

Icarus hit Zubat across the diagonal and I finished it off with Tackle. And then Koffing wasn't far behind. These two were doomed before the battle began with positioning like that!

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

With that, we wiped the floor with the lackies of Team Skull.

The bullies reluctantly give up the treasure they'd stolen from Icarus and he couldn't be more delighted to have it back. With a thanks from Icarus for our help, we take our leave from the dungeon.

It's back on the beach where Icarus shows his Relic Fragment to us and explains to us his dream of finding the place the fragment belongs. He then asks us if we want to form an exploration team with him.

There's also more dialogue options here, too. Not only can you turn him down which of course only leads to a dialogue loop, you can also accuse him of trying to pressure you into joining which only makes him flustered a bit but brings us back to another dialogue loop anyway.

In the end, we'll of course agree to form an exploration team with our new friend and together, we already know we've got quite the adventure ahead of us!

And that's the end of Chapter 1! Next time we'll make our way to Wigglytuff Guild where our Exploration team will officially begin! See you then!

May 16, 2023

Chapter 2: The New Guild Recruits

Skye and Icarus soon arrive at Wigglytuff's Guild where their footprints are checked. Icarus's nerves get the better of him at first, but he's able to stick it out since we're there with him. And when it comes to our turn, Diglett seems to have trouble identifying the footprint of an Eevee.

Wigglytuff's Guild

We enter Wigglytuff's Guild and meet Chatot! He initially tries to shoo us off until Icarus mentions that we want to join the guild as an exploration team! With that, he decides to introduce us to Wigglytuff.

After being introduced to Wigglytuff, we quickly get signed up with the guild and register the name of our new Rescue Team: Team Flight! A bit ironic since we don't actually have any Flying pokemon on our team at the moment, but frankly I think that makes it all the more interesting because we already know we'll be quite literally taking to the skies one day.

With that, Team Flight is now an official Exploratiom Team! We receive our Exploration Team Kit containing an Explorer's Badge, a Wonder Map, and a Treasure Bag.

This Treasure Bag also has a Zinc Band and a Lime Bow inside.

Icarus and Skye of Team Flight are now ready to begin their new adventure and reach even further beyond what Team Persevere and Outreach were able to accomplish. There is a lot to cover between here and there, so we've got some busy days ahead of us!

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

Music: Goodnight

After being shown to their rooms, they rest up to prepare for the next morning. Icarus tells us how excited he is to finally begin pursuing his dream and Skye mulls over all the questions on her mind. How did she get here? How did she become a pokemon? Where did she come from? All questions to be answered soon enough.

Music: Wigglytuff's Guild

We don't get too much time to ponder about these questions, though. The next morning, we're awoken by Loudred's shouting and realize we've overslept and are late to the morning ceremony! We quickly dash out of bed and join the crowd who's all waiting for the guildmaster. Wigglytuff finally steps out, sleepwalking, and Chatot leads everyone through the morning announcements.

Chatot takes us aside and informs us about the complications with the flow of time recently, he then assigns us with a special request from Spoink who asks for us to retrieve their missing pearl from the Drenched Bluff. We'd better get going!

Drenched Bluff

Spoink's pearl is located on the seventh floor, so it shouldn't be a problem at all to get it back. The dungeon itself is standard stuff. The pokemon here aren't particularly dangerous.

Drenched Bluff [B1F - B5F]

This is the first dungeon where you might start to really notice differences in item spawns from Explorers of Time or Darkness. Though there isn't much major early on, there is one significant difference that easily makes this game miles better over both previous versions: All of the gummis are available! Previously, gummis were soft version exclusive items where the opposite version's gummis could only be obtained as rewards for quests which was an absurd decision because it meant pokemon of half the types were significantly harder to raise IQ for for completely arbitrary reasons. I'll spare you the rest of that rant because I went through it during my initial coverage of Time and Darkness, but having easy access to all the gummis in one version means you no longer have to worry about raising pokemon of specific types. All I can say is thank god they didn't go the route that third version main series games often go and just go half and half on the version exclusive gummis to make getting them even more of a headache. I'm not going to detail every gummi that's available in every dungeon going forward, just know that all gummis that appeared in Explorers of Time and Darkness also appear here. For a full list, you can always check out the Bulbapedia page on the dungeon!

Anyway, in addition to the gummis, you can also obtain Poke in larger amounts in this game. That was true in the previous dungeon as well but I didn't mention it because it's pretty subtle and really not a very significant difference since most of your money comes from completing missions and selling items.

Lastly, the X-Eye Seed was available on Floors 1-3 in all versions. In Darkness, it was avilable on all floors of the dungeon while in Time it wasn't available on floors 4 and 6. Here in Sky, the item is available on floors 1-4.

The Vile and Violent Seeds are not available here at all.

On the third floor, you'll always find a strange new item called an Oren Berry which you might mistake for an ordinary Oran Berry. This is a dangerous mix-up, however, as this one will damage you for 10 HP instead of heal you. This is what's known as a Lookalike item, a new mechanic in this game where items will have similar names and appearances to other items but have different, often averse, effects that can be catastrophic if you get them mixed up with the originals. Be extra careful when picking up items and make sure you're using the item you think you are! You don't wanna accidentally use an Oren Berry when you're trying to heal!

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

Drenched Bluff [B6F]

Now on B6F, you can find Oren Berries more regularly in addition to two new lookalike items: Dough Seeds and Mix Elixirs.

The Dough Seed is a lookalike for the Doom Seed. But this one shows that not all of these lookalikes are nefarious. The Dough Seed causes additional piles of Poke to appear on the next floor. Obviously, you don't wanna use it here on B6F since it's the end of the dungeon.

The Mix Elixir is a lookalike for the Max Elixir and it restores PP for all of your moves... only if used by a Linoone. It does nothing for any other pokemon. The decision there might seem random, but it's just another pun that doesn't translate well into the international version. In Japan, the Max Elixir is called the ピーピーマックス (Pi-Pi-Makkusu; PP Max) and this item is called the ピーピーマッスグ (Pi-Pi-Massugu; PP Straight). Linoone's Japanese name is マッスグマ (Massuguma; a combination of the Japanese words for Striaght and Racoon.) Thankfully, they aren't so evil to make this item reduce your PP to Zero or anything like that. Its effect is just based on a pun that couldn't be localized.

We eventually reach the 7th floor of the dungeon and retrieve Spoink's Pearl! That's mission accomplished!

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

Once we return to the guild, we deliver Spoink's Pearl and accept our reward:

That would be a Protein, Iron, and Calcium. We also get a refresher that makes me realize that I suppose I had simply gotten dialogue crossed before when I said we were told the guild taking 90% of the fees was related to us being apprentices.

I was simply incorrect, Chatot does make it clear these are simply the rules of the guild itself, implying that they apply to everyone who uses the guild to accept missions. It was your partner who suggests it's just the "cost of training" that had me thinking it only applied to trainees. I suppose I should apologize to the Wigglytuff Guild!

We have our first meal with the guild and then head off to bed! Icarus recounts his experience and how happy he felt receiving a thanks from our client. We've got lots more requests to complete int he near future! Next time, we'll be exploring Treasure Town. See you then!

June 3, 2023

Chapter 3: The Scream

It's our second day at the guild and, just like before, we're assigned the task of selecting an Outlaw from the Outlaw notice board to track down and capture. It's recommended we select a low-level target like a petty thief. To help us in selecting an appropriate mission and preparing, Chatot calls for Bidoof's aid. Bidoof will show us around the guild and Treasure Town just as he did in Explorers of Time and Darkness.

One additional stop he'll take this time around is at the Watering Hole. In this game, you can actually use the Watering Hole to save your progress, just like your bed in the guild! This is a huge boon since this is right next to the exit toward the dungeons! You can save just before an expedition in case you need to reload. It's yet another fantastic quality of life addition!

Of course, when we arrive at the Kecleon Shop to prepare for our adventure, at Icarus's suggestion, we meet with Marill and Azurill who came to buy an Apple for their mother Azumarill. On his way out, Azurill trips and we help by picking up his Apple and giving it back.

Shortly after that, we experience the Dimensional Scream for the first time! We can hear Azurill's cry for help from the near future!

Music: I Saw Something Again...

We try to explain to Icarus what we just heard, but neither he nor Kecleon heard the same thing, so we'll just have to let it go for a little bit longer.

Music: Treasure Town

While we're here, I'd like to call attention tot he fact that the Zinc Band and Lime Bow are both still equipped from our previous expedition! Just another Quality of Life addition in this game! It's still not quite as convenient as just having the pokemon hold the item outside of the treasure bag, but it's definitely a step up from having to equip them at the start of every expedition! I guess I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.

On our way out of Treasure Town, we run into Azurill and Marill who are speaking with a stranger, Drowzee, who claims to have found an item they've lost and have since been searching for. He offers to take them to where he saw it.

As they take their leave, Drowzee bumps into us and this triggers another dizzy spell and...

Another Dimensional Scream!

It's here where we get more context in our vision and can see Drowzee harassing Azurill at the top of Mt. Bistle.

Music: I Saw Something Again...

Unfortunately, it's still not so easy to convince Icarus and we do still have a task to focus on, so we'll just have to continue letting this go even though it seemed really serious.

Music: Wigglytuff's Guild

Once we feel prepared to take on the outlaw ahead, we return to Bidoof at the Outlaw Notice Board and start looking for a baddie to track down.

Music: Oh No!

While we're looking, Dugtrio updates the listings and we see Drowzee's face among the new wanted posters!

With no time to waste, we rush out to meet with Marill who tells us he got separated from them and leads us to where they were separated.

We then arrive at the entrance to Mt. Bristle. And now it's time to give chase and rescue Azurill!

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

Mt. Bristle

Just like in Time and Darkness, this dungeon is the first difficulty spike in the game. Especially with a Fighting Type partner, we've gotta be particularly careful about the already-dangerous Starly. Thankfully, Icarus does have Quick Attack, so we can actually handle ourselves against Starly's Ranged attacks a little bit better. But we gotta make sure to turn it off so Icarus doesn't just squander it on every enemy we face. Just remember to turn it on when Starly draws near!

Also, goddammit, it looks like I jumped the gun once again with the Gummis. Drenched Bluff put me under the impression that all Gummis across both versions would be available in each dungeon, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore with Mt. Bristle. We can only find the Sky version-exclusive Gummis here which immediately implies to me that the next dungeon will probably have the Darkness-exclusive gummis, but only time will tell. It turns out blanket coverage may not work for these gummis. Hopefully I'm wrong and this is just a freak occurence, but I'll try to note when gummis are absent. Still, at the very least, every type of gummi can be picked up in this game. So it's still objectively better in that regard.

In addition to the items available across both Time and Darkness, Sky offers the Stick and X-Eye Seed from Darkness as well as the Sleep, Stun, and Warp Seeds from Time. New items include the Oren Berry, Dough, Dropeye, Reviser, Slip, and Via Seeds, and the Mix Elixir. As you can probably guess, a lot of these are Lookalikes.

The Dropeye Seed is a lookalike for the Eyedrop Seed and causes the room to appear dark if you accidentally eat it.

The Reviser Seed is a lookalike for a Reviver Seed, a very scary mistake to make. Like a Reviver Seed, it will revive a pokemon when it faints. But that pokemon will immediately faint again out of laughter. This is a cruel troll item.

The Slip Seed is a lookalike for the Sleep Seed, but it actually does have practical use. It gives you the Slip status which allows any pokemon to travel across water when eaten. Again, not all lookalike items are detrimental!

The Via Seed is a lookalike for the Vile Seed. It causes a pokemon to say "See ya!" and warp away. That could be potentially dangerous.

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

Mt. Bristle [1F - 4F]

Many of the Darkness-exclusive Orbs are available here as well, but where they were available throughout the entire dungeon in Darkness, they are only available on the first four floors in Sky.

On the second floor, Skye leveled up and learned Sand-Attack! It isn't at all lost on me how overpowered these Accuracy-dropping moves are in Mystery Dungeon, so you bet I deleted Tail Whip for it!

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

Mt. Bristle [5F - 9F]

Similarly, the Rawst Berry is only available after floor 4 just like in Time as opposed to being available on any floor like in Darkness. Odd limitation, but it is what it is.

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

Mt. Bristle Peak

As we reach the peak of the mountain, we see the scene from the Dimension Scream before us. Drowzee is trying to force Azurill to retrieve a treasure for him from a small hole he can't get into, but Azurill gets scared and tries to run away after her big brother.

This is where the events from the dimensional scream play out and we hear Azurill cry out for help!

That's when we arrive to put a stop to Drowzee's plan!

Icarus announces our presence as an Exploration Team, but it doesn't take long for Drowzee to catch on that we're rookies because of Icarus's trembling. But we're not going to back down yet!

After taunting us, Drowzee decides to humor us and see what we've got.

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

Team Flight

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

Skye (Eevee F); Lv. 9

Item: Zinc Band

Ability: Run Away, Adaptability | Moves: Tackle, Helping Hand, Flail, Sand-Attack

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

Icarus (Riolu M); Lv. 9

Item: Lime Bow

Ability: Steadfast, Inner Focus | Moves: Endure, Quick-Attack, Bite, Counter

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

Vs. Drowzee

To open up with this boss fight, we've gotta make sure to be extra careful. Drowzee's Confusion was already incredibly powerful in Time and Darkness, but now we've got a teammate who is weak to it. Thankfully, Icarus does come equipped with Bite and Endure. In combination with Skye's Sand-Attack, we should hopefully be able to take Drowzee out without any worry about dying. In hindsight, to be on the safe side, I probably should've had Icarus lead with Endure to prevent getting KO'd in one hit, but I was purely thinking about how Skye could help in the moment.

By setting up with Helping Hand while Drowzee was away, and hitting him with Sand-Attack when he draws near, I can greatly boost our chances of taking him down without a hassle.

Unfortunately, my Sand-Attack missed which could've potentially spelled the end of the battle right there. Thankfully, drowzee only targetted Skye, so I was able to survive the hit and hit him with Sand-Attack the following turn.

Now that my HP was low, I could hit him with Flail for some solid damage while Icarus continued Biting away. Thankfully, the battle ended relatively painlessly. But that miss could've easily spelled my doom, so I'll count my blessings in that department.

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

With that, Drowzee is defeated and we can rescue Azurill from him!

Music: Job Clear!

With everything out of the way, Magnezone is able to place Drowzee under arrest and Azurill is reunited with his big brother! It's always such a touching scene!

After receiving the brothers' gratitude, we all make our way back home.

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

For clearing this mission, we're rewarded with a larger treasure bag!

But another new feature of this game is also unlocked: The Special Episode Bidoof's Wish! We can access this form the main menu whenever we want. These Special Episodes are a large portion of the new content in Explorers of Sky, so you already know we'll be exploring these whenever we get the chance.

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

After we return to the guild, it's time for dinner and off to bed.

It's a stormy night as we reflect on everything that's been going on, and Icarus begins to tell us about the Time Gears.

Music: Time Gear

He explains the types of places Time Gears are hidden, and that they control the flow of time in the regions they're found.

As he speculates about what would happen if the Time Gears went missing, we see the scenes of Grovyle stealing the unguarded Time Gear at Treeshroud Forest.

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

And now, we can use this new option when saving the game to return to the Top Menu! And that's what we'll be doing because next time we'll be putting story progress on hiatus and instead turning our attention toward our brand new Special Episode: Bidoof's Wish! Let's see all about Bidoof's backstory. See you soon!

June 10, 2023

So, last update, we'd unlocked a new feature called a "Special Episode" which can be accessed from the Top Menu. I've already explained what they are, but to briefly summarize again, these are short stories focused on the supporting cast rather than the player character and their partner. We'll be unlocking these periodically throughout our playthrough. And to keep our coverage of this game from getting too repetitive with Explorers of Time and Darkness, we'll be covering them all as we unlock them. And since we unlocked the first Special Episode: Bidoof's Wish, it looks like that's what we'll be playing through today! You can think of them like filler arcs, I suppose. Though to my knowledge these stories actually are canon.

Now, it's not really clear to me how exactly I should pace my coverage of these. I'm not sure if I can expect to cover each episode in a single post or if any episodes will be longer or shorter than others, but for now I'll stick to trying to cover these as simply as I can.

As we begin the episode, we're greeted to the typical morning cheer of the guild! Everyone is dismissed to perform their duties for the day.

Skye and Icarus speak with each other as Bidoof watches from the ladder, inspired by their attitude.

Bidoof then provides a brief introduction of himself as the narrator of our special episode! Bidoof himself will be recounting this story for us.

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

Special Episode 1: Bidoof's Wish

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

We begin our story with a shot of the beautiful countryside, Bidoof's home.

We find Bidoof at his dam, speaking with his family as they see him off on his journey to join Wigglytuff's Guild to realize his dream of becoming the greatest explorer in the world!

We're introduced to Bidoof's Mama who is very concerned for her son's safety, as any good mother would be.

His little siblings cheer him on as well, and Bidoof begins to get a little emotional as his family sees him off, but he insists that he's fine and promises he'll make his family proud!

With that, Bidoof takes his leave and his family continues cheering him on!

Of course, getting into the guild wasn't easy at all for Bidoof. We all know his reputation there, for sure.

It seems that no matter how simple the task, he always seemed to find a way to mess it up. even bringing the completely incorrect item when asked to deliver a Reviver Seed, it wasn't even a lookalike like the Reviser Seed! Poor guy.

It seems even with regular living he was still making mistakes regularly, such as eating all of Wigglytuff's Perfect Apples! We all know how that goes! He ended up going without dinner that night.

Things only seemed to be getting worse, and Bidoof was starting to think he just wasn't cut out for the job at all. That is, until everything seemed to turn around one day.

The day began with Chatot assigning a very simple task to Bidoof: Asking how many Oran Berries are in stock at Kecleon Market today. Wow, that's not exactly a very exciting mission, is it? It makes looking for a lost item seem like a genuine treasure hunt by comparison! I guess Icarus should count his blessings, huh?

Bidoof doesn't seem to happy about being assigned such simple errands all the time. He requests the opportunity to do a job from the bulletin board, but...

Chatot's response isn't exactly so encouraging...

Of course, Bidoof's only further disappointed by this response.

Chatot tries his best to cheer Bidoof up, encouraging him to be patient and continue working hard with his training. Surely as he can complete easy jobs, he can slowly work his way up to more significant ones! But how he is now, it's certainly dangerous for him to go out on missions on his own.

And with that, we now have control of Bidoof! It's incredibly surreal to be playing as Bidoof and not Skye and Icarus. Anyway, as Bidoof, you'll need to go to Bidoof's room instead of Team Flight's room if you want to save at your bed. Of course, you can also save at the Watering Hole just like in the main story.

There's not much to really do, you can go around and talk to the various guild members, but it's mostly just generic dialogue as if you're playing in the main story. For now, we'll need to focus on our task and head off to Kecleon Market!

It seems that even the Kecleon are a bit disappointed by Bidoof's constant inventory assessment assignments.

The Kecleon try to shrug off their disappointment with their typical sing-songy customer service before checking their inventory for Bidoof.

Bidoof is reluctant to leave, as he's still caught up in his desire to go exploring. He confesses to the Kecleon his problem about always messing up his tasks and how it's keeping him from climbing the ladder at the guild.

The Kecleon immediately jump on the chance to try and sell him a Hidden Power TM with the suggestion that it'll help him be more useful on explorations!

Bidoof mulls over the idea of using this TM to become more helpful at the guild and asks how much it costs.

Unfortunately, the price is a bit too steep for Bidoof right now.

As it turns out, Bidoof can actually afford the TM because he always carries 7,000P with him.

This money was gifted to him by his generous mother who's been saving up little by little over several years to help him the day he inevitably decided he needed to leave home. The money is to use in case of emergency.

As sad as it is, Bidoof decides he'll have to pass on the chance to buy the TM. It's just not quite an emergency and he can't justify the purchase. It's a moment that definitely shows that, despite his constant screw-ups, he does have a strong sense of responsibility and respect for his mother. I think that's incredibly sweet.

But as he makes his way back to the guild, he runs into a Snover! The Snover seems to be running away from something.

In a panic, the Snover gives Bidoof something.

But as soon as the pokemon gives Bidoof the item, he runs away, leaving Bidoof confused with his question of what the item was left unanswered.

Shortly after, two other pokemon arrive on the scene. This Bagon and Gligar must've been the ones chasing Snover! They seem to have lost sight of him.

The two immediately start badgering Bidoof to see if he saw a lone pokemon run by.

Bidoof is intimidated by the two and Bagon tries to get Gligar to calm down before asking more gently about the pokemon in question.

Bidoof reluctantly tells them the direction the pokemon ran off and they both give chase.

In the end, it's clear it's only Bidoof's cowardice that drove him to out the other pokemon, but there's nothing he can do about it now...

With that, Bidoof heads to the guild to finish his assignment, get some dinner, and go to bed. It's strange seeing the mess hall without Skye and Icarus there, but this is before they arrived at the guild, so it only makes sense!

We cut to Bidoof in his bed, reminiscing about the day and worrying about having to get up early in the morning, so he tries his best to go to sleep.

I think I've commented on this before, but I've always felt like it must be really difficult to sleep in the same room as Loudred. And sure enough, we get a firsthand account of what it's like here. Loudred's snoring just gets progressively louder and it keeps Bidoof up at night. This keeps Bidoof alone with his thoughts, and he continues worrying about the pokemon he met earlier in the day.

He looks over the item he was given and determines it looks like an old map of some kind.

It seems the map shows a location called Star Cave. Bidoof is ignorant of the implications of this, but he's excited by the name! The fact that a map to the place exist means there must be something special there! Now waiting for the next morning seems a lot more difficult...

Eventually, it seems Bidoof was able to drift off to sleep. Sleep enough, anyway, to oversleep and get yelled at by Loudred, of course.

After the morning cheer, the pokemon of the guild are all dismissed.

Bidoof decides to ask Chatot if he knows about a place called Star Cave. Chatot explains that Star Cave is a legendary place said to be the resting place of the legendary Pokemon Jirachi. He then echoes the legend that if one can awaken Jirachi, Jirachi will be able to grant you a wish!

Naturally, this gets Bidoof even more worked up. Of course he's gonna wanna go to Star Cave, now! And if he gives up this map... no doubt he won't get that chance, will he?

While Bidoof is lost in thought, Chatot tries his best to bring him back down to earth, insisting that it's only a legend and that nobody actually knows the location of the cave. Yet here it is, plain as day on this map that Bidoof got from a total stranger!

Chatot definitely notices Bidoof's strange behavior, but Bidoof tries his best to keep his secret.

Suspicious of Bidoof's odd behavior, Chatot continues to press him, causing Bidoof to panic more...

Suddenly, the tension is broken and Bidoof is saved by the bell! Or, Loudred in this case. Apparently, a visitor has arrived to speak with Bidoof!

Outside, Bidoof finds that strange pokemon from the day before! He must want this map back...

Bidoof must feel bad about giving away Snover's location because he immediately expresses concern for Snover.

As you can probably guess, Bagon and Gligar were able to catch up to Snover before he could hide at the dead end of Sharpedo Bluff.

Of course, since he gave Bidoof the map, Bagon and Gligar couldn't find it, and Snover had no clue where it was, so they couldn't get their hands on it.

Naturally, this led to Snover getting roughed up by the two. But obviously, getting the map off of him was impossible since he simply did not have it.

Bidoof is, of course, frightened by this story, but it's all in the past now and Snover doesn't seem to bear any ill will.

Indeed, Snover confirms the item was the Ancient Map he'd given Bidoof. He explains that he'd given Bidoof the map so that it wouldn't get stolen, then asked around Treasure Town about him to find out he was an apprentice at the Guild, so that's how he found him here!

Snover came all this way just to thank Bidoof and apologize for all the trouble he's put Bidoof through.

Apparently, Snover already knows about the legend of Star Cave and Jirachi. He suspects Bagon and Gligar wanted to steal it from him so that they could go and get their wish granted by Jirachi.

As a major surprise, Snover asks for Bidoof to come with him to explore Star Cave! Snover explains that he wants to visit Jirachi and make a wish, but he's nowhere near strong enough to go exploring on his own, and he thinks Bidoof seems dependable and kind. So, there's no one he'd rather go with!

Naturally, Bidoof is ecstatic about being able to go exploring a place as exciting as Star Cave, and he admits he also wants to have a wish granted!

With the plan set to explore Star Cave with Bidoof's new friend, he just had to find a way to get away from the guild so that he can take on the expedition!

As expected, Chatot doesn't respond very well to Bidoof's request for time off of guild training.

Not wanting to confess the actual reason for wanting to take time off, Bidoof constructs the very simple lie of feigning illness. It's quite out of character for him to lie and he certainly isn't a very good one at that. There's no way that something like this would fly under Chatot's radar...

Chatot is naturally suspicious when Bidoof suggests his stomach hurts, as Bidoof is a heavy eater and regularly eats a lot without consequence. But ultimately, he doesn't contest it too much and permits Bidoof's request for a day off. That means Bidoof can finally go on his first expedition!

With that out of the way, I think this will make for a good stopping point. As I mentioned at the start of this post, I'm really not sure what kind of pacing I should be covering these special episodes with, but this post is already getting fairly long and we've got a whole dungeon coming up ahead of us! So it's gonna be a little bit before we can get around to it. For now, we'll leave it here and next time we'll help Bidoof prepare for his expedition to Star Cave! See you then!

June 17, 2023

Special Episode 1: Bidoof's Wish Part 2

We're continuing our coverage of the Special Episode Bidoof's Wish! Last time we met Snover and helped him hide an Ancient Map that shows the location of Star Cave, a place where the mythical pokemon Jirachi is said to grant wishes, from a couple of thugs who were trying to steal it from him. Bidoof, who's never had the chance to go exploring before, was ecstatic about the idea of going to Star Cave and meeting Jirachi. After reuniting with Snover, the two made arrangements to sneak off and explore Star Cave together.

Before we head off, it's important to prepare. But Snover doesn't want to go into town for fear that Bagon and Gligar will see him, so Bidoof comes up with the idea to go into town and make all the necessary preparations while Snover waits out of sight until they're ready to leave.

Unfortuantely, "Preparations" is a little misleading. We don't actually have a whole lot to work with here. Despite Bidoof having that 3000P from his mother canonically, it's only for emergencies and Bidoof doesn't consider this an emergency. Therefore, we really don't have anything to work off of. Thankfully, any money stored in Duskull Bank and any items stored in Kangaskhan Storage from the main campaign are accessible here. Once again, this begs the question of what kind of bizarre ethereal time-traveling sorcery these facilties run on since this takes place before Skie and Icarus even arrived at the guild and, obviously, Bidoof is not a part of their team. Anyway, since we're at the start of the game, we really don't have much to work with. I haven't even deposited anything into Duskull Bank, so we can really only bring with us 0P and whatever items we happen to have in Storage which, also, isn't much at all. Most of our useful items are on-hand in the main story. It looks like we're just gonna have to head onward empty-handed.

Once we're ready to go, we head out of town toward Star Cave! As soon as we try to leave, Snover will catch up to us and we head off together!

===========

Bidoof's Squad

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

Bidoof, Lv. 10

Item: None

Ability: Simple, Unaware | Moves: Tackle, Growl, Defense Curl

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

Snover, Lv. 22

Item: None

Ability: Snow Warning | Moves: GrassWhistle, Swagger, Icy Wind, Powder Snow

===========

Star Cave

As always, these Mystery Dungeon games never stop impressing with their beautiful music!

Right away, if you haven't put things together yet, you'll realize a major problem with your assigned teammate right away. Two words: Snow Warning. Because of Snover's ability, this dungeon is going to become a bit of a pain as Hail is going to be following you everywhere you go. You are going to want to race to the staircase ASAP on every floor, and items are going to be especially important throughout your exploration of Star Cave. Especially in our case since we're going in completely empty-handed.

Since this is a new dungeon, I'll be covering it in more detail than the dungeons in the main story.

Items available throughout Star Cave include Poke, Apples, Cheri, Chesto, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Reviver and Totter Seeds, Max Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs.

Among the Wonder Orbs of note, your best friend in this special episode is going to be Rainy and Sunny Orbs that can change the weather away from Hail. Try to use them as soon as you arrive on a new floor and only if the stairs aren't immediately in sight. If you don't have any in reserve, try to save them until you're low on HP to gain the benefit of passive healing as you explore. It's a bit of an uphill battle to deal with Bidoof's own lack of strength or move variety on top of Snover's crippling ability. This dungeon can get pretty rough so you'll need to be as careful as you can get.

In addition to items, you'll also find Kecleon Shops throughout the dungeon and these can be a huge boon for getting some useful items! Just make sure you have the money on you! Sell items but for the love of God do NOT steal from Kecleon with this Squad.

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

Star Cave [B1F - B3F]

Poliwag, Anorith, Kricketot, Chingling

For the first three floors, you're only going to have to deal with these four pokemon. All of which Bidoof can take care of fairly easily with Tackle, but be especially wary of Poliwag's Bubble. It can be dangerous, especially in hallways. You have a Grass-type to hide behind, though! They also know Hypnosis, so try to take them out quick! Chingling's Wrap can also be a little scary, but it's even easier to KO quickly. For what it's Worth, Bidoof's Simple allows him to rocket his physical defense with Defense Curl, making him a pretty solid option for tanking physical hits. Of course, you are taking constant damage from Hail so his tanking is only so effective. Make sure to use healing items you find!

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

Star Cave [B4F]

Starting from the fourth floor, you'll begin to find the following items: Insomniscopes, Defense, and Pecha Scarves, Persim, Power, Special, Stamina, and Zinc Bands, Gravelerocks, Iron Thorns

The held items you can find here will be helpful in your expedition. The Insomniscope is probably the most important one as a lot of pokemon in this dungeon are capable of putting Bidoof to sleep which you can probably imagine is really bad. The throwables are also really important as they help Bidoof attack enemies from a range.

Pokemon: Poliwag, Anorith, Kricketot, Chingling, Lotad

You'll also begin to run into Lotad. Lotad's Nature Power will turn into Ice Beam in this dungeon which is another ranged attack you'll want to watch out for. Especially since, like Bubble, it can get around Bidoof's increased defense from Defense Curl.

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

Star Cave [B5F - B7F]

Pokemon: Poliwag, Anorith, Kricketot, Chingling, Lotad, Bonsly

Bonsly joins the fray on B5F and it's not much more than a wall for you to get over. Be wary of Low Kick, though, since it's super-effective against you, and especially watch out for Fake Tears as Simple increases its effectiveness against Bidoof and makes him especially weak against the various special attacks Bidoof is already most vulnerable to. Most dangerously: Bubble and Ice Beam.

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

After the 7th floor, you'll arrive at a checkpoint where you can save. Your HP and PP will be restored for free as well. We haven't found Jirachi yet, so we must press on!

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

Deep Star Cave

Delving deeper into the cave, we're treated to new original music! And a tileset of brighter blue colors. You might think things would only get tougher down here, and the enemies do get a bit tougher so you're right in a sense. You've still got Snover's Snow Warning to contend with, too. But there is one small addition to these floors that makes Snover a bit more bearable as a partner.

All the same items you could get from Star Cave, you can get throughout Deep Star Cave, including the items that were added on B4F.

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

Deep Star Cave [B1F - B2F]

Pokemon: Kricketot, Bonsly, Psyduck, Lotad, Gulpin

Psyduck is the pokemon of interest. If you're privy to Pokemon trivia then you'll know that Psyduck has the ability Cloud Nine which nullifies weather effects! As long as a Psyduck is spawned in anywhere on the floor, Snover's Hail will be neutralized and you'll be safe from it! This will make exploring these floors much more painless.

But it's not all fun and games. Gulpin also joins the party and it not only knows Yawn but it's a pretty hefty damage sponge. You'll need to fight it carefully to take it out.

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

Deep Star Cave [B3F]

Pokemon: Bonsly, Psyduck, Lotad, Gulpin

Kricketot leaves the party on the third floor.

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

Deep Star Cave [B4F]

Pokemon: Psyduck, Lotad, Gulpin, Lunatone, Bronzong

On the fourth floor, you'll begin to run into some especially terrifying foes in Lunatone and Bronzong, both of whom are much better at absorbing your Tackle attacks than Bonsly was. Remember, though, Tackle still does more damage than your basic attack! STAB affects more than Type Matchups in Mystery Dungeon! So if you're in a bind, let 'em have it! But if you can get out of a skirmish with these monsters, always run away. If Bronzong puts you to sleep with Hypnosis, it can be a death sentence.

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

Music: In the Depths of the Pit

At the fifth floor, you'll arrive at a dead end. Even still, Jirachi doesn't appear to be anywhere...

Music: Growing Anxiety

Suddenly, Bidoof hears a sinister laugh...

After calling us gullible, the voice reveals its source: It's Bagon and Gligar! Was this some sort of trap they've orchestrated?

Bidoof hasn't quite caught on to what's going on yet. But things are only about to get worse for him...

Music: Rising Fear

Suddenly, Snover speaks up and admits Jirachi's presence at this cave was a lie.

Apparently, he and these thugs are actually working together! They call themselves Team Rogue! And Snover is their leader! They tricked Bidoof into believing that Snover was hiding from them so that they could get him alone out here to mug him for the money they saw him with back at Treasure Town!

It turns out that Team Rogue had gotten their hands on the Ancient Map, likely through illicit means, and tried to come here in search of Jirachi in hopes of getting rich. But instead, they were disappointed to just find this dead end. But, they decided to get some use out of it by luring you here to steal your cash!

Naturally, hearing all this is simply heartbreaking for poor Bidoof, but it looks like there's no getting out of it.

It looks like we're gonna have to fight them all off on our own! It's gonna be rough but we can do it!

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

Bidoof's Squad

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

Bidoof, Lv. 10

Item: None

Ability: Simple, Unaware | Moves: Tackle, Growl, Defense Curl

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

Vs. Team Rogue

Just as you thought Snover's Ice Type would be the perfect counter to these opponents, he turns against you in what seems at first to be a completely hopeless battle! But actually, as it turns out, you can still trick Snover into fighting for you, here.

The main trick here is to use a Totter Seed to confuse him. While confused, Powder Snow will damage his allies. It's good to Confuse everyone in order to get them off your back and help you focus on them one at a time.

While they're away and out of range, take the chance to set up Defense Curl. And anytime they step in line, throw some Spikes their way. If any of them approach you, Tackle them like nobody's business! Before you know it, they're down for the count!

===========

But, of course, this is one of those "You totally dominated the boss fight but the cutscene still causes you to lose" boss battles. As it turns out, you don't actually have to win at all here. I just wasted my items.

Music: Rising Fear

After getting roughed up by the trio, the rogues demand Bidoof to give up his money. But Bidoof still stubbornly refuses.

Annoyed by his stubbornness, Team Rogue agrees to just take the money by force.

Suddenly, a voice cuts through the tension and the lights begin to dim.

The chant from Wigglytuff Guild's morning assembly is heard and then...

Music: One for All, All for One!

The entire guild arrives on the scene to support Bidoof! Including even Wigglytuff and Chatot themselves! Now, it's suddenly Team Rogues who find themselves outnumbered! And I gotta say, this music, a remix of Wigglytuff Guild, that plays here is incredible! It really sounds like your whole family coming together to march into battle and destroy your enemies for you.

They're all ready to protect Bidoof!

Naturally, Team Rogue is in a panic having messed with the wrong guild. But Snover demands his teammates stand firm. They've got no choice but to call a bluff and ignore the guild's reputation and rumors. Maybe then can take everyone on!

At Wigglytuff's command, the battle begins!

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

Wigglytuff's Guild

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

Bidoof, Lv. 10

Item: None

Ability: Simple, Unaware | Moves: Tackle, Growl, Defense Curl

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

Vs. Team Rogue

The music continues into the boss battle and, well, there's not much need for strategy this time. Just stay alive and leave it to the guild to finish the fight! Of course, throwing in some tackles can't hurt. You probably wanna focus on Snover primarily. Naturally, when the battle is 10 to 3, it's gonna be over fairly quickly.

===========

After realizing how hopeless this battle is, Team Rogue run away in fear. Unfortunately, I guess that means nobody's claiming the bounty these guys probably have on their heads.

Chimecho checks to see if Bidoof is okay, and as expected, Bidoof gets emotional over everyone coming to save him.

Of course, everyone getting here to protect him begs the question... how did they know where he was?

Apparently, when Chatot noticed Bidoof's strange behavior, he informed the guildmaster and secretly tailed him.

Chatot winds up going the Tsundere route in all this, insisting that he didn't follow Bidoof because he was worried about him or anything, just because he didn't want Bidoof deserting the guild.

Naturally, everyone begins to laugh and comment about how Chatot obviously does care about Bidoof, so Chatot has to silence it all out of embarrassment.

Apparently, it was supposed to be only Chatot and the Guildmaster who would come to Bidoof's aid, but the whole guild wound up tagging along as well! Looks like we might've caused a bit of an upset on this one...

In a heartfelt moment, everyone chips in to tell Bidoof how much they care about him entirely in spite of his shortcomings which no one even seems to notice! At least, not to the extent that Bidoof is fixated on them.

Naturally, Bidoof is still emotional over all of this and begins to apologize for causing so much trouble for everyone by coming here alone and keeping quiet about all of this...

Everybody denies that Bidoof can't do anything right and insists that failure is just a part of getting better! And Bidoof's failure to defeat Team Rogue wasn't at all unexpected, it would be a miracle to win such a fight! ...cough.

With that, Bidoof promises to be more patient and less afraid of failure going forward, and Wigglytuff cheers him on!

The guild continues to taunt the thieves before Corphish turns the guild's attention back to where we are. After all, let's not forget that this is the rumored resting place of Jirachi! He's surprised they were willing to give up and go home so easily if Jirachi might be nearby...

Of course, Bidoof points out the fact that there's nothing here. The cave just comes to a dead end.

The guild corrects Bidoof in his assumption. They're an exploration team after all, so they're not about to just give up because they ran into a dead end...

As we're speaking, it seems Wigglytuff has already gotten searching for a way forward before...

With a powerful Yoom Taah, Wigglytuff reveals a passage that leads even deeper into Star Cave!

Everyone is excited about the opportunity to explore the depths of Star Cave and find Jirachi, but Wigglytuff then hushes them.

Wigglytuff then announces that not everyone can continue into the cave, which everyone is naturally disappointed to hear.

When asked why, Wigglytuff explains that this is Bidoof's exploration and so it's only fair that Bidoof is the one who should get the opportunity to explore the cave first.

Bidoof is surprised to hear the Guildmaster place so much faith in him, and he insists that Bidoof head on alone into the depths of the dungeon.

I... kinda wish he'd let us travel with at least one of the members of the guild, but I suppose we're going the rest of the way solo. Frankly, that's almost better than traveling with Snover, at least.

The guild seems to be in agreement with Wigglytuff's decision at this point. It is only fair to let Bidoof go on ahead.

Wigglytuff cheers Bidoof on and insists he use his own strength to make this a successful exploration!

With that, everyone shows their support for Bidoof as he makes his way toward the final stretch.

After Bidoof is gone, everyone turns to the Guildmaster and mentions how generous he was to let Bidoof go on ahead.

That's when Loudred reminds Wigglytuff that he could've had his wish granted by Jirachi and had all the Perfect Apples he could eat!

Naturally, everyone begins to heap praise onto Wigglytuff, who remains silent for a while before...

...It seems it never really clicked with Wigglytuff what he'd be sacrificing by letting Bidoof go ahead. He suddenly changes his mind and decides he's going!

Suddenly, the mood changes as everyone now has to stop the Guildmaster from going into the cave and spoiling Bidoof's chance to prove himself!

Everyone struggles to fight the Guildmaster and keep him from exploring for his precious Perfect Apples! It's a really funny scene, though I'm not really sure what the problem is here. After all, there's nothing saying Jirachi can't grant multiple wishes. Who's to say everyone can't just come back later? But, Wigglytuff does sometimes seem to have the mind of a child so maybe he just doesn't have the patience to wait that long.

Anyway, that's gonna be it for this part. Next time should be the finale of our coverage of the first Special Episode! We'll forge on ahead, this time with Bidoof alone, and see if we can't find Jirachi and get our wish granted! Maybe Bidoof isn't so far from becoming the world's best explorer! See you soon!

June 18, 2023

Special Episode 1: Bidoof's Wish - Finale

Today will be the finale of our coverage of the first special episode: Bidoof's Wish! Previously, Bidoof obtained an Ancient Map pointing to the location of Star Cave where Jirachi is said to rest and grant wishes to anyone who wakes them up. He received the map from Snover as part of a trick to get him to come alone so that Snover and his teammates, Bagon and Gligar of Team Rogue, could mug him for all of his money. Thankfully, the whole guild arrived just in time to save Bidoof from the brutes and also helped Bidoof find the way deeper into the cave at the dead end where Team Rogue had previously given up their exploration. Wigglytuff decided that, since this began as Bidoof's exploration, it made sense to allow Bidoof to continue exploring alone. Of course, that means we've still gotta explore as just a lowly Bidoof without any real variety in moves.

Star Cave Depths

We no longer have to worry about Snover's Snow Warning at all, which is helpful, but don't just assume everything is okay. This last stretch of the dungeon may be the shortest, but it's also the most brutal. And if you get KO'd, you'll be sent back to the checkpoint before Deep Star Cave and have to go through those floors again, too. Thankfully, Team Rogue won't be around so you won't have to deal with Snover's Snow Warning or the boss fight between the two sections of the dungeon. I actually did wind up dying a few times in this dungeon, it's very rough with just Bidoof. Again, I really wish they'd have let you team up with at least one other member of the guild. But alas, we're all on our own here.

Item-wise, Star Cave Depths has the same items available as Deep Star Cave, so there's nothing to discuss in that department.

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

Star Cave Depths [B1F - B2F]

Pokemon: Gulpin, Psyduck, Lunatone, Bronzong

Other than the absence of Lotad, you'll be dealing with the same enemies you faced in Deep Star Cave, so you'll have to be especially wary of Bronzong who you'll encounter more frequently. Beyond that, the scariest part of this dungeon is that Monster Houses begin to appear starting on B2F! If you see gummis or TMs on the ground, BOOK IT in the opposite direction. The last place you want to be as Bidoof is asleep in a Monster House.

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

Star Cave Depths [B3F - B4F]

Pokemon: Psyduck, Lunatone, Bronzong

After the second floor, you'll no longer find Gulpin which is sort of a plus, but that only means you'll be running into Bronzong and Lunatone that much more frequently. Do your best to slip to the stairs as quickly as possible! Remember to use your items!

===========

Star Cave Pit

Eventually, we arrive at the pit of Star Cave. Bidoof seems a bit disappointed to realize this area appears to just be another dead end.

Soon, however, a voice can be heard... could it be Jirachi?

The voice sounds like it belongs to a very tired and groggy pokemon, one who's half asleep, or even talking in their sleep? Bidoof introduces himself when the voice asks who he is.

Music: Beyond the Dream

Soon, the voice reveals itself to, indeed, belong to Jirachi! Jirachi was certainly a lot easier to find here than it was in Rescue Team, that's for sure!

Naturally, Bidoof is excited to finally meet Jirachi, but Jirachi still seems to be half-asleep and can't even recall that Bidoof had just introduced himself!

Jirachi confirms that they do indeed grant wishes! But they're still a bit too sleepy to do so...

Unfortunately, it seems that we're not quite as safe as we thought! Not only is Jirachi still asleep, but apparently they have a really bad habit of... attacking in their sleep! Uh-oh! It looks like we've got a fight on our hands!

===========

Bidoof's Squad

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

Bidoof, Lv. 10

Item: None

Ability: Simple, Unaware | Moves: Tackle, Growl, Defense Curl

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

Vs. Jirachi

This is the true boss of Bidoof's Wish and it's a terrifying one! Not only is Jirachi a Steel type, resisting our Tackle, but it also knows Rest allowing it to heal off damage we've dealt and it knows Confusion and Swift which can both get around Defense Curl, rendering it entirely useless!

Your best bet to deal with Jirachi is just to spam items. That means I'm at the mercy of whatever seeds, throwables, and berries I've gathered. Use a Totter Seed to get some distance allowing you to throw items from afar while Jirachi stumbles around, and tackle whenever they get close! Hopefully you've stocked up on enough items to keep Jirachi at bay, or enough healing items or Reviver Seeds to stay alive while digging into its HP. It took me several attempts to actually win, but eventually I was able to get pretty lucky. Honestly, since your move pool is so limited here, there really isn't much strategy beyond hoping for good RNG. All you can really do is spam Tackle and throw whatever items you happen to have, so you're at the mercy of your toolbox to even be able to survive a few rounds with Jirachi at all, much less do enough damage to defeat it.

Eventually, Jirachi does go down, however, and the battle is won!

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

Suddenly, after managing to survive Jirachi's onslaught, a bright flash of light fills the room and...

Jirachi finally awakens!

They once again introduce themselves and... ask Bidoof his name again. They really were sleep talking, huh?

Since Bidoof was able to wake Jirachi up, they offer to grant a wish for him.

Music: Beyond the Dream

We've known what Bidoof's wish was from the beginning of the story, he wanted to be the best explorer in the world! We can select one of many options, though, but regardless of our choice, it seems Bidoof is starting to get a little nervous. Perhaps actually being here is causing him to think harder about what it is he wants...

Bidoof hesitates to tell Jirachi his wish, causing Jirachi to get confused and begin to think he doesn't actually have a wish in mind...

Bidoof soon decides, rather than keeping his thoughts to himself, he should talk to Jirachi and voice his thoughts instead. After all, keeping to himself earlier got him into a lot of trouble with Team Rogue. He tells Jirachi about his dream to become the best explorer, and Jirachi insists that should be a simple enough wish to grant...

But just as Jirachi is about to grant that wish, Bidoof panics and tells them to hold on.

Music: Sympathy

Bidoof explains that it's just not something he would feel right wishing for. After all he's gone through during this adventure, he's realized that his dream will only be achieved through hard work and that it'll only mean anything to him if he's truly done his best to get there.

Jirachi praises Bidoof for resisting the temptation of greed.

Just as Jirachi is about to disappear realizing Bidoof has given up on making his wish, he stops Jirachi. It seems he has a different wish in mind now...

Bidoof finally wishes for a buddy to teach and show around.

He elaborates that he wants a buddy because he doesn't want to get spoiled by the whole guild caring about him. He wants to be able to provide the same happiness the guild provided for him to an underling of his own. It's honestly incredibly sweet! And it would also motivate him to improve as much as he possibly can!

Jirachi then confirms that they'll grant this wish. Bidoof will, indeed, have a new buddy at the guild.

Finally, we return to the present day where Bidoof is watching over Team Flight. It's clear now that we're the ones that Bidoof wished for... wait a minute, doesn't that imply that Bidoof is the one responsible for all the tragedy that unfolds in the future...? The collapse of Temporal Tower? I guess there's a bit of a Monkey's Paw at play afterwards... but I guess everything does end up okay in the end, so all's well that ends well... heh... heh... Yeah, let's just keep this wish quiet around Grovyle, shall we?

In the end, Bidoof gives a big thank-you to Jirachi for granting his wish, promises not to let us down...

...and the credits roll!

So, that was a really sweet story altogether. Despite the somewhat dark implications of Jirachi's wish granting when you think about it too much, I really liked the extra peek into Bidoof's character. Forcing you to play as Bidoof alone through a dungeon like this was really rough, though. But it's important for his narrative growth and it's really cool to guide little Bidoof along on his first ever exploration! We know where his story goes after, and he never really does live his reputation down, but he certainly is a very lovable little guy, huh?

Anyway, after clearing a special episode, all money and items you collected during the episode will be automatically stored away in Duskull Bank and Kangaskhan Storage. I suppose you'd better be careful about storage limits before starting one of these, or some rare items might end up disappearing! I'm not sure if the game gives you a chance to manually select items at all. It seems to be a question nobody's ever asked before. Hopefully it's not an issue we end up running into!

Anyway, that's it for Bidoof's Wish! Next time, we return to the main story and continue from where we left off! See you soon!

June 19, 2023

With our first Special Episode out of the way, it's time to return to the main story! When we last left off, we'd just rescued Azurill from the criminal Drowzee at Mt. Bristle and completed our first Outlaw mission from the Guild!

Today is going to be our first time dealing with these in-between periods where we're assigned the task of simply completing jobs from the bulletin boards.

As always, I looked for the missions that had the best rewards: Gummis, TMs, and Reviver Seeds are the main areas to look, and then took all the jobs that were in the same dungeon to kill as many birds as possible with one stone... just make sure Chatot stays out of the way of that one.

Out in front of the guild, we find this strange Spinda standing near a rock at the crossroads in front of the guild. We don't know much about them, but they seem pretty excited. Maybe this will be tied to new content in this version?

Moving right along, going to the bank and storage, we can confirm that our spoils from Bidoof's Wish are indeed all stored away. If you're pressed for storage space, you may want to take the time to clean out some of the junk you've gathered from special episodes. Let's just not think too hard about our apparent joined account with Bidoof that transcends time. I have a feeling our account is joined with a handful of other characters as well.

With preparations complete, we headed out to take on our missions at the Drenched Bluff! Skye and Icarus actually do have quite a bit of synergy together for taking on Outlaws. Sky can play heavy support with Sand-Attack and Helping Hand while Icarus goes on the all-out offensive. Soon enough Skye will hopefully be able to contribute more than just spamming these moves and occasionally tackling, but for now, Icarus is the main heavy hitter.

While I was out doing these missions, I leveled up and learned a new tactic: "Wait there" which can be incredibly useful for catching up to a separated teammate as well as helping teammates navigate around traps.

Once we'd completed our missions, it was off to dinner and bed in preparation for the next day.

Chapter 4: The Gatekeepers

Normally, I'm trying to start and end these posts based on the title cards of each chapter, but I suppose anytime we unlock a Special Episode is going to be a special case. I'll want to return to the menu to play the new episode ASAP.

Our day begins as normal until we're assigned Sentry Duty! I've already covered this minigame before, but the basic gist is you'll be looking at the footprints of pokemon that step on the grate and matching that footprint to the species of pokemon. It's a simple enough task, though it may have a bit of a learning curve.

Just like before, I strongly recommend soft resetting until you get a perfect score here because the rewards, including a Joy Seed, Life Seed, and Ginseng, are far too good to pass up.

And once again, it's off to dinner and bed.

The next day, it's back to the grind of completing jobs from the bulletin board. I normally won't be covering these as much going forward, but since there's really nothing going on in this chapter and it's the first time you're doing this, I figured it's significant enough to cover here. For the most part, I'll only be focusing on new things.

This time around, I once again found the best missions to be in Drenched Bluff, so it looks like that's where we're headed! The majority of the missions were outlaws this time. However, I didn't actually pay much attention to the mission details and that led me to a pretty nasty surprise while going through what I thought would be a fairly simple dungeon with a few tough battles mixed in. But more on that in a bit.

Once again, we find strange pokemon standing by the rock at the crossroads. This time, it's a Wobbuffet and Wynaut. There must be something going on with this rock... But for now, there's still nothing to be done.

And so, once our preparations were complete, it was off to Drenched Bluff to complete another set of missions!

Music: Monster House!

And when I arrived at the fourth floor, I was horrified to realize that I wasn't going to be fighting the Chingling outlaw on its own. Had I paid attention to the title of the mission, I would've realized this was a "band of thieves" outlaw mission! As far as I'm aware, this is a new type of mission in Explorers of Sky which plays out similarly to an outlaw mission in that, once you arrive at the floor, you'll be attacked by the outlaw in question. But in this case, the outlaw isn't alone. You'll be ambushed with an entire Monster House!

As you know from our previous adventures, Monster Houses can be terrible run enders if you're unprepared--especially in the beginning of the game. Even though the enemies in Drenched Bluff aren't too dangerous on their own, getting hit by several Mud Slaps in one turn from Shellos can be detrimental. Monster Houses are already scary enough on their own, but we also have an outlaw to deal with! Chingling seems to be just as strong as any other outlaw. We really need to approach this strategically. Thankfully, Team Flight happens to be well equipped for dealing with Monster Houses, and we also spawned in really close to a hallway and nothing is blocking our way there!

Our first priority was to take out those Shellos, they would cause major problems for us if their Mud Slap caused Icarus's attacks to start missing. After that, Icarus's Endure would be crucial for keeping him alive. Endure is a status move that lasts for several turns and is actually incredibly powerful in Mystery Dungeon. As long as the Endure Status is present, Icarus can't be KO'd with normal damage. That's very important because Chingling can absolutely one-shot him with a simple Confusion.

Once we've made it to the hallway, all I can really do is support Icarus with Helping Hand and throw Geo-Pebbles for some additional chip damage. I'd like to be able to hit Chingling with a few Sand-Attacks, and maybe I could if I'd lured it to the other end of the hall, but I really didn't think that far ahead. My main priority was just keeping Icarus alive and attacking. It did take my Reviver Seed after Endure failed once, but eventually Icarus's Bite was able to KO Chingling! That's a huge relief! From here, the rest of the monster house was easy enough to deal with. We just had to knock out the Lileep one at a time.

This was certainly a scary encounter and, I'm going to be honest, this was actually my third attempt. I'd lost twice to this encounter already but loaded a save each time. Going forward, I'll need to be more wary about these outlaw missions and make sure to come prepared with Totter orbs and the like for these sorts of Outlaw missions.

Upon returning to the guild, we were able to gain enough points to rank Team Flight up to Bronze! Now we can store up to 96 items in Kangaskhan Storage!

And that's it for today! Yeah, we didn't do much this time, but that's just because the only "story" content in Chapter 4 is Sentry Duty. Other than that, it's really just focused on introducing you to the standard gameplay loop of completing missions from the Bulletin Board. Hopefully next time we can get to more exciting things. See you soon!

June 20, 2023

Chapter 5: The First Official Exploration

We begin our next morning with an ominous announcement from Chatot: Time has stopped in Treeshroud Forest.

Chatot explains that the Time Gear from the area has been stolen and so time in the area has frozen completely. He instructs the guild to keep a look out and report any suspicious individuals to officer Magnezone in order to recover the Time Gear and prevent any others from being stolen.

After the announcement, Chatot pulls us aside to give us our first official exploration assignment as a part of the guild: Chatot assigns us to investigate the secret waterfall.

Naturally, Icarus is delighted to finally have the chance to go on his first exploration mission, and so we should begin making preparations for our exploration right away!

On our way out, we're stopped by Chimecho who informs us that she's begun the Chimecho Assembly! After ringing the Friendship Bell, Team Flight is now capable of recruiting teammates through Chimecho Assembly! Fantastic!

Back out at the crossroads, right where that rock used to be that Spinda, Wobbuffet, and Wynaut were all standing near, there's now a sign advertising a new shop called Spinda's Cafe! It'll be opening soon. I wonder what kind of service they'll provide down here? Time will tell! We'll just have to check back here when it's open.

In addition to Spinda's Cafe, we can also find a bell at the Watering Hole which we can use to call Chimecho and change our team around from out here! Being right next to the save point makes this so much more convenient. There's really no need to even go into the guild anymore other than to get missions from the bulletin boards.

Anyway, after paying a visit to Treasure Town, it's time to set out on our adventure to explore the Secret Waterfall!

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

When we arrive at the Secret Waterfall, we appear to be at an impasse. There doesn't appear to be anything suspicious about it at first, and the water is crashing down really hard making it dangerous to approach.

But shortly after touching the waterfall, we receive another dimensional scream!

Within our vision, we see the silhouette of Wigglytuff leap fearlessly into the cave behind the waterfall.

Music: I Saw Something Again...

We tell Icarus about what we saw and, as little as he understands about the Dimensional Scream, he decides to trust us.

It takes a moment to summon the courage to do so, but he agrees and jumps through the waterfall with us!

Music: Waterfall Cave

After taking our leap of faith, we do indeed reach the secret cave we saw in our vision! But now that we're inside, our way forward is clear! It's time to explore Waterfall Cave!

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

Waterfall Cave

Just like before, this dungeon is the first difficulty spike of the game. It's not so scary without a team member that's weak to Water like Liz, but we do have a few pokemon to watch out for. The pokemon you fight here are mostly water types but they're no longer going to just go down to a single Tackle. You may want to bring a few extra Oran Berries just to be safe.

This dungeon contains all items that were available across both versions in the previous game throughout, with some further lookalike additions including: Oren Berries, Dough, Dropeye, Reviser, Slip, and Via Seeds, and Mix Elixirs.

During our exploration of the fourth floor, it looks like Team Flight already has its first two new recruits! Say hello to Cloud the Wooper and Lief the Lotad!

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

Team Flight New Recruits:

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

Cloud (Wooper F); Lv. 10

Item: None

Abilities: Damp, Water Absorb | Moves: Water Gun, Tail Whip, Mud Shot, Mud Sport

Cloud will be our first Water Type! Her Water Absorb ability combined with her Ground typing will be a tremendous help in her ability to contribute to our team as a wall. She's also our first pokemon capable of using Special attacks which will make her invaluable for a while as well. I can already see myself hiding behind Cloud in a hallway and relying on her ability to take hits while I support from behind with Helping Hand.

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

Lief (Lotad F); Lv. 10

Item: None

Abilities: Swift Swim, Rain Dish | Moves: Astonish, Growl, Absorb, Nature Power

Lief is our next teammate, another Water type, but she's also our first Grass type! Swift Swim and Rain Dish also give Lief a lot of potential in the rain. Before you know it, she could be piling on a lot of attacks and healing off a lot of damage with Absorb and Rain Dish both active at once. Increased speed combined with Astonish can also be incredibly annoying for her enemies to deal with. Plus, Nature Power has the potential to be some really useful attacks. You just gotta be careful since it has the potential to turn into moves like Earthquake or Magnitude in certain places. You don't wanna accidentally wipeout because you forgot to turn it off at a bad time!

===========

In addition to our new recruits, Icarus also leveled up and learned Force Palm, finally gaining access to a STAB attack, and a really good one at that! I decided to replace Counter since it actually doesn't seem to be all that good. It does have some solid synergy with Endure, but I find enemies can often just get around it with Special Attacks and it rarely feels worth it to waste a turn setting it up. Maybe if I link it with Endure but I'd rather have the variety of type coverage I think.

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

Music: In the Depths of the Pit

We soon arrive at the end of the cave where we find a giant gem embedded into the wall!

Unfortunately, neither Icarus nor Skye are able to break the gem free from its hold.

Shortly after touching the gem, we receive yet another Dimensional Scream!

Music: I Saw Something Again...

Within our vision, we see Wigglytuff push the gem in and trigger a gush of water to flush him out!

Unfortuantely, the warning doesn't quite come in time and Icarus accidentally pushes on the gem as he tries to pull it out. We hear a loud rumbling, and...

The water comes crashing through and we're suddenly launched high into the air!

Music: Heartwarming

When we land, we fall into a Hot Spring where we meet Torkoal who we know now is the Elder of Treasure Town.

Torkoal shows us on our map where this Hot Spring is located and invites us to rest up a while before we head home since it's quite a way to get back to the guild.

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

Shortly after we return to the guild, we report our findings to Chatot. Icarus is at first disappointed having to report his failure to retrieve the treasure at the end of the cave, but Chatot assures him that the exploration was a success with us having discovered a whole new cave!

Except, that still bothers Skye, and rightfully so. After all, the pokemon she saw in the flashback was undoubtedly Wigglytuff!

We hate to spoil the mood, but we have to share this information with Icarus and Chatot. Confused as to why we would want to ruin our own discovery, Chatot agrees at our request to go and ask the Guildmaster if he's been to the cave before. And when he returns...

Unfortuantely, to Icarus's disappointment, the Guildmaster had indeed been to Waterfall Cave already... Though this news is disappointing, we are now one step closer to understanding the Dimensional Scream!

And now it's time for dinner and then off to bed!

In the night, Icarus shares his excitement about having gone on our first exploration assignment and how he's now more confident than ever that he'll be solving the mystery of his Relic Fragment. He also recounts that our dizzy spells seem to happen whenever we touch certain objects! Such as Azurill's Apple, the Waterfall, and the gem. But we still don't have much more to go off of than that.

Before we can go to sleep, Chatot arrives in our room and informs us that the Guildmaster is requesting to see us.

Music: Guildmaster Wigglytuff

The Guildmaster informs us that the guild is planning an expedition and that, despite the fact that newcomers usually aren't considered for expeditions, she decided to include us in the list of candidates after observing how hard we've already been working!

Naturally, Icarus is ecstatic about the opportunity to be selected for the expedition, and we agree to continue to do our very best going forward! Of course, we all know what's coming up next, so get ready for what I consider to be the most miserable part of the story.

That's that for now! We'll see you next time as we continue to do our very best!

June 22, 2023

Chapter 6: Team Skull

This is a pretty sizeable chapter in terms of gameplay. Iirc, this was the chapter that had me convinced I needed to pace myself more when covering these games. Since we've already covered the main story before, I figure it'll make sense to cover this chapter a lot more sparsely than the others so far.

Not only is this one of the largest chapters in Explorer's of Time and Darkness, the devs also use this chapter to introduce a whole new feature of Explorer's of Sky. So as of writing this section of the post, I'll go ahead and note that this chapter may or may not be split into two sections, treating coverage of that new feature as its own "chapter" of sorts. Without further ado, here we go!

The chapter starts with Chatot making the official announcement about the upcoming expedition to the entire guild.

Determined to do our best and earn a spot on the upcoming expedition, we decide to take on as many missions as possible. But when we go to the bulletin boards, we find a familiar duo: Koffing and Zubat of Team Skull.

Music: Team Skull

It's here where we're introduced to Skuntank, Team Skull's Chief! He blasts us with a horrible-smelling odor and knocks us out immediately. Icarus is frightened and unable to find the courage to stand up to Skuntank, so he just cowardly stands to the side and allows Skuntank to do as he pleases.

Skuntank's subordinates inform him of the upcoming expedition that Icarus let slip, and now they decide to start scheming with this new information...

After everything resolves, we do our best to console Icarus and now it's time to get back to work with our missions!

Once again, we've got a solid handful of Outlaw missions, this time in Waterfall Cave which we explored last time. I also picked up some Drenched Bluff jobs that had some solid rewards.

Out at the crossroads, we run into Wynaut and Wobbuffet! Wynaut tells us Spinda's Cafe, a shop overflowing with hopes and dreams, is open for business!

They invite us in, so we may as well check it out!

Music: Spinda's Cafe

Welcome to Spinda's Cafe! This is going to be a very important place we'll be returning to a lot throughout our adventures with this game.

Naturally, the cafe is hosted by its namesake: Spinda who certainly has a strong affinity for showmanship. I like to imagine that this is the very same Spinda that was traveling in search of Ho-oh in Rescue Team, but there's no way to know for sure as far as I'm aware. But all his talk of hopes and dreams certainly seems to draw a parallel either way.

Spinda elaborates that this cafe is designed to be a place where explorers can hang out and refresh with delicious drinks after a long day of exploring.

The first place of intrest here is the Juice Bar where Spinda will make drinks out of any edible item you provide. I'll go into more detail when we actually use this, but essentially this allows you to use items such as Gummis and Vitamins to greater effect than carrying them into dungeons!

This next counter is the Recycle Shop! This is where you can trade in all of your junk items for more useful ones! And you can even trade in items for Prize Tickets for a chance to win a mystery item!

Now, before we go into detail about these items, I'm probably going to want to go and get some items out of storage. As it turns out, you can actually recycle items straight out of storage for the Recycle Shop, but at the time I didn't exactly now that.

On our way out, we bump into Chimecho!

She tells you that many team members of her assembly used to hang out at the Watering Hole while waiting to join up for adventurers. But now that the cafe is open, many prefer to wait there instead. You can agree to be able to meet with your teammates inside Spinda's Cafe where they'll be seated at one of the tables, or at the watering hole where you'd find them in the previous games. As far as I'm aware, this is purely an aesthetic thing so it just makes sense to have these guys hang out in the cafe while you're making preparations in Treasure Town.

Chiemcho will also take the time to draw attention to the signpost she placed at the Watering Hole. I've already explained, though, that you can ring this bell to call for her service.

Sure enough, once you agree to allow your team members to wait in the cafe, you'll find them right here at this table!

Now, let's get to covering these facilities in more detail! We'll start with Spinda's Juice Bar!

When making a drink, you'll select an edible item. Edible items include anything that fills the belly as well as vitamins. Once you select an item, you then select one of your active team members to make the drink for.

After doing so, Spinda will call out to the teammate in question.

Once your teammate is called to the counter, Spinda will do a little performance where he mixes the provided item into the drink.

You'll get some flavor text which, to my understanding, is mostly irrelevant to the effect or name of the drink. I'm not sure how I would feel about a "Blue Gummi Shake" having a "savory fragrance" and "unique bitterness." Blegh. But apparently, Cloud enjoyed the drink! Not only does Cloud get the standard IQ boost from eating the Gummi, but he gets a stat increase, too!

If you recall, one of my bigger complaints about Explorers of Time and Darkness was that they removed Friend Areas and the ability to use items such as Gummis outside of dungeons which also removed the ability to get stat boosts from Gummis. Spinda's Juice Bar reintroduces that feature! And it adds more bonus effects, too!

The effect the drink provides is determined primarily by the item provided. If an item has a permanent effect, such as a Gummi or Vitamin, that effect will be applied. But be wary that items that don't have permanent effects, such as Apples, Oran Berries, and Heal Seeds, aren't likely to give you any effect at all. I say likely, because there is an additional element of RNG that'll help you get even more out of these drinks on occasion, making it a very good idea to nab drinks here as much as you can.

But be especially wary of Lookalike items or any item with negative effects! If you use a such items, you might get a drink that'll decrease your stats! So as a general rule of thumb, if you're more interested in getting rid of an item rather than using the item, your best bet is to go to the Recycle Shop.

Also, I probably don't need to say this, but TMs aren't edible. You're still gonna need to bring those into dungeons to use them.

As for that RNG element I mentioned earlier? Well, every once in a while, Spinda will get really excited about how well the drink turns out. This is called a Miracle Drink!

The way the game describes the miracle drink really makes you jealous of the lucky one who gets to drink it!

In addition to whatever effects the drink had by default, the drink will also boost another stat. This can stack with the base effects, too, so you could, say, get two IQ boosts from a Gummi. Needless to say, you want as many of these Miracle Drinks as possible.

I was lucky to get a Miracle Drink so early, but there's also a lower tier of upgrade I hadn't gotten just yet: Sometimes Spinda will tell you he has a good feeling about the drink he's mixing and these drinks will provide smaller boosts specific to the item used.

There are additional events that can play out here at the Juice Bar, but I've yet to experience them. Sometimes after finishing a drink, you'll be approached by a random pokemon that wishes to join your exploration team! Alternatively, you may also receive an egg as a gift from a stranger. Also, sometimes you'll find a note at the bottom of the drink that'll unlock a special dungeon! These dungeons are ones that you previously had to unlock through escort missions in Explorers of Time and Darkness.

As mentioned before, if you have items that are just burning a hole in your pocket and you have no desire to use them, you can bring them to the Recycle Shop! Right now, there aren't many options available. But as you can probably guess, more options will be added as we progress through the game. Right now, we can trade two Apples for an Oran Berry, or 4 of any item for a Prize Ticket. This shop actually has a hidden purpose in that we can now guarantee we always have access to Oran Berries as long as we have the Apples to trade for them. It's not guaranteed you'll find any particular item at the Kecleon Shop, so this might be an important feature of this shop!

Once you select the items you want to get rid of, from either your storage or your treasure bag, you can trade the selected items in for an item! Prize Tickets can be redeemed immediately or added to your inventory for use later. I actually recommend pocketing them because, apparently, if you don't redeem the Prize Ticket immediately, there's a chance you can earn a bonus Prize Ticket when you redeem it later that, according to Bulbapedia, you don't get by redeeming it right away. As far as I'm aware, you should have the chance to get the bonus ticket by pocketing the ticket first and then redeeming it by talking to Wynaut again. The Bonus ticket will need to be redeemed immediately.

When you choose to redeem a prize ticket, you'll need to select one of three colors and Wobbuffet will enter you into a lottery.

Once you're entered into the lottery, you'll go through an especially dramatic drawing to decide whether you got a win, a big win, or a loss. You'll always receive a prize from a prize ticket, but the result of the lottery will determine how valuable of an item you get! In my case, I think I got a win? I received a Scanner Orb which is certainly not an item I can complain about, though it's probably not one that'll see much use for a while.

I entered again and this time I think I got a Big Win? My prize here was a Max Elixir!

Anyway, with all that out of the way, it's finally time to head out to Waterfall Cave to do our missions!

==========

Waterfall Cave

Music: Monster House!

I came prepared for our outlaw's little trap this time, and dropped a Totter Orb to confuse all the pokemon in the room! This made it really easy to get set up and pick off the majority of the pokemon in the monster house so we could focus our efforts on dealing with the outlaw Bronzong.

Eventually, we took Bronzong out to complete the first mission!

Music: Outlaw!

We then encountered our next outlaw, another Bronzong on the fifth floor! It was an incredibly unfortunate position since he was diagonally adjacent to Lief who was by far my weakest teammate. It was hard to get Lief out of the way while also staying alive myself. (Reminder, I am unapologetically using Saves for situations like this to speed the process up for the sake of sanity in covering the entire game.)

It was rough, but I was eventually able to take the Bronzong out without any casualties and retrieved Anorith's stolen Cher Beri

Our next outlaw was a Bonsly on the 7th floor! This one was an A-rank mission but we happened to be in a really good position to deal with him since he was trapped in a hallway and Icarus was blocking his way forward. I was at a diagonal and could hit Bonsly with Sand Attack the whole time, too. After abusing Endure a little bit, we were able to take out Bonsly painlessly.

Our last mission was to rescue a lost Kabuto on the eighth floor.

And that's a successful exploration!

With that, it was now off to dinner and bed.

===========

Our next day was another day of Sentry Duty. We earned a Pecha Scarf, Reviver Seed, and Max Elixir for getting a perfect score and surpassing our previous record. Not much to discuss there.

Again, it's dinner and bed.

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

Music: Team Skull

The next morning, Chatot makes the announcement that Team Skull will be assisting us with the upcoming expedition and in the meantime will be staying at the guild to get acquainted with everyone here.

Moving right along, we're tasked with more bulletin board jobs, so it's back to the grind!

This time, I selected some more missions from Drenched Bluff including a new type of Outlaw: A fleeing thief! Again, I'm pretty sure this is a variety of Outlaw mission that didn't exist in the previous game, but it's also possible Just didn't encounter it myself or even simply forgot about it.

Before heading out, I stopped by the Juice Bar again and Icarus was lucky enough to get a Good-feeling Orange Gummi Drink that gave a solid boost to his IQ!

While at the Recycle shop, this scene played out. The result of my prize ticket was built up quite a bit, Wynaut even mistakenly got excited by Wobbuffet's reaction thinking it was a big win, and that got our teammates to come over! But... it was actually just a loss.

The consolation prize was a Radar Orb. It seems there is alternative dialogue for wins and losses to really keep you at the edge of your seat! I really like it, it's really funny to watch these scenes play out and try and guess whether or not you've won based on Wynaut and Wobbuffet's silly interactions.

Anyway, getting back to work, we head off to Drenched Bluff to do our missions!

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

Drenched Bluff

On the 3rd floor, we happened to get a new recruit!

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

Team Flight New Recruit

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

Kite (Anorith M); Lv. 4

Item: None

Ability: Battle Armor | Moves: Harden, Scratch

Not exactly the most impressive pokemon at the moment. But it does provide some more type variety than Lief did, so he might prove to be a bit more beneficial! His Rock Type could help deal with Flying-types that Icarus might struggle with.

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

Music: Outlaw!

On the 5th floor, we ran into our thief. With these fleeing thief missions, we're going to need to stop the thief's escape attempt by surrounding them!

To accomplish this, I'd brought a Stun Seed to throw at the Thief, at which point we could surround him and attack from all sides! Kabuto didn't know what hit him and before we knew it, the stolen Totter Orb was recovered!

We completed the other missions and finished our exploration.

And, back at the guild, Team Flight finally got promoted to the Silver Rank! We can now store up to 200 items in Kangaskhan Storage and are awarded a free Zinc as well!

Once again, it's dinner and bed.

But that night, Team Skull start their scheming with a plan to steal the guild's food for themselves!

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

The next morning, Chatot notices the missing Perfect Apples and entrusts us with the incredibly important task of replenishing the stock by visiting Apple Woods.

Now, normally I'd continue from here, but as you can see this is already a pretty lengthy post having introduced Spinda's Cafe and, as I said before, this is quite a needlessly lengthy chapter. I'm not really interested in covering an entire dungeon right now. So for now, we'll put coverage of the rest of this chapter off for next time. See you soon!

June 22, 2023

Chapter 6: Team Skull (Part 2)

Picking up where we last left off, we were just about to head off toward Apple Woods to replenish the Guild's supply of Perfect Apples for Guildmaster Wigglytuff.

While makign preparations for our exploration today, I found that Electivire's Link Shop is finally open for business! Right now, the only pair of attacks I need linked are Skye's Helping Hand and Sand-Attack. This makes it so that she can play support even more strongly by debuffing the target while simultaneously buffing all of her teammates. Unfortunately, nobody else knows any moves I currently feel like need to be linked together, so it's just this one pairing for now.

With nothing else to do, we head out for Apple Woods!

===========

As we enter the woods, we're tailed by Team Skull. We'd better watch our backs!

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

Apple Woods

I've found this dungeon to be somewhat easier than Waterfall Cave, but you definitely have to keep an eye out for status problems! In Explorers of Time and Darkness, this was the first dungeon to feature version-exclusive pokemon, but here in Sky, there's no such thing. All version exclusives from Time and Darkness are available here in Sky. That means you'll be dealing with Burmy and Combee as well as Butterfree and Beedrill.

This dungeon is also notable for being the first one to feature TMs! Keep your eyes peeled for them! It's a relatively safe dungeon.

In addition to all items from both previous versions, you can also find: Oren Berries, Dough, Dropeye, Reviser, Slip, and Via Seeds, and Mix Elixirs.

The TM for Dragon Claw is also newly added to this dungeon!

On the second floor, I wound up with yet another new recruit! Meet Pollen the Budew!

===========

Team Flight New Recruit

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

Pollen (Budew F); Lv. 11

Item: None

Abilities: Natural Cure, Poison Point | Moves: Absorb, Growth, Water Sport, Stun Spore

I think Pollen is going to stick around on the team for a solid while. Her Stun Spore alone is going to make her a big help for dealing with tough foes. She's also a Special Attacker which, right now, we don't really have anyone who specializes in that area.

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

On the fourth floor, I also happened across a TM for Water Pulse which I wasted no time in teaching to Cloud. Cloud may not be the best special attacker, but Water Pulse is still a solid upgrade to what she has access to right now!

And we got yet another New Recruit on the 12th floor!

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

Team Flight New Recruit

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

Honey (Combee F); Lv. 13

Item: None

Ability: Honey Gather | Moves: Sweet Scent, Gust, Bug Bite

Not a very useful pokemon to be sure. I can't imagine I'll be using Honey for much of anything. But she can help with some moral support. And hey, at least it's female so maybe I can evolve her into Vespiquen later on? The answer is no. I probably won't.

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

Deep Apple Woods

We arrive at the depths of Apple Woods and, after a bit of poking around, we find the Perfect Apples hanging from a giant tree! But now we have to figure out how to get them down...

Music: Team Skull

That's when Team Skull interferes! He taunts us by claiming to have eaten all the Perfect Apples, but that's obviously false since we can still see some of them.

To taunt us further, he offers to "help" us by knocking them off the tree for us. But it's obvious that it's a trap for further humiliation.

Despite calling out Skuntank's prank, we still have to get our hands on the Perfect Apples ourselves. Knowing they aren't just going to hand them over, Icarus steels himself and gets ready to fight for the apples.

Skuntank decides to face us in a "fair" fight, but before we're able to do anything, he and Koffing team up for their terrible Noxious Gas Combo!

When we soon come to, we find that all the Perfect Apples are gone! Unfortunately, it looks like we're going to have to return to the guild empty-handed...

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

When we return to make our report, Chatot is shaken to his core. How could we have possibly failed such an important task!? He's terrified of the wrath he'll have to endure from Wigglytuff. So, in addition to punishing us by withholding our dinner, he also makes us come with him to break the news to the Guildmaster.

And so, we're forced to sit on the sidelines during dinner that night, watching everyone else eat and starving ourselves.

We move on to speak with Wigglytuff who is supportive of us in spite of our failure, but he doesn't seem to quite understand the situation until Chatot explains to him what our failure to retrieve any Perfect Apples.

Chatot tries his best to make light of the situation in spite of Wigglytuff's obvious disappointment...

Wigglytuff starts to cry...

And before we know it, Wigglytuff begins crying out loudly! It gets so loud that spontaneous explosions begin to occur! It defies all science!

But, just in time to spare us from certain disaster, Team Skull arrives to deliver a Perfect Apple to the Guildmaster.

Wigglytuff is delighted by the offering! Chatot and the Guildmaster both thank Skuntank, and Chatot insists we thank them as well, angering Icarus even more since it's obvious what's going on and Chatot has yet to give us a chance to explain ourselves!

In the night, we hear Skuntank's plan for our upcoming expedition. After winning the trust of Wigglytuff, he plans to go along with the expedition until treasure is found, then attack the party to steal the treasure for himself.

Naturally, that night, Icarus has nothing special to say other than how miserable the day has been thanks to Skuntank's absurd cruelty.

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

The next morning, Chatot announces that the selection of expedition members is nearing completion, and that they plan to announce the members soon! So he encourages everyone to try their hardest to be selected. Until then, he suggests that we're not likely at all to be selected after our failure the previous day.

Shortly after our meeting with Chatot, Chimecho, Bidoof, and Sunflora slip us some leftovers from dinner the previous night! All three of them apparently secretly stashed away some food when they realized we had to sit out without dinner.

We have our sweet interaction among the apprentices where Icarus reveals that Chatot had just informed us that we're not likely to be selected, only for the others to insist there's no way we can know for sure who would and wouldn't be selected. Everyone explains that they hope we can go while admitting that they obviously don't want to be left out, but at the end of the day, it's just a fact that can't be helped. We all agree that there's no hard feelings toward anyone who gets in from anyone who gets left out. It's all part of the selection process.

After this, Croagunk calls us over to his shop and informs us that the Swap Shop is now open! I still think this is really awkward timing since there's no way you can have any treasure chests yet and that's entirely what this shop is about. Why not open this shop after the expedition when you can actually do some swapping?

And if you thought things were done yet, you've got another thing coming. Yes, we've got even more to pad this already bloated chapter out. Spinda's Cafe was not only introduced in this chapter, but also making some sort of major announcement! As much as I appreciate Spinda's Cafe, it really feels like all this should've been handled earlier on rather than literally right now.

Inside, we find a large crowd gathered around Spinda at the back of the cafe who announces the opening of a new service at the Recycle Shop called "Project P"

Spinda tells everyone the goal of the Recycle Shop: To use recycled items in order to find new places to explore! He goes on to elaborate how it works...

It all starts with the standard service of the Recycle Shop. Thanks to all the recycling going on, they've been able to obtain a solid stock of items!

The next step is to use the items in stock in order to discover new places to be explored!

The third step is to explore these new areas to find new items!

Finally, the items found from exploring those newly discovered areas can be brought back to the Recycle Shop for special deals! The result of this is a perpetual cycle of recycling items, exploring dungeons, and gathering more items. This will help the shop to grow dramatically.

And that's that! Spinda encourages everyone to continue recycling as much as they can.

The TL;DR of it all is simple enough in case you couldn't piece together the implications of this. We should have a tangible example pretty soon, but the long and short of it is that, after recycling enough items at the shop, we'll be able to unlock new dungeons to explore! Needless to say, that's gonna be important for our long-term coverage of this game.

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

Anyway, moving right along, while completing missions in Waterfall Cave, we got ourselves two new recruits!

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

Team Flight New Recruits

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

Rain (Psyduck M); Lv. 10

Item: None

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

If I didn't already have Cloud, I'd probably want to use Rain here, and I might still try to bring him along for certain weather-based dungeons. But for the most part, I think Cloud will be more useful overall. However, if I can find a better tank to replace Cloud's role, I might actually consider bringing Rain in on the main team.

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

Dandelion (Tangela M); Lv. 11

Item: None

Abilities: Chlorphyll, Leaf Guard | Moves: Ingrain, Constrict, Sleep Powder, Absorb

I think Dandelion will likely be replacing Pollen soon. Between Sleep Powder and his higher stats, he's just objectively better no matter how I look at it.

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

Anyway, after finishing another set of missions and eating dinner, it's off to bed once again.

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

And our next day is Sentry Duty again!

With another high score, we receive another 400P, another Pecha Scarf, another Reviver Seed, and another Max Elixir.

And once again dinner, and once again bed.

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

And it's another day of bulletin board jobs! This chapter just keeps dragging on, doesn't it?

Well, now that Project P is in place, we now have a larger variety of items to recycle for! We can now trade in items for Escape Orbs, but the more interesting item on the list is the Silver Ticket which can grant us rarer items in exchange for 6 items instead of 4.

==========

While doing missions at Mt. Bristle, I found yet another new recruit! The Doduo was an escort for a mission, not a permanent team member.

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

Team Flight New Recruit

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

Quill (Starly M); Lv. 9

Item: None

Ability: Keen Eye | Moves: Tackle, Growl, Quick Attack, Wing Attack

Quill certainly has a lot of potential, especially early game, but I think Icarus can pick up on just about anything Quill can provide. The best pro for Quill, though, is the ability to cover for Skye's weakness to Fighting. But ultimately, I think he's just gonna be sitting things out for a while.

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

Upon clearing the day's missions, one of my rewards was a new recruit in Nidorina!

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

Team Flight New Recruit

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

Love (Nidorina F); Lv. 1

Item: None

Abilities: Poison Point, Rivalry | Moves: Growl, Scratch

Love is yet another pokemon I think I'm gonna wanna slip onto my team! While nothing about her stands out as particularly great, and she is fairly low-level, her stats are likely to turn out a lot higher than Cloud's as a tank. The biggest issue with that is the fact that I literally just invested a TM into Cloud so that's a decision that feels bad in hindsight, but you never know what pokemon you're gonna get in this game. There are definitely other pokemon I'd prefer to have on my team in her place, though, and leveling her up from Lv. 1 isn't exactly all that enticing, either. Now that my selection of teammates is so much larger than before, I'm gonna need to take some time and think through which pokemon I wanna bring with me going forward.

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

At dinner that night, Chatot reveals that the Guildmaster has finally made his final decisions for the members of the upcoming expedition! The members will be announced tomorrow morning!

As we go to sleep for the night, we're treated to another heartwarming moment where Skye reflects on how badly Icarus clearly wants to go on this expedition and how she hopes he'll make it despite Chatot's suggestion that they shouldn't get their hopes up. We also reflect about our dizzy spells and how they might be useful if we're selected for the expedition... but also how frustrating it is that we can't control it.

And this time, we see Grovyle stealing the second of the Time Gears...

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

Chatot then begins to list off the people assigned for the expedition, ultimately realizing that Wigglytuff has listed very single member of the guild, including us!

Chatot and Skuntank both voice some concerns about the expedition. Chatot suggests it would be dangerous to leave the guild unattended while Skuntank suggests we might have too many members for the expedition. Wigglytuff's answer to both of these is that they can simply lock up properly and that having more friends will make the expedition more exciting! Wigglytuff really does have a one-track mind, doesn't he?

After everyone huddles up to talk about their excitement for the expedition, we break to make preparations!

We also get a bigger Treasure Bag, allowing us to carry a larger amount of items! Very important for when we start to run into traps in dungeons...

Once we've made all our necessary preparations, we go to speak with Chatot to proceed.

We hold an assembly to cover the plan for the expedition. We'll be setting out to explore Fogbound Lake, an unexplored territory where a great treasure is said to be hidden.

Since the destination is far away, we'll need to set up a base camp at the foot of the mountains near the forest. In order to get there, we'll be splitting up into smaller groups.

Our group includes Icarus and Bidoof, of course.

And with that, we finally reach the end of Chapter 6. There is an absurd amount of stuff packed into this one chapter, and it's overall a pretty miserable experience. Not only is it padded out with so much filler, but it's also just miserable for the characters in universe as well thanks to Team Skull's intrusion.

I've also previously complained that Team Skull are ultimately very pointless characters for this game's narrative. I'm still reserving my final judgment in case they might have a larger role in the postgame, but I certainly would've expected them to be comparable to Team Meanies in Rescue Team and they just aren't. Neither Skuntank nor his lackies serve any purpose other than being an obstacle for Icarus to stand up to. I just don't like this stretch of the game at all, and it feels even worse that Explorers of Sky decided to use right here to frontload several more explanations of a whole new feature with Spinda's Cafe. I apologize if it felt like I was trying to rush things too quickly, I really do want to cover all the new content as thoroughly as I can but there is just so much yet so little going on in this chapter. I at least appreciate the opportunity to do a bunch of smaller missions, though. It's something you don't really get the chance to do much of throughout the main story. The majority of the game is jumping immediately from one plot point to the next, if I recall.

Anyway, next time, we begin our trek toward the base camp near Fogbound Lake. See you soon!

June 23, 2023

Chapter 7: The Guild's Big Expedition

It's finally time to set out for the expedition for Fogbound Lake! Last time, Team Skull tried their best to keep us off of the expedition, but Guildmaster Wigglytuff elected to bring the entire guild on the expedition ensuring nobody would get left behind!

Of course, being a guild expedition, we can't bring any teammates from Chimecho Assembly, so we're gonna be alone to our own devices for a little while.

We take a stop at a cliff along the mountainside to plan out our route. Our ultimate goal is to meet up with the guild at the entrance to the forest, so we flag out a midway point in the mountains to serve as a checkpoint to get there.

Since we can't go home to Treasure Town right now, there's a Kangaskhan Rock we can use to save and access our storage, but we can't buy, sell, or access our bank. Instead we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled for Kecleon Shops in dungeons. All our preparations are set for now, though, so we'll go ahead and march on forward.

We're given a choice of dungeon: Craggy Coast and Side Path. This is typical of any situation where you're separated from Treasure Town. Since you can't put story progression on hiatus while you do jobs to gather more items and experience, there's instead a small side dungeon containing some basic items that will loop back here as much as you want, just in case you need to grind out supplies that you happen to be lacking.

Since I want to cover every dungeon in the game, I feel a need to go through these optional side dungeons, even if there's no particularly significant reason to do so.

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

Side Path

This dungeon is identical to its Darkness and Time counterpart except that it has the exclusive items from both versions. There's really nothing to talk about in that regard. Just come here to get a sneak preview at some of the enemies you'll be facing in the real dungeon and gather supplies. Spheal are certainly the most dangerous enemies you'll find here since their Powder Snow attacks the entire floor with a chance to freeze, but Gastrodon can also be scary since they know Water Pulse to attack from range and can confuse you!

After clearing the dungeon, you'll simply find yourself having looped back at the entrance, so in order to progress you'll have to pass through Craggy Coast instead.

===========

Craggy Coast

This is the main dungeon you'll need to clear to progress. It's nothing too dangerous, just be careful of Gastrodon and Spheal. On the later floors you'll also have to watch out for Sealeo. Krabby are also capable of attacking from a range, annoyingly enough. The most dangerous aspect you'll need to watch out for is the abundance of water. Don't get flanked by the many water types!

Item-wise, the dungeon contains the version-exclusive items from both previous versions except it only features the Gummis from Explorers of Time.

While I was exploring this dungeon, I was surprised to run into Hidden Stairs! These stairs appeared at my feet as though I'd stepped on a trap. Curious, I had to look deeper into this.

===========

Secret Bazaar

Well this is certainly unexpected... The bazaar down here appears to be some sort of hidden marketplace?

The Kirlia here welcomes us into the Bazaar. It's technically a floor of the dungeon, but it seems to be entirely safe and all the Pokemon here are NPCs we can speak with. Kirlia invites us to look around, so let's just see what kinds of services are offered here.

First up is Mime Jr.'s Spa, which is like a checkpoint that'll fully heal you as if you've exited the dungeon, but it costs 100P.

Up next is Swalot who sells Grab Bags for 100P. The bag will contain a random item which has a 50% chance of being just an Oran Berry, but a 50% chance of selecting from a much larger pool of items including Gummis and held items. In an ironic fate, there's an Oran Berry listed among the items you can get in this dungeon, so even if you don't get the 50% chance of automatically receiving an Oran Berry, there's still a chance you'll just happen to roll an Oran Berry anyway.

Lickilicky will cleanse all items in your bag for 100P. If any important items got sticky, this can be a life-saver! But it's kinda gross considering he probably cleans them by licking them...

Lastly, there's Shedinja who will escort you out of the dungeon for 100P.

Since all services down here seem to cost 100P, I suppose you should probably make sure to bring at least 100P with you going into dungeons from here on. Unfortunately, since I only have 20P I just happened to pick up on our expedition so far, and there's no Kecleon Shop to sell items to down here, I can't afford any of these services. That said, I'm not exactly in dire need of them, either. But certainly, even if you can't afford any services, you'll still probably want to take these hidden stairs as the stairs in here will take you directly to the next floor. These are functionally upgraded stairs, I suppose you could say.

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

After a little while, we clear the dungeon and arrive at our checkpoint. After setting up camp up here for the night to make progression down the mountain safer, it's time to keep going toward the base camp! And we once again have another choice to make. We can either climb Mt. Horn or take the Rock Path. You already know which way I'm going.

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

Rock Path

Once again, there's really nothing to say about this dungeon. It's just a small bite-size preview of some of the things to expect from Mt. Horn. The most threatening enemy here is Shroomish whose Effect Spore ability combined with Stun Spore and Leech Seed can make a pain if you have to approach it from a bad angle or it gets the drop on you thanks to the darkness.

Item-wise, this dungeon gets all the items from both its Time and Darkness counterparts.

And at the end of the dungeon, of course, you'll loop back to the start.

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

Mt. Horn

This dungeon introduces quite a handful of nasty pests. Thankfully, Parasect doesn't know Spore at the levels you encounter them here, but it still knows Stun Spore and PoisonPowder, and it still has the annoying Effect Spore ability. And there are a lot of pokemon capable of afflicting various status conditions, for that matter: Venomoth, Ariados, Parsect, Shroomish, and, worst of all, you can start to find Aerodactyl toward the later part of the dungeon. The dungeon is relatively short, but I probably don't need to remind you of the various ways these assholes are obnoxious from their Pressure Ability to confusing you with SuperSonic. All on top of their general bulk. Try to avoid interacting with them altogether if you can. Oh, and then there's Pineco who can SelfDestruct, so that's fun.

Okay, I can hype this dungeon up all I want, but it's really not that bad. It's got some annoying enemies, but it's still really short so it's not like you'll find yourself desperate for resources by the end. You won't be dealing with them long enough to feel the lasting effects of their presence. I'm sure there are later dungeons where these enemies, or enemies that share traits with them, will become much greater nuisances.

Anyway, the items available here are the combined lists of Time and Darkness with the addition of the Dragon Claw TM. And indeed, gummis from both Time and Darkness are available here.

Skye leveled up to Lv. 15 partway through this dungeon and learned Growl! I replaced Flail for it because I've found that, even at low HP, Flail doesn't seem to do much damage and it's far too risky of a move for my lead pokemon to use in the first place. Sure enough, looking it up, Flail is an absurdly useless move. It only has 2 base power and is, at most, doubled to 4 when you're down to 1/4 HP. For reference's sake, Tackle has a base power of 6. ???? I can't help but wonder if this is a bug because, in Rescue Team, it would instead be multiplied by 8 at 1/4 HP for 16 power which does dwarf Tackle as expected. And considering the high risk of having low HP, the massive boost in power is certainly justified. Anyway, needless to say, this move is objectively useless and I'd only ever use it if I'm ever out of PP for Tackle. Even then, I'd still probably just use a Max Elixir because Flail is so pathetic, especially at high HP. Growl, on the flipside, can be linked with Helping Hand and Sand-Attack to add further layers of support.

Likewise, Icarus also leveled up shortly after and tried to learn the move Feint. Feint is arguably a lot more useful in Mystery Dungeon as opposed to the main series since Protect is a status that lasts several turns. I'd certainly let Icarus have it, but every move he knows is actually incredibly useful right now. I just don't really see Feint being more useful than any of these other moves. Endure helps survive encounters with dangerous enemies and Monster Houses, Quick Attack is one of my few ranged options, Force Palm is a strong STAB attack and Bite covers his weakness to Psychic. So I think I'll stick to combat.

Anyway, we soon reach the end of the dungeon and... that's it! Yeah, I know this is a bit of an abrupt end, but this is where Chapter 7 ends! Next time, we'll arrive at the base camp and reunite with the rest of the guild! Only then with the expedition of Fogbound Lake truly begin! See you soon!

June 24, 2023

Chapter 8: Groudon's Heart

Our adventure continues! Last time we began our great expedition to Fogbound Lake, bringing us through Craggy Coast and Mt. Horn to arrive at the base camp from where the expedition proper will officially begin.

Unfortunately, it seems we were a bit late to our arrival. But can you really blame us? They grouped all the guild's newest members into the same squad! But knowing what we do about Chatot's character from Bidoof's Wish, it's safe to say he's probably less angry at us for inconveniencing him but more angry because he was concerned something might've happened to us. Regardless, everything's okay! So things should proceed as planned from here.

Just as we're about to head forward to the assembly, we're puzzled by a strange sense of familiarity with this place, as if we've been here before...

While the guild assembles to discuss the plan for how to approach this expedition, Chimecho brings up that, on her way here, her group had heard a worrying rumor that Fogbound Lake is home to the legendary pokemon Uxie who would wipe the memories of anyone who finds the place. This, combined with our surreal sense of deja vu, leads us to connect the dots and consider the possibility that, maybe we've reached Fogbound Lake before and had our memories wiped? Of course, we know the real explanation now, but still, this realization added a very interesting air of suspense around this whole expedition.

In the end, Chatot assigns us not one, but two focuses for our search within the forest here: Our primary goal is to search for Fogbound Lake, but to assist to that end, we'll need to search for a way to clear the dense fog blanketing the area.

Once we've made our preparations with the nearby Kangaskhan Rock, we begin our journey on the expedition! Once again, we have our choice of dungeon between Foggy Forest and Forest Path. It's obvious which one we're doing first!

Regardless of which dungeon we choose, Icarus stumbles across a strange red stone within the narrow linear path ahead that, somehow, literally nobody else found.

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

Forest Path

Moving right along to Forest Path, again, there doesn't seem to be anything of note here that differs from Time and Darkness other than Sky's version sharing the exclusive items of both Time and Darkness. Of the pokemon here, you'll need to watch out for Swinub the most for its Powder Snow.

Once we clear the dungeon, we find ourselves back where we started, which leads to the humorous scene where Chatot is under the impression we have intel to report.

Anyway, we probably shouldn't doddle to long and get going to the real dungeon.

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

Foggy Forest

This dungeon, as its name implies, is shrouded in fog. In this fog, the power of Electric-type attacks are cut, but it doesn't actually affect anything else.

Aside from the inclusion of Pachirisu from Explorer's of Time and all items from Time and Darkness, the only significant change here is the addition of Mix Elixirs and TM for Dragon Claw to the item pool.

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

Once we reach the edge of the forest under a series of waterfalls, we meet up with Corphish and stumble across a Groudon statue embedded into the ground!

The statue appears to have footprint runes providing a hint toward how we can find our way to a treasure. When I first played this, I was under the impression that these Footprint runes were some sort of ancient hieroglyphs that your partner was capable of deciphering because of his fascination with exploration and treasure hunting. It makes sense to me that he'd research this sort of thing. Ultimately, I'm pretty sure these Footprint runes are just the standard written language of the pokemon world and being able to read them isn't anything special.

Anyway, puzzled by the hint, Icarus makes the suggestion that we touch the statue in hopes that it'll trigger a dimensional scream.

It happens, but all we hear is a small voice. And this time, we know from our previous playthroughs why there's no visual attached to this voice. I suspect it's because there is no visual element as these are memories of our private thoughts.

We experience yet another Dimension Scream immediately after the very brief one from before where we recall figuring out the solution to the riddle thanks to the help of our partner who we now understand to be Grovyle! I've gotta say it's pretty cool experiencing these dimensional screams in hindsight, knowing everything from the end of the game.

After some further investigation into the new information we've received from the dimensional scream, we find an indentation in the statue and suggest Icarus put the red stone there.

Suddenly, the statue's eyes begin to glow red!

Everybody retreats from the statue as it glows brighter!

Music: Time Gear

Once the light from the statue clears, the sunlight shines brightly down on the fog below, and the fog is cleared!

With the riddle solved, we can finally see the bigger picture and now understand why Fogbound Lake has never been found before: It exists on an elevated plateau completely hidden by the fog.

Even still, I'm not sure how anybody would struggle to find this place considering there are literal waterfalls falling from it, but I digress.

Music: Team Skull

Just as we're about to make our way toward the lake, we're stopped by an all-too-familiar troupe.

Team Skull threatens to swoop in and steal the treasure, as they'd planned from the very beginning. But to that end, they prepare to attack us with their Noxious Gas Combo once again!

But, interrupting our little showdown, a Perfect Apple rolls between us...

It belongs to the guildmaster, of course!

Music: Guildmaster Wigglytuff

Wigglytuff is completely oblivious to the tension in the air and simply cheers everyone on, encouraging us to go on ahead and continue exploring the forest.

Skuntank suggests that he should go and "help" us explore, but Wigglytuff insists that they should leave the task to us. I have to wonder if Wigglytuff is actually quite wise and is intentionally separating us, knowing Team Skull's true intentions, or if he's genuinely oblivious to everything around him. The fact that I don't know is really funny to me.

With no other choice, Team Skull decides to unload their attack on the Guildmaster... of course, we know already how that ends up for them. We've got nothing to worry about as we progress toward Fogbound Lake.

Anyway, that's the end of the chapter, so that's it for now! Next time we'll pick up right where we left off and hopefully reach the treasure of the lake! See you soon!

June 26, 2023

Chapter 9: The Mystery of the Lake

We continue our expedition of Fogbound Lake! Last time we explored the Foggy Forest and placed the Drought Stone Icarus stumbled across into a Groudon Statue to clear the fog and reveal the plateau overhead where Fogbound Lake must be hidden! Team Skull tried to swoop in to take over and steal the treasure for themselves, but the guildmaster arrived just in time to make attacking us an impossibility. So, we were able to continue onward with our expedition, trusting that Wigglytuff will be okay on his own.

We arrive at a cave with steam billowing out of it. This must lead up the pleateau, so we'll have to venture forward!

Before we enter the dungeon, though, we get a cut back to Team Skull standing in preparation to attack Wigglytuff, but something about Wigglytuff leaves Skuntank intimidated, causing him to hesitate with his attack.

Finally, Skuntank is able to summon the nerve to attack Wigglytuff. Of course, we already know how this is going to turn out, so we've got nothing to be worried about. Instead, we'll just focus on the dungeon ahead.

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

Steam Cave

Unlike the last few dungeons, Steam Cave doesn't have any alternate paths. In addition, it also adds a few new items on top of combining the version exclusives from the other versions. The additions, though, are still pretty typical, mainly just the typical lookalike items and the Dragon Claw TM. This dungeon is relatively tame, there's nothing particularly dangerous but you're likely to find enemies fairly consistently take multiple hits now, and you might get burned once or twice from the various Fire types, especially Slugma and Magby. Bring some heal seeds just in case!

The added items include: Oren Berries, Dough, Dropeye, Reviser, Slip, and Via Seeds, and Mix Elixirs

==========

There's a midway point after the 8th floor, where we can hear the foreboding roar of Groudon in the distance. We've got a bit further to go...

It's here where we take the time to catch Icarus up on the fact that this area feels familiar to us. This only gives Icarus more drive to reach the top! Let's keep climbing!

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

Upper Steam Cave

I always love when the second half of a dungeon has different, more upbeat music. It always does such a great job of building up to the big encounter at the end. Upper Steam Cave is a bit tougher. Volbeat and Illumise can be particularly annoying with access to Moonlight, Quick Attack, and Confuse Ray. Don't take them lightly, though, and you should be fine. The items are the same as lower Steam Cave.

===========

Steam Cave Peak

We soon arrive at the peak of the cave. We must be drawing close to Fogbound Lake! But there's a foreboding tension in the air...

And soon, we hear the familiar roars of Groudon once again, followed by thunderous footsteps approaching us!

We cut back to the rest of the guild who seem to have followed Corphish back to the Groudon Statue and have gone searching for Wigglytuff who's gone missing. Corphish suggests that we must've gone ahead and Wigglytuff must've followed after, so the rest of the guild heads our way as well. And after hearing the roar of Groudon, they quickly realize that we might be in danger, so theyd ecide to hurry in their pursuit!

Just as everyone leaves, we find Team Skull completely wiped out on the side, clearly demonstrating just how powerful Wigglytuff can actually be. You definitely don't want to be on the receiving end of Wigglytuff's wrath, now!

Cutting back to the peak, Groudon finally begins to step into frame, accusing us of coming to desecrate the lake and demanding we turn back now, threatening to kill us if we don't comply!

The guild continues their pursuit of us, finding their way into Steam Cave. With no time to waste, they quickly pile in.

As they work their way up through the dungeon, Corphish asks Chatot about Groudon and they begin to discuss how dangerous of a foe Groudon is and how facing Groudon in battle is akin to suicide!

But there's no turning back now. We've come too far to give up now, so we'll just have to face this challenge head-on!

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

Team Flight

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

Skye (Eevee F); Lv. 16

Item: Zinc Band

Abilities: Run Away, Adaptability | Moves: Tackle, Helping Hand + Sand-Attack, Growl

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

Icarus (Riolu M); Lv. 16

Item Lime Bow

Abilities: Steadfast, Inner Focus | Moves: Endure, Quick Attack, Force Palm, Bite

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

Vs. Groudon

And so begins our first major boss fight against a legendary pokemon! It's Groudon and we'd better come prepared!

The logical first step would've been to allow Groudon to close the gap while I used Growl from a range, but I didn't consider that at the moment and instead stepped toward Icarus so that I could use Helping Hand to buff Riolu while debuffing Groudon's accuracy with Sand-Attack. I was quickly surprised by just how much damage Groudon was able to do, though, so to minimize risk I had Icarus focus on using Endure while I focused on keeping my HP up between Skye's attacks.

Occasionally, Groudon would step back, giving me better chance to recover and reduce his attack power. The most dangerous thing he's capable of doing, though, is reducing our speed with Scary Face. It's important to reduce his accuracy really quickly so he can't get constant damage on us by lowering our speed. Icarus can stay alive with Endure, but Skye isn't so lucky.

At one point, I have absolutely no clue what happened, but Groudon was able to deal a counterattack against Icarus, causing him to get knocked out and use a Reviver Seed. I genuinely have no clue what happened because Groudon didn't have a Counter status as far as I was aware, and I couldn't find anything like that on the message log. The only moves he should know are Bulk Up, Slash, AncientPower, and Scary Face. As you can imagine, I was pretty salty about this coming out of nowhere, but I suppose there might just be some hidden mechanic with this boss fight to make Groudon more scary and imposing. I'm not really sure, but it definitely felt like a cheap shot. Especially considering I had to start buffing Icarus all over again.

To add insult to injury, it turns out Groudon was nearly defeated when that happened, too. Just a little bit longer and we were able to take it out!

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

After a bit of a struggle, Groudon was finally defeated.

Suddenly, Groudon begins to glow in a bright light before suddenly disappearing...

A new voice begins to speak to us, informing us that the Groudon we'd fought was an illusion conjured to scare intruders off. However, the guardian of the lake continues to insist that we must leave regardless.

After Icarus admits that we're an exploration team and confesses we're interested in treasure, he adds that we'll be happy just having the experience of coming this far even if he can't bring a treasure home. His honesty is enough to win the guardian over, and so Uxie appears before us and introduces himself.

Music: Time Gear

Uxie leads us a bit further ahead toward Fogbound Lake where we receive a beautiful view of the lake with Volbeat and Illumise drifting over the water's surface and the Time Gear glowing brilliantly at the center of the lake.

At Uxie's suggestion, we take a closer look at the light in the center to see the Time Gear in person. The Time Gear causes Skye's heart to race. After all, unknown to her, she is supposed to be helping Grovyle to gather these gears. But with her memories gone, she has no way of knowing why she's so excited yet nervous to be around it. But it's clear it's a very important treasure indeed, and now it makes sense why it's so heavily protected.

As Uxie explains the measures he takes to prevent the Time Gear from being stolen, including erasing the memories of those who tried to reach the lake without his permission, Icarus finally asks if Uxie had ever met Skye before, and if he took away her memory for any reason.

Uxie elaborates that he can only erase the memories of Fogbound Lake, not wiping another's mind clean. In addition, she states that no human has ever been here before. But that only begs the question... why is this place so familiar to Skye? We now know, of course, that it's because Skye has been here, but only in the world of the future. But with no memory of that, it truly is an enigma.

Soon, the voice of Wigglytuff calls out. He's seems only a little disappointed to find the treasure of Fogbound Lake to be a Time Gear, something the guild obviously can't take.

After we introduce Uxie to Wigglytuff, Wigglytuff draws our attention to the beautiful view ahead of us.

Soon, the rest of the guild finally catches up and finds everyone here at the lake!

Wigglytuff then invites everyone to come and see the sight, delighted to see the beautiful sight of the lake spouting like a fountain!

Music: Time Restored

And it's a beautiful sight indeed! We're treated to yet another shot of the fountain towering over us and shining brilliantly over the entire lake! Easily one of the most memorable scenes from the game, especially with the beautiful music combined with the conclusion of our whole journey to get here. It's truly a lovely experience.

Wigglytuff suggests that this view of the lake geyser spouting at nighttime illuminated by the time gear's light is the true treasure of Fogbound Lake. Everyone is delighted by the wonderful view.

After this wonderful experience, Uxie explains that we've earned his trust and so he chooses not to erase our memories so that we may treasure the memory of Fogbound Lake for years to come. In return, Uxie asks that we keep the location a secret. Wigglytuff adds that another Time Gear has been stolen, so he understands the urgency to keep our lips sealed on the matter. The time gear has to be kept safe!

With that, on Chatot's call, it's time for the guild to head back home!

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

And that's the end of the expedition of Fogbound Lake! The first major milestone of the game's story. As we know, the adventure is only going to continue to get tougher going forward, so we'll need to be extra prepared for the struggles ahead of us.

With the expedition completed, Fogbound Lake is now marked on our map and we're rewarded with an even larger treasure bag! We can now carry up to 40 items at once! And while that's fantastic and all...

...Our most important reward is unlocking our next Special Episode: Igglybuff the Prodigy! Judging by the name, it sounds like this one will be taking place even earlier than Bidoof's Wish and exploring the origin story of Wigglytuff! Perhaps we'll find out how he's so powerful and perhaps even see him evolve from a baby Igglybuff to a powerful Wigglytuff! There's no telling how long this is going to be, but I imagine it to at least be about the same length as Bidoof's Wish, but it's likely a little bit longer. We'll just have to wait and see, but naturally we'll be covering it in extensive detail since it's entirely new content.

So next time, we'll begin our next Special Episode! See you then!

June 27, 2023

It's time to begin our second Special Episode! Last time, we unlocked Igglybuff the Prodigy by finishing our expedition of Fogbound Lake and witnessing Wigglytuff's power as she completely demolished Team Skull. Now, we're going to be able to get a little peek into what Wigglytuff's life was like before the guild.

==========

The story begins in the middle of the night, while everyone's asleep.

We see Chatot sneaking through the hall toward the Guildmaster's chamber.

It turns out, he was asked to deliver a Perfect Apple to Wigglytuff. Of course, the guildmaster loves his Perfect Apples, after all.

Chatot begins to complain about the task. Apparently it's a regular occurrence for Wigglytuff to ask Chatot to sneak him a Perfect Apple even though Chatot knows very well Wigglytuff would just take one anyway even if Chatot didn't deliver it.

Suddenly, as Wigglytuff is bouncing the Perfect Apple on his head, he drops an item and seems afraid!

Wigglytuff is relieved the item wasn't damaged at all when he dropped it. Chatot quickly identifies the item as a Defend Globe, a rare Swap Shop treasure that protects Bug-types from Flying-type attacks. It's a peculiar item for a Normal-type like Wigglytuff to be carrying around since it has no effect.

Chatot is glad to see Wigglytuff with an item he takes good care of besides Perfect Apples. After all, he seems to be relatively careless with a lot of things that end up in his possession. Just another one of his many childlike qualities.

Of course, Chatot still must ask: What purpose could the Defend Globe serve for Wigglytuff?

Wigglytuff answers Chatot with a story. It all goes back to the time when Wigglytuff first decided to become an explorer.

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

Special Episode 2: Igglybuff the Prodigy

This story follows Wigglytuff back when he was just a small child, not even evolved. Still a baby Igglybuff.

Music: Heartwarming

We get a scene of a beautiful lush green prairie where children are happily at play under the sun.

The camera pans over to Wigglytuff's quaint childhood home where she lived happily with her parents.

We're quickly introduced to little Igglybuff, the Guildmaster as a child! Something about seeing the guildmaster so little is simply adorable! And of course we're also introduced to Mama and Papa Wigglytuff, too!

Mama Wigglytuff gives Igglybuff a bunch of Gummis to share with his friends when he goes out to play with them.

Soon, Igglybuff's friends arrive and call out for him. So, it's time for Igglybuff to head off!

And this is where we gain access to Igglybuff! Just like in Bidoof's Wish, our save point is relocated. This time, we'll be saving in Igglybuff's Bed in his house since the Guild simply doesn't exist yet.

After bidding our parents goodbye, Igglybuff greets his friends outside and they all run off to play together!

The kids discuss what to play, Wooper suggests playing in the mud, but Smoochum complains that she doesn't want to get all muddy because it isn't ladylike.

That's when Igglybuff brings up the Gummis his mama gave him and shares it with all of his friends!

Igglybuff runs around to check on how his friends are enjoying the Gummis. It's really sweet how delighted Igglybuff is by how happy he's able to make all his friends!

Music: Murky Forest

Soon, some bullies Banette and Skorupi arrive on the scene, wondering what everyone's up to. The kids are immediately frightened by them and don't want anything to do with them. But Igglybuff seems completely unphased.

The bullies notice Igglybuff has a bunch of Gummis and demand that he give them some, too.

Due to his innocence, Igglybuff doesn't see anything wrong at all and happily shares his Gummis with the bullies, seeing them as new friends. This bothers his other friends who don't want to see Igglybuff get hurt or tricked into doing anything bad...

The kids talk amongst themselves, they're all worried about Igglybuff being in this situation.

The bullies are equally taken aback by the fact that Igglybuff doesn't seem scared of them at all, but they'll gladly accept it as long as they can boss Igglybuff around anyway.

The two continue to take advantage of Igglybuff's kindness by demanding more gummis, which Igglybuff is delighted to oblige.

The only problem is that Igglybuff is surprised to find out he's completely run out of gummis.

Igglybuff is disappointed at first, but he quickly appears to get over it and offers a quick apology instead.

Banette is surprised Igglybuff didn't even notice how many they took from him, and decides to "forgive" him, suggesting he bring more Gummis next time.

Of course, Igglybuff's friends are still concerned about all of this playing out in front of them. Smoochum gets angry enough that she wants to do something about it!

But as Smoochum starts to approach, Wooper and Budew stop her, insisting that she shouldn't get involved or she might end up getting hurt. This only makes Smoochum more upset to realize she can't do anything to help Igglybuff.

With that, Budew suggests they go tell Igglybuff's mother about what's going on in order to get help and everyone agrees.

===========

Music: Goodnight

That night, we see Mama Wigglytuff singing Igglybuff to sleep with her lullaby.

Once Igglybuff falls asleep, Mama explains to Papa what Igglybuff's friends told her.

She elaborates that it can be really difficult to figure out what's going on in the little one's head, so she's worried Igglybuff could end up being influenced by these bullies.

Papa consoles Mama by reminding her of Igglybuff's pure heart.

He also reminds her of a story he's apparently told her before, about something that happened during a mountain climbing trip with Igglybuff.

As the story goes, Igglybuff and Papa Wigglytuff got stuck in a storm on the way home from their mountain climb. The storm was causing rocks to fall onto the road from above, making it dangerous to travel. Rocks falling near Igglybuff kept scaring him, so Papa had to stop and make sure Igglybuff was okay and insist that they needed to keep moving to get away from the dangerous part of the road.

As they continued on, even more rubble began to fall, scaring Igglybuff even more.

But when Papa went to check on Igglybuff this time, a huge boulder started to fall right above him!

Just as the boulder was about to land on Papa and crush him, Igglybuff let out a powerful "Yoom tah!"

Before he knew it, the boulder had been completely destroyed!

Papa adds that he's confident it was Igglybuff who saved him that day, explaining that Igglybuff has some sort of mysterious power that activates when people are in trouble. He suspects that power comes from his kindness for others. With that in mind, he suggests that he and Mama both should trust in Igglybuff and his kind spirit a little more.

It's funny how as I've gotten older, sweet, wholesome family interactions like these in media mean a lot more to me. It's really sweet to see such a healthy family dynamic exemplified between Igglybuff's parents. It's a very simple one, yet they're able to talk things out so openly and effortlessly. You'd think the cynicism of adulthood would make me roll my eyes at characters like these, but it's actually just the opposite. These are definitely the types of characters I'd probably think were really lame and boring as a kid, but I actually am a little interested in their stories, too. I doubt we'll see much of them, but it was a thought that had crossed my mind.

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

Music: Heartwarming

The next morning, Igglybuff wakes up to greet her family cheerfully yet again!

I haven't really mentioned it yet, but you can speak to Igglybuff's parents to get a little bit of extra dialogue before leaving. It can lead to these cute little cheery but brief conversations.

Anyway, things might seem abrupt, but I'm going to put things off here. This is the cleanest stopping point before our first dungeon and I figure it'll be a good precedent to pace myself in such a way where I can roughly focus on dungeons in isolated updates. So, next time, we'll see how things play out between Igglybuff and these bullies.

June 28, 2023

Special Episode 2: Igglybuff the Prodigy (Part 2)

It's time to continue with Igglybuff the Prodigy! This is the origin story of Guildmaster Wigglytuff, set long ago when he was still just a wee Igglybuff. Last time, we were introduced to Igglybuff, his parents Papa and Mama Wigglytuff, and his friends Wooper, Smoochum, and Budew. While Igglybuff was sharing some gummis with his friends, some bullies Banette and Skorupi showed up and tricked Igglybuff into giving all of his Gummis to them. Igglybuff's innocence leads him to believe these two just want to be his friends and he's completely ignorant that he's being taken advantage of. Noticing this, his friends told Mama what was going on.

After Mama received word and shared the news with Papa, Papa recounted a story where Igglybuff's mysterious power saved him from a boulder that nearly crushed him. He noted that Igglybuff's special power is tied to his kindness and comes into play when people are in danger, and stated it as evidence that Igglybuff simply has a kind soul and will do the right thing when push comes to shove.

Now, Igglybuff is headed out to play with his friends again! And we see those bullies have shown up again as well!

It seems the bullies are trying to get the kids to play with them. The game they want to play is "explorers" which sounds innocent enough, but knowing these guys they might be taking things a bit too far...

Skorupi explains that he and Banette want to become an exploration team, so he wants to go out and explore unknown areas. A sort of head start on their career as explorers.

Music: Murky Forest

Budew decides to ask where Banette and Skorupi want them to go, and Banette reveals he already has a place in mind: Murky Forest.

This is immediately met with pushback from Igglybuff's friends! Smoochum points out that it's against the rules and Budew mentions a rumor that a scary monster lives in the forest. Everyone is afraid to go to the forest!

It's at this point that Banette begins to tease the kids for being too afraid to go.

All three of Igglybuff's friends immediately opt out of the game. They definitely don't want to go somewhere they've been told to stay away from.

Banette and Skorupi complain that everybody is too scared and just coming up with excuses not to go, and that they'll never make a real exploration team.

It's at this point where Igglybuff asks what an exploration team is, apparently he's been completely out of the loop this whole conversation. Banette is surprised to hear that Igglybuff doesn't know what it is, but Igglybuff seems certain he's got the courage to be one!

After a bit of reluctance, Banette decides that Igglybuff will be better help than no help, so he invites Igglybuff along, to Igglybuff's delight. But... it's against the rules to go there, right? Is Igglybuff going to get in trouble?

Music: A Fun Exploration

After a bit of a pep speech, the three form a makeshift exploration team and prepare to set out to explore Murky Forest.

Although it's not likely a good idea, we head out toward this frightening location.

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

Murky Forest

The music here is the same music that's been used as the theme of the bullies. It's a neat remix of the Tiny Woods theme from Red and Blue Rescue Team!

Now, just like Bidoof's Wish, we'll have to enter this dungeon completely empty-handed. Unlike Bidoof's Wish, though, we don't even have the option to pull items out of Kangaskhan Storage. We're just stuck with whatever we can find in the dungeon!

Anyway, we'll be exploring this dungeon alongside Banette and Skorupi who are both, surprisingly, lower level than Igglybuff! Unlike Snover in Bidoof's Wish, these guys don't actively sabotage you with their abilities, which instantly makes this a far more bearable exploration!

Banette can deal some solid damage with Frustration and he can also provide some support with Swagger and Screech, though Swagger isn't nearly as useful in Mystery Dungeon as it is in the main series since enemies don't damage themselves in confusion. Even still, the confusion can occasionally help buy you some extra time.

Skorupi, on the other hand, can use Pin Missile to attack from afar, generally making him a more useful companion than Banette. He also knows Poison Sting and Bite for close-range fighting.

As for Igglybuff himself, his moveset is a little lacking, but he knows Sing, Pound, Sweet Kiss, and Copycat. Sing and Sweet Kiss can be helpful if you find yourself in a bind, but most of the time, especially in this dungeon, you should be able to get by just by Pounding things into oblivion.

Now, let's get into the actual dungeon, shall we?

Murky Forest is home to some pesky Bugs and other enemies with somewhat annoying moves, but they're all pretty weak and go down relatively easily. Still, if you aren't careful you might find Igglybuff getting low on HP really quickly. Make sure to use the items you find!

The items that are available throughout the dungeon include: Poke, Insomniscopes, Def., and Pecha Scarves, Persim, Power, Special, Stamina and Zinc Bands, Gravelerocks, Iron Thorns, Apples, Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries, Blinker, Eyedrop, Reviver, and Totter Seeds, Max Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs.

In addition, this is our first time having to worry about Traps! Tread carefully, though the traps in this dungeon aren't very dangerous.

Traps you'll need to watch out for include: Chestnut Traps and Warp Traps.

Warp Traps are the ones you'll need to watch out for more. Chestnut Traps are very much a non-issue, but with your inability to set the tactics of your teammates, Warp Traps can cause some dangerous headaches. If you don't have any items to help gather your teammates together after getting separated, try to find your way to the staircase quick before your isolated teammates wander into trouble!

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

Murky Forest [1F]

Pokemon: Exeggcute, Hoothoot, Hoppip

You'll wanna be wary around Exeggcute and Hoothoot! They can both put you to sleep with Hypnosis and Exeggcute can also follow up with a potentially dangerous Barrage! Hoppip is practically nonexistant, though. It's really weak and can be torn through like paper.

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

Murky Forest [2F]

Pokemon: Exeggcute, Hoothoot, Hoppip, Doduo

Doduo joins the fray on the second floor. You know the drill, be careful of its Quick Attack!

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

Murky Forest [3F]

Pokemon: Exeggcute, Hoothoot, Hoppip, Doduo, Weedle, Burmy (Sandy Cloak), Spinarak, Wurmple

On the 3rd floor, a bunch of Bugs suddenly swarm the dungeon! Their poison attacks and String Shots can cause a lot of problems if you underestimate them! Burmy is especially annoying since it knows Protect!

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

Murky Forest [4F]

Pokemon: Hoppip, Doduo, Weedle, Burmy (Sandy Cloak), Spinarak, Wurmple

It seems on the 4th floor, the bugs have driven out the earlier pokemon. But Hoppip stays around!

It's on this floor where I found a Pecha Scarf and decided to give it to Igglybuff. Since Banette and Skorupi are technically guests, I can't give them held items. Regardless, the Pecha Scarf is obviously a best fit for Igglybuff anyway. It'll protect him from the Poison attacks he'll be enduring throughout the dungeon. It's not like I have any other held items it's competing with, so it's better to have it equipped than to just let it burn a hole in my pocket.

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

Murky Forest [5F - 7F]

Pokemon: Hoppip, Weedle, Burmy (Sandy Cloak), Spinarak, Wurmple

Doduo turns up missing starting with the 5th floor, leaving us with a swarm of bugs and a weed that we might trip over sometimes.

You'll want to be extra careful on the last two floors, though, as there's a rare chance you'll find yourself cornered in a monster house! And I can imagine those being quite deadly with this lineup. Imagine having your speed tanked by String Shot from Weedle, Spinarak, and Wurmple, getting poisoned by Weedle and having to fight through Burmy that are hiding behind Protect.

But, you can always get some really nice items from Monster Houses! I don't recommend using TMs or Gummis in the Special Episode, though. Hold onto them so that they can be placed in storage later on!

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

After clearing the 7th floor, it seems both Banette and Skorupi are starting to get a little shaken up by the forest. They both appear to be quite on edge now.

Skorupi seems to be getting cold feet now that we've reached the depths of the forest where they're not supposed to go. Banette starts out teasing him, but...

...It seems Skorupi isn't alone in his fears. Even Banette can't hide his fear very well.

We continue traveling through the forest together.

Skorupi stops at a clearing in the forest, thinking he saw something. That makes Banette afraid and he defensively calls Skorupi a coward!

The two begin to bicker and work each other up over whether or not Banette is scared, even though he obviously is and is just trying to act tough.

In order to prove he isn't scared, Banette suddenly begins to shout into the depths of the forest to draw the attention of the supposed monster of the forest.

After they receive no response, Banette seems a bit relieved that the monster appears to just be a rumor, so he naturally claims to have known from the very beginning that there never was a monster.

Following this, Skorupi and Igglybuff both join in his laughter before Banette declares the exploration over and everyone turns around to head home.

As the group starts to leave, however, they suddenly hear a low growl coming from the depths of the forest...

Music: Rising Fear

Soon, a voice calls out to the trio, confirming that they just claimed to be an exploration team.

Music: The Power of Darkness

The voice comes off as incredibly angry with us, but soon an Armaldo lashes out at us from the darkness!

As expected, the moment Armaldo attacks, Banette and Skorupi both immediately scream and run away in sheer terror.

Noticing Igglybuff has yet to run away, Armaldo continues trying to intimidate him with another slash of his claws and another loud roar.

When Igglybuff doesn't budge, he continues urging Igglybuff to run, continuing to try and intimidate him with another loud roar! But again, Igglybuff doesn't budge an inch!

Instead, Igglybuff just pauses to ask Armaldo what he's doing here? He's completely unphased!

Music: Guildmaster Wigglytuff

Armaldo is absolutely perplexed that he wasn't able to scare Igglybuff away, and Igglybuff cheerily affirms that he's not scared in the slightest!

Igglybuff and Armaldo share a brief exchange where they Igglybuff pesters Armaldo over and over to tell him why he's out here in such a strange place, Armaldo tries to resist and tell Igglybuff to get lost, but Igglybuff is just too persistent for him to deter. The sheer power of Wigglytuff combined with the almost annoying persistance of a small child is a truly terrifying combo.

Eventually, Igglybuff is able to convince Armaldo to answer his question, so he leads Igglybuff deeper into the forest.

Just ahead, we can see a Kangaskhan Statue which we'll likely be able to use to access our storage in a little bit. But for now, we're moving on ahead into a nearby cave.

Igglybuff is delighted to see the inside of the cave, the home of Armaldo! He's amazed by the survival equipment lined up and calls it a secret base!

Armaldo explains to Igglybuff that he's a retired explorer, but he's gotten hung up on something and seems to have given up exploring altogether to live a quiet life here in the Murky Forest.

Igglybuff still doesn't seem to understand what exploring is, he asks Armaldo about it and Armaldo seems a bit confused on how to explain it to him.

As Armaldo explains exploring to Igglybuff, it seems he really enjoyed exploring! And the way he described it, going to distant lands, searching for treasure and bringing it back... it doesn't waste time at all capturing Igglybuff's imagination!

Music: Beyond the Dream

To provide an example of the kind of thing an explorer does, Armaldo shows Igglybuff a secret map that supposedly indicates the location of treasure, but he says it doesn't make any sense...

As Armaldo continues going on about how long he's been working on the cipher of the map and how he can overcome the challenge of the deciphering the map in order to find the treasure as long as he just sticks to it persistently... Igglybuff seems to have a strange idea, sticking the map into the fire in the center of Armaldo's home, setting it on fire!

It's at this point where Armaldo stop spacing to turn toward Igglybuff and he notices...

Music: Guildmaster Wigglytuff

Armaldo is terrified to find his life's work suddenly being burned in front of his very eyes by this little kid!

Armaldo snatches the map back from Igglybuff and is burned by the flames! That's when he gets the idea to put the fire out with his Water Gun.

After putting the fire out, Armaldo rightfully grows depressed seeing his secret map charred to nothing...

But just as all hope seems to be last, Igglybuff urges him to look closer at the map.

After Igglybuff brushes off the charred parts of the map, Armaldo is shocked to find there's more to the map revealed by the fire!

At this point, it's easy enough to solve the cipher: Eastern Cave! That's where the treasure lies!

Music: In the Depths of the Pit

Armaldo is amazed that Igglybuff was able to solve this puzzle so quickly and asks how he was able to figure it out. Igglybuff explains that he could tell the map was unusually thick, so there had to be two layers to it. But he couldn't find a way to peel the first layer back, so the next idea that came to mind was to burn it off in the fire!

Armaldo is completely at a loss for words, stunned silent by how effortlessly this random kid was able to solve this critical problem that he's been hung up on all this time...

Igglybuff excitedly asks for Armaldo to bring him along if he decides to go to Eastern Cave, but Armaldo reminds him that he's a retired explorer, just jumping back into business isn't as easy as all that...

But Igglybuff isn't about to let Armaldo just throw away his dreams like that. He can tell right away that Armaldo loves exploring based on how he was talking so enthusiastically about it, and he also knows how long and hard he's been working on the map, so he encourages Armaldo to pick up exploring again anyway! And to go to the cave and look for the treasure!

After Igglybuff's convincing, Armaldo finally agrees to head out on an adventure to Eastern Cave to search for the treasure of the map! This will be Igglybuff's first real exploration and Armaldo will finally be fulfilling a long-time dream of his! But for now, Armaldo urges Igglybuff to run on home because his parents would probably be worried about him for now. Tomorrow, they set off on their adventure!

And that's where we'll put things off for now. Next time, we'll head out on our exploration of Eastern Cave with Armaldo in search of treasure! See you soon!

June 30, 2023

Special Episode 2: Igglybuff the Prodigy (Part 3)

Our story continues! Last time, Igglybuff was manipulated by the bullies Banette and Skorupi into exploring Murky Forest with them, where a monster is said to roam. After reaching the depths of the forest, the trio came face to face with the supposed monster, Armaldo. Banette and Skorupi got scared away, but Igglybuff wasn't scared in the slightest and ended up pestering Armaldo enough to get Armaldo to tell him his story. It turned out, Armaldo was a retired explorer who was living alone in Murky Forest. He held onto a Secret Map that led to a treasure he was once pursuing before giving up his dream of exploring. But after Igglybuff was able to expertly solve the riddle of the map, the two realized where the treasure was located. With some convincing, Igglybuff managed to get Armaldo to agree to go on one last exploration to seek the treasure of this map at Eastern Cave.

And that's where our story begins today!

If we talk to Papa Wigglytuff, Igglybuff tells him he met a new friend! It's likely they think he's talking about the bullies from before, but of course, it's Armaldo!

Mama Wigglytuff urges him to be careful and not go anywhere dangerous, and Igglybuff cheerfully agrees. Ironically, he doesn't seem to see Murky Forest as dangerous at all and doesn't even consider that Eastern Cave might be dangerous as well.

Anyway, once we're ready to go, we can head out to meet with Armaldo. Alternatively, we could also revisit Murky Forest if we wanted to gather up some new items.

On his way out, Igglybuff runs into his friends who are naturally concerned after hearing he went exploring with the bullies.

Igglybuff catches his friends up on what happened by telling them everyone went home in the middle of it, completely failing to mention that the bullies were scared away by the "monster" of the forest.

When Wooper asks if Igglybuff wants to play, Igglybuff tells his friends he already has plans for the day and can't. he then nonchalantly tells everyone he's going to Murky Forest, frightening them all!

Shortly after, Igglybuff also runs into the bullies he went to the forest with! They're surprised to see Igglybuff safe and sound!

When Skorupi suggests he thought Igglybuff got eaten by the monster, Igglybuff is completely confused. Further showing he had never even considered that Armaldo was the "monster" everyone was afraid of.

Banette is shocked when Igglybuff tells them he made friends with that "monster" and Banette is left shaken. I have to wonder if he's afraid of Igglybuff now?

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

After that, Igglybuff makes his way back through Murky Forest to reach Armaldo's Shelter.

Music: A Fun Exploration

Upon arriving at the Shelter, Igglybuff greats Armaldo and hurries him to get going on this exploration!

Before going, Armaldo teaches Igglybuff about the importance of making preparations before going out on an exploration and tells him about the Kangaskhan Rock.

After telling Igglybuff it was something he shouldn't pass up, Igglybuff begins to mess with the statue, clearly not sure how to properly interact with it. Fearing he might break it, Armaldo yells at Igglybuff to stop hitting it!

He then tells Igglybuff how to properly use the Knagaskhan Rock and so it's now time to make proper preparations for our exploration.

Unlike in Bidoof's Wish, we actually have a small selection of items to pull from our other adventures. Again, let's not question the ethics of Igglybuff stealing from Team Flight's future reserves. I'm sure everything will be fine. On the right are the items I've decided to bring with me. I only pulled out an Oran Berry, Escape Orb, Apple, and Heal Seed. The rest came from our previous exploration.

Worth noting, Armaldo is actually a proper partner this time around. So, we can give him held items and he'll listen to our tactical commands.

In addition, as an experienced explorer, he has a hefty amount of IQ Skills at his disposal. That's always nice to have.

Once we're done making preparations, we make our save and head out for Eastern Cave!

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

Eastern Cave

The music of Eastern Cave is another Rescue Team reference, this time it's the theme of Buried Relic! I love the strange sense of nostalgia from little callbacks like this! It's really exciting music, too! Anyway, this is another relatively simple dungeon with little in the way of threats, but you will want to watch out for Tangela's Sleep Powder and Diglett's Magnitude can also be potentially devastating if you're unlucky! Overall, it's a bit longer and home to more dangerous amounts of unexpected damage, but less dangerous in the way of getting slowed to helplessness. You do have a really powerful ally this time around!

Items available throughout Eastern Cave include: Poke, Insomniscopes, Def. and Pecha Scarves, Persim, Power, Special, Stamina, and Zinc Bands, Gravelerocks, Iron Thorns, Apples, Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries, Blinker, Eyedrop, Reviver, and Totter Seeds, Max Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs

Traps you can find throughout the dungeon include: Slow Traps, Slumber Traps, Summon Traps, Trip Traps, and Warp Traps.

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

Eastern Cave [B1F - B5F]

Pokemon: Diglett, Tangela, Nincada, Whiscash

As mentioned before, the pokemon aren't too dangerous, but you can be suddenly hit with a lot of damage if you're careless, so try and take out enemies as quickly as possible, and take advantage of Armaldo's high level! Igglybuff's Pound isn't particularly reliable since it often misses, especially if you're unlucky enough to get hit with Sand-Attack from Diglett or Nincada.

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

Eastern Cave [B6F - B10F]

Pokemon: Diglett, Tangela, Nincada, Whiscash, Magikarp

You'll start to run into Magikarp on B6F onward. Not really sure why Magikarp can be found here, Whiscash is weird enough already, but it merely dilutes the dungeon's encounters with an easy KO so I'm all for it.

More concerning, though, is the risk of Monster Houses starting on B6F. Monster Houses tend to have more traps in them as well, so be extra careful! The Monster Houses make Diglett's Magnitude and Sand-Attack that much more threatening, so try to make it out as quickly as possible and don't be afraid to use an Escape Orb if you're in a bad spot!

On B9F, I found a Stamina Band which I gave to Igglybuff and moved the Pecha Scarf over to Armaldo. It probably won't do him much good, but the Stamina Band will do even less for him, so this is the way to go.

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

After clearing the 10th floor, we find ourselves nearing the depths of the dungeon when Igglybuff spots a light ahead!

We soon arrive at a chamber that appears to be filled with traps and some sort of puzzle to solve in order to gain access to the treasure.

Naturally, Igglybuff is delighted at the expectation of treasure ahead and is about to jump right through all these traps when Armaldo tells him to hold on.

Igglybuff gets impatient and annoyed that Armaldo tells him to wait, but Armaldo starts to point his attention to the design of the room.

Music: I Saw Something Again...

Assessing the situation, ARmaldo suspects the ultimate goal is to insert some sort of key into a slot above the door.

But his eyes are then drawn to the traps in front of the door, likely bringing a swift end to anyone who makes a misstep in solving the puzzle ahead.

He then turns his attention to the pillars in grooves along the ground, and the spiked walls that look like they're just waiting to close in.

Igglybuff asks about the crystals in the center of the room, and Armaldo suggests they'll likely activate some part of the puzzle when attacked.

Lastly, there's the pattern in the center of the floor which Armaldo thinks is also relevant to the puzzle ahead.

What Igglybuff gets out of all of this is that they should go and try everything to see what happens! But Armaldo is terrified by that idea and suggests doing the wrong thing might only lock the door forever or set off the traps! They have to think about this rationally and figure out what to do first...

Despite acknowledging Armaldo's warnings, Igglybuff cheerfully hops on ahead straight toward the door at the other end of the chamber, terrifying Armaldo at the potential repercussions!

And then, in another demonstration of his power, Igglybuff completely destroys the door with another powerful Yoom Tah!

Music: Guildmaster Wigglytuff

With absolutely no acknowledgment of the puzzle at all, Igglybuff had just opened the way toward the treasure, leaving Armaldo completely speechless yet again!

Delighted, Igglybuff happily calls for Armaldo to follow him into the chamber ahead!

Music: Beyond the Dream

Inside the chamber, we find a treasure chest!

Inside the treasure chest, Armaldo finds the very Defend Globe we saw Wigglytuff with at the start of the story.

Igglybuff is mesmerized by the treasure! He has no idea what it is, yet he's delighted by the mere idea of finding a rare and valuable treasure!

After Igglybuff asks what the item is, Armaldo begins to explain. Igglybuff is excited just to know the name of the item.

As Armaldo begins to describe that the item is extremely rare and valuable and what it does, Igglybuff is dancing around in excitement having found the treasure. He doesn't seem to care at all what actually makes the item special!

Music: Guildmaster Wigglytuff

Armaldo calls out to Igglybuff for not paying attention to his explanation, but Igglybuff explains that he does indeed hear everything Armaldo is telling him, just that he doesn't really understand any of it. Instead, he just continues to celebrate the successful exploration!

As Armaldo watches Igglybuff dance and celebrate, he starts to think over Igglybuff's many accomplishments in the short time he's spent with him. It's clear to him that Igglybuff is a exploration prodigy, and it's not at all lost on him just how helpful that could be for an explorer...

Igglybuff is just delighted to be along for the ride. He can't believe how much fun exploring is and wants to do as much as he can!

Suddenly, Igglybuff stops dancing and calls Armaldo his master, to Armaldo's astonishment.

Igglybuff requests for Armaldo to take him on as an apprentice, but Armaldo immediately declines, citing that he's quit exploring, that it's far too late for him to suddenly take on an apprentice now!

Of course, Igglybuff immediately contradicts him by pointing out that, even though he quit exploring, he came out on this exploration!

Igglybuff begins to beg Armaldo to take him on as an apprentice, even going so far as to kneel before him... well, about as well as an Igglybuff is capable of kneeling given the absence of... knees.

Armaldo starts to think this over. He weighs the risk of resuming exploration as a team with the chance to see Igglybuff's raw talent grow with experience... I'm very curious why Armaldo claims it's so risky for him to start exploring, though. It begs the question: How did he gain the reputation of being a monster? Why was he living alone in the depths of Murky Forest? Was he mistakenly branded a criminal like Grovyle? Perhaps he's guilty of some crime? Maybe he accidentally stole treasure from the wrong place or got involved with the wrong group? Something tells me whatever he's worried about, his fears are likely to resurface in one way or another.

In the end, Armaldo caves and gives in to Igglybuff's request, deciding to take Igglybuff on as an apprentice. But he warns that his training is very strict! So Igglybuff will have to listen to him going forward if he wants to stay his apprentice!

Music: Job Clear!

With Armaldo accepting Igglybuff as his apprentice, Igglybuff get seven more excited, embarrassing Armaldo a little bit.

Music: A Fun Exploration

Going forward, this would mark a new standard of Igglybuff's life.

He'd regularly go to visit Armaldo and plan exploration after exploration,

And then they'd go and find treasure in the places they decide to explore!

Exploration after exploration, success after success, it seems like there was nothing to stop this fearsome duo!

Music: Beyond the Dream

After one particularly sucessful exploration that yielded tons of treasure, Armaldo caught himself reflecting on how confident he is that Igglybuff is an exploring prodigy. Time after time, Igglybuff has dodged every trap and never failed in purusit of treasure.

Music: At the End of the Day

Igglybuff already asks what the next destination is at the end of this one, he just can't get enough exploration! Armaldo insists that, despite the massive yield, he suspects tomorrow's exploration will yield even more treasure!

Armaldo tells Igglybuff the plan for tomorrow is to explore a place called Fortune Ravine where a lot of treasure is said to be located. Naturally, Igglybuff is even more delighted by this prospect and can't wait to continue!

After the two companions part ways to go home, near the entrance of the dungeon, a Nidoking steps out from behind some rocks. Does he... recognize Armaldo...?

Anyway, that's our stopping point! Next time, we'll be setting out with Armaldo to explore Fortune Ravine in search of some great treasure! Though I have a feeling something tragic will take place there, we'll just have to see what Igglybuff can do! Perhaps some bad guys will face the debut of the Guildmater's infamous wrath? We'll just have to see how it all pans out next time! See you soon!

July 1, 2023

Special Episode 2: Igglybuff the Prodigy (Part 4)

It's back to Igglybuff's story today! Last time, Igglybuff became the apprentice of Armaldo, a retired explorer who was impressed by his natural talent for exploration and sheer power! The two explored many dungeons together and collected lots of treasure! All the while, his parents are completely oblivious to what he's been up to. After our last expedition with a particularly large haul of treasure, Armaldo left us with the promise that today we'd be exploring a place with an even larger amount of treasure: Fortune Ravine.

If we speak to Papa Wigglytuff, he'll ask Igglybuff about the new friend he's been playing with, and Igglybuff will even tell him Armaldo's name! It's clear no secrets are intentionally being kept here.

Mama tells Igglybuff Smoochum has been asking for him a lot, but Igglybuff explains that he's busy exploring, causing his mother to worry he's out exploring with Banette. Of course, that's not it at all.

Anyway, for now, it's back to Armaldo's place to prepare for adventure!

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

Music: A Fun Exploration

When we meet with Armaldo, he warns us that the dungeon ahead is going to be the toughest so far, and he's certainly not joking! Be prepared for some hefty dangers ahead!

Armaldo seems reluctant to go at first, but at Igglybuff's insistence, he's reminded of his inherent talent as an explorer and considers that there's nothing to worry about as long as he's teaming up with Igglybuff. So, he buckles down and prepares for exploration!

Heeding Armaldo's warning, I decided to bring a few extra items this time around, just in case. Even bringing two Escape Orbs out of fear of Sticky Traps showing their ugly mugs.

As it turns out, I still might've been a little under-prepared. You probably wanna bring lots of Oran Berries and Reviver Seeds. Armaldo isn't kidding when he warns that the dungeon ahead is actually pretty tough.

Once we're ready, we set out for Fortune Ravine!

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

Music: Heartwarming

Back at Igglybuff's house, we see Igglybuff's friends once again coming to ask for him at his home...

Igglybuff's parents come out to speak with the kids and explain that Igglybuff is out yet again.

That's when Smoochum decides to ask Igglybuff's mama about Igglybuff going to Murky Forest, which completely shocks his Mama.

Music: Tension Rising

The kids are concerned to realize that even Igglybuff's parents don't know if the rumor is true.

Banette and Skorupi soon show up, and Smoochum asks them if they know anything about Wigglytuff. Banette seems to already know for sure that Igglybuff has been going to Murky Forest, shocking everyone!

Skorupi has also seen him going into Murky Forest himself, so that's an eye-witness to the rumor, too. This certainly doesn't look good from the parents' perspective.

Banette also drops the bomb-shell about Armaldo, no-doubt making Igglybuff's parents even more frightened for his well-being.

Just as Mama starts talking to Papa, the Nidoking that spotted us before arrives and asks to speak with everyone.

Apparently, he was eavesdropping on our conversation. For some reason, he must be looking into Armaldo...

He turns to Banette and asks him to describe the scary-looking guy he mentioned Igglybuff making friends with.

From Banette's description, Nidoking concludes it must be Armaldo, the very same pokemon he saw leaving the dungeon the previous day with Igglybuff.

Nidoking soon introduces himself as an explorer.

After introducing himself, Nidoking begins to explain why he's looking into Armaldo to Igglybuff's friends and family, but the screen cuts to black. It's still a secret for now.

Whatever Nidoking tells everyone, it's clear it isn't good. They're all suddenly a lot more worried for Igglybuff's safety...

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

Fortune Ravine

It's time to explore the dungeon we've been hyping up! This first section isn't too bad, though you'll have to be wary of Machop and the risk of getting confused, flinched, or put to sleep by Dustox and Stantler. But most pokemon go down to a single Pound from Igglybuff, so it's nothing too scary. The real difficulty comes later in the dungeon.

Items available throughout include: Poke, Insomniscopes, Def., and Pecha Scarves, Persim, Power, Special, Stamina, and Zinc Bands, Gravelerocks, Iron Thorns, Apples, Cheri, Chesto, Oran, Pecha, and Rawst Berries, Blinker, Eyedrop, Reviver, and Totter Seeds, Max Elixirs, and assorted Wonder Orbs.

Traps include: Slow Traps, Slumber Traps, Summon Traps, Trip Traps, and Warp Traps

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

Fortune Ravine [B1F - B2F]

Pokemon: Machop, Geodude, Stantler, Smeargle, Zigzagoon

As mentioned above, nothing is particularly scary down ehre, everything goes down relatively easily. You may want to rely on Armaldo to clear out Machop and Geodude, though. It could be potentially deadly to attack a Machop with Pound and miss.

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

Fortune Ravine [B3F]

Pokemon: Machop, Geodude, Stantler, Smeargle, Zigzagoon, Oddish

Oddish shows up on B3F and brings with it all the annoyances of Sweet Scent and PoisonPowder. Sweet Scent can make you extra vulnerable to Hypnosis from Stantler, so seek those Wonder Tiles out wherever you can!

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

Fortune Ravine [B4F]

Geodude, Stantler, Smeargle, Oddish, Dustox

Machop and Zigzagoon are gone in favor of Dustox on B4F. Dustox's Confusion can cause issues if you're unlucky, so take it out quickly! It and Stantler are the top priorities.

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

Fortune Ravine [B5F]

Smeargle, Oddish, Dustox

Starting on the fifth floor, Geodude and Stantler are also gone, so Dustox is the only particular threat here.

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

Fortune Ravine [B6F - B8F]

Dustox, Shroomish, Abra, Happiny

Starting on the sixth floor, Smeargle and Oddish are gone leaving behind Shroomish, Abra, and Happiny. Be wary of Shroomish's Effect Spore. Leech Seed and Stun Spore can also hurt quite a bit.

The sixth floor onward also brings with it the threat of Monster Houses, so think twice before entering a room with lots of items!

On the sixth floor, I found a Power Band which I gave to Armaldo to toughen up his physical attacks.

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

Music: Fortune Ravine Depths

We soon arrive at the waypoint of Fortune Ravine.

Armaldo explains to Igglybuff what the Waypoint means, and Igglybuff catches on that it means we're nearing the end of the dungeon already.

Armaldo adds a warning that finding a Waypoint usually means there's something waiting for you at the end of the dungeon, such as a dungeon boss. He elaborates that dungeon bosses usually attack because they are concerned your intentions are to steal their territory, and they aren't likely to listen to reason. So you'll have to be prepared to fight when you come face to face with a boss.

After sharing this warning with Igglybuff, it's certainly clear now that we can expect a boss fight ahead. With Igglybuff's Sing and Sweet Kiss combined with Armaldo's powerful attacks, we should be good to handle any boss that comes our way!

Once we've saved at the Waypoint, it's time to get moving!

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

Fortune Ravine Depths

In case you haven't pieced it together yet, this is where the major difficulty spike hits like a truck. There are lots of pokemon with ranged and corner-cutting attacks that are difficult for us to counter with our limited options. Throwables are helpful for pressuring ranged opponents into closing in. In addition to tougher pokemon, the threat of Monster Houses are everpresent and the traps are more frequent. Tread carefully when nearing a dangerous enemy!

Items and traps are the same here as in the lower floors.

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

Fortune Ravine Depths [B1F - B4F]

Pokemon: Bellossom, Exeggutor, Starly, Nuzleaf, Pineco

Watch out for Bellossom's Mega Drain and Stun Spore. And Sunny Day can buff all the grass-types down here, which can be especially devastating. Exeggutor isn't too dangerous on its own, but missing can be catastrophic between Barrage and Hypnosis. Starly has Quick Attack and Nuzleaf has Razor Leaf. Tread carefully around them! Then you have Pineco with Protect and SelfDestruct.

On the fourth floor, I found an Insomniscope to replace Igglybuff's Stamina Band. Sleep can be a run ender.

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

Fortune Ravine Depths [B5F - B6F]

Pokemon: Exeggutor, Starly, Nuzleaf, Pineco

Bellossom is gone on the sixth floor which makes Exeggutor and Nuzleaf slightly less scary. But on the other hand, it really just means you'll be running into more Nuzleaf and Starly.

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

Fortune Ravine Pit

As we clear the 8th floor, we arrive at the Pit of the Ravine. We progress carefully, privy to the risk of an encounter with a boss.

Igglybuff notices the torches surrounding the room and suspects there must be another puzzle at play here, just like before.

Armaldo agrees and suggests this is a common type of puzzle. The trick is to simply extinguish the four flames to open the door!

With that, Armaldo puts the four fires out with his Water Gun ability! The door should open! Except...

...The door doesn't open...?

Instead, a trapdoor opens up underneath the two!

Music: Guildmaster Wigglytuff

The two land in a dark pit. It certainly doesn't look good...

Thankfully, they both seem to be okay at least.

Igglybuff calls attention to the obvious, that they'd just sprung a trap by solving the puzzle! As it turns out, it was probably better to solve issues Igglybuff's way altogether.

Armaldo is naturally quite stressed over having fallen into a trap, but Igglybuff doesn't seem phased in the slightest.

Suddenly, noises can be heard nearby...

Igglybuff seems to be enjoying himself at the threat of a dangerous battle up ahead. In fact, he's absolutely delighted even still!

Music: Rising Fear

The two seem to have fallen into a particularly dangerous Monster House with some terrifying opponents!

There's no getting out of this fight, we're gonna have to give it our all!

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

Igglybuff's Squad

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

Igglybuff M; Lv. 18

Item: Insomniscope

Ability: Cute Charm | Moves: Sing, Pound, Sweet Kiss, Copycat

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

Armaldo M; Lv. 28

Item: Power Band

Ability: Battle Armor | Moves: Harden, Mud Sport, Water Gun, Metal Claw

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

Vs. Monster House

We're surrounded by tough foes on all sides! And worst of all, this is a boss fight so the typical Monster House strategy of using a Spurn Orb or All-Mach Orb to get some breathing room isn't going to work! This one we're just gonna have to tough out!

The weather seems to be random on this floor. The weather turned Sunny down ehre for me.b ut for a reference video I'm using, this fight was in a sandstorm.

Right away, I opened up by throwing a Totter Seed at the Yanmega ahead of me so that I could reduce the amount of damage I'd be taking while I focused on the others.

My next goal was to put Claydol to sleep, but this was when I noticed something: These enemies are pushovers! Armaldo took Exploud out right away! It seems playing cautiously isn't the proper approach here. Instead, I decided to go on the all-out offensive. In hindsight, though, I should've focused on putting Camerupt to sleep. As it would turn out, Camerupt is the biggest threat here. It and Probopass are the most durable, but its Magnitude can be deadly to you. Most of the opponents here are immune or heavily resist it. Yanmega and Vespiquen are both Bug/Flying types, Claydol has Levitate and Probopass opens up with Magnet Rise. Camerupt is definitely the priority threat. But you're definitely going to want to take out the weaker enemies, too.

It didn't take too much effort. Most of these enemies went down like paper. Camerupt took a few turns but thanks to Water Gun, he didn't last long, either. That just left Probopass and a very confused Yanmega. Obviously, for now, Probopass is the bigger threat. So I put it to sleep with Sing and went ham on it until it went down! There were a few annoying misses, but we eventually got through to him!

Last but not least was Yanmega who was easy enough to pick off since he was still confused. Normally I don't get so lucky with confusion! It feels kinda nice!

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

After clearing the Monster House, Igglybuff notices a light that just might be a way out!

Music: Beyond the Dream

The light seems to be sunlight! We've escaped outside!

As Armaldo inspects the architecture of the area, he seems to be onto something about what this place is, but Igglybuff notices a much grander sight ahead...

It seems that this place is the ruins of an ancient city lost to time! Igglybuff is excited about the abundance of treasure that no-doubt lies ahead! But just before we can set out...

Nidoking calls out to us and reveals himself! He's finally caught up to us! It looks like whatever dark secrets were being kept, they're about to come out now.

Behind Nidoking are Igglybuff's Papa and Mama and all of his friends! He's happy to see that htey're all here! But they aren't quite so happy...

Mama Wigglytuff is very much worried about the wellbeing of Igglybuff, but the atmosphere is extremely tense...

Smoochum tells Igglybuff what Nidoking told them all: Armaldo... is an outlaw!

Everyone informs Igglybuff of the reality of the situation: Armaldo is a B Rank Outlaw that Magnezone's police force have been searching the region over for. And Nidoking is an explorer who's come to claim his bounty. The fact that there's a bounty on Armaldo's head explains why he was hiding out in Murky Forest, and why he wanted to be left alone, and especially why he was so violent when he heard Banette exclaim that they were explorers: He was afraid explorers had come to claim his bounty... All of this also explains why he had to give up exploring despite loving it so much...

Igglybuff is incredibly troubled by what he's hearing here. Nidoking orders Armaldo to "let the kid go." The fact that this line has a double meaning, the literal interpretation meant by Nidoking who thinks Armaldo is holding him hostage, and what the line means to Armaldo, that he can't keep hiding from his past and relying on Igglybuff to help him feel better about himself. Oh, man, it's just another one of those scenes that really makes you start to tear up.

Music: It Can't Be...

Igglybuff refuses to believe for a second that Armaldo could possibly be an outlaw. It just doesn't make any sense to him. He knows Armaldo better than anyone here! Armaldo, however, voluntarily surrenders and steps forward in silence.

Nidoking accuses Armaldo of dragging Igglybuff into this, but Igglybuff immediately sets it straight by insisting that he's the one who asked him to take him along! Through tears, he tries to convince everyone that he knows Armaldo isn't bad.

As the police place Armaldo under arrest, Igglybuff continues to plead with them to stop and listen to what he has to say...

As they begin to take Armaldo away, Igglybuff starts to become angry that nobody is listening to him. And we know what that means... The ground begins to rumble as power is built up in the impending tantrum...

Fiery explosions begin to appear, causing everyone to panic!

But, just as the tantrum is about to get especially dangerous...

Armaldo shouts out to Igglybuff to stop it and listen to him.

Igglybuff listens to Armaldo and stops his tantrum, but is still in tears as he listens to what Armaldo has to say.

Armaldo tells Igglybuff that he'll become an outlaw, too, if he attacks Magnezone and Nidoking... In fact, yeah, this whole situation was dangerously close to becoming a villain's origin story, isn't it? Armaldo stopping Igglybuff here really did completely alter the course of history. Had he just stayed silent, it's very likely Wigglytuff Guild enver would've been founded and Igglybuff would take up Armaldo's lifestyle as a wanted outlaw. Not only would the Guildmaster make for a terrifying villain, but I can only imagine what kind of horrible ramifications that could have on the world!

Now that Igglybuff has everyone's attention, he pleads with everyone to understand that Armaldo isn't a bad guy.

Armaldo asks for a moment with Igglybuff, promising not to try and run. It would be fruitless for him to attempt such a thing, anyway, with Nidoking in hot pursuit.

Music: Defend Globe

Armaldo apologizes to Igglybuff for the pain his past actions have inadvertently caused on Igglybuff.

Armaldo confesses to Igglybuff that everything they're saying is true, but Igglybuff still refuses to believe it. He knows Armaldo isn't a bad guy.

Armaldo explains everything to Igglybuff, how he ran away from his guilt and hid himself away in the Murky Forest, starting the rumor that a monster lived in the depths of the forest to ensure that nobody would go there and find him. He apologizes for not telling Igglybuff sooner, but he knew it would hurt Igglybuff if he did, so he just couldn't do it. But now that it's out, he has no choice.

Armaldo once again insists that he is a bad guy, but that Igglybuff isn't and he truly does know that. So he tells Igglybuff he can't follow him any longer.

Igglybuff starts to recount all the fun they had exploring together. It breaks his heart to think that he'll never be able to see Armaldo again. He's at a loss for what he'll do going forward.

Armaldo tells Igglybuff to become an amazing explorer for him. He knows Igglybuff loves exploring and urges him to live out his own dreams.

Armaldo thanks Igglybuff for all the fun they had together and how much he's done for him in just these past few days. Who knows how long Armaldo's been living alone in that forest calling himself a monster? I can only imagine how much it must mean to him to have someone as pure as Igglybuff show up and spark joy in his life again. There's no knowing exactly what Armaldo did to be branded a criminal, but he doesn't deny the accusations at all and calls himself a bad guy. Maybe it's just easier if Igglybuff thinks he's bad, or maybe he really did do something bad enough to be branded a criminal. I do wish we could know more about this character, but unfortunately we only get to know as much as Igglybuff does.

Igglybuff continues to plead with Armaldo not to go, but he insists he try to understand.

After his apology, Armaldo makes a promise that, once he's finished paying for his crimes, he'll become an explorer. And when that happens, he wants to go exploring with him again, just like old times.

Igglybuff accepts this promise as something to hold onto. And it'll certainly drive him to become the best explorer he can be.

With that, they begin to take Armaldo away.

As Igglybuff cries out to him on the way out, Armaldo tosses him a sparkling item.

And with that, he bids Igglybuff one final goodbye.

Knowing it's the last time he'll be seeing his master for a long time, Igglybuff begins to cry out for him. It really is a heartbreaking ending.

As Armaldo is taken away, Igglybuff's friends and family gather around him to console him.

Wigglytuff reveals that the item Armaldo had tossed to him back then was a Defend Globe, the very item he treasures to this day.

We return to the present day where Wigglytuff is telling this story to Chatot.

Apparently, there are indeed many more stories surrounding Armaldo going forward, but Wigglytuff is simply too tired to tell any more. But from that, it's clear that they did indeed meet up and continue to go on explorations! Perhaps that's even related to the founding of the Guild? Who can say?

Music: Defend Globe (Ending)

And the final message shared by Wigglytuff here is that, in spite of all the crime and punishment in the world, he simply believes that truly bad people don't exist at all. We're all just struggling to make ends meet and some people make mistakes and bad choices along the way, but nobody out there wants to do bad things or hurt people.

And with that, the credits roll.

This story was far more emotionally impactful than I certainly expected it to be and it sets an exciting precedent for what the future Special Episodes have in store. The emotional payoff here rivals even the ending of the main story! I certainly wasn't expecting parts of this to have me driven to tears. It's a powerful story about childhood innocence and the natural desire to do the right thing. And I truly appreciate they didn't cop out by making some last-minute twist that proves Armaldo was actually innocent the whole time or something. They weren't afraid of showing the importance of putting criminals to justice. It's not about being a good or bad person. It's about bringing an end to the suffering of all the uncertainty. My only complaint with this story is I wish we got to know a little more about Armaldo and his history. What crime did he comit? Who did he hurt? And how do they feel about him before and after hearing about his story? I do wish we could get that perspective on this whole conflict. But other than that, I really loved this story!

Anyway, that's it for our second Special Episode! Next time it's back to the main story! We're finally gonna get the chance to crack open all those chests we've collected as well as visit Spinda's Cafe to use a bunch of items! There's a lot ahead of us, so let's buckle down and continue going forward!

July 2, 2023

Now that we're finished playing through Igglybuff the Prodigy and learning about the Guildmaster's origin story, it's time to get back to the main story! Last time, we'd finished our expedition of Fogbound Lake where we found a Time Gear! We agreed with the lake's guardian, Uxie, to keep its location a secret. In return, he chose not to clear our memories of the area. Now, we return to the guild and back to our normal way of life!

Chapter 10: Dusknoir

The routine seems to be the same as normal until we hear Loudred complain that Diglett can't seem to identify the footprint of a guest.

The guest introduces himself as the Dusknoir, a world-famous explorer who seemed to mysteriously appear one day and explores alone.

As we welcome Dusknoir inside, Wigglytuff holds true to his word with Uxie and keeps quiet about what we found at Fogbound Lake.

Dusknoir insists that he'll be staying in Treasure Town with interest in using the guild as a source of information to help with his explorations, so Wigglytuff introduces him to everyone at the guild. Naturally, it's a huge honor for everyone to have such a famous explorer around! But dramatic irony hits like a brick when you understand the true nature of Dusknoir, what he's done, and why he's here...

In the end, Chatot finally gives us the standard assignment to do the posted jobs. Simple enough!

Now that we're back from the expedition, Xatu Appraisal and Marowak's Dojo are now open for business! We're going to be clearing Marowak's Dojo later on when we're a bit tougher.

Also, don't mind the team I've assembled in these screenshots. I entertained the idea of swapping some teammates around but ultimately decided my previous squad had better synergy. Still, Rain will be really nice to have for dungeons later on. But right now it's not worth sacrificing the utility provided by Pollen to be worthwhile.

Back in Spinda's Cafe, it turns out you cna sometimes receive additional jobs from NPCs near the entrance!

When I stopped by Wynaut's Recycle Shop, he mentioned that Project P has made a new advancement! Treasure was discovered, so they were able to add new items to the list of items we can select from!

In addition, a new unexplored area was discovered, too! So, we now have a new dungeon unlocked: Landslide Cave!

Now that we've gotten these unlocked, I have a better understanding of how Project P works. Basically, the more times you recycle at this store, the further Project P will be advanced. As you reach thresholds, more treasure and more places to explore are discovered. When treasure is discovered, new items are made available at the recycle shop. And when an area is discovered, you can go explore the new dungeon!

Anyway, we can now trade two Big Apple for a Heal Seed! That's another really useful item that's always great to have! Status problems can be incredibly dangerous so it's always good to have easy access to one of these!

While recycling a bunch of my junk items for Prize Tickets, I was able to earn a bonus Prize Ticket! Apparently these randomly come when you recycle for any Prize Tickets but only come when you don't redeem the prize tickets right away. Immediately after saying "not now," Wynaut will inform you of the bonus ticket. These bonus tickets have to be redeemed right away or they'll be wasted. They're identical to the standard Prize Tickets regardless of the tier you got, but you'd be silly to turn down a free item!

I went and recycled for many Silver Tickets, got a few Bonus Prize Tickets as well, and eventually...

Music: Ludicolo Dance

A band of Ludicolo and Bellossom broke through the door and screamed "Oh yeeeah!" like the Kool-aid man!

They performed a dance that lasted for quite a while before...

...completely disappearing along with the hole in the wall? This place is bizarre.

Anyway, our reward for all of that was a TM for the move Facade, which is certainly a solid upgrade to Skye's Tackle, so I'll gladly take it!

Anyway, it's now time to set out on our adventure and I've gathered together a whole bunch of high-ranked missions set in Foggy Forest! They're almost all Outlaw missions. I have one Escort Mission in here, too, but I was very careful to make sure the escort mission was on the earliest floor. You do not want to have an escort mission on any floor after an outlaw mission or that escort might end up directly next to the outlaw in question or even in the middle of a monster house. That isn't going to end well at all.

While I'd like to go and explore Landslide Cave right now, I've gotta clear out all these jobs, first.

Foggy Forest

Right away, I took the time to crack open some TMs. I might regret investing TMs this early on, but I felt it would be worth it. I taught Skye Facade over Tackle, Icarus Drain Punch over Force Palm, and Pollen Energy Ball over Water Sport. Now I've got another ranged attack on my squad alongside Icarus' much stronger fighting attack!

While exploring, we got a new recruit!

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

Team Flight New Recruit

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

Lightning (Pachirisu F); Lv. 14

Item: None

Abilities: Run Away, Pickup | Moves: Spark, Charm, Quick Attack, Bide

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

On the sixth floor, we successfully delivered our escort to Bonsly.

On the 7th floor, we came face to face with our first of many outlaws: Cherubi. Due to our positioning, I was able to use Sand Attack to minimize his damage DPS while Icarus layed in on him with Drain Punch. Easy enough.

Our next outlaw was the thief Vespiquen! This time we were better aligned to deal with her. Pollen could stun her with Stun Spore while I continued my typical support strats to buff Icarus while debuffing her. As long as Vespiquen stayed paralyzed, Icarus and Pollen could focus on DPS. Anytime Vespiquen recovered from Paralysis, I just had to have Pollen stun her again. With that, Parasect's Totter Orb was reclaimed. Now that we've got a solid team starting to form, I'm starting to feel really good about these outlaw missions! I'm no longer feeling worried about needing to make sure I have a bunch of items to tank hits and keep them stunned.

On the 9th floor, we delivered an Oran Berry to Grimer.

And on the 10th floor, it's an outlaw's hideout! We've gotta fend off a Monster House which actually wasn't too bad to simply overcome thanks in no small part to Pollen's Stun Spore! We were able to pick off the smaller enemies while I focused on debuffing Exploud to make him an easy KO. In the end, we took him out and reaped the rewards!

And on the 11th floor, we had a fleeing thief Buneary! I had him cornered and paralyzed. I'm really not sure what happened but, somehow, he swapped places with us and continued running away despite being paralyzed! Thankfully, we were able to take him out and reclaimed Psyduck's Scanner Orb.

After a hefty day of completing jobs, it was time for dinner and then bed!

Meanwhile, outside we find Team Skull plotting revenge to some degree. After being humiliated by Wigglytuff, they decide they want to take their anger out on Team Flight...

The next morning, our assignment is to go to Kecleon Market to see if they have plans to stock Perfect Apples. This seems like a Bidoof-tier task, but I suppose he's a bit beyond that now, isn't he?

As we run down to Kecleon Market, we bump into Dusknoir who's around for a chat! We get the chance to introduce ourselves to him. We also receive news that, unfortunately, Kecleon Market isn't planning on stocking Perfect Apples anytime soon.

Soon, Azurill and Marill arrive, they're in a hurry to go to the beach where their missing item has supposedly been found! The tell us the item is a Water Float, a rare item that supports the Azurill line by increasing the PP of their attacks.

The lackies of Team Skull happen to overhear this part of the conversation and decide to form a plan around it to get revenge on us.

We return to the guild to inform Chatot about the Perfect Apple situation, so he concludes he'll just have to go out and forage for Perfect Apples himself. Our incident last time he assigned us with the task was simply too traumatic for him to risk repeating, even if we have proven ourselves on the expedition. In the mean time, he gives us the usual daily assignment.

Once again, upon revisiting the Recycle Shop, the shop was expanded again! We can now buy Cleanse Orbs for 3 Grimy Food. Cleanse Orbs are incredibly useful for exploring dungeons with the infamous Sticky Traps. There's no guarantee you'll ever find a Secret Bazaar, or that you'll have the money to utilize them. And if the wrong item gets sticky, it could jeopardize your exploration!

Anyway, today we've got some missions set in Landslide Cave, making it the perfect chance to go and explore the new dungeon! There were some missions elsewhere I honestly would've preferred to do, but I really should focus on exploring the new content ASAP.

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

Landslide Cave

This is our first of many dungeons that did exist in Explorers of Time and Darkness, but that we never actually covered back then, so it's effectively a new dungeon form the perspective of this thread. As mentioned before, the dungeons available through Project P (or at least most of them) are the same dungeons as the ones that were previously only available through new dungeon exploration jobs from Time and Darkness. One of those missions is how you would gain access to Landslide Cave in those games. So far, every new dungeon we've explored has been exclusive to Sky, but now that we've got new content that's shared with the previous games, we've gotta make sure to note version exclusive content between those games. Going forward, I'm going to mark items and Pokemon that were Darkness exclusives in Red and Time exclusives in Blue. Items exclusive to Sky that were not in either Darkness or Time will be marked in Green, though that will be rare, if it comes up at all. Items that are fully exclusive to Darkness or Time that are not in Explorers of Sky will be listed separately.

Anyway, the music in this dungeon is quite varied. My favorite of these songs is a medley of various songs from Rescue Team: Blizzard Island Rescue Team Medley which includes the themes of Mt. Freeze Peak, Sky Tower, Mt. Thunder, and Thunderwave Cave. Other floors of this dungeon also use the themes of Chasm Cave, Waterfall Cave, and Beach Cave.

Items available throughout the dungeon include: Poke, Apples, Iron Thorns, Cheri, Oran, and Pecha Berries, Max Elixirs, Blast, and Heal Seeds, and assorted Wonder Orbs.

Traps: Grimy, Gust, Poison, Pokemon, SelfDestruct, Slow, Slumber, Spin, Summon, Trip, and Warp Traps

In addition, the threat of Monster Houses persists throughout the entire dungeon, so watch your back! Some of the pokemon in this dungeon can be a little scary. Particularly Gible and Venomoth thanks to Dragon Rage and Silver Wind, so do be careful!

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

Landslide Cave [B1F - B12F]

Venomoth, Ampharos, Granbull, Shuckle, Dustox, Wormadam (Trash Cloak), Gible

Venomoth is the dynamite threat in this dungeon. Be wary anytime you enter a large room because a Venomoth anywhere in the room can blast your entire team with Silver Wind and that isn't a good situation to be stuck in. Spend as much time as you can in hallways.

Gible is less of a threat, but still a bit dangerous if you're low level like me. Dragon Rage can tear right through your HP. Some pokemon in here can take a few hits to go down, but for the most part, I was able to take them out pretty easily. But there were some uncomfortable close calls if I had some unlucky arrangements in hallways with little mobility. Don't be afraid to use your Escape Orbs if needed!

On the sixth floor, I got another new recruit!

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

Team Flight New Recruit

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

Hawk (Gible F); Lv. 11

Item: None

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Dragon Rage, Sand-Attack, Tackle

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

On Floor 7, we had an outlaw mission where we had to defeat the thief Weedle! He was tucked away in the hallway here. It was an odd place for an encounter, but that only made the battle easy. It was just a Weedle, after all. All I really had to do was hit it with Sand Attack a couple times while Icarus unloaded attacks into him.

Once he was defeated, we reclaimed Dunsparce's Scanner Orb!

On the 8th floor, I had a particularly bizarre experience where the thief I was supposed to pursue spawned in a dark hallway where I literally couldn't see it. I was really confused at first because I was under the impression they always spawned in the room with you. I'll be honest, I had to abuse saves a bit to complete this mission because Hoppip got away the first time.

Eventually, I was able to catch up to Hoppip by going around another way and cutting him off. He wound up getting caught between us and a wild pokemon in a one-way hallway, so there was nowhere to run. The usual strat here worked just fine. Of course, the wild pokemon immediately picked up the stolen item, so we had to defeat that one, too, but that's obviously a much easier KO.

In the process of all this, Icarus leveled up to Lv. 19 and tried to learn the move Reversal. I passed on it. While it could potentially be a good match with Endure, I'm not a fan of hovering around 1HP and I'd rather avoid that reliance if I can. Aside from that, we also finally recovered Spheal's stolen Sleep Seed. That's the last of the missions here, but we've never fully explored this dungeon, so I wanted to keep going!

Also, I'd completely forgotten that I'd gotten my hands on a Focus Blast TM from Kecleon Shop that I wanted to teach to Icarus. It's gonna be a while before he can learn Aura Sphere since he has to evolve to do so. This gives him a ranged STAB option and it seems fairly reliable. The main issue is, of course, PP, but as long as we bring Max Elixirs we should be golden.

And the moves just keep on coming! Cloud leveled up next and learned Slam! While it's not the most exciting move, it's certainly more useful than Mud Sport.

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

Landslide Cave [B13F]

As expected from these generic dungeons, the final floor houses four Deluxe Boxes from which we can get Gummis, Reviver Seeds, or Heal Seeds.

Once you've claimed your treasure, you can make your way to the Warp Zone at the far end of the chamber and exit the dungeon!

===========

When we report to dinner that night, Chatot alerts everyone that yet another Time Gear was stolen! It wasn't the one at Fogbound Lake, thankfully, but he reminds everyone that keeping the results of our expedition a secret is of upmost importance!

With that unsettling news, it's time to finish eating and head off to bed.

That night, Icarus talks with us about the Time Gear and wonders why anyone would even want to steal them. What good could it possibly do anyone? Skye still doesn't have her memories back yet, so she still doesn't understand that the Time Gears need to be assembled to avoid the collapse of Temporal Tower. But she continues to wonder why her body reacted the way it did to the time gear at the lake...

We then see Grovyle arriving at Fogbound Lake to steal the third Time Gear.

And that's where we're going to stop things for now. While we didn't finish the chapter, I think it's a good stopping point since we did explore a new dungeon! Anyway, next time I believe we'll be dealing with Team Skull again. Unless we get lucky enough to unlock and get the chance to explore another dungeon from Project P! Time will tell how things will play out from here. See you soon!

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