All the Pokemens

[Aura]

Now that we've finished the Dewford gym, it's time to look poke around town and see what we can find. Right outside the gym is a fisherman who will give us an Old Rod. Just like Gold and Silver, we can register a key item with select to use whenever we want with the Select button, so we'll go ahead and register the Old Rod since there's nothing else to worry about right now. But before we get into any fishing, lets see what the remaining houses have for us. In the house just north of the gym, you can get a Silk Scarf from an NPC. I immediately gave the Quick Claw to Solitude. Since he can only attack every other turn, he's going to need to deal as much damage as he can each turn. I moved his Quick Claw onto Rarity who is the second slowest pokemon on the team at the moment. The largest house here to the north is "Dewford Hall" This is a silly little building where everyone inside is discussing the latest trend. The phrase they all repeat I believe is randomly generated for each playthrough. In my case, everyone is talking about "Going Camera". If you speak to the NPC outside of the house, you can set this phrase to anything you want using the game's easy-chat system. You can select from an expansive list of predetermined words to make a specific phrase. In some cases, this allows you to unlock hidden secrets but to my knowledge there's no secrets to be had here in Dewford Hall. It's just a silly hangout for NPC's with quirky dialogue.

Before we move on from Dewford, let's get some quick fishing done with our Old Rod.

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Tantilus (Tentacool F); Lv. 5

 

Ability: Liquid Ooze

Moves: Poison Sting

Tentacool is another pokemon we're going to have to raise because its evolution is unavailable in the wild, but for now it's going to make its way into the box as we focus on the pokemon in our party. On another note, I do believe this is our first example of a previous gen pokemon available for capture. Up until this point, we've only had access to brand new Hoenn pokemon. This is pretty unprecedented as up until this point, it was typically pretty standard to encounter pokemon like Pidgey, Rattata, Caterpie, and Weedle very early on. Here in gen 3, all of this was shifted to freshen things up a lot more. This is the first game to really cement the idea of regional staples including the regional rodent, Zigzagoon,  the regional bird, Taillow, and the regional bug, Wurmple. There are other staples as well, but these are the ones we've seen so far. 

Another small detail I would like to call attention to here is the variance of battle environments. Starting in Gen 3, the theme of the battle screen shifts depending on the tile the player is standing on when the battle is initiated. We've been able to notice differences between battling outside and battling in a gym, for example, but here in Dewford it becomes much more apparent as we battle on the sand in Dewford town. There are even unique battle transitions!

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Another pokemon we have access to thanks to our Old Rod, and the main reason I started fishing in the first place as there's going to be no shortage of Tentacool later on, is Magikarp! This guy isn't so important to fit on our team since his evolution is available in the wild later on.

I called attention to the returning pokemon because I wanted to point out an interesting detail I've noticed while playing through these games. I may have addressed it during my Gen 2 playthroughs, but I wanted to address it again here.

 

 

Most, if not all, of the back sprites of returning pokemon use the exact same art as their GSC counterparts. This makes sense as many of these pokemon were actually unavailable in Gen 3 at the time of Ruby and Sapphire's release for reasons I'll explain later, but I just thought this was a really interesting observation. It's like a better insight into what these pokemon were originally intended to look back on the Gameboy Color.

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To the east of Dewford Town, we can poke our heads into Route 107, but there's nothing we can do here without surf so there's no point in sharing a map of the route just yet. You can fish here, but the encounter table is identical to that of Dewford Town.

Up north of Dewford is the very top part of the island. Without Surf, we can't explore much of this area, but we can explore the island part where we can battle several fishermen, there's a hidden stardust on the isolated rock here and a hidden pokeball at the far end of the sand north of the mountain. We can also fish for the same pokemon as Dewford and Route 107, but most importantly, there's a cave here!

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Granite Cave F1

This is the first real cave of the game and with it comes a variety of pokemon to be had. Before we delve any deeper though, right away we'll want to talk to the Hiker right here in the entrance and he'll give us HM05: Flash! This is going to help us explore the dark floors below with the help of our Knuckle Badge.

Here on the first floor, we're going to seek out a specific pokemon that's more common here than anywhere else.

 

Wouldn't you know it, right after pointing out that the majority of backsprites of returning pokemon are unaltered from GSC, we get a pokemon whose backsprite actually is changed.

Inc ase you don't remember, this is what Zubat's back sprite looked like in Gold and Silver. It's quite possible they intended to redraw all the backsprites but decided to prioritize more important elements of the game's art. Considering how in-depth the art direction is in this game, I can totally understand this decision and it's not like the reused back sprites are ugly by any means. Anyway, Zubat's evolution is available in the wild so I'm not too worried about raising this one.

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

Pandora (Abra F); Lv. 8

 

Ability: Inner Focus

Moves: Teleport

Abra is perhaps one of the most infamous pokemon to catch. Granite Cave is the only place it can be found in Ruby and Sapphire and you're really only going to be able to catch it by chucking a pokeball at it at full health with lots of luck in your pocket. Some strategies involve putting it to sleep or paralyzing it, but I believe your only options for these at this point in the game is Stun Spore on a Shroomish and good luck getting a Shroomish to outspeed this thing. Even if you manage to pull it off, you still have to hope for the off chance that you just happen to get it fully paralyzed on the next turn. And at only 10% rarity, this thing can be a pain to track down. Thankfully, I got really lucky and encountered one pretty early on and caught it on the very first Great Ball I tossed at it. That's one more check off the list.

I will need to raise Pandora a bit to evolve it since Kadabra is unavailable in the wild, but I will be using this Abra as an HM-user for Flash temporarily. If necessary, I can always visit the move deleter later to get rid of it.

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

 

The main pokemon I was looking for here on this floor was Makuhita. This guy is available in multiple areas, but he's by far most common and easiest to catch here on the first floor of Granite Cave. 

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

 

Along the way, I also encountered a Geodude here as well so i went ahead and picked that grabbed that one, too!

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Granite Cave B1

Progressing deeper into the dungeon, there isn't much of note on this floor in particular. We're not going to hunt any particular pokemon down, but there are some new pokemon available here that we might grab along the way. The first thing you'll notice of course, is that this place is really dark. Unlike previous games, rather than the entire screen being black, you have a really small spotlight around your character. This makes dark caves easier to navigate if you adamantly refuse to use Flash. In addition, using Flash doesn't clear all of the darkness from the cave, but rather expands your field of vision similar to how Brawly's gym functioned. Both of these facts kind of make Flash an even less useful move than before, but it's still very frustrating to blindly navigate these caves without Flash, so I still recommend using it and it does help differentiate dark areas from regular areas so I do appreciate it on an aesthetic level!

 

I found an Aron on my way through here. This is one of my favorite pokemon from the Hoenn region but its evolution is also available later on, so no need to include it here.

Partway through this floor, you'll find a strange portion of dirt in the wall that you can't quite climb up. Curious. We'll probably have to take note of this for the future.

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

Granite Cave B2

The next floor down is where our next pokemon is most common here in Granite Cave and it didn't take long at all to find one:

 

Mawile is a really sad case of a pokemon. This is such a cool design for a pokemon that unfortunately meets such a disappointing fate. Mawile has no evolutions and its stats are severely lacking late game. It's a Steel type but doesn't actually know any Steel-type moves. What's more, it's really difficult to capture and in Gen 3 is only available in Ruby version, it's not available at all in Emerald. Anyway, since Mawile doesn't have any evolutions, it has no purpose on my team, so into the box it goes.

If you check the rock at the top of the stairs on this floor, you can find an Everstone. This item isn't going to be of much use for me here, but it's definitely a nice item to have! Moving forward, the next ladder leads up to the upper area of B1 where there's not much other than a ladder back to the upper area of the first floor. Here, you can drop down the ledges and return to the entrance of the cave, but there's also a doorway to a small chamber.

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Granite Cave Chamber

This is where we finally meet Steven who introduces himself as a collector of rare stones which explains why he's so deep in this cave. As thanks for delivering the letter from the president of Devon, he gives us the TM for Steel Wing!

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

Now then, I've delivered the message to Steven and for now I think I'm going to end this post off here. I've started to realize just how much time this game is taking up thanks to my extra grinding and hunting these wild pokemon and I'm looking ahead toward some of the longer stretches of the game coming up. I definitely want to pace myself a bit better and I think going all the way until the next gym every single post is setting an unrealistic expectation onto myself. I'm still going to try and make some degree of story progression between posts. In this case, we've explored a dungeon and delivered the letter to Steven.

On my second and third revisits to the region, I'll probably blast through the game much faster, but I'd really like to take my time with this first playthrough and really appreciate everything the game has to offer rather than stressing out constantly about reaching specific milestones. That said, on days where my posts are especially short, I may follow up with a second post later in the same day. That just might include here, so make sure to follow this thread if you want to keep up to date!

[Aura]

Now that we've delivered the letter to Steven, Mr. Briney will now allow us to travel back to Petalburg as well as across Route 108 to Slateport, or more specifically Route 109, the beach just south of it.

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

Route 109

There isn't too much of interest here at the moment, but there is a house where we can get a really good deal on Soda Pop. Before you do anything, though, I'd recommend slipping by all the trainers here so that you can get to Slateport's pokemon center and heal up before coming back down to explore the route more thoroughly.

Near the south end of the beach are two kids talking to each other. If you talk to the little girl, she'll give you a Soft Sand which I of course gave to Marco to slightly boost the power of Mud-Slap. The house is called the Seashore house. If you talk to the man in the back of the house, he'll tell you he'll reward you if you can defeat all the trainers in the house. Naturally, it's time to get to work!

  

Defeating all three trainers, a Tuber, Beauty, and Sailor, and then talking to the man in the back, you'll be rewarded with 6 Soda Pops. In addition, you can now buy cans of Soda Pop for only $300. Considering this costs the same as a potion, which heals 20 HP, but heals 60 HP instead, this is an incredible deal! Unfortuantely, you can only purchase them one at a time. But if you want to save money but need budget healing items, this is a great place to come.

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

Slateport City

Slateport is one of the more memorable locations of the game for me. Whenever I think of this game, it's usually this area that comes into mind. Perhaps because I always got stuck here as a kid due to my lack of reading comprehension skills. If you're not paying attention to the dialogue, there's a lot of confusing stuff that happens aroudn this point. Trying to go north across the next route, you'll be blocked off by a wall of Team Magma grunts. Blocking the museum is another wall of grunts lining up out of the museum. The grunts on the route to the north won't leave until you deal with the grunts in the musem. They won't leave until you deliver the Devon Goods. But right now, we're gonna be taking some time to explore the town. I never really thought of it this way, but Slateport City here, even though it lacks the aesthetic comparison, it's still pretty comparable to Johto's Goldenrod City. It's actually a bit larger than it looks on the surface and it took longer than I expected to explore thoroughly.

The marketplace here in the southwestern part of the city is sort of like Ruby and Sapphire's Goldenrod Department Store. You can purchase a variety of items including pokemon dolls and vitamins for your pokemon. Just like in Gold and Silver, you can decorate your bedroom, but this time you actually get to buy the dolls yourself! Here, you can only get an Azumarill, Marill, and Skitty doll, but there will definitely be more as we progress! In the northern part of the marketplace is a salesman who checks to see if you have the TM for Secret Power. Once you get this TM, he'll accept you as a member and sell you "good stuff in secrecy..." sounds... suspect...

The stylized building west of the mart is the staple Pokemon Fan Club! Here, you can get a Soothe Bell from the woman against the back wall. This will help your pokemon become friendlier with you and will especially help with pokemon that evolve with friendship, though this evolution method is much less common here in Gen 3. The chairman of the club will check your pokemon's condition and if he's impressed with one of its qualities, he'll give you something, but we're not going to be worried about this at the moment.

The house just north of the Pokemon fan club is the Name Rater's house where you can change your pokemon's nicknames.

That fancy red building to the northwest? That is home to one of the biggest new features in generation 3. This is the Pokemon Contest Hall. This one in particular is for Hyper Rank contests, so we don't actually have any pokemon eligible to enter at the moment. I'm not sure how much we're actually going to be concerning ourselves with this given the limitations we're faced with. Pokemon Contests are probably going to be more of a post-game thing for us. We'll just have to play it by ear, but I'll definitely do the best I can! Even though we can't enter a contest yet, there are some nice things to pick up here, though. For one, there's a little girl here who will give us a Pokeblock case. In order to enter a contest, you'll need a Contest Pass. In order to get your Contest Pass, you'll have to go to the Normal Rank Contest Hall in Verdanturf. We'll get there sooner or later, but for now we'll leave this as a footnote. 

If you go through the doorway in the contest hall, you'll find the stage of the contest where you can talk to trainers participating in one. In the corners of the room are various NPC's including a sailor who will give you TM41: Torment. Torment is a new move introduced in Gen 3 that will prevent the opponent from using the same move twice in a row. It's great for disrupting certain strategies and if you're faster than your opponent and use it at the right time, it can even cause them to miss out on a turn! It's certainly an interesting move but it requires some pretty advanced tactics to actually use efficiently.

Back in the main entrance, we can go ahead and play a minigame to make some Pokeblocks, but we're going to hold off on this as I want to hold onto as many berries as I possibly can. Ideally, I would like to be able to go through one of each contest with a different pokemon, but we're just going to have to wait and see what I'm capable of with the limitations I'm faced with.

At the northeast of Slateport is a harbor where we can't do much at the moment. A ferry is supposed to be here, but it's being repaired at the Shipyard.

Just south of the harbor is a Museum which, as mentioned before, has a line of Magma Grunts going out the door. Some of them are even complaining about how they have to wait in line to pay when they should just be barging in. It does show a different sense of ethics from these guys...

And finally we're brought full circle back to the Shipyard where we're supposed to be headed in the first place. Inside, we can take a peak around all sorts of construction equipment and blueprints of ships. Once again, this whole area is just the devs flexing their new hardware capabilities. From the second floor, there's even an opening where you can see down into the lower floor. Just another wonderful aesthetic detail!

Speaking to the man at one of the design tables, he'll introduce himself as Mr. Dock and tell you that Captain Stern has gone out somewhere and asks that you deliver the Devon Goods to him. Leaving the Shipyard, we can see that the Magma Grunts have all finally filed into the Museum and we can enter. Inside, one of the Magma Grunts mentions that he's the one you stopped before and gives you TM46: Thief as an apology before running away. As we continue to talk around with the grunts, it seems they were told to meet up here but their boss is currently absent. 

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On the second floor, we'll find Captain Stern! But once we deliver the goods to Stern, we're ambushed by two Magma Grunts! 

Unfortunately, they don't actually challenge us to a double battle together. Instead, they challenge us back to back in two single battles.

 

The first grunt just has a Numel which Marco was able to take care of with ease.

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After this first battle, Marco grew to level 16 and evolved into Marshtomp! Upon evolution, it learned Mud Shot which I replaced Growl with.

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The next grunt has two pokemon, he led off with a Zubat which I was able to deal with using Nincada.

 

Following up was another Numel which, as expected, Marco was able to deal with even more easily than the last one. 

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

Upon defeating the two grunts, a much more powerful-looking man enters the room. He introduces himself as Team Magma's Maxie and questions why we're trying to intervene with Team Magma's plans. He explains that all life exists on land, which is why he's trying to expand the world's landmass. He dismisses us as just a kid before threatening no mercy if we continue to interfere.

Now that Team Magma has left, we can deliver the goods to Captain Stern in peace. And, now that Team Magma has left the city, we can finally press on further!

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

Route 110

This is another one of the more memorable parts of Hoenn for me. This route is home to Cycling Road which serves as more of a racetrack than a straight road like in Kanto. In order to access Cycling Road, though, we'll of course need a bike which is a luxury we don't currently have. In other words, we're going to have to take the lower path on foot which is much longer and filled with tall grass. While we're here, though, there are some new pokemon available to us including a couple we're going to have to hunt down.

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One of the first pokemon I found here was Electrike, a brand new electric-type pokemon. Its evolution is available in the wild, so we won't have to worry about it for now, though.

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Oddish is another pokemon I found here. I've never had the opportunity to use an Oddish yet but I can't guarantee we'll be seeing that anytime soon, either since Gloom is available in the wild. 

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

 

One of the two specific pokemon I'm hunting down here was Minun! This little one is a really adorable idea for a pokemon, but not actually all that useful in actual gameplay. Its ability, Minus, powers it up when it's paired with another pokemon with the ability Plus which has the same effect given to it by Minus. Minun is the only pokemon with the Minus ability and the only pokemon with the Plus ability is its buddy Plusle. The downside to this is that, for one, Plusle and Minun are soft version exclusives. In other words, one of them is always far more common than the other. In Ruby, Minun is more common while in Sapphire, Plusle is more common. The other pokemon is only available at a weak 2%. Odds are, you aren't going to find one unless you spend a lot of time searching. Even then, Plusle and Minun's stats and move pool aren't nearly impressive enough to warrant this extra effort. What's more, this is expecting you to run two nearly identical pokemon on your six-pokemon team. Even beyond that, Plus and Minus only take effect if both pokemon are out at the same time. In other words, they only take effect during a double battle. I've already mentioned how scarce double battles are and even at this point in the game, we've only had a single one. Unfortunately, as much as I love the cute designs of Plusle and Minun, and the idea that these two are powered up by cheering each other on (this is actually one of my favorite pokemon designs from Gen 3), the whole thing just falls flat when you even just try to make it work. At best, you'll be able to get this strategy up and going for a multiplayer team but even then you'll at best just have a moderately powerful electric type pokemon with some strong electric moves and not much else to offer. Generally, one will use support moves to power up the others' attacks further and that really sounds like a fun and interesting idea! There's just unfortunately better, much more consistent options that you don't have to jump through hoops to achieve and that's honestly a little sad.

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

 

The next pokemon I caught, and I'm kind of surprised it took me this long to encounter one, is Wingull. This pokemon has been available as far back as Route 103 and has appeared in multiple areas since, but only just now have I been able to capture one. Its evolution is available in the wild, so no need to try and evolve it here.

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Gullet (Gulpin M); Lv. 12

 

Ability: Liquid Ooze

Moves: Pound, Yawn, Poison Gas

Gulpin is the other pokemon I had to hunt down. He's only available here on Route 110 just like Plusle and MInun but this is another pokemon which I'm going to have to train up for a while since its evolution is not available anywhere in the wild. Gulpin has always been a very weird pokemon. It's designed after a... stomach of all things. Certainly not the most popular of pokemon designs, to be sure. For now, though, I'll be leaving Gulpin in the PC.

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

West of Route 110 is the eastern part of Route 103 from before.

 

There's a few trainers here including a pair of twins who will challenge you with a Plusle and Minun pair. These two will actually start to take advantage of double battle mechanics. They love to reduce the attack of your pokemon with Growl, which in a double battle targets both opposing pokemon, and they'll use Helping Hand to power each other's attacks up. Helping Hand is a move designed exclusively for double battles which increases the damage dealt by your ally pokemon on the same turn by 50%. The move will fail if used in a single battle.

 

There's also a really annoying Pokefan here with a Skitty. This Skitty loves to alternate between using Sing, Attract, and Doubleslap which has the potential to deal lots of damage if it hits five times. It's also surprisingly bulky so this battle might take you a long time to get through.

Aside from the trainers, there's a small area you'll need cut to navigate. Here, you can find two Cheri Berry trees and a Leppa Berry tree.

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

Back en route on Route 110, the house here just before we pass under Cycling Road is the Trick Master's house. This is an interesting site where we can explore a maze for some pretty nice rewards. We'll want to come back to this place frequently throughout the game to see what it has to offer for us. This first maze requires the use of Cut, so make sure you have an HM-user handy!

The goal of each of these mazes is to find your way to the scroll which contains a password, and then make your way to the end of the maze and enter the password. Along the way, you'll find trainers and items which may prove useful or just fun to have. Your reward for making it to the end of the first maze is a Rare Candy!

If we try to go back inside, the trick master will be working on a new maze and won't allow us inside until we've completed the next gym.

[Aura]

Moving on across Route 110, we won't get very far at all before we're met by a familiar face yet again!

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

PKMN Trainer May #2

This battle is pretty infamous for being one of the most difficult rival battles in the series and rightfully so! Her pokemon are all pretty high level and can deal massive damage to you.

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Wailmer Lv. 18

Don't ask me where the heck she got a Wailmer at this point in the game...

 

I had Rarity at the start of my party opening up. It seems Wailmer just likes to use Splash a lot because he never goes for anything else. This is odd because I distinctly remember it using Water Gun and Rollout in previous runs and Bulbapedia does verify that it knows those moves, but all it did was spam Splash against me here for some strange reason...

 

I immediately switched to Shrum to make quicker work of Wailmer since Confusion wasn't doing much damage at all. Absorb wouldn't either, but I could at least get a Leech Seed up and start racking up damage. But, when I went for Leech Seed...

Grovyle Lv. 20

She switched!!

 

As a grass type, Grovyle is completely immune to Leech Seed! A switch was honestly the last thing I expected this early in the game and this put me in an extremely awkward spot. I figured I should probably at the very least take advantage of the situation and used Stun Spore to paralyze it. I went for this move to cut Grovyle's impressive speed. In hindsight, I don't actually know what I was thinking as, up until this point, I thought Stun Spore didn't affect grass-types either, but I was thankfully wrong about that. Grovyle was spamming Pursuit against me, but I really didn't want to leave Shrump out to die, so I had to take the double damage from Pursuit to switch out.

 

I let Shrump take the double damage from pursuit and switched Ryu into the fray. The upside to this is that I was able to get Ryu out without it taking a big hit from Grovyle. I hit it with a Leech Life which did decent damage, but... it critted with Absorb, of course. It healed off some of the damage I'd dealt, but it seemed like a pretty good deal. I went for Leech Life again, it brought me down to red with another Absorb. I should be able to take it out with one more Leech Life and it pulled out a quick attack!

 

Thinking I had a pretty easy KO set up, I sent Parker out to finish the job. Once again, I kind of overestimated Parker's strength because Bite was hardly doing anything to Grovyle and Absorb was healing most of the damage, I was effectively doing about 1-2 HP each turn with the damage it was healing off. Thankfully, between its paralysis and the occasional flinching from Bite, I was able to build up some more damage on the thing, but it was ultimately able to take Poochyena down as well. Things were not looking good for me. This Grovyle is low on HP, but Absorb is proving to be majorly problematic and I wasn't totally confident in the damage output of my team at this point.

 

I sent out Solitude knowing it was the strongest source of physical attack on my team, but this came with a risk because if Slakoth couldn't deal enough damage to finish Grovyle off, Truant would make things much more painful for me. I unfortunately wasn't able to finish it off, but we were at a stalemate in this relationship because I was about breaking even with the HP it was healing thanks to paralysis preventing it from attacking during one of the turns. If I could get lucky enough, I'd be able to finish the fight even with Truant! Unfortunately, the plan didn't work out either and Solitude went down as well. Things were starting to look really rough for me here.

 

By this point, I was getting pretty desperate. Due to Grovyle's special defense, it was going to be rough getting past it with Rarity, especially knowing it knew Pursuit. I used Confusion and, as predicted, didn't do quite enough damage to take it out or even make a profit over Absorb. I did, however, manage to confuse it! With confusion up, I was able to more consistently prevent this thing from attacking. I was able to chip its HP down ever so close to KO range before it was able to attack through parafusion and knock Rarity out with a single Pursuit.

 

At this point, I was finally confident enough to expect a KO with my next attack, so I sent out Marco. A bit of a risk because Marco is 4x weak to Grovyle's Absorb thanks to its Water/Ground typing. But, its HP was low enough that I was able to take it out easily with a Mud Shot!

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

 

Up next, Wailmer came back out. Once again, it just spammed Splash so I was able to take it out easily with just Mud Shot.

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Numel Lv. 18

 

Her last remaining pokemon was a Numel. Its Fire/Ground typing meant that this round was going to be a pretty clear-cut victory for Marco!

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For defeating May, she gives us the Itemfinder! We'll go ahead and register this because it'll help us find items! It's not like we currently have anything else to register at the moment.

That battle was definitely very close! I wasn't entirely confident in my team going into the battle and half-expected to lose after some of that bad luck in the beginning, but my pokemon were ultimately able to pull through! Hopefully they'll continue to be able to pull through as we advance to the next city!

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

At the north end of Route 110, there are three Nanab Berry trees to gather from!

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\

Mauville City

We've finally arrived at the next gym city! You know what that means!

As we approach the gym, though, we see it's blocked off by yet another familiar face who seems to be having an argument with his uncle. His uncle seems worried about his health but Wally insists that because of his faith in Ralts, he can overcome any opponent and seems dead set on challenging the gym leader. Seeing us, he decided to have a battle to prove that he can handle himself.

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Unfortunately for him, with Ralts as his only pokemon, there's nothing he can do against my Poochyena, Parker. The best he can do is spam double team and hope for Struggle to come through.

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After losing, Wally seems majorly disappointed and decides to go with his Uncle back to Verdanturf to rest. We'll need to check up on him when we can, but for now, we have a gym to challenge!

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Mauville Gym

This gym is a maze of electric fences. There are three switches on the floor. Pressing one of these switches will reverse the poles of the nodes. Any adjacent nodes that didn't have a wall between them will now have a wall and any that did will no longer. If someone is standing between the nodes, a wall will never appear over them.

   

The trainers here are a bit more varied than you might expect. Be wary of SonicBoom from the rockers' Magnemite and Voltorb! As always, this attack deals a static 20 damage regardless of your type, and that can be pretty powerful this early. The youngster uses a Zigzagoon and the Battle Girl uses a Meditite. Be wary of Meditite's Bide as usual, but it also knows ThunderPunch to match the electric gym, so don't be careless just because it's not an electric type!

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

My team:

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Marco (Marshtomp M); Lv. 20

 

Item: Soft Sand

Ability | Moves: Torrent | Foresight, Mud Shot, Mud-Slap, Water Gun

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Parker (Poochyena M); Lv. 16

 

Item: Soothe Bell

Ability | Moves: Run Away | Tackle, Howl, Sand-Attack, Bite

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Rarity (Ralts F); Lv. 15

 

Item: Quick Claw

Ability | Moves: Trace | Growl, Confusion, Double Team

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Solitude (Slakoth M); Lv. 16

 

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Truant

Ability | Moves: Truant | Scratch, Yawn, Encore, Slack Off

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Shrum (Shroomish F); Lv. 17

 

Item: Miracle Seed

Ability | Moves: Effect Spore | Mega Drain, Tackle, Stun Spore, Leech Seed

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Ryu (Nincada M); Lv. 16

 

Ability | Moves: Compoundeyes | Fury Swipes, Harden, Leech Life, Sand-Attack

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

Vs. Mauville Gym Leader Wattson

I distinctly recall Wattson being one of the most difficult gym leaders in the game as a kid, though in this case I think my team is actually pretty well equipped to handle whatever it is he has to throw at me. I'm feeling pretty confident going into this battle.

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

Magnemite Lv. 22

 

The obvious lead here was Marco. There wasn't much Wattson's pokemon could do to Marco and he's capable of taking at least three SonicBooms without going down. What's more, with Magnemite being 4x weak against Mud Shot, this first round was over before it even began.

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

Voltorb Lv. 20

 

His immediate follow-up was Voltorb which strangely went for Rollout of all things. He wasn't going to have any time at all to build up damage with Rollout so I really don't know why he didn't go for Sonicboom to at least stand a chance. After locking it into a weak, innacurate, not-very-effective attack, Marco's victory in this round was ensured as well.

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

Magneton Lv. 23

 

Magneton is Wattson's final pokemon and it's actually quite capable. Between Supersonic, SonicBoom, and a lucky miss, it was able to shut down Marshtop before I was able to exploit its 4x weakness to ground. It's looking like the rest of my team is going to have to work together to take down this foe!

 

I sent out Shrum to set up against this thing. He has nothing to retreat into this time, so Leech Seed it is! After setting that up, I unfortunately missed a few times with Stun Spore so Shrum wasn't able to do quite as much as he'd hoped. I was able to stall enough time, though, that he had to use one of his Super Potions. Eventually, I switched out once I was reduced to less than 20 HP.

 

When Solitude came out, he was met with a powerful Shock Wave which shook him to his core. He didn't last very long.

 

I decided to send Rarity out with hopes of possibly getting a confusion up but no dice.

 

Parker came next to continue whittling down his HP. Since he knows Shock Wave, Sand-Attack isn't all that useful, though that's not to say it's useless because SonicBoom and Supersonic are the only ways he's capable of dealing damage to Ryu and both of those moves are pretty inaccurate. Still, I wanted to avoid relying on such a tactic if I could.

 

After Parker was KO'd, I brought Shrum back out to continue putting up the good fight and ultimately he was able to endure long enough for Leech Seed and the constant barrage of Mega Drain to finally overcome the magnetic fortress! I didn't even need to rely on Ryu's Ground typing like I expected!

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

While I initially expected Marco to be the obvious MVP for this battle, Shrum pretty much did all the hard work in dealing with the most difficult opponent Wattson had to offer. WHile Marco definitely could have handled it if it wasn't for that string of bad luck, the one who really pulled through was Shrum!

MVP: Shrum

For defeating Wattson, I was awarded the Dynamo Badge and TM34: Shock Wave!

With the gym out of the way, next time we can explore the rest of Mauville City and its surrounding areas!

[Aura]

With Mauville Gym completed, I believe there's quite a bit of time before we'll reach the next gym. I have a few checkpoints in mind, but we'll just be playing it by ear for a while. For now, we're just start focusing on exploring Mauville and the surrounding areas.

The building east of the pokemon center is Rydel's Cycles! You know what that means, it's finally time to get ourselves a bike! With the Running Shoes, someone continuing straight from Gen 2 might be questioning what the purpose of the bike is. Well, aside from being even faster than running with the Running Shoes, there are two different bikes here in Ruby and Sapphire: The Mach and Acro bikes. The Mach Bike, as its name suggests, is better at building up speed. It actually takes some practice getting used to riding this thing as you'll go so fast that you'll have to slow to a stop over several spaces. You might be bumping into a lot of walls as you get used to this thing. But once you get used to it, it's a lot of fun to expertly zoom around corners and obstacles. The other bike is the Acro bike. It's much slower but allows the rider to perform various tricks including wheelies, bunny hops, and side hops. Beyond just allowing you to travel fast or with style, these bikes also grant you access to different areas, and I'm not just talking about Cycling Road. For now, I'm going to be taking the Mach Bike for reasons that should become clear soon. Don't worry too much about the decision you make here as you can always come back to switch bikes at any time!

The house immediately south of Rydel's Cycles is home to a scientist who gives us HM06: Rock Smash! I'm not sure why they threw this HM in such an arbitrary location, but this is an important stop to make because you won't be able to get very far without it!

In the house next to the Pokemon Mart is a woman who wishes she had a bike so that she could get a Harbour Mail from Slateport. We'll want to take note of this now that we have a bike of our own!

The building that probably caught your attention, first, though, is that fancy one just south of the Gym.

This is the Mauville Game Corner! There's quite a bit to unpack here, but without a Coin Case, there's not much that we can actually do here at the moment. There's a girl next to the counter who will give you a doll of your starter for free, though!

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

Back on Route 110, with the Mach or Acro Bike, you now have access to the upper path across Cycling Road!

 

Instead of the typical gang-like Bikers from Kanto, Cycling Road here in Hoenn is populated mostly by Triathletes. Triathletes are a new trainer class with a pretty unique take. They'll either be biking, swimming, or running and depending on what sport they're participating in, they'll be focusing on different types of pokemon. Bikers specialize in Electric-types, swimmers in water-types, and runners specialize in the pokemon Doduo and Dodrio which are known for their running ability. Here on Cycling Road, these trainers all mostly just use Magnemite. It's pretty good practice if you're not prepared for Mauville Gym!

When you reach the other end of Cycling Road, the amount of time you took and the number of collisions you made will be recorded! What's more, your record will be recorded on the sign nearby. As a kid, I used to race up and down Cycling Road to beat my time and minimize collisions. As far as I know, you don't actually get anything for this, it's just a fun little game to participate in.

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

Trick House Puzzle #2

Now that we're back on this side of Route 110 and we've completed another gym, it's time to check out another puzzle from the Trick House! This maze is filled with trapdoors and switches. Pressing a switch will close a trapdoor and allow you to pass through. Naturally, you're going to need to press all the switches in order to reach the end of the maze. This one is particularly noteworthy because, in the very top-left corner of this maze, you can find a free Harbor Mail! You don't actually have to purchase one at all!

After clearing the maze, the Trick Master will reward you with a Timer Ball! This is a special type of Pokeball that gets stronger the more turns that have passed in a battle. It takes 10 turns for a Timer Ball to be as effective as an Ultra Ball and it will steadily increase in effectiveness up until 30 turns where it will max out at a catch rate of 4x.

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

Now, before we go back to Mauville to deliver this Harbor Mail, I want to head back to Dewford Town and pay a quick visit back to Granite Cave!

Before going in, I went to deposite Shrum and Marco in favor of Pandora and Zip so that we can thoroughly explore Granite Cave. In addition, I want to make sure I have a couple of repels to make my life easier for one particular situation. Lastly, I made sure to teach Zip Rock Smash by the HM we got back in Mauville.

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

If you recall, Granite Cave had this ramp of soft dirt. Perhaps now that we have a Mach Bike, we could build up enough speed to make it up this ramp?

And this is where those repels come in. In order to build up enough speed, we're going to have to avoid wild encounters. At the top here are several cracked tiles. If you aren't moving fast enough over these, you'll fall through to the floor below! That's no good, so it turns out this Mach Bike and those repels are going to be more useful than we thought! At the very end of this little obstacle course is a Rare Candy. If we check the rock nearby in this chamber, we can also find another hidden Everstone! Was this really worth the detour just for that? No, not really, but that's not all we're here for.

Down in the main area on floor B2, there were some strange-looking rocks. Now that we have Rock Smash, we can bust these open! Every time you use Rock Smash on one of these, there's a chance you'll encounter a wild pokemon!

Most of the time, you'll just find Geodude, but if you're lucky enough...

 

You can find Nosepass here at an encounter rate of 30%! Nosepass doesn't have any evolutions in Gen 3, so there's no need to concern ourselves too much with him. But he's no part of our pokedex and we can now return to Mauville!

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

Back in Mauville, if we deliver the Harbor Mail from the Trick House to the lady in the house neighboring the mart, we'll get a Coin Case! This will obviously grant us access to the minigames in the Game Corner, but we'll come back there in just a bit. First, we're going to want to take a look along the routes immediately surrounding Mauville!

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

Immediately to the east of Mauville is Route 118. We can't explore much here, so I won't post the image again, but there are some trainers we can battle here. One funny thing about this area, though, is that there is a slight oversight. One of the trainers can see you from across a drop-off ledge. She'll approach you and stand on top of the ledge that normally cannot be stood on. Just a funny little quirk of the way collision is programmed. Good thing this isn't a soft lock!

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

Route 117

Leaving Mauville from the west side brings us to Route 117! Here of course we find a few more trainers, but more importantly, there's a few more wild pokemon for us to meet, too! There are three pokemon for us to hunt down here, so let's get searching!

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

Maru (Marill M); Lv. 13

 

Ability | Moves: Thick Fat | Tackle, Defense Curl, Tail Whip, Water Gun

Marill, a pokemon I complained about being available way too late into the game in Gold and Silver, is made much, much more accessible here! If Marill wasn't so prominent in promotional material for Gen 2, I can totally imagine Marill being commonly mistaken as a Gen 3 pokemon. It's far more common here in Hoenn than it is in Johto! Being available earlier on does make this little guy more viable than in Gold and Silver, but unfortuantely not by much. It's still pretty late in the game and by this point you have an abundance of other water-type options to choose from. That said, I will have to use it even for just a tiny bit as it's going to need to evolve soon. And, unlike Surskit, Marill is actually pretty capable of battling on its own, so I don't really feel the need to hold out for a certain item to start raising in. for now, Maru here is going to be taking the place of Marco in my party.

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

 

Illumise is one of the target pokemon we're hunting down here. This is another soft exclusive to Ruby. Its counterpart, Volbeat, is much more common in Sapphire just like Plusle. Both pokemon are only available on this route so you'll definitely want to make sure to grab one while you're here. Volbeat and Illumise are two pokemon that are, once again, designed around double battles. I believe Illumise is supposed to play more of a support role using status moves to reduce the opponent's stats and Moonlight to stay alive while Volbeat is meant to buff its own stats with its signature Tail Glow and go on the offensive.

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

 

Another one of our target pokemon is Roselia. This is a very interesting design for a pokemon in my opinion, but it's also a very strange one. You see, in Gen 4, Roselia is a middle-stage pokemon. But its first and third forms are both Gen 4 pokemon. Here in Gen 3, Roselia is all on its own and unfortunately, that makes me much less inclined to use it. Especially for this particular playthrough.

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

 

Our final target here is actually hidden in the water! Here on Route 117 there's a small pond. A pond means different pokemon can be caught with the fishing rod! And right here, we caught ourselves a Goldeen! Seaking is available in the wild further down the line, so we don't have to worry about evolving Goldeen just yet. Though we just might retroactively change our minds on that decision for reasons to be explored later.

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

 

In the process of training up Maru, Solitude reached level 18 and evolved into Vigoroth! Since Vigoroth doesn't evolve again until level 36, I decided to go ahead and swap him out with Gullet and start training Gullet up as well.

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

 

I was doing some of my training back on Route 110 in hopes of stumbling across a Plusle and, sure enough, I did find one! That's one more pokemon we don't have to worry about in our playthrough of Sapphire.

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

On the south path of this route, there are three Wepear Berry Trees. These berries, based on Pears, are more Pokeblock ingredients!

There's also a double battle against a Sr. & Jr. team! Typically, the senior uses a more powerful, rarer pokemon while the junior tries to support them with a weaker, more common pokemon.

 

The north route features the running Triathlete I alluded to previously.

 

Another new trainer class introduced here are Breeders! These trainers run teams of six pokemon of relatively low level.

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

 

It was around here where Maru reached level 18 and evolved into Azumarill! Just when it was starting to gain momentum. Well, them's the breaks. With that, I brought Marco back into the team.

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

Before advancing further, I should probably take a moment to note the reason there are Pokemon Breeders here. This route is home to the daycare! This works just like the one in Gold and Silver. You can leave a male and female pokemon of the same egg group together and they should be able to breed! I believe breeding mechanics have been simplified from the annoying inconveniences Gen 2 breeding was riddled with. I'll probably get into it in more detail later on. But it's here!

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

Another trainer class introduced here is a bit of a strange one: A Bug Maniac! These are basically an evolved Bug Catcher. They tend to use stronger or evolved bug-type pokemon than Bug Catchers but ultimately, they're basically the same thing.

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

 

Parker was next to evolve! At level 18, Poochyena evolves into Mightyena! Naturally, I dropped Parker off in the PC and brought Solitude back out!

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

Verdanturf Town

This is the place we've been hearing about all this time and we've finally made it here! There's actually... really not much here to meet all the hype. But a town is a town, so let's look around! 

Verdanturf's main attraction is the Normal Rank Contest Hall where any trainer can register and make their Pokemon Contest debut! This sounds great and all, but due to my unique circumstances with the dead battery and limited supply of berries, I'm gonna be holding off on pokemon contests for quite a while.

The house in the center area is where Wally's Uncle lives and where Wally is currently staying. There's not much here at the moment, but Wally promises to get stronger by challenging gyms. His Uncle explains that the clean air here in Verdanturf has done wonders for his health, but it also seems that training pokemon gives him something to live for! It's really exciting to cheer him on! We also find out that Wally's cousin is the girlfriend of the man who's digging in the Rusturf Tunnel and that she frequents the tunnel due to her concern for his well-being.

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

The cave here, as you've probably pieced together by now, is the other side of Rusturf Tunnel! Now that we have Rock Smash, maybe we can be of help for the project! But first, if we round the corner immediately to our left, there's a different entrance to a small area of Route 116 where we can find an HP Up and a man who says he dropped his glasses. If you use your itemfinder, you can track down some hidden Blackglasses! If we try to return these glasses, he says they aren't the glasses he's looking for and then decides to leave to look elsewhere. Let's just... not mention the fact that his glasses were very clearly visible on his sprite.

Back in the tunnel, we don't have to go very deep to reach the rock smash boulders. We can see Wanda here checking on her boyfriend. They're separated but not for long! With just a little Rock Smash here, we can break through the wall! The man rewards us with HM04: Strength before finally reuniting with Wanda. The two return to Verdanturf together so that he can rest. The Rusturf Tunnel is now complete!

As we pass through the other side of Rusturf Tunnel to return to Route 116, we find the Devon researcher waiting to meet with us. He offers us a Repeat Ball as a reward for not only delivering the package to Captain Stern, but also helping to clear out the tunnel! This is another new kind of pokeball that helps you to catch pokemon that are already registered in the pokedex. I'm not totally sold on the practicality of a ball like this... if I already have the pokemon in the pokedex, I can't imagine many scenarios where I would want another one. Kind of a niche idea for a pokeball. But, as always, no better price than free!

Returning to Rustboro City, why not check in with the Devon President? If we do so, we're rewarded with the Exp Share! Now switch-out training is no longer necessary to train up weaker pokemon! This will make evolving some of our weaker pokemon we've collected till now much easier and this is why I've avoided holding out. 

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

With all of that exploration out of the way, I wanted to end this post off by returning to the Game Corner in Mauville. Now that we have a Coin Case, we can play the games here! There are two receptionists who you can exchange coins with for prizes. The left receptionist has a collection of TM's for us to choose from. You can buy the TM for Double Team, Psychic, Flamethrower, Thunderbolt, and Ice Beam. The latter three TM's are the most expensive and cost only 4,000 coins which puts them at the same price as the move tutor in Crystal. The right receptionist offers dolls of the three starters at 1,000 coins each. Of course, we can just spend the money to buy the coins directly, but we can also play the minigames as expected.

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

The first minigame is the typical slots. I've never been a big fan of slots and that doesn't change here, either. I will say the timing on these slots do feel less arbitrary than in GSC, but I'm sure the variance is just more subtle. That or the slots slide far too fast to be able to actually time it properly without frame-perfect precision.

The second minigame has always been my favorite. This is a roulette game! This is effectively the exact same game as Card Flip from Goldenrod. Although the typical payout is unfortunately less. On certain days, the minimum date will be doubled and you'll be able to bet 6 coins instead of 3 max. This of course greatly increases your chance of turning a profit. Just like Card Flip, your odds seem best by just choosing the same target over and over. One significant difference from Card Flip, though, is that due to the slow moving roulette wheel, you actually can get a feel for the timing and though the ball will never fall into exactly the same spot, you can control the general area it will roll into by timing your button presses accordingly. I have to say that the Hoenn game corner is by far my favorite game corner in the entire series just because of this game. Compared to Johto, it's got more affordable (and better imo) TM's, more consistent odds, and it's just overall more visually interesting! The only downside, which depending on your viewpoint could be argued as an upside, is that there are no pokemon that can be obtained through the game corner. All prizes are purely TM's and a couple of dolls. This also means you have no obligation to actually grind out here if your goal is pokedex completion! Also unlike Johto, movesets are typically a lot better balanced here in Hoenn. Electric-types typically learn an electric attack early on and even if they don't, you get some nice electric TM's through the main story that will carry you forward. 

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

Well, while we didn't really make a whole lot of progress today, we did cover a lot of ground and we made a bit of story progression relative to the world around us! Next time, we'll be pressing onward to see what new sites this world has to offer!

[Aura]

Route 111

North of Mauville City is Route 111. As you can see, it's a very long route, what we're focused on right now is the southernmost area. Here, we find a house that's home to the Winstrate family. Here, we can participate in an endurance round where we'll have to defeat the four family members back to back! Just from looking at this map alone, I think it's pretty clear it's going to be a pretty long trek to the next town.

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

   

For the most part, the battles here aren't anything too challenging. The first two opponents use pretty standard pokemon that have Oran Berries to heal off a little bit of damage when their health gets low. The daughter, Vivi, uses Marill, Shroomish, and Numel for good type coverage. The grandmother, Vicky, has a single pokemon, Meditite, which actually can be a little scary. If you're too cautious against it fearing the potential of Bide, it'll start setting up Meditate and after a few, it'll start sweeping your team before you know it!

Once you defeat all four members of the Winstrate family, they'll invite you inside their home where Vicky will give you a Macho Brace. This is a new item introduced in Gen 3. It's a very useful item for reasons we'll explain later on in the generation, but for now, just know that it's a held item that'll help your pokemon grow stronger faster at the cost of reducing its speed while holding it.

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

A little bit further down the road, we're met with a blockade of rocks so of course we'll need Rock Smash to progress.

 

Right on the other side, we have Interviewers Gabby & Ty! This is a recurring duo of trainers we'll be seeing to the end of the game. Gabby uses a Whismur to reflect her role as the interviewer and Ty uses a Magnemite, a pokemon to represent technology to reflect his role as the cameraman. After defeating these two, they'll ask you to describe your battle with them. Your description will later show up on a TV when their show airs!

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

 

Further along, we meet a Picknicker and a Camper. These are male and female counterparts to the same trainer class. I've never been able to pinpoint exactly what the class's focus is, but it seems to just be pokemon that are available in the local area. 

Further along, we find the path makes a turn. If we try to continue going straight, we're met by a raging sandstorm! We won't be able to continue very far in that direction so for now, let's just follow the path before us.

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

Route 112

In this tiny patch of grass here, we have some new pokemon we can find! One in particular is more common here than anywhere else.

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

Numa (Numel F); Lv. 14

 

Ability | Moves: Oblivious | Growl, Tackle, Ember

Just when we were starting to catch up on our evolved pokemon, we're met with another new addition to the family: Numel! This is a Fire/Ground type introduced right here in Gen 3! It's a pretty prominent pokemon among Team Magma which makes sense considering it's got a volcano on its back! Its oblivious ability prevents it from being infatuated which is kind of nice and if you can get sunshine out, you can help protect it better from its quad-weakness to water. It's certainly not a terrible option for a Fire type! This one I caught also came with a free Rawst Berry which certainly won't hurt, either! But, with a new member of the team means a new wave of grinding. Fun!

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

Ryu was getting pretty dangerously close to evolving, and so I decided it was best to go ahead and make sure I had an empty space in my party while he was in the lead.

 

It wasn't long before Ryu evolved into a Ninjask! Suddenly its compoundeyes ability becomes the much more useful Speed Boost which increases its speed by one stage every turn! This actually is a really, really cool pokemon and it gets even cooler! As I mentioned when we first caught Nincada, this is a very special case of evolution. Why?

 

When Nincada evolves into Ninjask, it sheds its skin. From here, a mysterious ghost inhabits the vacant shell of Nincada creating a new pokemon: Shedinja! Just like with Ninjask, Shedinja's ability changes from Compoundeyes to its signature ability Wonder Guard which makes it so that it is entirely immune to all attacks that aren't super-effective. Unfortunately, its typing, Bug/Ghost isn't the best typing for this ability. Still, the ability guarantees a lot of free switch-ins for this thing. Shedinja's biggest weakness, though, is its HP which will never be greater than 1. In other words, if it takes damage from anything, it will go down. Still, don't underestimate this little guy. He has his niche uses and can help in particular in single player against certain opponents that don't actually have any moves that can damage it.

As much as I love these two pokemon, we do have to rotate them out once again because I need to evolve as many pokemon as I can. This time, I finally brought out Skillet to start training it up with the Exp Share we got from the Devon President!

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

 

In the process of training up Skillet, Rarity evolved into Kirlia!

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

Further along the road, we come across a more mountainous region with a cable car that leads higher up the mountain! The way to the cable car is blocked off by two Magma grunts who complain about the grunts from Fallarbor town being late. I guess we'll just have to move on and see what's going on there. There's a nearby entrance to a cave, so that seems like the only way forward.

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

Fiery Path

This steamy cave is home to quite a few new oddities! We've got three pokemon we're interested in tracking down so let's get searching!

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

Carbon (Koffing F); Lv. 15

 

Ability | Moves: Levitate | Poison Gas, Tackle, Smog

Koffing is yet another soft version exclusive. This time, it's a counterpart to Grimer. This one does have an evolution that isn't available in the wild so she's going to be added to our list. We won't be evolving her until around level 35, either, so she'll be around for a while. That's fine though because Koffing's another pokemon who was greatly helped by his ability. Levitate practically makes Koffing a whole new pokemon! This ability makes it immune to ground-type attacks, leaving it with Psychic as its only weakness!

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

 

Torkoal is another of my targets here. He doesn't have any evolutions so we're not worried about that, but this is another one of my favorites from Gen 3!

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

Sulfur (Slugma M); Lv. 15

 

Ability | Moves: Magma Armor | Yawn, Smog, Ember, Rock Throw

Slugma is the last of the target pokemon we'll be hunting down here. Just like Marill, this is another pokemon that is made much more accessible here in Hoenn! I'm still not the biggest fan of this pokemon, but it's here as an option if you're interested. At the very least, you can reasonably use this guy on your team. It evolves really late, though, so it's gonna be hard to deal with. Its evolution isn't available in the wild so we will have to put up with this guy even longer than our own starter!

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

About halfway through the Fiery Path, there's a side path blocked off by a strength boulder. We do have the HM for Strength, but we're gonna need another badge before we can use it outside of battle, so we'll have to return here later to see what's there.

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

Now that we're out of the cave, we end up back on Route 112, this time on the northern half! Here, we can find two Rawst Berry trees and two Pecha Berry trees. I mentioned that the Numel I caught before had a Rawst Berry but I believe this is the first time we've found a tree of them. The Rawst Berry works like an IceCureBerry--It heals the frozen status.

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

Traveling east, we arrive on the northern part of Route 111. We've successfully worked our way around the harsh sandstorm of the desert!

 

Surprisingly early on, this is where we first start to see Cooltrainers! As they've always been, Cooltrainers generally use stronger pokemon and are far more strategic in their approach to team building and battling than most other trainers.

There's a guy standing at the base of a large tree talking about making it his home. He'll give us TM43: Secret Power. This move allows us to make secret bases out of large trees or caves which we can decorate with items purchased from Slateport! I'll want to look into this sooner or later but not quite at the moment. We'll have plenty of opportunities to work on that.

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

Right around the corner from here is another house. This house is a rest stop for adventurers like myself who have come a long way from Mauville. There's still a little ways to go before our next town and I've done a great deal of searching and grinding so I think this'll make a pretty good stopping point for now. Perhaps next time we'll take a look at what we can do with Secret Power...

[Aura]

Continuing on from where we left off at the rest house on route 111, I forgot to mention an amusing fact about the old lady who heals your pokemon here. If you just mash A, she'll constantly insist that you continue to rest a little longer. You'll heal over and over until you move the cursor down to "No" when she asks if you'd like to stay. I don't know if this was intentional but it's hilarious either way.

North of this house is another ramp which you can ride up with the mach bike! There's not much up here other than a Blackbelt and a few holes in the walls. We've seen a few of these around, but I haven't really addressed them until now. They do serve a purpose but we'll go over that when the time comes.

Further along, there are two Oran Berry Trees and two Razz Berry Trees. Razz Berries are more pokeblock ingredients. There's a girl nearby who I can only assume is supposed to give you a random pokeblock ingredient berry a day. She gave me a Razz Berry.

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

 

It wasn't too long before Skillet reached level 22 and evolved into Masquerain! That's one more off the list!

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

 

And in the process of training up Tantilus to take Skillet's place, Shurm reached level 23 and evolved into Breloom! Now I've placed Carbon on the team to take his place as well.

 

I was also eventually able to find a Volbeat on Route 117 which means another soft version exclusive can be crossed off the list!

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

Chett (Machop M); Lv. 15

 

Ability | Moves: Guts | Low Kick, Leer, Focus Energy, Karate Chop

I also caught a Machop while grinding out in Fiery Path

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

Gartha (Grimer F); Lv. 14

  

Ability | Moves: Stench | Pound, Harden, Disable, Sludge

Finally, I found a Grimer in Fiery Path which is yet another soft version exclusive off the list. At this point, I do believe I've caught every pokemon that's available in the wild up until this point in the story!

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

Route 111

This is another one of the most memorable parts of the game for me. Aside from the uniqueness of the visuals here, this place is also home to many nostalgic memories. I remember just strolling through the grass collecting soot bing one of the most satisfying things for me. I remember my first time encountering a rare pokemon here that I never expected to see and getting super excited over it. Beyond that, this is the site of my very first shiny encounter, back before I even knew what a shiny was!

As you've probably been able to tell, this whole path so far has been full of all sorts of ecological variance. Just north of Mauville, we've gone from a more generic grassy area typical of the pokemon series up to this point to a typical mountainous area. Further along, we found a fork that splits off into an actual desert, an environment that makes its debut here, which we couldn't access just yet because of a raging sandstorm. Instead, we had to continue the path up and actually onto the lower part of a mountain. You've never been able to explore the outside of a mountain like this, mountains have always been explored as caves. Of course, there is a cave here, but instead of just being a generic cave like we're used to in other gens, this one is a volcanic cave filled with geysers of steam. Now, on the other side of the cave, we're met with another brief grassy area that soon transitions into this field absolutely covered in volcanic ash. This area almost seems to be the complete opposite of Verdanturf town and supposedly the heavy volcanic ash in the area allows for this area to be much cooler in temperature than the surrounding areas. As you walk through the grass here, the volcanic ash scatters returning the blades of grass to their typical bright green color. We're not even close to done seeing the kind of variety Ruby and Sapphire has to offer in the environment department, but I just wanted to take note of this because it's absolutely mesmerizing to me.

As for the actual content of this route, there are a few pokemon for me to track down here, but we're not going to go hunting for them until we're a little further in.

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

Along the way here, we're introduced to yet another new trainer class: A Parasol Lady. These trainers tend to use teams focused on weather, though the one on this route seems to just be here thematically. 

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

Another new trainer class is the Ninja Boy! These guys like to hide in a variety of places and ambush you with a surprise attack! They're usually hidden behind folding screens disguising themselves among rocky cliffs or trees, but on this route, they like to hide in piles of volcanic ash. Stay alert! Their teams are obviously ninja-themed. They use a lot of pokemon from the Nincada and Koffing lines.

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

 

The pokemon this route is most well-known for is Spinda! Get used to seeing them here because you're gonna be seeing a lot. Spinda itself is a bit of a gimmick pokemon. It's not very practical to actually use, but its aesthetic gimmick takes advantage of Gen 3's new personality value mechanic much like Wurmple does for its evolution. In Spinda's case, its personality value is sued to generate a seed to determine the locations of its spots! Essentially, every single time you encounter a spinda, it will have a unique formation of spots!

Spinda, by the way, was the first shiny pokemon I ever encountered as a kid. I had no idea what I'd just come across and I tried to catch it. Unfortunately, I didn't know much about practical ways to catch pokemon and my pokemon were a bit too strong, so I ended up accidentally KOing it. I ended up kicking myself over it later when I realized what I'd missed out on, but it's a special memory regardless!

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

The building on this route is the main attraction and I wanted to get here before I do any serious pokemon hunting. This building is the Glass Workshop and I wanted to get here first because we can get a neat item: The soot sack. With this, you can collect soot by walking through the soot-covered grass. With enough soot collected, the soot can be baked into glass and used to make a variety of glass items! These items require varying amounts of soot to make but the majority of them are incredibly useful. 

The Blue Flute works identically to the Poke Flute from Gen 1. You can use it from your bag to cure your active pokemon from sleep and the item is permanently reusable. This only requires 250 steps of soot to make so it's well worth it to effectively nullify sleep. 

The Yellow and Red Flutes both cost 500 soot each and cure Confusion and Infatuation respectively.

The White and Black Flutes both cost 1000 soot and increase or decrease the encounter rate of wild pokemon respectively. 

You can also get some rare decorations: The Pretty Chair and Pretty Desk, but they cost a LOT of soot: 6,000 and 8,000 respectively. Considering walking on every blade of grass on the entire route nets you only 269... yeah, that's gonna take quite a while to grind to. But, if you're a mad lad and you really want those bragging rights, go for it! You might find a shiny along the way!

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

Anyway, now that we have the Soot Sack, I think it's time to start searching for that remaining target pokemon...

Sahara (Sandshrew F); Lv. 16

 

Ability | Moves: Sand Veil | Scratch, Defense Curl, Sand-Attack

While not one of the targets, I did encounter a Sandshrew here! Sandslash is unavailable in the wild, so we'll have to raise this guy up a bit. I decided to go ahead and slip him on the team with an Exp Share since my team is already higher level than its level of evolution.

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

 

And here it is! One of my favorite pokemon of all time makes its return! I can't tell you how stoked I was to see this guy in my copy of Sapphire as a kid for the first time. Never in a million years did I expect to find such a cool, rare pokemon so early in the game and this is the only route he can be found in. I had no idea back then that he was in the Hoenn region at all. Since I didn't have access to a copy of GSC, I was only ever to experience Skarmory through Pokemon Stadium 2. Skarmory was difficult to capture but you can bet that I dropped everything to catch this thing for my team as soon as I found out it was available! However, I did just have Katana in Gen 2 so it'd be hard to find an excuse to use a Skarmory here in Gen 3, especially given that there's no major differences in Skarmory between Gens 2 and 3 besides its Keen Eye and Sturdy abilities, neither of which are too terribly impactful. If I were to use Skarmory here, it would probably wind up with a near identical moveset to Katana's so it would be a bit redundant.

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

Anyway, I was originally planning to continue on from here, but I had to do a ton of grinding today to catch an abundance of pokemon up and free up space on the team. I'm still hoping to be able to use Seedling on my team by the end of the game, but that's looking pretty bleak at this point. Here's hoping! We didn't make a whole lot of physical progress today, but hopefully we'll make up for that tomorrow!

[Aura]

Fallarbor Town

We've finally arrived at the next town! And... there really isn't much here. It's more of a second checkpoint. In the pokemon center, though, we do get to meet Lanette who is operating on the PC. We'll need to talk to her to get her to move out of the way before we can access it. She invites us to her house on Route 114 so we just might come by to see her again soon. Those Magma Grunts at the mountain said something about this place, though, so we're definitely going to want to check it out. If we ask around, we hear about a man named Prof. Cozmo who has allegedly been dealing with Team Magma. He went off to Meteor Falls with the group so it seems like we're going to have to travel a bit further to see what's up. There's also a contest hall here for Super Rank contests! The main attraction here in Fallarbor, though, is the Move Tutor. In exchange for a Heart Scale, this man can teach your pokemon any move it has forgotten! Right now, we don't have any Heart Scales, so we're not interested in this at the moment, but it's definitely good to keep in mind! Before we leave, we can find a Nugget in the center of the crater nearby.

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

Before advancing futher, though, I did head back to Route 111 to gather some soot and make a Blue and Yellow Flute like I suggested. These are incredibly valuable items and it really doesn't take that long at all to build up the soot. If you're worried about time, you can speed up the process with repels. I wasn't too worried about that, myself, because every wild encounter was just a bit more grinding I wouldn't have to do later.

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

 

While gathering soot here, Sahara reached level 22 and evolved into Sandslash!

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

Route 114

The house at the northernmost part of this route is home to the Fossil Maniac who has dug a massive tunnel in his home in search of fossils. His little brother immediately inside gives you TM28: Dig! If we go to the back of the tunnel the maniac has dug, he'll ask if we want a fossil, but he'll selfishly hold onto his own collection. Instead, he tells you to search the desert in Route 111 where Fossils are sead to come to the surface when the sand covering them is blown away in a sandstorm. However, that very sandstorm makes it impossible for us to navigate the desert still.

Outside of the Fossil Maniac's house is a man complaining that his Poochyena roars too much and scares everyone away. He gives us TM05: Roar after voicing his complaints.

As we cross the bridge going southbound, we come across some tall grass where, you guessed it, there's a few more target pokemon for us to track down.

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

 

The first of these is Swablu whose evolution is available in the wild much later on, so we won't have to make room for this guy just yet.

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

 

The other pokemon we're interested in here is Zangoose! The edgy boy everyone made their OC's out of back in the day. This is a hard version exclusive to Ruby and isn't available in any other main series game in the generation! There is still a way to get one even if you don't have Ruby, but that'll come much later on. Its Sapphire counterpart is the Snake pokemon Seviper. I think this is a really cool concept. Zangoose is obviously based on a mongoose while Seviper is based on, also obviously, a viper. The idea of these two pokemon is that they're at a constant bitter rivalry with each other, much like snakes and mongoose (Mongeese? Mongooses?) in the real world. Depending on the version you play, either Seviper or Zangoose will have the upper hand, but since Seviper seems more common across the games in the gen, I think it's pretty clear which one has the upper hand here in Hoenn. Still, at least in Ruby, Zangoose gets some of the spotlight! And he's not a bad pokemon! Zangoose is pretty much a successor to the original concept of Sneasel and is everything Gen 2 Sneasel wished it was. If it wasn't for the limitations I'm working with at the moment, I would definitely love to give Zangoose its time in the spotlight, but hopefully that should become more possible in a future title.

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

Near this grass is a man who will give you a free Bluk Berry, of course based on Blackberries, these berries are used to make Blue pokeblocks!

The house here is, of course, Lanette's house as mentioned before. If we go inside, we'll find it's incredibly cluttered. She apologizes for the mess and gives us a Seedot doll. It turns out Lanette is the developer of the Pokemon Storage System here in Hoenn! If we check a computer in the back of her house, we can see an Email from none other than Bill from the Kanto Region: the founder of the Pokemon Storage System! He compliments Lanette for the many conveniences her storage system has over his own which is certainly a shared sentiment. The PC is so, so much easier to manage here than ever before and it's probably the #1 thing I'm thankful for to come out of Gen 3. 

If we cleverly maneuver around behind the house keeping in mind that you can walk behind rooftops, we can make our way to a ledge where there are three Persim Berry trees. 

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

At the southernmost part of this grassy area, there's a lone Pokemanic standing near a rock. Pokemaniacs tend to have a preference for Kaiju-themed pokemon. Here in Hoenn, they tend to have a preference for the Aaron and Rhyhorn lines. The rock this guy is standing in front of is hiding a Carbos so be sure to collect that!

Exploring the more mountainous part of the route, we come across a Kindler. This is the Hoenn counterpart to the Firebreather from Johto. Kindlers are just generic Fire-type users who tend to focus on Slugma and Numel, being the most prominent fire-types in Hoenn.

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

Meteor Falls

Here we have what is arguably the most beautiful cave in the region: Meteor Falls. There are lots of mysteries to be had here, but there's only so much that we can explore with the tools at our disposal right now. There's definitely something mysterious and foreboding about this place, though. For now, we're just going to go forward a little further.

 

It's not far in at all when we come across two Team Magma grunts with Prof. Cozmo. They're talking about a Meteorite they've just obtained that seems to be a key part of their plan. While discussing this, however, they are interrupted by a new figure.

  

Archie and two grunts from Team Aqua arrives! He has come to stop Team Magma from obtaining the meteorite, but he's too late and the magma grunts slip away. As his grunts run ahead to give chase, Archie stops to introduce himself to us and explains that he founded Team Aqua with the intention of thwarting Team Magma's dangerous schemes as they seek to expand the land in ways that could be extremely damaging to the environment. After bidding his farewell, we go to check up on Prof. Cozmo. He explains how he was tricked by Team Magma and expresses concern over what they plan to do with the meteorite.

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

 

On our way out the other side of Meteor Falls, I encountered a Solrock to add to my collection! These can only be found here in Meteor Falls but they're actually more common in deeper areas so I wasn't concerned with tracking one down just yet. But, since I found it here, no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth!

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

Route 115

Outside of Meteor Falls is another portion of Route 115. We still can't explore all of the route, but I think it's enough this time that we can show the map. Here, there are a few trainers we can battle. If you have a Rock Smash user, you can access the upper ledge where there's a Great Ball and two Bluk Berry trees waiting for you.

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

If you recall, Route 115 is directly north of Rustboro City! So, we've essentially come full circle all the way back to the location of Gym 1! We've seen a lot since our first time here, but would you believe we've only seen about half of the region, still? I mean, we still only have three badges! If there's anything you missed out on from the beginning of the game, now is a really good time to check back up on them. If you have a working battery, now's a good time to double back and check on all those old berry trees you planted a way back when. For me, though, I'm gonna make my way back to Route 112 using Rusturf Tunnel and see if we can figure out what Team Magma is up to...

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

Along the way to Route 112, I decided to head south from Mauville to Slateport to check out the marketplace. Of course, since time can't pass, there isn't much to do here, but since we've gotten the TM for Secret Power, we can now talk to the northernmost salesperson and purchase some basic decorations for a secret base. Once again, we'll talk more about this when the time comes. We'll cover this in more detail later, but I thought I'd go ahead and take note of it.

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

Back in Mauville City, I decided it might be a good time to swap out our Mach Bike for an Acro Bike. If I recall, there's gonna be some exclusive use for the Acro Bike coming up. The Acro Bike is only slightly faster than running on foot. If you hold B, you'll do a Wheelie which will cause you to slow down. If you hold B for a little while without moving, you'll begin to do bunny hops which have a particular use in a certain specific area we'll have to deal with sooner or later. If you press B at the same time as any direction other than forward, you'll either jump to the side while facing the same direction, or jump in place and do a 180 to face the opposite direction. It can be pretty fun to play around with these movement options that were completely unnecessary, mind you!

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

Now that we've made our way back to Route 112, we find that the cable car is no longer blocked off. That's good for us but it's also a little worrying as it can only mean that Team Magma's plan is already underway. Our only option is to take the Cable Car up to give chase! 

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

Mt. Chimney

  

As soon as we arrive here on Mt. Chimney, we immediately see an Aqua and Magma Grunt battling each other and blocking off the stairs to the south. We can't do much about this, so we'll have to climb further up!

  

As we make our way to the summit of Mt. Chimney, we can see that Archie has his hands full dealing with three Magma Grunts all at once! When he sees us, he tells us Magma's plan is to use the Meteorite to force the volcano to erupt!

As we make our way further up, we'll start to battle with Team Magma ourselves! Including...

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

Magma Admin Tabitha

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

Numel Lv. 20

 

I had Chett at the front of the party. It's worth noting here that both Marco and Tantilus are in the PC here and these are my best outs to the Numel line... oops. Still, it's not like we're hopeless. Chett does have Seismic Toss, after all! With just a couple of Seismic Tosses, Numel was out of commission.

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

Poochyena Lv. 20

 

With Poochyena out next, I just had to use Karate Chop to finish it off. Even with a couple of Growls from Numel, I was able to take it out in a single shot.

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

Numel Lv. 20

 

Yet another Numel which will go down to the very same strat!

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

And, at the very top, we see Maxie operating a strange machine. When we confront him, he insists that the world's landmass must be expanded in order to make more room for people and pokemon to continue to evolve and from here. We won't pay it mind, however, and we'll have to battle him!

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

Magma Leader Maxie

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

Mightyena Lv. 24

 

I led off with Rarity because I was unsure what his starting pokemon would be and I didn't want to lead with a disadvantaged Machop. It turns out this was a bit of a mistake because his lead was a Dark-type. This wasn't a total waste, though, because Mightyena's Intimidate would have reduced Chett's attack ahd I led with him.

 

Naturally, I switched Chett into a Bite and proceeded to hammer him with a Karate Chop. 

Golbat Lv. 24

He actually caught me off guard by withdrawing his Mightyena and switching it into his Golbat!

 

Obviously, this wasn't a fantastic matchup and Karate Chop hardly did a thing to Golbat.

 

I took a bit of a risk here and switched into Rarity who took a solid Wing Attack. This is a risk because it's very possible for him to switch back into Mightyena and soak up my Confusion completely. Thankfully, he didn't switch and I was able to get at least one good hit in with Confusion. He stayed in another round to hit me with Bite and nearly took me out, but I persisted and was able to finish him off with another Confusion!

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

 

Naturally, he brought MIghtyena back out to follow up.

 

My answer was the obvious switch into Chett. Unfortunately, between Sand-Attack and flinches with Bite, he was able to overcome Chett.

 

I brought out Gullet next to deal with Mightyena and I got a single Sludge off before he took another switch!

Camerupt Lv. 25

 

Camerupt came out next: Maxie's strongest pokemon. As a Ground-type, it's of course resistant to poison. I do have a solution to this matchup, however.

 

I switched into Carbon anticipating a Magnitude from this thing. Instead, he seemed to anticipate the switch by going for Focus Energy! With a single Ember, he got a Cirt and took Carbon out!

 

I brought out Numa as this was my best offensive bet at taking this thing out. Thankfully, I was able to outspeed it and went for Magnitude. I got a Magnitude 9 and took out the rest of its HP in a single shot!

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

 

Finally, his Mightyena came back out and now it had nothing to hide behind. Maxie dropped a super potion on it to heal it up, though so it wasn't going to be one-sided. It was a good fight, but Numa eventually went down.

 

It all came down to Gullet! I opened up here using Amnesia and I somewhat shamefully used a Soda Pop to heal Gullet up. I don't think this is totally unjustified since I only have 5 pokemon in my party thanks to needing an HM-user and the rotten luck I've had with crits up until now. After a bit of back and forth, we both used another heal to stare each other down. I was able to get a Poison Gas off and then maxed out my special defense with Amnesia before pelting him with Sludge until he was near death. Near the very end of the battle, he really surprised me by using Roar of all things!

 

Humorously enough, of all pokemon he drug out, it had to be Zip! It seems that if he wasn't going to win, he'd at least settle on the petty victory of disrupting my Exp Growth. Immediately after Roaring Gullet away, Mightyena went down to poison, which I guess technically means... Zip was the winning pokemon?

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

Upon winning the battle, Maxie admits defeat and withdraws his team from Mt. Chimney.

Maxie then approaches us to thank us for his help, but warns us that Team Aqua will continue to remain vigilant because this likely is not the last we'll hear of Team Magma. He leaves as well and now the summit of Mt. Chimney is almost entirely vacant. Of course, before we leave ourselves, we'll definitely want to retrieve the meteorite from the machine Maxie was operating!

We should finally be able to return our focus to our Gym Challenge once again! Next time, I'm confident we'll finally be able to finish a post with the next gym battle. 

[Aura]

Jagged Pass

After Team Magma evacuates Mt. Chimney, the path to the south opens up and we can advance toward the Jagged Pass! This is why I wanted to switch to the Acro Bike before moving on because, with the Acro Bike, we can use bunny hops to skip across the stones that line some of these ledges. This allows us to more easily navigate this area that normally is full of one-way points of no return.

Near the top of Jagged Pass are a couple of patches of soot-covered grass. Obviously, this isn't nearly as efficient to collect soot in as Route 111, and you've probably already collected all the soot you need, but this is here if you just really want a few extra steps of soot. Inside all the grass on this route, though, there is one new pokemon that we're gonna try to catch:

Spunk (Spoink F); Lv. 18

 

Ability | Moves: Thick Fat | Splash, Psywave, Odor Sleuth, Psybeam

Spoink is another pokemon we're going to have to raise up to evolve. It comes with a really nice ability, Thick Fat, which halves damage from Fire and Ice attacks, effectively giving it two free resistances with no downside. Since the Psychic type lacks in resistances, having the ability to protect itself from more types is really nice. For now, I'm probably going to be replacing Carbon with Spunk.

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

 

While exploring Jagged Pass, Gullet reached level 26 and evolved into Swalot!
==================

Once you reach the other end of the Jagged Pass, you're spat out from the trees as the base of the mountain on Route 112, right at the top of some one-way ledges leading right back down to where we came from. Of course, our main goal here is to our immediate west.

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Lavaridge Town

As always, there's a few points of interest to explore here, but our main goal as always is the pokemon gym!

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Lavaridge Town Gym

This gym's structure right off the bat probably looks pretty familiar. It's very reminiscent of Saffron Gym from Kanto. Worry not,t hough, because there's actually some logic to this one! Instead of teleportation panels, there are patches of hot sand. You'll have to look a littel closely to see them because, in the actual game, there's a layer of steam similar to the fog in Rusturf Tunnel. This steam can make these patches of sand difficult to see. Each patch of sand will either be a trapdoor that leads you to the lower floor, a spring that'll bounce you to the upper floor, or a trainer hidden underneath will ambush you as you approach!

    

We're starting to get into the territory of gyms with quite a few trainers in them.

  

The kindlers all use very similar parties of various combinations of Slugma and Numel. There's nothing much to say about them.

 

The Cooltrainer here uses a Kecleon of all things. I believe Kecleon is the first ever Gen 3 pokemon to be officially revealed. They made their debut I believe in the Pokemon Johto Journeys anime. In this anime, a purple Kecleon also existed, heavily implying that at one point in development shiny Kecleon was supposed to be purple. In the final game, though, shiny keckleon just has a blue stripe instead of a red one and a slightly lighter shade of green.

Anyway, much like Shedinja, Kecleon has a very unqiue ability that he's designed around. Its Color Change ability allows it to copy the type of the last move used against it. This can be potentially awkward to deal with because many types resist themselves. It's significant in this gym specifically because, if you went into this fire gym expecting to just spam a bunch of water attacks, Kecleon will change its type to water and start resisting those attacks. You'll have to change it up with various types of attacks in order to keep doing as much damage as you can. 

 

Lastly, the Battle Girl here has a Meditite that knows Fire Punch, much like the Battle Girl in Mauville gym who had a Meditite that knew Thunderpunch.

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

My Team:

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Rarity (Kirlia F); Lv. 25

 

Item: None

Ability | Moves: Trace | Calm Mind, Confusion, Double Team, Teleport

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

Tantilus (Tentacool F); Lv. 26

 

Item: None

Ability | Moves: Liquid Ooze | Poison Sting, Supersonic, Bubblebeam, Acid

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Numa (Numel F); Lv. 26

 

Item: Quick Claw

Ability | Moves: Oblivious | Focus Energy, Tackle, Ember, Magnitude

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Carbon (Koffing F); Lv. 25

 

Item: None

Ability | Moves: Levitate | Poison Gas, Tackle, Sludge, SelfDestruct

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

Chett (Machop M); Lv. 25

 

Item: None

Ability | Moves: Guts | Foresight, Seismic Toss, Focus Energy, Karate Chop

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

Spunk (Spoink F); Lv. 25

 

Item: Soothe Bell

Ability | Moves: Thick Fat | Psych Up, Confuse Ray, Odor Sleuth, Psybeam

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

As Flannery introduces herself to us, it's very clear she's an amateur as a gym leader. She's stumbling over her lines trying to figure out an appropriate persona as she speaks to us. It turns out she's just recently inherited this gym much like Jasmine from Kanto. She certainly lacks the self confidence at the moment, though. This character, though, is quite reminiscent to a certain member of Team GR in Card GB2 who also happened to be in the Fire Fortress. I do wonder if there's a relation here.

Vs. Lavaridge Gym Leader Flannery

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

Slugma Lv. 26

Starting off was her Slugma. I distinctly recall her plan with these guys and I can definitely stress that you do not want them to get Sunny Day up. If they do, her entire party is shielded from your water attacks and her extremely powerful fire attacks will be even stronger. Don't underestimate these Slugma just because they're normally not very impressive pokemon on their own. They will help her set up some pretty dangerous attacks. And if they follow up with Light Screen? Most of your attacks are pretty much useless at that point. 

 

I led with Tantilus to be able to deal with these Slugma quickly. I was actually caught by surprise just how good Tantilus was at this. Bubblebeam did a lot more damage than I expected and I was able to take Slugma out in just one hit!

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

Slugma Lv. 26

Immediately following up on the first Slugma is a second!

 

This went about as good for her as the first one did. No problem here!

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

Torkoal Lv. 28

And here comes her the main threat the rest of her team is setting up for. Torkoal can be a major threat if you're not careful. Thankfully, my team is pretty well-equipped for this battle.

 

I started off with Poison Sting rather than BubbleBeam. Since she hasn't had the opportunity to use any potions yet, I figured it was for the best to afflict a status condition rather than just going for damage that would easily be erased. Luckily enough, I was able to get the poison, but the good luck was made even because, with a Body Slam, she was able to paralyze me which guaranteed she'd be able to outspeed me on the next turn. Sure enough, there was no way Tantilus was surviving a second hit from this beast.

 

My next choice was Spunk. Thanks to Thick Fat, Spunk, too, would be able to resist Torkoal's Overheat attack. I would also be able to confuse it with Confuse Ray. This confusion bought me a few turns to hit it with Psybeam but it wasn't long before she healed off the damage and overpowered Spunk with its physical force.

 

My last line in my more offensive approach was Numa. If Numa goes down, then I'll have to adjust to a more defensive strategy with my remaining pokemon in an effort to survive the onslaught with Overheat. Numa was my main fallback if Slugma managed to get Sunny Day up because, obviously, she not only resists fire attacks, but Magnitude is strong against fire but not weakened by Sunny Day. Since Flannery never got Sunny Day up here, Numa's just another pokemon with a type advantage.

I got a pretty powerful Magnitude on her that brought her down to the yellow, but Torkoal went for a Take Down that dealt about 1/3 of my health and managed to get another paralysis off which of course means it was able to outspeed Numa on the second turn. That turn, she went for another Take Down which dealt another 1/3. On the next turn, my quick claw activated and allowed me to hit first! I thought I was in the clear until I got a weak Magnitude that left her with a sliver of health! She went for another Body Slam, but Numa held on with only 1HP! After this, the lingering poison damage was enough to finish Torkoal off. 

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

MVP: Tantilus

While I wanted to give MVP to Numa for that impressive clutch victory, I still had some fallbacks in case Numa failed. Tantilus really paved the way for victory here thanks to his ability to quickly take out both of Flannery's Slugma and disabling their attempts at setting up for Torkoal. I cannot deny just how integral that was to my success.

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

For defeating Flannery, I was awarded the Heat Badge and TM50: Overheat! This is the powerful Fire attack I was worried about this whole time. It's a 140 power move with the downside that it sharply reduces your special attack afterward. Considering this move can easily one-shot your opponent, this can be a really good alternative to moves like SelfDestruct or Explosion.

[Aura]

Now that we've finished the Lavaridge Gym it's time to explore the town itself! Upon leaving the gym after getting the badge, May comes out of the nearby house and says that you got your badge while she was relaxing in the hot spring. She gives us the Go-Goggles which will finally allow us to explore the desert on Route 111. With the Heat Badge, we can also use Strength outside of battle as well, which means we can explore the rest of Fiery Path, so we've got some exploring ahead of us! Before hopping on her bike and leaving, May suggests that it might be time for us to return to Petalburg and challenge our father. How exciting!

The building May came out of happens to be the herbal medicine shop, just like the one in the underground beneath Goldenrod City, but this one is open 24/7! I never liked using herbal medicine because it reduces your pokemon's happiness. But, there's an old man in here who will give you a Charcoal if you go inside!

The main attraction here in Lavaridge is the volcanic hot spring here. Inside the Pokemon Center, there's a special back exit that leads into the hot spring which you can actually walk into and relax with two old ladies. Just south of this spring is an area of hot sand where people like to be buried as a spa treatment. It always sounded kind of uncomfortable to me, but you do you.

There's an old lady in this sandy area who will offer you an egg she got from the Day Care! I'll be taking care of this egg for a little while. 

There isn't much else here, so I'm gonna teach Strength to one of my pokemon before moving onward. Unfortunately, Zigzagoon can't actually learn Strength. For now, I'm going to have to temporarily teach it to a different pokemon.

 

In this case, I'll be teaching it to Arle the Aron!

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

About halfway through Fiery Path, there was a strength boulder blocking the way to a side area. Here, there's a series of Strength Puzzles. Just be careful about pushing boulders against the wall and you shouldn't have any issues with these puzzles. Don't push a boulder unless you need to. As you navigate this area, there are two chambers that hold items. The chamber to the north holds TM06: Toxic and the chamber to the south is holding a Fire Stone. Now we can make our way back to the exit and use Rarity's Teleport in order to return to Lavaridge.

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

With our Go-Goggles, we can now explore the desert! Here, we can search for a few unique pokemon! In the desert, the constant sandstorm never settles and will persist indefinitely, even during battle! This will put a drain on your pokemon's HP unless it's a Ground, Rock, or Steel Type, or a new way to help in Gen 3 is that, of course, there are abilities that help you to benefit from the sandstorm!

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

Lotus (Cacnea F); Lv. 21

 

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Growth, Leech Seed, Sand-Attack, Pin Missile

With another uncatchable evolution, we're going to have to fit Lotus here onto the team. Its Sand Veil ability makes it immune to the damage from sandstorm and even increases its evasion inside of it. Unfortunately, it lacks any actual Grass-type moves.

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

Sarlacc (Trapinch M); Lv. 20

 

Ability: Arena Trap | Moves: Bite, Sand-Attack, Faint Attack

Another pokemon I'm going to have to raise up for a while, but for now he's going to sit on the bench. Trapinch is really annoying to deal with in the wild because of its Arena Trap ability which prevents you from escaping battle either by fleeing or switching out. It's just a mess to deal with, especially if you're doing a Nuzlocke run!

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

Balance (Baltoy); Lv. 20

 

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Mud-Slap, Psybeam, Rock Tomb, SelfDestruct

These guys are a little annoying to catch since they have SelfDestruct, but they don't seem to have as much of a tendency to use Self-Destruct right away like most SelfDestruct users in Gen 2. Once again, it has an evolution unavailable in the wild, so we'll have to take the time to raise it up soon.

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

As for what else we can find here, the main points of interest are the southernmost point of the desert where you can find TM37: Sandstorm! In the northwest corner, you can find two fossils! These fossils are different from the Helix and Dome fossils we've seen so far. These two are the Root and Claw fossils which both hold DNA for two completely new fossil pokemon! I went with the Root Fossil for now.

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

There's a new trainer class we can find here known as a Ruin Maniac. These trainers typically use Sandshrew and Sandslash and are in search of ancient ruins spoken of in folklore. Near the one here is a strange rock formation in the southern part of the desert. He just might be onto something, but as far as we can tell now, these are just normal rocks.

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

On the way back to Petalburg, we're naturally going to pass through Rustboro. this is actually pretty convenient because this is where we need to take our fossil! If you recall, one of the scientists on the second floor of Devon Corp. was working on a machine to restore fossils! 

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

Lung (Lileep M); Lv. 20

 

Ability: Suction Cups | Moves: Astonish, Constrict, Acid

LIleep obviously is going to need some leveling in order to evolve. Like the other fossil pokemon, it evolves at level 40. I have no reason to put it on my team right now, but it'll have to have its time in the spotlight sometime later on.

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

After a bit more, we finally return to Petalburg City! It's only natural that we're going to be challenging the gym from here!

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

Petalburg Gym

This is perhaps the most infamous gym in Hoenn and, probably due to the challenge of my team rotation, it's proving to be the first gym that's truly walling me. 

The gym itself isn't anything too notable. It's just a series of rooms in which you'll have to battle a trainer in order to progress further into the gym. Each room has its own theme and each trainer has an item to use on their pokemon to fit that theme.

 

All of the trainers in this gym are Cooltrainers. Every one of them only has one pokemon.

The first set of rooms feature Delcatty. The left room is the Speed Room where the trainer will open up using an X Speed. The right room is the Accuracy Room where they'll use an X Accuracy to increase the hit rates of Sing and Attract.

The next three rooms have trainers with Linoone. The left room is the Zero Reduction Room where the trainer will use a Gard Spec. that protects his pokemon from stat reductions. The middle room is the Defense Room where the trainer uses an X Defense. On the right is the recovery room where the trainer has some Super Potions to heal his pokemon with.

The next rooms both use Zangoose. The left room is the Strength Room where the trainer will use, take a guess, an X Attack. The right room is the One-Hit KO room where they'll use a Dire Hit to increase its crit rates.

Of course, the final room is the Gym Leader's Room itself.

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

My Team: 

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

Rarity (Kirlia F): Lv. 26

 

Item: None

Ability: Trace | Moves: calm Mind, Psychic, Double Team, Teleport

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

Tantilus (Tentacool F); Lv. 26

 

Item: None

Ability: Liquid Ooze | Moves: Poison Sting, SuperSonic, BubbleBeam, Acid

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

Numa (Numel F); Lv. 27

 

Item: Charcoal

Ability: Oblivious | Moves: Focus Energy, Tackle, Ember, Magnitude

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

Chett (Machop M); Lv. 27

 

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Guts | Moves: Foresight, Seismic Toss, Focus Energy, Cross Chop

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

Spunk (Spoink F); Lv. 26

 

Item: Soothe Bell

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Psych Up, Confuse Ray, Odor Sleuth, Psybeam

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

Lotus (Cacnea F); Lv. 26

 

Item: None

Ability: Sand Veil | Moves: Growth, Leech Seed, Sand-Attack, Pin Missile

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

Vs. Petalburg Gym Leader Norman

I'm going to stress right now that this gym battle is absurdly difficult for my current team for reasons I'll cover really soon. As a result, I am absolutely going to not only be using items, but relying heavily on them to get me by. It's a really scummy way to seek a victory, but without items, it's going to be impossible to even get past his first pokemon. Things would probably be different if I'd been using a planned, static team this entire game, but in this playthrough, I'm kinda stuck with what I have at the moment. Granted, with a bit of grinding, things might look different, especially if I compromise on my rules a bit and allow myself to use Machoke instead of merely depositing it.

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

Slaking Lv. 28

Norman's lead was a Slaking. This thing's stats are absolutely monstrous and the only boon we have to fall back on is its Truant ability. However, this actually serves as a bit of a detriment to me. Rarity, one of my most powerful pokemon, cannot be sent out against these things or else she'll have to deal with Truant herself thanks to Trace. In addition, all of Norman's pokemon know Facade. This is a fairly powerful normal attack on its own, but it increases further in strength when afflicted with a status condition. This means I can't even hope for a burn with Ember or rely on poison with any of my poison pokemon. This thing's stats are absurdly high to the point where it can effortlessly one-shot your pokemon so I'm basically going to have to brute force it with the few pokemon that can take a hit.

 

I led off with Chett and immediately opened up with Focus Energy. Every crit I can get with Karate Chop is a blessing. It won't take long at all for Slaking to get Machop into the red with a single Facade. Thankfully, I can take advantage of Truant and get a hit in with Karate Chop. From there, I used a Soda Pop to heal Machop up. This wasn't enough to heal off all the damage, but this strategy would keep me alive for a few turns longer. In between hits, I can sneak in Karate Chops of my own. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the crit in to KO him before he could drop a Hyper Potion, healing off all the damage I'd built up. With some more persistence, I was able to get him down to near-death again before being KO'd.

 

At this point, Spunk was able to finish the fight with a single Psybeam. No harm, no foul.

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

Vigoroth Lv. 30

 

This Vigoroth is much easier to deal with. Despite not having Truant, its stats aren't nearly as terrifying. I was able to get a Confuse Ray up on it before getting KO'd with Slash.

 

Tantilus came next and just started hammering Vigoroth with BubbleBeam in hopes of reducing its speed. It actually hit itself quite a few times with Confusion, forcing Norman into using his other Hyper Potion. I was able to get a few speed drops before Vigoroth finally landed a Slash and took Tantilus out.

 

This was the only opportunity Rarity had to come out without her ability being compromised, so I took the opportunity to send her out and finish Vigoroth off with a powerful Psychic attack.

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

Slaking Lv. 31

And here's the big baddie. We've got another one and I really don't have the healing items or manpower to hold him back. I had to get real desperate here, but at this point, I'm going to need to rely on Revives if I want any hope of winning.

 

To start off, I just went for a Psychic and took the loss of Rarity.

 

I set up Leech Seed on the free turn with Lotus. This was going to be my main way of dealing damage. In addition, the sheer amount of HP I recover from each turn of Leech Seed just goes to show how absolutely absurd Slaking's stats are. A single turn of Leech Seed heals about a quarter of my full HP. Of course, that wasn't going to help on the next turn where I'd just get smacked with another Facade, so I dropped my first Revive to bring back Spunk.

 

Numa came next and tried her hardest with Magnitude but naturally didn't see much success. I used another revive to bring back Lotus so that I might be able to reduce Slaking's accuracy with Sand-Attack.

 

Spunk came out once again and went for Confuse Ray. I've noted on my own Slakoth just how badly confusion cripples a pokemon with Truant, so hopefully this will help me buy more time! Unfortunately, Slaking was able to attack through confusion and finish Spunk off.

  

Things were getting really close and I had no choice but to bring Lotus back out. I went for Sand-Attack on both the free turn and off turn. For some reason, he went for Focus Punch which opens up with the pokemon tightening its focus and, if it takes damage that turn, the attack gets interrupted, otherwise, you land a really powerful fighting type attack at the end of the turn. Considering a Facade would have been enough to finish Lotus off, I really have no idea why he went for this, but it bought me enough time to get a second Sand-Attack in and reduce his accuracy further. He missed with Focus Punch and finally went down to Leech Seed, ending the battle.

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

MVP: Lotus

I think the MVP here is pretty clear. The only pokemon that made KO-ing Norman's second Slaking possible in the first place. Without Lotus, I'd have had absolutely no chance here. Machop was also a huge help, but Lotus really pulled through.

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

For winning the battle against Norman, we're awarded with the Balance Badge and TM42: Facade! And of course, Norman is naturally overwhelmed with emotion after losing to his son, but it's made clear that he couldn't possibly be more proud of his son! He was genuinely surprised to have lost considering he was giving the battle his all and I can't blame him! 

Our opponents are only going to get tougher from here, though, so we're going to need to make sure we're prepared!

[Aura]

With Petalburg gym out of the way, we're about to open up a whole new can of worms. Norman tells us that Wally's family has something for us. Since they're right nextdoor there's no reason to keep them waiting. Wally's father tells us that he's gotten healthy again thanks to the clean air of Verdanturf. He tells us that helping him to get his first pokemon brought him a lot of joy and helped him to recover, so he gives us HM03: Surf! However, the story gets a bit more worrying when we speak to his wife who tells us that Wally left in secret. She asks to keep it secret from her husband so that he wouldn't worry for him. She has a lot of confidence in Wally in spite of his sickness, so perhaps we should share in that confidence, too!

Now that we have Surf, a whole new world is opened up to us. You may have noticed on the way to Petalburg that Mr. Briney is nowhere to be seen. Ever since he left, I believe he disappears after the Rusturf Tunnel is connected, there's been no way to get back to Dewford Town. Now that we have Surf, though, we can thoroughly explore the routes bordering Dewford Town and so, so much more. For this post, we're going to be exploring all the secrets the water holds for us. When it comes to surfing, Hoenn has a major abundance of secrets and optional areas. Far more than Kanto or Johto ever had! This is by far the most exciting HM to get your hands on because of just how much it opens up.

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

Right here in petalburg, we can get a Max Revive, Ether, and a hidden Rare Candy in the small alcove in the trees at the edge of the Southwest pond. For now, we're going to explore north of Route 104. We'll come back here to explore the water, but that's a rabbit hole we don't want to get down just yet. Instead, we're going to explore the more controlled waters of the northern part.

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

 

On my way through Petalburg Woods, the egg I was nursing hatched into a Wynaut! This is a new pokemon: A baby form of Wobbuffet! Thankfully, Wobbuffet can be caught in the wild, so we don't need to raise this little guy. It's just an extra step of breeding that isn't necessary for us.

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

In an alcove in the trees on the east side of the pond here, you can find a PP Up!

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

Route 115 holds a much easier way to get to Meteor Falls.There is a bit of a roadblock here in that we actually need the Mach Bike to reach a small area.

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

If you're interested in exploring this, if you recall, you can easily get to Mauville by sailing across Route 103 and then taking Cycling Road. Likewise, you can still get to Mauville through Verdanturf from Rusturf Tunnel. There are lots of options for getting around this mainland of Hoenn!

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

 

There is a new trainer class here on Route 115: An Expert. Experts specialize in Fighting Types and basically serve as the martial arts grand master trope. The one here uses a Hariyama which can actually be a bit intimidating. 

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

At the northernmost peak of the route, there are three Kepsy Berry Trees and a patch of tall grass where, you guessed it, we can catch some new pokemon!

 

The first of these I found is Swellow, the evolution of Taillow who can only be found here at 10% rarity. It's actually a pretty tough catch so I might be inclined to recommend you raise one of your own from a Taillow.

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

 

I left to heal and on my way back encountered a Pelipper! These guys are available just about anywhere where you can surf on Seawater. While they're typically only available at a 5% rarity, considering how much water is in this game, you'll be hard-pressed to finish the game without randomly encountering at least one in the wild.

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

 

While searching here, Chett finally evolved into Machoke! Now I can once again drop him off in favor of Carbon.

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

 

The last pokemon I was searching for here was Jigglypuff who is also only available here at 10%!

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

If you climb up the stairs east of here, you can find TM01: Focus Punch! And if you have the Mach Bike, you can reach the top of the mountainous area and at the very edge of the cliff, you can find an Iron.

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

While there is some water we can reach in Meteor Falls, there's nothing of note that we can actually find here just yet. There's water on Route 114, but it's the same story. So our best bet at this point is just to turn around and return to Mauville.

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

Route 117 features two small ponds, but neither of them house anything of any interest. Strangely, the southern pond has two 1x1 alcoves in the trees that you can stand on, but there aren't any items to be found here.

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

There is something we can do here in Mauville City, but I'm gonna save that for a bit and poke my head up north a bit.

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

In the southern part of Route 111, there's another pond near the Winstrate Family house where we can get a free HP Up!

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

Now, with most of our arbitrary errands ran, I figured the best way to end off this post would be a brief side story.

Here in Mauville City, you may have noticed Wattson outside of his gym! If we speak to him, he tell us there's an underground part of Mauville called New Mauville. He asks us to go down there and shut off the generator because it's been getting unsafe recently. Kind of a strange request to make of some random kid, but a new area to explore sounds fun to me! He tells us that to get to New Mauville, we'll need to surf on Route 110. So, let's go check it out!

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

Before we head to New Mauville, if you take Cycling Road to the south part of the route, go a little ways into the underpass, there's a small portion of the fencing missing where you can surf into that small area of water in the middle. On the island here, you can find a rare candy.

Taking Cycling Road back to the north, we can sail south to find a lone tree and a sign that says "Team Magma Ruelz!" Of course, what we're most interested in here is the cave on the eastmost part of this area.

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

New Mauville 1F

With the Basement Key given to us by Wattson, we can open the gate here and enter the basement.

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

New Mauville B1F

And here we have New Mauville! This place has a really ominous aura about it thanks in part to the foreboding music and in part to the strangely abandoned nature of the whole place. I'm not sure if the creepiness here was intentional considering you can't find any ghost types here, but there are some wild pokemon here that we will be tracking down.

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

 

Voltorb is one of the first wild pokemon I encountered here! I will definitely say one thing I'm thankful for here is that all the Voltorb are below the level they would learn SelfDestruct, so you don't have to worry about these guys blowing up on you when you're trying to catch them!

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

 

Magnemite is the other pokemon you're going to be finding most prominently here.

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

 

The final pokemon we're tracking down here is Magneton which is only available as a 1% rarity but due to a stroke of luck, didn't take too long at all to find!

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

Throughout New Mauville, there are several blue and green doors and blue and green switches. When you press a switch, some doors will open and some will close. This place is sort of like a mixture of the abandoned Power Plant and Pokemon Mansion from Kanto. I suggest trying to explore as much as you can without hitting any switches before hitting one. Throughout the area, you'll find that some of the switches have items on top of them. Can you take a guess where I'm going with this? Some of these items are actually, gasp, Voltorb in disguise!

I will mention that Voltorb are a much more notable pokemon this time around. In Gen 3, Voltorb learns Spark at level 21! This means they actually have a STAB electric attack and don't require the use of a TM to make them functional! Unfortunately, the move Thunder Wave still hasn't returned as a TM, and since you can't transfer pokemon forward from Gen 1, having a Voltorb that knows Thunder Wave just isn't a possibility. At least not yet...

At the depths of New Mauville, you'll find the generator Wattson was talking about with a giant red switch in front of it. Press the switch to turn off the generator, but don't leave just yet! Against the wall is a Thunderstone! Overall, this dungeon is actually a little annoying. All of the pokemon here love to parafuse you and this is also still at the point in the game where SonicBoom can deal some uncomfortable percentage of damage to the few pokemon of yours that can handle Steel-types. However, it's not nearly as bad as it could be. If Voltorb could be just one level higher, we'd be dealing with SelfDestruct and that would certainly make this place a much more painful experience to go through.

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

When all is said and done, return to Wattson and he'll give you TM24: Thunderbolt!

There's still more to water to explore, but I think it's a good idea to call it quits for now and to pick up on the remaining water elsewhere. I've also realized while exploring Route 110 that I completely forgot to revisit the Trick Master after clearing the last few gyms, so next time we're going to be exploring the rest of the familiar territory.

[Aura]

Today is going to be another low-progress day because I hit a wall I certainly saw coming but it took a long time to get past. Still, we're going to be exploring some new areas!

Of course, the first area we explored was the waters just off the shore of Route 109. There are a few sandbars here with various trainers and items to collect. Of course, there are also new trainer classes along the way!

 

First up are Swimmers. As is typical in Pokemon games since Gen 1, these trainers specialize in water pokemon and are found swimming in the water. They're typically littered sporadically around water routes like these, so you might want to take a few trips through if you're trying to battle them all. These routes are really wide and can get rather confusing to navigate later on, so you're going to want to get used to hugging the barriers of rocks to keep yourself from getting lost. The water routes we'll be exploring in this section are mostly linear, much like the ones in Kanto, so there isn't too much to worry about at the moment. 

Another trainer class you'll be introduced to here is the Young Couple. These are more optional double battles. They typically come with cute dialogue and use pokemon that make aesthetic pairs. Just an all-around cute trainer class. Just look at their sprite!

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

  

It wasn't too far into exploring this route when Tantilus reached level 30 and evolved into Tentacruel! You might think boxing this guy means I'm getting rid of my only surfer, but Zigzagoon can actually learn surf! I should make a small footnote here, though, because I realized that I made a mistake in claiming Tentacruel was unavailable in the wild. Tentacruel actually is catchable in the wild in an upcoming area which I somehow failed to notice even though I distinctly recall looking at his page on Bulbapedia. But, sure enough, his location was printed there clear as day. I must have accidentally looked at the location for Red and Blue as the location for Ruby and Sapphire, that's my only guess.

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

 

On my way back to the Pokemon Center to box Tantilus, Rarity ended up reaching level 30 and evolving into Gardevoir! This was a very bittersweet moment because Gardevoir is one of if not my favorite pokemon of this generation! Sadly, due to my playstyle in this playthrough, I have to box her for now, but I'll definitely try to keep a spot open for her on the final team!

 

With Tantillus and Gardevoir both in the box, I could now bring Sarlacc the Trapinch and Marco the Marshtomp back into my team!

Naturally, I made my way back to New Mauville to train the new blood up, and...

 

I was able to find an Electrode!

After that, I made my way back to the mainland and started to use the Trainer's Eye feature to track down trainers that wanted rematches. I believe I've explained this mechanic before, but suddenly rematches are appearing far more frequently than I ever expected! This is a pretty consistent source of Exp. Every time you do a rematch, their pokemon will get stronger and even evolve! Their pokemon get pretty strong, even surpassing the levels of my own main team! I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, yet, but you actually gain a bonus multiplier on your Exp in a trainer battle. This makes this much more efficient for grinding than just battling random wild pokemon. It didn't take much time to get Marco back up to par since it wasn't that long ago since he was first boxed. But Sarlacc was certainly going to take a while.

 

As I continued training Sarlacc, Lotus wound up reaching level 32 and evolving into Cacturn!

This meant I was back to the drawing board with yet another pokemon to train up, this time, Solitude!

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

Route 108

It took a long time to train all three of these pokemon up to par with the rest of my team and finally, we could advance further. As we turn the corner past Route 109, we reach Route 108. This route is almost entirely water. Get used to that as we get closer to the end of the game. There isn't much to talk about here, though I recommend checking the small rocks on the patches of shallow water as they can hold hidden items! The main landmark of this route, which may have caught your eye as we wizzed by it in Mr. Briney's ship, is the Abandoned Ship. We can actually board this ship and explore it in more detail!

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

Abandoned Ship Deck

We don't have the tools to see everything this place has to offer, but there's still some pretty useful things we can find! There's also a few trainers to battle, but nothing too interesting in that department.

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

Abandoned Ship 1F

You can rummage through the abandoned rooms in search of lost treasure here. There's not much of interest to find here, but you can get a Revive!

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

Abandoned Ship B1F

Down the stairs is where things get a bit more interesting. There's a locked door that leads to a storage room. We'll need to find a storage key elsewhere in order to get in. In another room, we can see a pool of water where the floor was apparently damaged.

If we go up the other set of stairs, we come back out at another part of the deck where we can climb further up the ship.

Here, we can find the Captain's Office where we find a man investigating the place by the order of Captain Stern. The man says he's searching for a Scanner but has had no luck finding it. We can also find the key to the storage room here!

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

With the Storage Key, we can make our way into the storage room where we can find TM13: Ice Beam! This alone is well worth the visit! We'll definitely want to come back and see what else there is to find here. For now, though, there's not much else we can do. There's unfortunately no scanner in sight.

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

Route 107

We'll need to keep the Abandoned Ship in mind as we move onward to explore the rest of what the open blue has for us. Aside from the Abandoned Ship, though, there isn't much of note.

There is a new trainer class in the form of the Sis & Bro. There isn't much to say about their pokemon preferences. I suppose the bro typically uses "cooler" pokemon while the sis uses "cuter" or "prettier" pokemon.

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

Route 107, if you recall, connects back to Dewford town. This means we're south of Route 104 which connects back to Petalburg! Let's go full circle!

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

Route 106

Of course, north of Dewford is Route 106 where we can access Granite Cave if necessary. But what we're interested is the waters up north! Still, with Surf, we can access a bit more of the beach behind the cave where we can find a Protein!

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

Route 105

This is the largest water route we'll be exploring today, but there isn't really much of note here. At least, not for now. We can find another Ruin Maniac searching the islands here  and further north of him, we can find another strange formation of rocks nearly identical to the one in the desert... hmm...

 

While exploring this area, Spunk reached level 32 and evolved into Grumpig, thus freeing up another slot on my team. 

I was able to replace a Psychic type with another Psychic type. In this case, Balance the Baltoy! Once again, it was back to grinding this guy up!

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

 

After spending even more time grinding up Balance, wouldn't you know it, Numa reached Level 33 and evolved as well!

And now I have to train up Sulfur the Slugma as well. Since I was so close to a convenient stopping point, I just slapped an Exp Share onto this thing and pressed onward. I wasn't about to grind out a whole other pokemon right now.

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

As we make our way further north, we finally return to Route 104. What a ride it's been and we're still not quite ready to move on with the game as there's still a bit more I'd like to do. But that's going to have to wait for another post because I'm pretty drained after all that grinding. On the plus side, though, we've cleared up a lot of space on our team! Hopefully before long we'll be able to start using the ones I really want!

[Aura]

With such a large play session yesterday, I wanted to take it easy a bit today, so we're just going to be focused on catching up on what little we haven't been able to experience yet.

Because of the smaller nature of this post, I'm first going to return to Littleroot town to take a bit of a breather. After clearing Norman's gym, you can get the Amulet Coin from your mother.

 

If we go back into our room, we can actually decorate the rug with the dolls we've collected so far! We can access these decorations from the PC, similarly to decorating your room in Gen 2. The decoration options for your room aren't quite as in-depth as in Gen 2, you can only decorate on top of the rug and you can only place dolls or cushions. This means no posters, no beds, no new rugs, etc. I don't think it's too terrible of a loss, however, considering the introduction of the Secret Base mechanic which is far more customizable than your room ever wasn in Gen 2. Again, we definitely cannot move on past Ruby without making a secret base. On the plus side to decorating your room, you are no longer limited to just two small dolls and one large doll. You can decorate with up to 16 decorations as long as you can fit them onto the rug.

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

Crossing over Route 103, there really isn't anything at all to talk about. It's just a tiny passage of water leading to the east side which, in turn, leads us to Route 110 which happens to be where our other destination lies today!

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

You've probably guessed it by now, I haven't exactly been subtle. We've collected two badges since the last time we visited the Trick House! I actually intended to visit it before heading back to Petalburg but I completely forgot. So, we have two Trick House challenges to take on!

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

Trick House Puzzle #3

Here is where the puzzles start to get a bit trickier. It's not particularly difficult, but you might find yourself making some mistakes here and there and having to double back. I think just by looking at this map, you can probably tell what the puzzle is here. You press a switch and the blue and red doors alternate. However, you can't press the same switch twice. What this map doesn't show you is that you'll actually need the HM for Rock Smash to even get anywhere, so Zip will be coming along for the ride!

 

You can find Wood and Shadow mail here in this maze. I don't think I showed the graphics for these before, but I used to really like collecting and looking at these designs as a kid. The Mail feature is pretty pointless and cumbersome to use, but I'm sure back when this game was more widely played, some people would use them to leave cute messages for each other.

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

Anyway, this room is home to a couple of pretty standard trainers. 

 

There's a camper here with a Kecleon which is kind of interesting. 

  

The picknicker can be a little annoying. She loves to use Attract with her Skitty and Sing with her Swablu. With some bad luck, it can be annoying to get through here. Thankfully, the Blue Flute helps with the Swablu, but it doesn't help too much when they spam Sing every turn!

   

A little bit off topic, but I really don't like the overworld sprites for the Camper and Picnicker in RSE. They look like grownups in their overworld sprites. Especially when compared to the Youngsters and Bug Catchers that appear to be the same age, and Breeders who appear to be older.

   

   

     

Idk, maybe it's just me, but the scouts just always looked more mature than the others. Perhaps I'm looking a bit too far into it, but they do seem to fit in more with the more grown-up trainer classes.

 

It doesn't help that they share an overworld sprite with the older Pokemon Ranger class.

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

 

Anyway, sorry about that tangent, there's also a hiker here with a Nosepass surrounded by a Geodude and Graveler who love to use SelfDestruct. Expect to lose a few pokemon to him. His Nosepass isn't anything too dangerous, though.

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

Your reward for solving this puzzle is a Hard Stone!

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

Trick House Puzzle #4

The map doesn't do this puzzle much justice. This maze is littered with Strength boulders! You'll actually have to thick pretty carefully about what direction to push the boulders in and how far to push them. Make a wrong move and you might have to leave and start over!

  

There is a Black Belt and a couple of Battle Girls here. Nothing too interesting in that department.

You can find the Mech Mail in this maze.

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

The prize for completing the puzzle here is the Smoke Ball. This may actually be pretty useful for you since Wingull at this point in the game can be pretty difficult to flee from when encountered at high levels. I recommend giving it to a slower pokemon if they aren't already holding a Quick Claw.

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

Well, with that out of the way, the Trick Master is back to working on his next puzzle, I think we're caught up on everything we can do! Without further ado, we're going to finally make progress toward our next gym!

[Aura]

With all those roadblocks from before dealt with, we can finally make some progress! While we're not going to be travelling very far in this post, I was able to get quite a lot of progress done in a lot of ways that I'm really excited about!

Route 118

With Surf, we can now access the rest of Route 118, the route immediately west of Mauville City where we could only battle a few trainers before.

On the other side of the water is a fisherman who will give us a Good Rod! While we can catch some new pokemon with this Good Rod, I don't believe it gives us access to anything at a higher rate than the Super Rod can get us, so we're not going to double back and start fishing everywhere just yet. Instead, we're going to press onward into the grass where we can search for a couple of new pokemon!

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

 

While exploring this new area, Carbon reached level 35 and evolved into Weezing! It's interesting to note that, even going into Gen 3, Weezing's design doesn't seem standardized. This design clearly seems to show the second head growing out of the main head's right side and resting above him rather than growing from his back and resting beside or behind him. I think the original intention of this design is that the second head would be growing in a variable position to emphasize the grotesque nature of this strange mutation. It's also curious that the back sprite doesn't actually reflect this new design since it still reuses the same art as GSC. 

 

Anyway, with Carbon evolved, we can now box him in favor of Gartha the Grimer!

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

 

And while training Gartha up, it didn't take too long at all for Sarlacc to reach level 35 and evolve as well!

 

While Vibrava still has another evolution to go, I went ahead and boxed it in favor of a pokemon that would evolve before it: Lung the Lileep. And let me tell you, Lileep is by far the most obnoxious pokemon to raise so far. This thing has a slow growth rate and its strongest offensive move is Acid. It doesn't get a single STAB move until AncientPower 3 levels after it evolves. This thing is designed to be an impenetrable fortress with high defensive stats and moves like Ingrain and Confuse Ray to keep it alive and hinder the opponent. It's clear you're intended to run Toxic on this pokemon, but since I don't have any plans to actually use this thing and I also have no means to breed it, I don't want to waste a valuable TM on it. I'm just gonna have to suffer through a lot of really long, tedious battles until he evolves and I can box him and never look back.

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

 

It didn't take much longer, still, for Balance to reach level 36 and evolve into Claydol! Another pokemon boxed means another pokemon withdrawn except... we only have one more pokemon to withdraw! 

 

Sarlacc is joining the party once again and from here on, at least until we find another pokemon that evolves, any evolutions will result in freeing up new space! We won't have to drop everything and start grinding up a new pokemon! What's more, since Sarlacc just evolved, we don't even need to raise him up, either!

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

 

 

Let's also not forget the two new pokemon we can catch on this route: Linoone and Manectric. I found Linoone's pokedex entry to be pretty funny, too. "Linoone always runs full speed and only in straight lines. If facing an obstacle, it makes a right-angle turn to evade it. This Pokémon is very challenged by gently curving roads."

Both of these pokemon are available at a fair 10% each. It didn't take too long at all to find them while grinding my pokemon up.

 

Although not terribly important to track down here, I was able to encounter a 1% rarity Kecleon, so I went ahead and caught that, too!

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

We're introduced to another returning trainer class here as well: The Bird Keeper. I don't think I need to explain what these guys are about.

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

If we continue west from Route 118, we can end up at the eastern end of Route 123. I'm not going to share the map of this place since this is only a fraction of a rather large route, but there is some pretty notable stuff here. Most notably, this place is a Berry Farm where you can find four Greppa, Pomeg, and Qualot Berry Trees. All three of these berry types are PokeBlock Ingredients. In the nearby house, we can find the Berry Master and his wife. These are NPC's I will not be interacting with just yet because, with a dead battery, this is going to be a critically important source of rare berries. If I want to evolve a Feebas, I'm definitely going to want to get this just right. I'll come back here at a more convenient time.

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

Route 119

Going back to Route 118 and heading north, we naturally arrive at Route 119. This route looks rather huge, but it's actually not all that imposing and the scenery changes quite regularly as well. The route never slaps you with a whole cloud of trainers like other long routes in previous games. The sheer size of this route is going to be a factor pretty soon which we'll unfortunately have to cover, but we'll deal with that when the time comes. Instead, we're going to focus on the one new pokemon available here in the grass!

 

Say hello to Troppa the Tropius! This is basically going to be our replacement for Zip as this pokemon is one of the two most convenient HM users in the entire game. This thing can learn Cut, Strength, Flash, Rock Smash and Fly which is pretty much everything you could ever ask for for land exploration.

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

 

As for new trainer classes, remember those Pokemon Rangers I mentioned before? This is where they make their debut. Rangers specialize in Grass-type pokemon and also use items on their pokemon to keep them healthy. Don't get cocky when their pokemon's health gets low!

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

 

 

Of course, with Balance reaching level 36, it was only natural that Solitude and Marco would follow soon after. How exciting. How exciting! This means we have some free spots on our team! Now, Marco is definitely going to stay on the team at all times, but I there's a certain pokemon I promised I'd make room for. This is a promise I made long before Rarity.

 

I think it's about time to give Seedling some time in the sun! (no pun intended). I've already invested a TM into this guy so there's really no going back now. I'm not going out of my way to grind him up, at least not yet, but I will keep him on the back of my team with an Exp Share.

 

It didn't take long at all for Seedling to evolve into Nuzleaf at level 14.

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

As we reach a more rocky area, you may be caught off guard by a Ninja Boy disguised against the wall with a cardboard cutout. It's pretty obvious if you're on the lookout for it, but if you're not paying attention, they actually can catch you off guard.

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

 

It's not much further from here before we come to a bridge that's blocked off by Team Magma, who seem to be discussing the Weather Institute. They warn us not to go inside so, naturally, we're gonna go inside.

 

And surprise, surprise, inside we can see several more members of Team Magma invading the Weather Institute. They mention that the institute has created a new pokemon that's capable of controlling the weather and that they intend to repurpose its power for their cause. Of course, we can't let that happen, so we'll battle our way to the top of this unit on the second floor.

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

Vs. Magma Admin Courtney

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

Numel Lv. 28

 

Courtney has a pretty standard lead for Team Magma. Just another Numel. I led with Sarlacc and was able to make quick work of it with a Sand Tomb followed by a Crunch.

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

Mightyena Lv. 28

 

Her Mightyena was... also not much of a threat at all. With my pokemon at the levels they are, this boss battle really wasn't a problem at all. I don't believe I'm particularly overleveled either considering I had so many issues recently against Norman. Granted, I did some extra exploring, but Norman's pokemon were far stronger than this. I'm kind of disappointed. It's no wonder these admins never really left a lasting impression on me.

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

 

After defeating Courtney in a rather bland Magma Encounter compared to the one at Mt. Chimney, the head of the weather institute offers us the pokemon Team Magma sought: Castform! This is another rather gimmicky pokemon introduced in Gen 3 that takes full advantage of its own signature ability: Forecast. Forecast allows Castform to change form depending on the weather. There are three forms it can take:

 

Castform takes its sunny form in harsh sunlight. In this form, it's a Fire-type pokemon! 

 

In the rain, Castform takes on its rainy form and becomes a Water-type pokemon!

 

And, lastly, in Hail, it takes on its snowy form and becomes an Ice-type pokemon.

This pokemon is lacking in stats, but its Forecast ability makes it a pretty adaptable pokemon. At level 30, it learns Weather Ball which is a 50 power move that changes type depending on the weather, even becoming a Rock-type move in a Sandstorm (sadly, there is no Sandy form for Castform). In castform's case, this basically means that Weather Ball will always be a STAB move in addition to gaining the weather bonus.

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

Anyway, yeah, this Magma encounter really feels shoe-horned in. There's no buildup at all, it just sort of happens. It's not really made clear how important this is or how distressed the weather institute is, either. Comparing this to previous takeovers like Silph Co. and the Radio Tower and you can immediately see how this one is extremely underwhelming. Team Magma felt like a genuine threat back on Mt. Chimney, but this particular unit just feels like a group of bumbling idiots. It's actually kind of sad because there's a lot of potential for an interesting story beat here that's just kind of missed. Oh well, this definitely isn't the last we'll be seeing of Team Magma, but it does seem like a pretty solid stopping point for the day. Next time we should be able to make it to the next gym!

[Aura]

Now that Team Magma is cleared out of the way, we can cross the bridge and explore what little remains of Route 119. It's here that we're met by May who says she's been looking for us! Naturally, her first order of business is to challenge us to a battle.

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

PKMN Trainer May #3

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

Wailmer Lv. 29

 

My lead for this battle was Sarlacc once again. A couple of Dragonbreaths was all it took to take Wailmer down. But not before getting a couple of Water Pulse's off to reduce Sarlacc's health.

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

Numel Lv. 29

 

Again, my increased level seems to be a bit much for the competition because Numel went down rather easily as well, just a Dragon Breath and a Faint Attack.

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

Grovyle Lv. 31

 

Grovyle was able to turn the tides with a Pursuit to finish off Sarlacc, but it was too little too late. She was already down to her last pokemon.

 

Since Sarlacc had brought Grovyle's health low, I went ahead and sent out Lung to whittle down what little HP remained off of her Grovyle.

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

I'm actually a little bit worried at this point that I may be a bit higher level than I expected. I don't feel like I did anything particularly out of order except for a little bit of grinding to help raise up some weaker pokemon, but I wouldn't have expected this to have such a significant effect on my team. Oh well, not much to be done about that.

After defeating May, she gives us HM02: Fly! Of course, we can't use it until we defeat the Fortree City Gym! That doesn't seem so far off at this point, so it's definitely a welcome gift!

As we near the end of Route 119, there's three Pomeg Berry trees here before a right turn into the very same Fortree City we just heard of!

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

Fortree City

And here we have yet another of the most iconic locations from Hoenn. Fortree City was always my favorite city as a kid and to this day, whenever I think of Ruby and Sapphire, I always think of walking along the bridges over the sea of trees below. I know I kind of sound like a broken record at this point, but this is just another really unique location unlike anything we've ever seen before in the Pokemon games. There's a lot to take in here. Normally, I would make a beeline straight for the Gym, but if we try to go there now, there seems to be something blocking our way! Instead, it seems we're kind of forced to stop and smell the roses. There isn't much of interest here, but there's still a few things of note.

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

 

In one of the northern houses is a girl offering to trade her Skitty for your Pikachu. We haven't actually been able to catch a Pikachu yet, but this is going to be a useful trade for us so we'll definitely keep it in mind as we move forward in the game. In another house nearby, there's an old lady who will play a simple guess-which-hand minigame which seems scripted to always let you win. For playing, you'll be awarded TM10: Hidden Power. The last place to note is a shop that sells desks and chairs for decorating your secret base!

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

Unfortunately, searching around Fortree won't seem to get us anywhere. We still have no way of getting around the invisible object in our way, so we'll just have to cut our losses and see if we can't move on.

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

Route 120

If you thought the technical flexes were done, hoo boy you don't know the half of it. This route doesn't seem like much special based only on the map, but when actually exploring it, things get much more visually interesting. Just a heads up, you're going to want to bring a Cut user when exploring this route for a few berries and other goodies along the way.

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

First thing's first, a new route means new pokemon. There's one new pokemon to note here:

 

Absol is another really cool pokemon that's plagued with a bad typing for its stat makeup. It's a very physically-oriented pokemon, so its STAB Dark moves can't take advantage of that powerful attack stat. Still, it's not a total deal breaker as it can learn some pretty powerful moves. Even though it has no evolutions, you might be surprised how nice of an asset Absol can be.

  

I should mention that, while hunting for Absol, Seedling reached level 31 and learned Night Shade. I hadn't mentioned it until now, but Nuzleaf actually evolves by Levelup. I could allow it to stay around as a Nuzleaf until it learned Extrasensory at level 49, but I figured Shiftry would be much more helpful, so I went ahead and used a Leaf Stone I'd picked up along the riverside on Route 119 to evolve it.

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

If we try to go down the stairs near this first patch of grass, we're obstructed by another invisible obstacle. Again, nothing we can do here, so we'll just have to move on.

It's not far at all before we find Steven on the bridge overlooking a peaceful pond. If we try to move past him, there's another invisible object. Just what is going on?? Well, if we talk to Steven, he tells us of a new item developed by Devon Corp: the Devon Scope. He asks us to prepare for battle before using this Devon Scope to reveal the identity of the invisible pokemon: A Kecleon!

In a panic upon being discovered, the Kecleon immediately attacks, forcing us into a battle. Normally, this is where I would catch Kecleon, but since I've already encountered one before, there's no need. Just KO-ing it will do. After this, Steven gives us his Devon Scope before flying off. With this, we can now get past the other Kecleon that have been in our way. If you're interested in shiny hunting, I recommend keeping one of the Kecleon around. Specifically, there's one in the grassy maze a bit further south that you can just walk around through the tall grass.

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

Now then, I could simply return to Fortree City and challenge the gym now, which certainly makes sense, but I figured I may as well at least explore the rest of this route before going back. After all, despite being a bit overleveled, I was still worried about the next gym because it's a Flying-type gym and my team isn't really adequately prepared for dealing with Flying-type pokemon. Especially knowing certain pokemon that are on the Gym Leader's team. More importantly, though, some more pokemon were getting real close to evolution and I believe I'm also getting rather close to having to evolve a new pokemon, so I'd like to free up some team space ASAP and, at the moment, Gartha and Sulfur are getting pretty close to evolution, and Lung isn't too far behind them, either, but he's a bit further off. I also wanted to get Seedling up to par with the rest of the team so that I didn't have to worry about stealing attention away from the pokemon that were about to evolve.

As we head south into the area with the puddles on the ground, suddenly, it rain starts pouring in! Just like the sandstorm in the desert, this is another area with an environmental weather effect! The rain is always pouring in battles here, so I hope you're prepared to have your Fire attacks weakened and a pretty heavy reliance on rain-based tactics among the trainers. 

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

There aren't any new trainer classes here, but there is one particularly infamous trainer.

 

I'm talking, of course, about Cooltrainer Jennifer and her Milotic of immense suffering. This thing is incredibly bulky on its own. It can take just about any attacks you throw at it. What's more, it knows recover! It's rare that an attack will deal more than half of its HP, especially at this point in the game, so you're definitely going to have to get tactical here. To make matters worse, it's eternally raining on this part of the route, so when she's not healing with Recover, she's pelting you with fully-powered Water Pulses which also have a decent chance of confusing you!

My initial plan for dealing with this thing was to use Lung to confuse it and then reduce its defense with Acid so that it would be easier to build up damage on it, but of course Water Pulse was able to confuse me multiple times and, before I knew it, Lung was KO'd with nothing to show for its efforts besides a confusion status that didn't even affect anything. Thankfully, my backup plan was able to work. I sent out Gartha and used Sludge to reduce its HP. I managed to get a poison and Milotic naturally went for Recover to restore its HP. From here, I used Disable to temporarily stop it from recovering! From here, it was just a relentless onslaught of Water Pulse so Gartha didn't last too much longer, but not before getting a few more Sludges off so that Marco was able to come in and finish the deal with a powerful Mud Shot.

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

In this rainy puddle area, there's a cut tree hiding three Aspear Berry trees. As you continue moving south and reach the end of the aforementioned grass maze, the rain starts to clear up and, crossing the bridge over the next pond, you may notice some clouds reflected in the water! Once again, the devs are flexing but it's such a beautiful sight that I honestly completely forgot about. It's just another one of the many, many touches this game adds to really bring its world alive. As you explore this southern part of the route, you'll continue to see the clouds reflected even in the small puddles you can run through. Let's not get too distracted by the splendor of it all, though. In the southwest corner of the route, there are three Pecha Berry trees and, up the stairs north of them, are four more berry trees holding Nanab, Pinap, Wepear, and Razz Berries. If you have good attention to detail, you've probably noticed the familiar rock formation further north. Indeed, we can find another Ruin Maniac here, puzzling over the rock formation, but again, there's nothing for us to do. 

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

Now that we're at the end of the route, we could go ahead and progress to Route 121. We could keep going all the way to Route 123 which should reconnect to Route 118, but I think that's taking things a bit too far and we'll be passing some pretty significant landmarks we're going to want to stop and see. So instead, I think it's time we turn back around and head back up to Fortree City. That doesn't mean we're quite done here, though. Back at the north end of the route, now that we have the Devon Scope, we can battle the Kecleon blocking the stairs and gain access to the small pond down here. Here, we can surf to a mysterious cave!

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

Scorched Slab

This cave is home to... absolutely no wild pokemon at all, strangely enough. It's less a cave and more a... den of sorts? Really, the only thing of interest here is that you cand find TM11: Sunny Day just sitting here. 

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

Well, with all that out of the way, it's time to return to Fortree City and finally use that Devon Scope to get rid of the Kecleon blocking our way. This one doesn't actually attack us, it just runs away upon being discovered. Now, we can finally challenge the gym!

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

Fortree Gym

This is another really memorable gym puzzle for me. These black fences all have a central pivot point. When you push on any of its prongs, it will pivot 90 degrees unless one of its prongs is stuck against a wall, then you can't push the fence in that direction. You'll have to strategically maneuver your way around these obstacles in order to make your way through and it can actually get a little bit puzzling.

   

The trainers here are nothing to write home about. They're all pretty much exactly what you'd expect out of a Flying gym. They just use a bunch of flying pokemon that are available throughout the region. Taillow, Swablu, Wingull, and the like.

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

My Team:

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

Marco (Swampert M); Lv. 36

 

Item: Mystic Water

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Foresight, Mud Shot, Take Down, Surf

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

Seedling (Shiftry M); Lv. 36

 

Item: Miracle Seed

Ability: Chlorophyll | Moves: Nature Power, Fake Out, Faint Attack, Bullet Seed

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

Sulfur (Slugma M); Lv. 37

 

Item: Charcoal

Ability: Magma Armor | Moves: Yawn, Amnesia, Flamethrower, Rock Throw

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

Gartha (Grimer F); Lv. 37

 

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Stench | Moves: Pound, Acid Armor, Disable, Sludge

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

Sarlacc (Vibrava M); Lv. 36

 

Item: Blackglasses

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Crunch, Dragonbreath, Faint Attack, Sand Tomb

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

Lung (Lileep M); Lv. 36

 

Item: Amulet Coin

Ability: Suction Cups | Moves: Amnesia, Confuse Ray, Acid, Ingrain

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

Vs. Fortree Gym Leader Winona

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

Swellow Lv. 31

Right off the bat, Winona starts with a pokemon that you do not want to underestimate. If you give it the chance, her Swellow will open up by spamming Double Team and once its evasion gets too high, you may as well reset unless you have ways to work around it.

 

Fortunately, I have just the workaround for that with Seedling. Not only do I get Faint Attack, but Nature Power happens to turn into Swift by default. Swift actually does more damage, too, since Shiftry is actually more of a physical attacker. In spite of Swellow's Aerial Ace heavily taxing his HP, he was able to overcome Swellow and finish it off!

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

Pelipper Lv. 30

 

Next up was Pelipper and there was unfortunately no way Seedling was going to be winning here with his minimal HP. Sadly, he went down to just one more Aerial Ace.

 

I brought out Gartha next to take out Pelipper and I was able to get a pretty solid deal there. He was able to finish the fight with a decent hit.

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

Altaria Lv. 33

Winona really threw me for a loop by bringing her Altaria out early. This is her ace pokemon and, although it doesn't look it, it's a Dragon-type! What's more, this is generation 3, which introduces a certain move this particular Altaria is pretty infamous for: Dragon Dance. Just like Swellow's Double Team, you do not want Altaria to set up too much Dragon Dance. This one move increases your Attack and Speed. It's the perfect tool for setting up and letting loose an unstoppable god of destruction. 

 

I did have a plan to deal with this thing, but I wasn't expecting it to come out so soon! I couldn't risk switching out, so I just had to let Gartha do his best. Altaria opened up with Dragon Dance and I opened up with Sludge just in case my Quick Claw took effect. I did a sizeable chunk of damage. On the second turn, she went for another Dragon Dance and I went for Disable. With Dragon Dance disabled, I kind of sealed my own fate as now she had no choice but to let loose with Earthquake on the next turn. My Quick Claw did manage to take effect here, though, allowing me to get just one more Sludge before Gartha went down. This was immensely helpful!

 

Next up was Sarlacc. Thankfully, Sarlacc's Levitate protects him from Altaria's Earthquake. I don't know if it was Winona's AI prioritizing super-effective attacks, or if the attack boost wouldn't be enough to make Aerial Ace's strength match, but she went for DragonBreath which, thanks to being a special attack, wasn't enough to KO Sarlacc. From here, Altaria was just one DragonBreath of my own away from a KO!

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

Skarmory Lv. 32

 

Sarlacc didn't have much HP to spare, so the matchup against Skarmory didn't last long at all.

 

Thanks to the circumstances, though, I had the perfect counter to Skarmory in the form of Sulfur! With a Flamethrower to the face, the battle was over!

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

MVP: Gartha

I can't give MVP to anyone else. Thanks to Gartha's Disable, I was able to prevent Altaria's Dragon Dance from getting too far out of hand. In addition, the two Sludges helped set up Sarlacc for success. I can't guarantee Sarlacc would have been capable of winning that encounter had it not been for the damage piled on by Gartha.

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

For defeating Winona, we're of course awarded with the Feather Badge as well as TM40: Aerial Ace! This is a 60 power Flying-type move that never misses! Much like Shock Wave, it's also a widely accessible TM so much more than just flying-type pokemon are capable of using it! You can consider it a physical counterpart to Shock Wave, I suppose. Very nice indeed!

[Aura]

Route 121

With the Fortree Gym completed, it's time to move onward. We make our way back down Route 120 and this time, instead of turning around, we advance further onto Route 121.

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

The Hex Maniac is a new trainer class we're introduced to here. These occult specialists have a prominent interest and Ghost and Psychic pokemon. Where we're going today, we're going to see quite a few of them.

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

 

This route doesn't have any new pokemon that are particularly worth our time at this very moment, but this is where Gartha finally evolved into Muk!

 

A promise is a promise, and I can finally welcome Rarity back into our party!

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

Near the entrance to this route, there's an Aspear, Chesto, Persim, and Rawst Berry tree, they're pretty hard to miss.

  

As we travel further, we find a squad of Team Magma grunts headed off toward a place called Mt. Pyre. They can't be up to much good. While we haven't explored all of Route 121 just yet, this is something that can't be ignored, so let's follow them southward!

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

Route 122

This route has next to nothing on it save for a massive mountain in the center with an entrance to it.

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

Mt. Pyre 1F

As we enter the mountain, we find the inside actually seems to have been repurposed into a pokemon cemetery, much in the same vein as Kanto's Pokemon Tower. It's a bit funny to note, but when I was a kid, I used to interpret the gravestones here as statues of Porygon. This was of course before I read NPC dialogue so I had no clue this place was supposed to be a graveyard. There just happened to be ghost-types hanging around as far as I was aware.

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

 

Duskull is a new pokemon that's most commonly found in the lower floors of Mt. Pyre at a massive 100%. This is a soft version exclusive whose counterpart is much more accessible here than the others, but that'll be more apparent pretty soon.

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

 

Mt. Pyre 2F - 3F

As you climb Mt. Pyre, you'll find several holes through which you can fall into the floor below. They're not really in your way and only really serve as a convenient way to get down. There's also a few rather insensitive trainers looking to battle here in the cemetery but nothing too fancy to speak for.

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

Mt. Pyre 4F

 

On the fourth floor, you can encounter the Sapphire Counterpart to Duskull. It's a bit more common in a nearby area, but I was able to encounter one right here.

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

 

Mt. Pyre 5F - 6F

At the 6th floor of the tower, you can find TM30: Shadow Ball. It seems to have been left in memory of a lost pokemon as it's right in front of a relatively new-looking tombstone, but I guess we're just not gonna question the ethics and go ahead and take our free TM. Instead of just going back down, though, if we strategically fall through the holes, we can access some exclusive areas and get some very important items. Again, this is a bit ethically questionable as this time we're going to be stealing incense from these graves. Okay... The incenses we can get here are the Lax and Sea incense. 

The Lax incense is a held item that functions identically to Bright Powder. The Sea Incense functions similarly to Mystic Water but is much weaker. We'll go over the significance of these items later, but if you want to complete the pokedex, these are definitely going to be important.

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

We're not ready to turn tail and leave just yet, though. Obviously, we haven't dealt with Team Magma! As it turns out, there's a second exit to Mt. Pyre that leads us to the exterior of the mountain!

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

Mt. Pyre Exterior

In the grass here, we have some more targets to seek out!

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

 

Meditite is available here at 30%! It's surprisingly late in the game to be finding this pokemon for the first time when we've been battling them as far back as Dewford Town, but if you'v3e wanted one, it's right here!

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

 

We can also find the mysterious Vulpix! It's available here at 20% so it shouldn't take long at all to find.

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

As you climb the exterior of Mt. Pyre, you'll find TM48 Skill Swap along a ledge. As you near the top of the mountain, a thick fog will roll in. In this foggy area, some of the tombstones are orange in color and these tend to have really nice hidden items on them, so definitely check them out, especially when one seems particularly out of the way.

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

Mt. Pyre Summit

At the Summit of Mt. Pyre is a very important-looking shrine.

It's here that we're going to find those Team Magma Grunts from before!

I actually recommend trying to let these grunts come to you so that you can walk around them and investigate some of the passages they're blocking off. There are some more really nice items hidden here.

 

As I battled here, Sulfur finally evolved into Magcargo. With this, I could make room for another new team member.

 

I figured I should probably let another Ruby exclusive share in the spotlight here as Zangoose isn't likely to see much use as we progress through this set of games, so I should give it some use here. Say hello to Zeal the Zangoose!

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

There isn't much more to discuss here. After a few battles with Magma grunts, the grunts inform us that they were just buying time for their leader to get what he came here for. We make our way to the peak and an old couple pleading with Maxie as he steals their Blue Orb. With the Blue Orb in tow, Maxie leaves with his grunts and the old couple gives us the Blue Orb's counterpart the Red Orb with the warning that the two orbs must never be separated. The old man of the couple tells us a legend of a great battle long ago between the Pokemon of the Land and the Pokemon of the Sea in which the Pokemon of the Land forged great mountains that formed the continents while the Pokemon of the Sea who carved out the world's oceans. This great battle are what the Red and Blue orbs serve to prevent from recurring because if such a catastrophic battle echoed today, great damage would likely befall the world. If the Red and Blue orbs aren't meant to be separated, then we'd better try to figure out what Maxie has planned and quick! Maxie said he was headed off to Slateport, so this sounds like where we're going to have to head next...

[Aura]

Naturally, after the threat from before, our only option is to give chase to Team Magma and stop whatever plans they have in Slateport.

As we fly to Slateport, we can see a large crowd of people congregating around the harbor. As we approach, we find that Captain Stern is at the center of the crowd being interviewed on a new discovery he made at the depths of the sea on Route 128. This interview is cut short, however, by the voice of Maxie on a megaphone. They'd managed to sneak aboard Captain Stern's submarine inside the harbor!

 

As we pursue the voices, we find Maxie and Tabitha standing outside. They taunt us by suggesting we continue to follow them to their hideout in Lilycove before they both take a dive, board the submarine (while underwater, I guess...?) and the Submarine starts to take off. 

If we try to give chase directly, we're pushed back by the heavy currents of Route 134, so it looks like we're just going to have to go to their hideout. We may be playing into Maxie's plan, but maybe we can still catch them off guard by tampering with their base of operations! With that in mind, we'll fly back to Fortree City and continue our way to Lilycove.

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

Back on Route 121, we're going to continue past the fork that leads to Mt. Pyre. We'll also be passing by the Safari Zone for now, we have more important matters to deal with!

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

We are introduced to a new returning trainer class here: The Gentleman. Gentlemen tend to have a preference for pet-like pokemon. In Hoenn's case, it's typically Manectric.

We can also find two Nanab Berry trees to the southeast of the route, and there are a few hidden items strewn about. There isn't much more to talk about here, so let's move onward.

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

Lilycove City

Although there isn't a gym in this city, there is some substantial information to be gathered. If we talk to the locals here, we hear of a mysterious cave just off the shore. There's even several Magma Grunts casually hanging around the town warning us not to go there. Before we go straight there, though, you should take note that the Move Deleter is located right here, so if you're interested in deleting an HM move off of a certain pokemon, this is a great time to do it. Along the shore, there are lots of items hidden among the rocks, including a heart scale which will be incredibly useful for team building!

   

To the northeast of the shore, we can see a Magma grunt training his three Wailmer and blocking the way forward. Naturally, we can't progress any further past Lilycove, but we can reach the suspicious cave the locals were talking about. And inside...

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

Magma Hideout 1F

Inside the cave, we find that this is Team Magma's base of operations! Not that it was very subtle, but we're here and we should waste no time in getting to the end!

 

Of course, along the way there will be several Magma Grunts battling us just to slow us down.

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

Magma Hideout 2F

Another factor to slow us down is, you guessed it, warp tiles. These tiles are more accurate to the traditional ones originating from Silph Co. It takes some trial and error to get to the end.

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

Magma Hideout Dock

After some time wasted trying to find our way around and battle our way through the many Magma Grunts trying to hold us back, we finally reach the dock where we manage to catch Tabitha before he boards the Submarine! We can't let him get away!

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

Vs. Magma Admin Tabitha #2

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

Numel Lv. 32

 

Zeal was able to make rather quick work of Tabitha's Numel thanks to Slash.

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

Mightyena Lv. 32

 

Mightyena's Intimidate reduced Zeal's attack, but it wasn't anything a quick Swords Dance couldn't fix. He tried to take advantage of the free turn by using Scary Face to reduce my speed. Fortunately for him, Zeal is still a bit underleveled and even with Swords' Dance, I still wasn't quite capable of one-shotting it. With my speed low, Mightyena went for a Swagger in an effort to turn my increased attack against me, but I managed to attack through and finish Mightyena off.

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

Camerupt Lv. 32

 

Things were a little bit dicey here. Zeal had some really impressive Attack boosts, but her speed was reduced and I really had no idea what to expect from this Camerupt. I didn't put it past the game at this point to allow Camerupt to know Earthquake, so I decided, in the interest of allowing Zeal to continue gaining Exp, it was for the best to switch her out.

 

Anticipating an Earthquake, I switched Sarlacc back in. With his levitate ability, he'd be able to avoid the hit. INstead, Camerupt went for Amnesia to boost his special defense which made this probably the worst switch I could have gone for. Still. I did my best with a few Dragonbreaths and managed to get a paralysis up on him. It wasn't long before his Take Down took me out, though.

 

At this point, there is only one obvious choice. Even Camerupt's Amnesia wasn't going to protect it from Marco's Surf. In seconds, it was done for.

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

Our victory is very short-lived though, as upon defeating Tabitha, he laughs and reveals that the result of the battle didn't matter. Just like the grunts, his goal was only to slow me down. The submarine leaves without him! Maxie got away with the Blue Orb in tow! If we want to stop them, now, we're stuck searching the open sea for an underwater submarine. Is this it? Has Team Magma won? How could we ever hope to pursue them underwater? Well, for now, we may as well focus on our adventure. Maybe a solution to our problem with manifest sooner or later.

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

Before we leave the hideout, though, we're definitely going to want to make sure we get all the items here. Most notably, you're going to want to take the southernmost warp panel on the second floor to the vault-like area on the right side. It's a little frustrating, but once you brute force your way through the series of warp panels, you'll end up in the chamber in the center of the second floor where there appear to be four items. One of the grunts mentions forgetting where she hid a Master Ball. I think you know where we're going with this. Of course, there's one more line of security here.

Two of these items are Electrode in disguise! If you didn't encounter an Electrode in New Mauville, you can catch one here, but it's going to be significantly more difficult as these ones know SelfDestruct. You're gonna have to approach them with some tact. You could go for the typical strat of putting it to sleep so that it can't attack, or just throwing pokeballs at it and hoping for the best, but if you wanna be a bit more resourceful, you can actually go to the Safari Zone and catch yourself a Psyduck by surfing around. Why? Because Psyduck can potentially have the ability Damp. This ability prevents explosions which can make pokemon like Electrode far easier to catch in this generation. It's a very situational ability, but it certainly has its uses!

As you carefully pick around the Electrode, or just brute force straight through them, you'll find a Nugget and the coveted Master Ball! This is the most missable Master Ball in the entire series so make sure you remember to get it! Thankfully, you can always return to this hideout and get the Master Ball later, but you could go the entire game without even knowing the Master Ball was here the whole time! To my knowledge, the only thing that even remotely points you in its direction is the grunt who alludes to its existence, and that's just passive trainer dialogue.

Anyway, next time we can stop and smell the roses a bit in Lilycove and maybe even make our way toward the shudder Safari Zone...

[Aura]

Route 123

Well, with Team Magma getting away, we really don't have much of a choice but to bide our time. In the meantime, we're going to catch up on some of the things we missed along the way. In particular, I wanted to head back to explore Route 123, which lies just south of Route 122 if you keep going past Mt. Pyre. We were able to see the westmost part of this route, where the Berry Master lives, but now we have access to the eastmost part and can explore it in its entirety. There's not much to find here aside from a few more berries, trainers, and some items scattered about. The wild pokemon here are the same as Route 121 so there's not even anything of interest in that regard. Interestingly, there's a small pond here, but it only holds Sea pokemon like Tentacool and Wailmer. I imagine this is an oversight since there's also sea water on this route that is inaccessible. Anyway, there isn't much else to say about this route. It really just serves as a convenient shortcut back to Route 118 and, by extension, Mauville City if you don't have a Flier with you. And speaking of Mauville, we're going to want to go somewhere near there. Thankfully, we have Fly to shorten the trip!

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

You probably guessed it by now, but we're revisiting the Trick House!

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

Trick House Puzzle #5

There's not really much to say here. This puzzle is a trivia based one. The entire room is, obviously, shaped like a '?' and as you move through the room, you'll be stopped by 5 Mechadolls that all resemble the Trick Master. Each of them have three different questions they can ask you. Comically enough, the answer to the first one's question always seems to be Nincada. Once you answer a question from each of the mechadolls, you'll be make it to the end, reach the scroll, and then you can clear the puzzle. There aren't any items or trainers here at all! The only challenge is that, if you get a question wrong, you have to start over from the beginning. There's no real penalty here save for time.

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

For clearing the Puzzle, the Trick Master rewards you with TM12: Taunt. This is a new move that makes it so that the opponent can't use status moves for two turns. It can be great if your opponent's pokemon is too reliant on stall tactics. 

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

The next place I wanted to revisit was Fallarbor Town. I actually did forget about this, I probably would have done this as soon as we unlocked Fly otherwise. But remember that meteorite we recovered from Maxie's machine on Mt. Chimney? Well, I imagine Prof. Cozmo would appreciate having that back, wouldn't he?

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

If we bring the Meteorite to Prof. Cozmo, he'll be relieved to have it back and will gladly offer you TM27: Return for your trouble. I've already covered how powerful of an attack Return can be if you treat your pokemon well, so I am more than happy to accept this!

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

With all that catching up out of the way, we're goign to return to Lilycove and actually see the sights this time. Despite this being a rather large town, there's really not a whole lot to actually do here. The main attraction is, of course, the Pokemon Master Rank contest hall, but we obviously can't enter that. Other than that, the biggest attractions are to the north.

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

Lilycove Museum 1F

The northwesternmost building is an art museum! Thanks to the improved graphics, we can actually make out some of the details on these paintings. While we can't see them in full detail, they can be pretty interesting to look at. There are also some statues to look at as well.

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

Lilycove Museum 2F

If we talk to the man in front of the stairs, he can lead us up to the second floor where there are five blank spots waiting for paintings. He'll ask you for help in filling out this exhibit. We just might have to try and accomplish this task. But how do we approach it? The solution has yet to be seen, but I do have an idea in mind...

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

In front of the tall building to the north, May is blocking the entrance. We'll have to battle her if we want to get inside Lilycove's department store!

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

PKMN Trainer May #4

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

Swellow Lv. 31

She finally added a fourth pokemon to her team!

 

Swellow is impressively fast but went down pretty easily to Zangoose's Crush Claw and Quick Attack. She tried to go for the obnoxious Double Team strat, but it didn't pay off!

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

Numel Lv. 32

 

Without hesitating, another Crush Claw and Quick Attack combo allowed me to take out Numel as well.

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

Wailmer Lv. 32

 

Against Wailmer, I set up Sword's Dance. The worst he could do was have a chance to confuse me with Water Pulse. She tried, but didn't get the confusion, so I was able to take Wailmer out effortlessly as well.

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

Grovyle Lv. 34

 

Grovyle was of course able to outspeed me with a Leaf Blade, but, once again, a simple Crush Claw was all it took to take him down, too.

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

Upon defeating May, she reminisces about your battle back on Route 103 and admits she prides herself on helping you to grow as strong as you are. She then claims that she'll beat you to completing the pokedex before flying off, leaving the Department Store open for us to shop!

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

Lilycove Department Store 1F

Naturally, there's a lot you can buy here. I compared the Slateport Market to the Goldenrod Dept. Store in Johto, this store is much more comparable to the Celadon Dept. Store in Kanto! ON this first floor, we can check in with the receptionist for a daily lottery! If the lottery numbers match the trainer ID numbers of any pokemon in your box, you'll win a prize! This one's a bit more forgiving because you can also get prizes for matching only some numbers. As long as the last few digits in the number match, you'll get a prize! Of course, getting a full match rewards you with a Master Ball! There are some other really nice items you can win as well. Max Revives, PP Ups, and even another Exp. Share!

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

Lilycove Department Store 2F

The second floor serves as a standart Mart

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

Lilycove Department Store 3F

The third floor sells vitamins and X-items to power your pokemon up permanently or temporarily in battle. 

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

Lilycove Department Store 4F

This floor sells TMs! These include TM38, 25, 14 & 15 which contain Fire Blast, Thunder, Blizzard, and Hyper Beam respectively. The other receptionist sells TMs 17, 20, 33, and 16 which contain Protect, Safeguard, Light Screen, and Reflect.

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

Lilycove Department Store 5F

This floor sells all sorts of decorations for a secret base! It contains a much larger assortment of dolls, mats, posters, and cushions so you can decorate to your heart's content!

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

Lilycove Department Store Rooftop

There isn't much going on on the roof this time. Of course, there are vending machines to buy drinks from. There can be rooftop sales just like Goldenrod's, and you can even get some exclusive decorations through these sales, but unfortunately these sales are only available after you've beaten the game and they occur quite rarely. If they do happen, you'll see an ad for them on TV's.

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

Anyway, this was a rather uneventful day, but we'll be able to advance further tomorrow. If you're wondering why we're not going into the Safari Zone right now, I do have my reasons. Don't worry, we'll get to that further down the line but there's something I want to get out of the way before we do.

[Aura]

Route 124

And now we can advance into what is just a small taste of the open sea we'll soon be searching. Route 124 is what lies just beyond Lilycove, right past where the magma grunt was training his Wailmer. There isn't anything too terribly interesting that we can do on this route at the moment, but there is lots of open space. If you thought the water routes in previous games were difficult to cover entirely, you haven't seen anything yet. And like I said, this route is only a small taste. If you haven't already, you're going to want to develop a habit of systematically checking these routes if you want to explore everything the sea has to offer. And things are honestly only going to get more disorienting as we get our next HM. For now though, there's really not much we can do save for battling a few trainers. We could head south from Route 124 to explore more of the sea, but I think it's for the next town.

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

Along the way, if we cling to the northern boundaries, we'll run into a lonely-looking house. This is the home of the Treasure Hunter who will trade you various colored shards for evolutionary stones! If you ever find yourself needing one, this might be a good place to look.

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

Mossdeep City

Mossdeep City is an island city in the northwest reaches of Hoenn. You could almost consider this place the opposite of Dewford Town. There's quite a bit to see here, but, as you all know by now, our attention will be zeroing in on the Pokemon Gym first and foremost.

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

Mossdeep City Gym

This gym is full of conveyor belt-esque platforms that will levitate you in the direction the arrow is pointing. They're much like the spinning platforms back at the Rocket Hideout in Kanto. Trainers are placed throughout the gym to punish you for taking the wrong path, or to guard the switches needed to change the direction of the red arrow tiles. If you want to battle all the trainers, you'll have to make sure the arrow next to the gym leader, or gym leaders in this case, is facing away from them. 

 

The trainers here are all pretty predictable. They're all psychics who use various psychic type pokemon. It's often better to attack these psychic types with neutral physical attacks than super-effective dark-type attacks due to their high special defense. For this reason, Zeal was able to make quick work of pretty much all of them.

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

My Team:

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

Marco (Swampert M); Lv. 38

 

Item: Mystic Water

Ability: Torrent | Moves: Foresight, Mud-Shot, Take Down, Surf

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

Seedling (Shiftry M); Lv. 38

 

Item: Miracle Seed

Ability: Chlorophyll | Moves: Nature Power, Fake Out, Faint Attack, Bullet Seed

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

Rarity (Gardevoir F); Lv. 37

 

Item: Smoke Ball

Ability: Trace | Moves: Calm Mind, Psychic, Double Team, Teleport

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

Zeal (Zangoose F); Lv. 38

 

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Immunity | Moves: Crush Claw, Quick Attack, Swords Dance, Pursuit

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

Sarlacc (Vibrava M); Lv. 38

 

Item: Blackglasses

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Crunch, DragonBreath, Faint Attack, Sand Tomb

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

Lung (Lileep M); Lv. 38

 

Item: Amulet Coin

Ability: Suction Cups | Moves: Amnesia, Confuse Ray, Acid, Ingrain

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

Vs. Mossdeep Gym Leaders Tate & Liza

Nope, you're not seeing double Mossdeep Gym does indeed have two gym leaders making it an especially unique gym even today. Tate & Liza are twins who can communicate through telepathy. Unlike other gym battles, this one is going to be a double battle! I hope you're prepared!

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

 

Lunatone Lv. 42 & Solrock Lv. 42

   

From my many years of suffering as a child, I'm very familiar with their strategy. Lunatone serves more of a support role, with moves like Light Screen and Hypnosis, while Solrock goes on an all-out offensive. The most dangerous part of Solrock is that it'll open up with Sunny Day. Lunatone and Solrock already have very minimal weaknesses and Sunny Day not only reduces the strength of water attacks, but also helps Solrock to cover its weakness to grass-types. Keep in mind Lunatone and Solrock also have Levitate! I do have one advantage over Solrock in that regard, though. Sunny Day also benefits Seedling greatly thanks to Chlorophyll. This is why I led with this particular makeup. I was hoping that, between Seedling's speed and Marco's power, I'd be able to overcome Solrock before it was able to get any strong attacks off from Sunny Day. Solar Beam could tear right through Marco and a powered-up Flamethrower would no doubt finish Seedling easily as well. So, I got to work. My first order of business was to open up with a Fake Out on Solrock. That'll help stall it from using Sunny Day. Lunatone tried to jam my strategy with Hypnosis, but ended up missing! Naturally, Marco's Surf hit hard without Light Screen or Sunny Day to protect their pokemon. On the next turn, Solrock went for Sunny Day again, but it was too little too late. Although Marco's Surf was weakened considerably, Seedling's Faint Attack was enough to bring Solrock's health low enough to be KO'd by Surf.

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

  

By this point, the battle was two on one. I didn't realize this in the moment, but the battle was actually already a guaranteed victory here. Lunatone's only harming move is Psychic and since Shiftry is a Dark type, Psychic doesn't affect Seedling. Thus, Lunatone cannot actually do any damage to me without wasting all the PP for all of its moves and then struggling. Still, I wanted to win with as few pokemon losses as possible.

  

I switched Sarlacc in place of Marco since Surf was made practically useless. Thanks to Chlorophyll, Seedling was able to outspeed Lunatone and damage him. Lunatone went for another hypnosis and was unable to connect it. After a bit more back and forth, and a Hyper Potion on their side, Lunatone finally went down.

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

MVP: Seedling

Fake Out proved more useful here than I honestly ever expected. Being able to jam Solrock's Sunny Day really saved my butt. Without that, I'm sure Solrock easily would have torn through both of my leads and left me with very few options to resort to. No doubt their oppressive onslaught would have ruined me without that extra crutch. While I did get a bit lucky that Lunatone didn't hit Marco with Hypnosis, I don't think that would have mattered. Even if Swampert wasn't able to attack that turn, Seedling should have been able to outspeed Solrock the next turn thanks to Chlorophyll and took it out with another Faint Attack. And like I addressed earlier, once Solrock was done, the victory was assured thanks to Shiftry's typing. I don't think I could, in good faith, give the title of MVP to anyone but Shiftry here.

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

For defeating Tate & Liza, we are awarded the Mind Badge and TM04: Calm Mind! And next time, we can get to exploring the rest of Mossdeep!

[Aura]

As per usual, it's time to search the local area now that we've finished our gym battle. A few houses down from the gym is Steven's home! As we go inside, he'll give us HM08: Dive! With this and the Mind Badge, we can now explore underwater! However, by this point, there's no telling where Team Magma could be hiding with the submarine. For now, we're just going to have to explore some missed things in familiar areas.

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

Before we leave Mossdeep, however, we're going to stop by the northern house on the mountain. Here, we can get a Super Rod which will allow us to catch a whole slew of new pokemon!

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

 

Mossdeep Space Center 1F & 2F

Lastly, there's the Space Center which is surprisingly underutilized here. It's a place where rockets are launched into space. It's said to be the perfect location to launch rockets due to the elevated platform and stable winds. There isn't much to actually do here, but there is a man on the first floor who will give us a Sun Stone.

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

 

With our newly obtained Super Rod, we can now catch Wailmer right here in Mossdeep! This si important because this guy will be our HM user for Dive. 

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

 

We can also go ahead and catch a Sharpedo here. Growing up, this was always one of my favorite Gen 3 pokemon design-wise. I was always a fan of sharks!

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

 

Back on the unassuming Route 134, now that we have Dive, we can explore what lies below the surface! Any dark spot in the seawater is a place where you can use Dive to explore the seafloor. Sometimes these will lead to tiny chambers underwater which may or may not have hidden items marked by darker spots on the ground. Sometimes, though, two spots will be connected by an underwater passage, which can allow you to get past some of the rocky boundaries. While exploring underwater, you can find seaweed lining the ground where, you guessed it, Wild pokemon can be encountered!

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

 

The first of the pokemon we'll find down here is Clamperl.

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

 

Chinchou is the next pokemon we can find here, they're significantly less common but not too much. It is worth noting that the encounter rates down here are significantly less, so it might take longer than you expect to find the rarer pokemon.

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

 

Chinchou does need to be evolved into Lanturn, but thankfully they can be caught at levels higher than their level of evolution, so it's easy to just raise them one level or feed them a rare candy.

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

 

This is most noticeable here with the pokemon Relicanth, which is only available at 5%. If you want to catch all the Legendary pokemon, it's going to be important to catch one of these!

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

In Lilycove City, there is yet another new pokemon we can find. This one isn't tied to Dive, but rather the Super Rod.

 

Staryu is available here and only here at 15%, and this is where the differences with the Super Rod here are most notable. Whereas the Old, Good, and Super Rods were all effectively the same items in previous pokemon games, here in Ruby and Sapphire, fishing has been turned into a sort of fishing minigame. Rather than simply casting the rod and waiting for a bite, you'll have to press A to reel the pokemon in before it gets away. With the Super Rod, you'll have to reel a pokemon several times in a row before it battles you. This can make rare fishing pokemon much harder to catch. 

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

On Route 117, we can fish in the small ponds for another new pokemon.

 

Corphish here can be caught above level 30 just like Chinchou. Which means it's only one level from evolving.

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

 

Naturally, it didn't take long to evolve Corphish into Crawdaunt as well.

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

 

While training up Corphish, Lung also reached level 40, finally evolving into Cradily.

 

This was fantastic for me because I wanted to bring Numa the camerupt back aboard for my next party member!

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

In Meteor Falls, there's yet another pokemon that can be found thanks to the Super Rod.

 

Barboach can be found here at 100% with the Super Rod, so just a quick step in is all it takes to find this guy. Then we can turn back around.

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

Abandoned Ship B1F

There isn't much else to explore back here save for the Abandoned Ship. Now that we have Dive, we can explore more of the wreckage!

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

Abandoned Ship Underwater

There isn't anything to see down here. But we can maneuver underwater and resurface somewhere else where light is filtering in.

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

Abandoned Ship Isolated Wing

Here, there's a bit of a minigame. There's severa locked rooms here. Some of the doors aren't locked and as you enter, you'll see individual tiles twinkle. The twinkles will disappear shortly after and you'll have to remember where they were. All but one of them will just just be glistening trash. One of them is a key to another room where you'll rinse and repeat. Along the way, you can find a water stone and TM18: Rain Dance. At the end of the chain, you can find the Scanner the scientist here was looking for.

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

If we bring the Scanner to the Captain's Office, the scientist will request we deliver the scanner to Captain Stern for him. We're already en route to Slateport, so that's not much of an issue.

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

Right back to Slateport, we can visit the Harbor where Captain Stern still remains. Giving him the Scanner, he'll offer a trade for either a DeepSeaTooth or DeepSeaScale.

 

If Clamperl is traded while holding either of these items, it'll evolve into a Huntail or Gorebyss respectively. I went with the DeepSeaScale to be able to evolve Clamperl into Gorebyss when the time comes.

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

And our final stop here will be Route 110 where, surprise, surprise, we'll be doing another Trick House puzzle.

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

Trick House Puzzle #6

This puzzle is designed around the same pivoting gates as Fortree Gym. It can actually get pretty confusing and it's possible to completely lock yourself out of progressing forward. You want to be careful and think a few steps ahead before pushing any of the fences. Try to make sure you always have a way out! 

  

The trainers here are a couple of Pokemon Rangers and a Bird Keeper. Nothing too tough to get through.

And in that alcove against the northern wall, you can find a Glitter Mail!

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

For completing this puzzle, you'll be awarded with a Magnet and the Trick Master will finally acknowledge you as his equal!

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

Now that we've caught up, there's still a bit more new territory to explore, but we'll have to save that for next time!

[Aura]

Route 125

This route lies just north of Mossdeep City. There's nothing significant to talk about here. As usual, there are some trainers. The main focal point of today is going to be the cave found on this route.

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

Shoal Cave Entrance Room

If your clock is set differently than mine, or your cartridge has a working internal battery unlike mine, it's entirely possible this dungeon looks very different for you. This is because Shoal Cave is a very unique dungeon which floods an dries up between high and low tides. In this room, you'll find an old man who offers to make you something special if you can bring him four Shoal Shells and Shoal Salts from the dungeon. Shoal Shells can be collected during high tide while Shoal Salts can be collected during low tide. This dungeon is why I was very careful about how I set my clock at the start of the game. Since my internal battery is dead, the tides will unfortunately never change, much like how planted berries will never grow. This is a bit bothersome because it also means I won't be able to collect both Shoal Shells and Shoal Salts for the mini sidequest here. I'm not missing out on much, the only thing you get for your efforts is a Shell Bell. This is a held item that heals you based on a percentage of damage you deal when you attack. In general, Leftovers is a much more useful item if you want frequent healing. If you're attacking a lot, you're probably going to want to take a turn or so to set up, so you'll probably want held items that'll help you take hits or hit harder. If you're really dying for a Shell Bell and your internal battery is dead like mine, there is a solution if you have another version of the game. Simply set the time on that game to a time when the tide is opposite and collect the items to trade over. And, if you have Pokemon Box: Ruby and Sapphire for the GameCube and a GC-GBA link cable, this process should be easier. 

I figured it made the most sense thematically to explore the dungeon at low tide in Ruby and High tide in Sapphire. Plus, Ruby is more focused on new pokemon, and at low tide, we have access to a secret room that's going to be important for pokedex completion.

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

Spear (Spheal M); Lv. 30

 

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Encore, Ice Ball, Body Slam, Aurora Beam

Probably the first wild pokemon you'll run into here is a Spheal. These little guys are a fan favorite among many for their adorable ball shape. You can't hate 'em! It's not the first pokemon with Thick Fat, but it does get a very unique benefit from Thick Fat. Not only does it work well with its Water typing to give it a full resistance to Fire attacks in spite of the Ice type's weakness, it's actually gives Spheal a full 8x resistance to ice-type attacks since both Ice- and Water-types resist Ice already. This certainly isn't a terrible option, just keep in mind that it is rather late in the game. There is another game coming up, though, where he'll be more immediately accessible, so don't count it out just yet! As you can tell by the way I formatted it, this is a pokemon we're going to have to raise up for a bit to evolve.

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

 

It doesn't take long for Spheal to evolve into Sealeo at level 32, but the real kicker is that it has another evolution that it won't reach for a little while, so we're kind of stuck with him on our team for now. It'd be a bit redundant to have two Water-types on the team, so he'll be replacing Marco for a little while.

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

Shoal Cave Backroom

This backroom is where it'll quickly become apparent just how much larger this cave is in the low tide. There really isn't much to explore at all at High Tide, just these two rooms, but during Low Tide, several new passages open up back here. If you take the door here, you'll hit a dead end, but if you take the nearby ladder...

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

Shoal Cave Hidden Cavern

You'll end up in this hidden cavern. This area is completely inaccessible at high tide. Following the stairs will take you back up to a new area of the Backroom where you can make your way to yet another ladder.

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

Shoal Cave Lower Room

Here, you can explore the lower room outside of the small dead end from before. As you explore these rooms, you'll find the Shoal Salts you're looking for in salt deposits scattered around. But our top priority right now is where that ladder against the east wall leads. We'll need Strength to push a boulder through the tunnel in order to make our way there.

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

Shoal Cave Frozen Chamber

Look familiar at all? Yes, this Frozen Chamber in the depths of Shoal Cave is Hoenn's answer to Johto's Ice Path. it's a bit more short-lived, but you might have to stop and think a bit about the ice puzzles. As you carefully navigate your way through this room, you can find a NeverMeltIce and TM07: Hail. The real focus down here though is the very target pokemon we've been after.

---------------------------
Snop (Snorunt M); Lv. 26

 

Ability: Inner Focus | Moves: Bite, Icy Wind, Headbutt, Protect

Snorunt is a rather elusive pokemon due to how out of the way you have to go to even get to where he can be found. Granted, once you're actually here, it's only a 10% rarity so it's not particularly hard to nab, but still, our job isn't quite done because, you guessed it, he has an evolution and we're going to have to make room for it on the team which means goodbye Numa for a little longer.

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

Now, if my clock was functioning normally, I'd certainly be returning to this cave a little later to explore it at high tides, but under the circumstances, that is an impossibility. We're just going to have to stick to what we've got. For now, though, we're just going to continue searching the surrounding area. Maybe we'll even find that missing submarine?

We're going to start with Route 126, immediately south of Route 124. We've actually dipped into the very northernmost part of this earlier while exploring underwater in Route 124, but now we're going to be exploring the main area. On the surface, this place looks pretty unassuming. Just a giant portion of water with a large mountain in the center of it. We could have come here earlier than now, but there wasn't much we could do here besides battle some trainers. With Dive, though...

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

We can find where the main action lies here. This route was already pretty massive, but Dive only doubles its size. And on the seafloor here, there is lots of treasure to find. It's mostly vitamins, shards, and pearls to sell, but you're going to want to search the whole area up and down thoroughly if you want all the treasure. The underwater encounters are still the same here, so there's no need to search around too much. Also keep in mind that you can travel underwater to get around the rock boundaries on the surface. This will open the passage to even more trainers and items up there! This is the largest underwater area yet but it's not even close to the largest in the game.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of this undersea expedition is the cavern down here at the bottom of the central mountain...

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

On the inside of this cavern is a tiny alcove where light is strangely filtering in from above?

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

Sootopolis City

If we surface from here, you'll find that we've made our way into the final gym city: Sootopolis City! This city is built on the inside of what appears to the crater of a dormant volcano. There is quite a bit we can gather here. Once again, we have a bit of a roadblock preventing us from getting to the gym: The doors are locked! Of course, there are more important matters to tend to at the moment. Still, it's a good idea to look around town. We can get a wailmer doll from a lady in one of the houses near the pokemon center and in the house at the top of the western side of town, you can get TM31: Brick Break from a man with a Kecleon.

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

 

With the Super Rod, you can also find Gyarados in the wild here, so there's no need to raise a Magikarp!

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

Now that we've been to Sootopolis, we can fly back here at any time. It's definitely a convenient place to heal!

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

Route 127

If you thought Route 126 was huge, Route 127 absolutely dwarfs it in size. I think you should be able to tell by now just how massive these sea routes can get and why it can be so easy to get lost if you haven't developed a system of navigation yet. Many different spots of this route look very similar, especially with the tiny field of view you have from your little baby GBA screen. Naturally, with a large route comes a large number of trainers! You'll find them all over the place here. And, of course, we're not done yet!

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

There is lots of area to explore underwater as well! In these deep sea trenches, you'll find some light-colored rocks in the depths. These have items on them to retrieve, so make sure you zero in on them whenever you see them! If you continue south from the main trench here, you'll actually transition to the route below us underwater. You can get lost pretty easily if you stray too far from where you dived, so we're going to surface before we continue to explore.

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

Route 128

South of Route 127 is Route 128. Thankfully, this route is a bit more condensed. What more can I say? A new route means even more trainers and even more items to collect!

And of course, there's even more treasure to find underwater. As you'll recall, though, Capt. Stern said he discovered something in the trenches around Route 128. During our exploration down here, we just might come across another mysterious entryway...

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

...And inside, it seems we've made quite the discovery ourselves. Things are really starting to come together now...

[Aura]

Seafloor Cavern Entrance

Emerging from the submarine we discovered in the last post, we can find the cavern that Team Magma has marched into. With any luck, we're not too late to stop them from finding whatever they came here for. After all, if their submarine is still there, they must still be here for some reason!

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

 

 

 

Seafloor Cavern Inside

This cavern is rather confusing to explore. It seems to have a mixture of natural blockades as well as manmade blockades created by Team Magma to further waste our time. The winding pathways of this cavern have a way of spitting you back out at the entrance, which makes the layout a lot more confusing to piece together. Because of this, I tried to place the maps of each room in such a way that most closely matches the actual layout.

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

When you first enter the cave from the entrance, you'll be in this room.

 

Here, you can find some grunts you can battle who will complain about how cramped their submarine was.

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

Going through the northern exit will bring you to this room. Here, you'll find a labyrinth of Rock Smash and Strength Boulders you'll have to navigate through. It's a unique way these two HM's are being used for puzzle mechanics, but the puzzle here itself isn't too difficult. The boulders are arranged in such a way, though, that funnels you toward one of the two northern exits depending on where you start from, but you can easily change your exit by simply making your way to the entrance on the other side.

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

Let me stress again that the layout of this cave is very confusing and I'm trying to make sense of Bulbapedia's maps from my own memory, so I apologize if I make any mistakes. That said, I believe taking the south exit to the room before the labyrinth room will take you here.

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

I believe either of the exits from that room will lead you into this one here which I'll call the "exit room". I believe the southwestern exit leads you to the entrance in the center of this room while the southeastern exit leads to the northwestern(?) From either of these entrances, you can make your way to the south exit which takes you back to the entrance of the cavern, or you can take the northern exit which will take you to the labyrinth room.

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

From the labyrinth room, the cavern gets a bit easier to understand.

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

 

Both northern exits will bring you to two separate "current rooms". These currents will push you along as you surf over them. The exit in the center of the left room will take you back to the entrance of the cavern, and there's a current that'll push you right into it, so be careful as you navigate!

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

The northernmost exits of both rooms bring you to the left or right entrance to this next area where several strength boulders are arranged in a checkerboard pattern. The puzzle to get through here isn't anything too tough, just be careful not to push any strength boulders into places they can't be moved from unless you're certain you have to. There's lots of open space to the west, so you can easily push the insignificant boulders out of the way without worry of walling yourself. As you make it past the boulders, though, you'll be met by the familiar Magma Admin Courtney!

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

 

I should mention that, while making my way through these caverns, Snop reached level 42 and evolved into Glalie! Now I was able to bring Numa back on board.

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

Vs. Magma Admin Courtney #2

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

Camerupt Lv. 38

  

Numa was able to outspeed Courtney's Camerupt and even got a crit with Earthquake! I'm not really sure if it mattered, but we don't look gift horses in the mouth here.

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

Mightyena Lv. 38

 

Mightyena tried to discourage Numa with its intimidate, but immediately went for Swagger which boosted its attack instead. Kind of a counter-intuitive move for Mightyena in hindsight. Numa was able to attack through confusion and, thanks to the boosted attack, was able to make quick work of the hyena!

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

Progressing further past Courtney, we find another imposing strength puzzle. This one I actually recall took me a while to get past as a kid and, if you're not careful, you can easily screw it up. Just try to think a few moves ahead and think about which boulders your moves are blocking off and if that can be salvaged. The solution actually does require some level of creativity, so I wouldn't blame you if it takes a few tries to figure out.

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

In the very depths of the Seafloor Cavern, a thick fog overlays the floor once again. Or is it steam from the humidity? Either way, we can find TM26: Earthquake here. This is a highly valuable TM for an incredibly powerful attack!

Travelling down the stairs, we're met by a large pool of lava and, of course, we find Maxie here along with what appears to be a massive statue of a pokemon. Maxie tells us that this is no statue, but rather the legendary pokemon Groudon itself. This is the legendary pokemon of the land spoken of in the old man's legend. We know what kind of terrifying power this monster has and it definitely isn't something we can allow Maxie to take lightly. We're going to have to put a stop to his plans here and now the only way we know how!

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

Vs. Magma Leader Maxie #2

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

Mightyena Lv. 41

 

Of course, he once again opens up with this Mightyena to reduce our attack. Nothing too bad, but thanks to the reduced attack, Mightyena is capable of soaking up a few more Earthquaakes than I would prefer. He does have healing items, but for whatever reason, he only uses Super Potions, so he doesn't really heal off a substantial amount of damage. In the end, though, he was able to get a Swagger off and force Numa to KO herself.

 

I brought out Seedling to finish the round with Fake Out.

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

Crobat Lv. 41

HIs Golbat evolved!

 

Maxie's Crobat naturally loves to fight back. I'd assumed that Nature Power would have turned into Rock Slide here, but it actually turned into Shadow Ball which made this matchup a bit more unfavorable than I would have preferred. It didn't take long for Crobat to take Shiftry out.

 

Of course, I still had Spear to rely on and with a couple of Aurora Beams, Crobat went down pretty easily as well.

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

Camerupt Lv. 43

 

The results of this matchup are pretty clear-cut. With a simple Surf, Camerupt went down no problems.

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

Of course, Maxie soon reveals that the result of this battle matters not. Of course, this is because he still possesses the Blue Orb with which he should be able to control Groudon. However, before he can finish talking, he's caught by surprise as the Blue Orb begins to glow on its own!

Suddenly, Groudon awakens from his slumber and then immediately... disappears. Maxie is angered by this. Where did Groudon go? He then receives a message from his colleagues outside. "The sun has started glowing bright!" At first, Maxie is pleased by this. That was exactly what his plan was: to use Groudon's power to increase the power of the sun and expand the world's landmass. However, his colleagues insist that the sun has grown far hotter than anyone on Team Magma had anticipated.

  

Team Aqua soon arrives to chastise Maxie for his actions. He thanks us for our help and tells us that this is exactly what Team Aqua had been working to prevent from the start and we all leave to see the effects of Groudon's awakening.

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

We emerge at Route 128 and, sure enough, the sun is extremely bright. The music has grown incredibly eerie. Team Aqua and Maxie insist that you leave the matter to them as things have grown far too dangerous for a child like yourself.

Steven comes flying in shortly after they leave and asks what happened. He says that he's headed to Sootopolis to meet with someone who may be able to help and insists that you stay behind.

Currently, this massive drought hasn't yet spread across the entirety of the region. It's only centralized around this route. It spreads along these sea routes, Mossdeep City, Sootopolis, and even Lilycove, but doesn't reach any further than Lilycove. But if things continue to get worse, it's not out of the question that we could be dealing with a global catastrophe. This is no time to just be sitting on our thumbs, we need to take action!

During this drought, the music will never change even while you're surfing or riding a bike which only adds to the surreal experience. It brings a really somber mood to whatever it is you're trying to do. As you might expect, if you get into a battle in the middle of this drought, the sunlight will be harsh. This will actually help quite a bit with grinding if you want to take advantage of the opportunity. The sunlight is permanent and will reduce the strength of the water attacks from the local wild pokemon and trainers. But of course, we can't hang around forever. We need to follow Steven to Sootopolis! If you haven't made your way there yet, now is the time to heat to Route 126. Alternatively, you could just Fly or Teleport there.

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

Here in Sootopolis, I strongly recommend that you stock up on ultra balls at the mart before progressing further. 

I would hope it's clear where the story is headed at this point, but this is actually the first time anything like this has occured in a pokemon game, so it's a fair warning to make sure you have an abundance of pokeballs and you're well prepared for battle.

 

As we make our way to the northern part of Sootopolis, we'll find Steven talking to the Sootopolis Gym Leader: Wallace. Wallace explains that he's in charge of maintaining the Cave of Origin where the power responsible for this drought resides. Upon seeing our Red Orb, he immediately recognizes our role in this story and asks us to follow him to the cave. He must ask that you go to the depths of the cave and bring the Red Orb to Groudon who remains there. he and Steven wish you luck before seeing you off.

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

Cave of Origin Entrance

The Cave of Origin really isn't anything too special, it's just a series of corridors for you to run through with some rather generic wild pokemon.

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

   

Cave of Origin 1F - B3F

As you descend into the Cave of Origin, you can hear Groudon's cry growing louder and more frequent. On B3F the same thick steam from before emerges, telling us that we must be close. It's also in this cave where we'll find HM07: Waterfall just lying around. We can't use it out of battle yet, but this item is important for beating the game, so you'll want to make sure to pick it up. It's right in your path, though, so you're not gonna miss it unless you try to.

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

Cave of Origin B4F

At the very depths of the Cave of Origin, there's a central pool of lava and in the middle lies Groudon. I strongly recommend you save the game here.

Upon approaching the front of the pool of lava, the Red Orb will begin to glow, the fog will clear, and Groudon will approach initiating the battle automatically.

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

Vs. Groudon Lv. 45

At the start of the battle, we're met with yet another amazing music track. Groudon's Drought ability will activate, causing harsh sunlight to fill the cavern. It's our job to defeat this thing. But, of course, we're not going to settle for simply defeating it. We're going to capture it!

 

My current team actually lacks any way to consistently paralyze this thing. Thankfully, as a wild pokemon, Groudon seems to attack randomly. Because of this, I was able to get several turns of this thing using Bulk Up and Earthquake, neither of which were capable of damaging Vibrava. Even when it finally hit me, it was with Fire Blast which Vibrava resists. Still though, Groudon has enough strength to make such an attack hit hard, especially with the sunlight powering it up. The whole time, I kept using Dragonbreath hoping for a paralysis, which I did eventually manage to get before getting KO'd with Slash.

 

With Groudon's HP already low, I brought Rarity out in hopes of setting up some Double Teams and evade Groudon's attacks for a while. Unfortunately, I hadn't quite finished setting up by the time Groudon managed to land a hit. It's not a consistent strategy at all, so I certainly didn't expect it to carry me.

 

I brought out Numa next and at this point just started chucking Ultra Balls at the thing. A single Earthquake was all it took for Numa to go down.

 

Seedling was first hit by an Earthquake which his Grass Type resisted, but of course it didn't take long for him to go down to a sunlight-powered Fire Blast.

 

Sealeo was my final resort. Due to its bulkiness and Thick Fat ability, and its Rest attack, It should work wonders against Groudon's relentless attacks as I continue to throw Ultra Ball after Ultra Ball. Sure enough, after several balls had been thrown, I was finally able to capture Groudon!

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

Behemoth (Groudon); Lv. 45

 

Ability: Drought | Moves: Slash, Bulk Up, Fire Blast, Earthquake

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

With Groudon's power finally contained, we can make our way back to Sootopolis City where it seems the world has returned to normal! There's a surprising lack of fanfare for this accomplishment, actually. Nobody is out here to congratulate you or even thank you for your efforts. It's a little strange, but the world has reverted to a state where it's almost like everything we just went through never even happened. It's a little jarring that there isn't even so much as a "Thank you" from Steven and a "Now that that's over with, I'll await your challenge at the gym!" from Wallace. They've both completely left. Perhaps they sought an alternative solution elsewhere? Well, regardless, next time, we'll be headed toward our final gym!

[Aura]

Before I progress from where we left off, I should mention that I made a quick trek back to Route 128 because there actually are some wild pokemon we can find here that I didn't catch when I first started exploring the route.

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

 

 

With the Super Rod, you can catch both Corsola and Luvdisc. I mistakenly assumed that these pokemon were available underwater in certain areas, but apparently that was wrong. Luvdisc is an especially interesting pokemon because while it isn't particularly useful in battle, it has a 50% chance of holding a Heart Scale in the wild, making it a renewable source of a very useful item. According to bulbapedia, Luvdisc has a 40% encounter rate while Corsola has a mere 15%, but I'm kind of doubting the legitimacy of this, at the very least in the case of Ruby, as I was finding Corsola only slightly less frequently than Wailmer, which is available as the remaining 45%, but it took me quite a while to find a Luvdisc. It's entirely possible I was just having rotten luck in finding Luvdisc, but it truly felt like Corsola was at 40% and Luvdisc was at 15%.

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

Anyway, back at Sootopolis City, it's time to take on the final gym of the Hoenn League!

It's here that we find Steven! It seems I was a bit mistaken that there was no thanks from him. He just happened to be standing in front of the door of Wallace's gym instead. After his thanks, he flies off leaving us to take on our last gym battle right here.

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

Sootopolis City Gym 1F

On the surface, it doesn't seem that there are any trainers here. If you try to just climb your way straight to the gym leader, though, you'll slide off the frozen ramps and end up falling through the cracked ice behind you!

Sootopolis City Gym B1F

This is where all the gym's trainers lie! If you've managed to climb your way to the top and made a mistake there, you've got quite the gauntlet to fight your way through to get back to the bottom. 

       

There are lots of trainers here, but thankfully they're mostly pretty merciful. One might initially assume this to be an Ice-type gym based on the aesthetic, but as you battle these trainers, it should become pretty readily apparent that it's actually a Water-type gym. Most of these trainers only use one or two pokemon that can each be taken down with relative ease so you're probably not going to be hurting too badly here, even if you do end up stuck on the highest point of the floor and fighting your way back. As long as you strategically move around, you'll only have to fight at most five trainers, six if you happen to land in the sights of one of the optional ones. Don't worry, the three trainers triangulating around a single point at the top level won't actually challenge you on the same tile. Only the lass will challenge you from the top of the ramp. You'll have to walk to either side to challenge the other two. 

Obviously, if you want to battle all the trainers, you're going to have to intentionally fail the puzzle. For the most freedom to get away and heal, you might want to fail the puzzle on the first tile of each level.

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

The puzzle, on the first floor is rather simple. All you have to do is step on every ice tile without stepping on the same tile twice. When you step on a tile, it'll crack and if you step on it again, it'll break and you'll fall through. If every tile is cracked, the ice on the frozen ramp will shatter, revealing a set of stairs. You'll have to be careful about the route you take, though, because you can still fall through the cracked ice on your way to the stairs. Because of this, you'll have to make sure you leave a route open toward the stairs so that the last tile you step on is at the base of them. Otherwise you'll be trapped with no way forward but down! The puzzle isn't anything too difficult, but I do remember being stumped by it for a while as a kid. Make sure to think ahead and make sure you don't trap yourself. The puzzle might take you a couple tries, especially the one at the top level. But once you've made your way to the top, it's time to face off against our final gym leader...

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

My team:

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

Seedling (Shiftry M); Lv. 42

 

Item: Miracle Seed

Ability: Chlorophyll | Moves: Nature Power, Fake Out, Faint Attack, Bullet Seed

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

Rarity (Gardevoir F); Lv. 41

 

Item: Smoke Ball

Ability: Trace | Moves: Calm Mind, Psychic, Double Team, Teleport

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

Numa (Camerupt F); Lv. 41

 

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Magma Armor | Moves: Amnesia, Rock Slide, Ember, Earthquake

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

Zeal (Zangoose F); Lv. 42

 

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Immunity | Moves: Crush Claw, Quick Attack, Swords Dance, Pursuit

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

Sarlacc (Vibrava M); Lv. 41

 

Item: BlackGlasses

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Crunch, DragonBreath, Faint Attack, Sand Tomb

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

Spear (Sealeo M); Lv. 42

 

Item: NeverMeltIce

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Surf, Hail, Rest, Aurora Beam

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

Vs. Sootopolis Gym Leader Wallace

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

Luvdisc Lv. 40

 

Since Numa clearly wasn't going to last long in this fight, I figured I may as well start out with her at the front of the party so that she could get some damage off with Earthquake against Wallace's weaker pokemon. Luvdisc usually can't do a whole lot on its own, but this one managed to outspeed Numa and hit it with a Water Pulse. Thankfully, due to its bad special attack, even with the 4x Weakness plus STAB bonuses, and in spite of Camerupt's average special defense, Water Pulse was still unable to take me out. I was able to counteract with an Earthquake, but Luvdisc was able to hold on with a small chunk of health. On the next turn, Wallace healed it with a Hyper Potion for some reason so my next Earthquake brought it right back down. The turn after, Numa's Quick Claw activated allowing her to outspeed Luvdisc and finish it off with one more Earthquake.

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

Sealeo Lv. 40

 

Following up was a Sealeo which, of course, wasn't going to end well. I tried for a Rock Slide, but Quick Claw didn't activate and Sealeo was able to outspeed Numa, so no luck there.

 

Sarlacc is another pokemon that wasn't going to be lasting very long in this gym, so I decided now would be a good time to send it out. I may be at risk of a STAB Ice attack, but Sarlacc would definitely be able to outspeed Sealeo and I could potentially paralyze it with DragonBreath, which I actually got off successfully! What's more, the paralysis prevented it from attacking! So, I was able to safely switch Sarlacc out without him being KO'd!

 

I then switched into Spear to take advantage of that 8x resistance. Obviously, he wasn't going to keep using Aurora Beam, though, but between his paralysis and my level advantage, I was able to overcome his Sealeo no problem.

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

Whiscash Lv. 42

If you thought spamming Electric moves would get you through this battle, you've got another thing coming. Whiscash's ground typing protects it from Electric attacks but, luckily for me, gives it a 4x weakness to Grass!

 

It also means no resistance to Water, so I continued Surfing away. Whiscash opened up with Amnesia which did help to prep it for the incoming wall of Surf, but it followed up with Rain Dance which just powered Surf up even further. Eventually, though, Whiscash finally fought back and used Earthquake to take Spear out, but by this point its HP was pretty low.

 

The rain was going to be problematic if I allowed it to keep going, so I decided to take advantage of Seedling's Fake Out to stall an extra turn out so that the rain would end before taking Whiscash out with Bullet Seed.

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

Milotic Lv. 43

And here we have the single most infamous gym leader pokemon in the entire game! If you recall, I specifically noted a Cooltrainer back on Route 120 who used only a single Milotic as a major annoyance. Almost everything that made that Milotic annoying applies tenfold here. If you're not prepared to deal with this thing, the game will make sure you know. You want to make sure to come at this thing with the strongest physical attacks you have to offer because your special attacks aren't gonna do crap against its special bulk. 

 

So, naturally, I'm going to ignore that advice and just spit Bullet Seeds at it. I was actually able to survive an Ice Beam  and even got a couple of solid attacks off, bringing its health to about 1/3 before being taken out. You have to be really careful about chipping Milotic's health away, though, because once it gets below half health, it's very likely to go for a Recover.

 

I decided to go for a bit of a gamble with Zeal here. Milotic's health was looking pretty low and Bullet Seed was able to do some decent damage with 4 hits. There was a chance I could take it out in one shot form here with Zeal's Crush Claw. Alternatively, I could not KO it or even miss entirely, leaving Milotic with a chance to recover. Still, even if this happened, my backup strategy here was to use Swords Dance so that I'd be able to easily two-shot this Milotic. However, this backup strat wasn't necessary because the Crush Claw was indeed enough to finish Milotic off!

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

Seaking Lv. 42

His last pokemon, Seaking, is a bit of a joke compared to Milotic

 

Between a defense-lowering Crush Claw and a Quick Attack, this round was over before it even begun.

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

And with that, Wallace was out of the way and we were rewarded with the Rain Badge and TM03: Water Pulse

And with that, we've claimed all 8 gym badges of Hoenn! We can now make our way to Ever Grande City and challenge the Pokemon League whenever we're ready! But, as always, there's a bit of cleanup I'm going to want to take care of before we commit so hard to such a feat.

Also, just a heads up, my posts may be coming in less frequently or getting a bit shorter as I'm starting a new semester of school today, so I may be much busier than normal. I can't guarantee I'll consistently be able to make daily updates, but I'll try to stay consistent! It's gonna take a bit to figure my methods out for the courses this semester but hopefully it won't be too long before I can get in the groove of things!

[Aura]

Now that we have the Rain Badge, we can now use Waterfall! Believe it or not, this doesn't actually open up a whole lot in familiar areas, but it's still enough to warrant some revisits! In this post, we're going to be exploring what remains on the surface world of Hoenn before searching for some of the more hidden elements of the game. We can travel east of Route 128 and make our way straight for Victory Road to finish the game, but there's so much more to see before we do that!

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

Route 129

If you continue past Route 128, you can reach Route 129. We could have explored this area as far back as when we first cleared the way to the sea, much like the other ocean routes, however, I didn't want to stray too far from the story objectives as this whole stretch here is pretty out of the way from anything in the story. There's a whole town down here that you never have to visit. It's always been kind of bizarre to me.

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

 

Here in the farthest corner of the sea from civilization is the perfect place for Wailmer Watching. If you're really lucky, you can even find yourself coming face to face with a wild Wailord! These massive behemoths have always been a favorite of mine. This pokemon was created with the sole intent of being the largest pokemon of all time. To this very day, W is tailordhe largest non-legendary pokemon with only one legendary larger than it, and that's a pokemon we won't be seeing for a very long time. 

Wailord is available to encounter here at an exceedingly rare 1% rarity. It's really not worth going out of your way to catch one, you're better off just leveling up a Wailmer. Especially considering Wailmer evolve at level 40 and can be caught as high as 45. 

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

There's not much to say about these next few routes. They're just more water routes with some trainers scattered about. These areas will definitely become more interesting later on, but as of now, there's not much to look for.

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

Route 130

This area doesn't seem like anything special. But trust me, this is arguably the most interesting area of the entire game. There's a very slim chance that, as you pass by this route for your first time, it's going to look very different. We'll get into why that is once we get to the next town, but for now, you'll definitely want to pass by here. You'll be able to tell pretty quickly if luck is on your side.

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

Route 131

This route is home to another peculiar mystery. To the north, you can very clearly see a large shadow of something submerged in the water. However, it's out of bounds and we cannot reach it in order to use dive. What could this be?

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

Pacifidlog Town

Here we have what I've always assumed was meant to be the sea-based counterpart to the land-based Fortree City. This is a town that's floating on top of the surface of the water! There are... a lot of questions this raises, but I suppose we can assume that this town just experiences perfect weather and never gets caught in a storm. This town is really more of a small village, not unlike Littleroot. In fact, it doesn't even have a Mart! Just one pokemon center and a few humble homes surrounding it with log walkways connecting them. It's actually a pretty nice touch that as you walk along the pathways, the logs will sink into the water a bit. It'll definitely ruin your shoes, though! 

There really isn't a whole lot here and this whole town's existence is kind of an enigma. It serves no bearing on the game's story, there's no sidequests tied to it, it really just seems like it was created to be a convenient checkpoint to fly to while exploring the nearby points of interest. Still, I kind of like the fact that such a strange little town is here and it always piqued my curiosity as a kid.

That said, even though there's not a lot doesn't mean there's absolutely nothing here. In the southwestern house, you can find the brother of the chairman of the pokemon fan club. Depending on how well your pokemon likes you, he'll either give you TM21: Frustration or another TM27: Return. It's much more likely you'll get Return from him since by this point in your game, even if you're not really trying, your pokemon is probably very friendly with you. 

 

There's a lady here who will trade you her corsola for your Bellossom. Yes, you heard that right. Her Corsola for Your Bellossom. This is a trade that I genuinely cannot fathom why you would ever make unless you're just a really friendly person. You can catch Corsola right outside at Route 128, but Bellossom you'll have to invest an entire Sun Stone, which you only get one of and the only renewable method of obtaining them is by getting them off wild Solrock (A ruby exclusive pokemon) a whopping 5% of the time. Yeah... no. deal. 

Perhaps the biggest feature of this town, though, is the old man staring out the window in the eastern house. Most of the time, when you talk to him, he'll tell you that he can't see Mirage Island today. Remember how I said Route 130 held something special? Well, this is what I was referring to.

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

Route 130: MIrage Island

If the old man tells you he can see Mirage Island, then surf out to Route 130 and you'll find this mysterious island! There isn't much to talk about here, but you can find a lowly Liechi Berry which is extremely useful both in-battle and in pokeblock creation. In battle, if the pokemon's health gets low, it'll eat the berry and its attack stat will raise one stage! For pokeblocks, this rare berry can be used to create the elusive Golden Pokeblock which will increase all contest stats and is loved by all pokemon. If you have a working battery, make sure to plant this thing somewhere safe. You do not want such a rare berry to go to waste. Alternatively, if you have a dead battery, make sure to make it count! The tall grass here will always have wild Wyanaut as well. These guys are unavailable anywhere else in the wild, but you're also given an egg that hatches into one from Lavaridge, so it's really not that big of a deal.

How can you get this island to appear? Well, there's a lot of internal shenanigans, but long story short, the game will randomly generate a number every day and check all of the pokemon in your party. If that number matches a certain part of your pokemon's hidden personality value, then Mirage Island will appear! The in-game dialogue seems to imply the Mirage Island merely has a random chance of either being available or not in a day, but since it's tied specifically to your pokemon, you can actually increase your chances of finding this island by catching lots of different pokemon and rotating them in and out of your party. It's very time consuming and you're really unlikely to get any results as the odds of any one specific pokemon allowing you to access the island is rarer than encountering a shiny pokemon. If you consider that it's not uncommon to beat the entire game and not encounter a single shiny pokemon, that should call your attention to just how rare this event actually is. Now, if you have a dead battery, the value will never change and this can arguably be used to your benefit. Every time you catch a new pokemon, you can bring it to Pacifidlog to see if it makes Mirage Island appear! More than likely, it won't, but you never know!

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

 

Routes 133 & 132

 

Routes 134 & 133

Moving on past Pacifidlog Town, we come across three routes that genuinely baffle me as to why they're treated as separate routes at all. All three routes have identical wild pokemon, there's no change in direction, there's no loading zone, it's all one seamless, continuous area. You even have to be very strategic in your movements in order to get into the specific areas you want, which is why I've arranged the maps in such a way. I'm not sure if it will look right on Mobile, but hopefully it will!

You can't see it very well in the reduced resolution, but if you look at the full image, you'll be able to see that these routes are completely covered in currents that'll push you around, mostly pushing you westward. It can be difficult to reach some of the patches of land, so you're going to want a Flier or a Pokemon with Teleport in order to quickly return to Pacifidlog Town if you want to thoroughly explore these routes. There's lots of useful items and trainers to battle, so depending on what catches your interest, it may be worth your time to come all the way out here.

Near the south of Route 134, if you carefully thread the needle between the currents, you can find a dive spot surrounded by yet another suspicious formation of rocks... While we can interact with this now, this is a whole rabbit hole I don't want to be bothered with at this very moment. Instead, we're just going to take note of it and move onward.

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

Continuing past that dive spot, there is a maze-like area of rocks! At the end of this little maze is a new trainer class: A Dragon Tamer! You can probably guess what these guys specialize in.

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

 

While battling the trainers on this route, Spear reached level 44 and evolved into Walrein, allowing us to finally bring Marco back!

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

At the end of the line, we'll finally return to Slateport City. We've come full circle and if we check our PokeNav map, we can see that we've explored every route in Hoenn! We're getting closer and closer to the end of the game! But we're not quite done exploring for today! Remember, with the ability to use Waterfall, we can more thoroughly explore some familiar areas, too!

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

With a name like Meteor Falls, of course there has to be places to explore with Waterfall, right? Sure enough, here in Meteor Falls, there's quite a lot more than what little we could explore. Strangely, though, this is a rather underwhelming location as well. Aside from high-level pokemon, these waterfalls aren't really blocking away much of anything significant. There's an entryway at the top of the only waterfall you can reach.

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

Meteor Falls: Waterfall Cavern

Inside this place, there's a small lake of water where we can fish for a new-ish pokemon!

 

At a 20% encounter rate with the Super Rod, we can find Whiscash back here! No need to evolve that Barboach after all!

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

Meteor Falls B1F

Taking the ladder here will bring us to the upper layer of B1F. There's a ladder partway through this section that will take you back to the room above to a small area where you can find TM23: Iron Tail!

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

If we progress further on this floor and make it to the end, we can take a different ladder to the upper part of this floor where we can make our way to the top of the steppes!

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

Here, along with another Dragon Tamer, is an Old Couple. This is a team of Male and Female Experts who will challenge you to a double battle if you talk to them. These two here have some rather amusing dialogue where the wife claims they've settled all of their arguments with pokemon battles and the husband says he's never won a battle against her. You just have to appreciate the subtle jokes sometimes!

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

 

And it's up here that Sarlacc finally reached level 45 and evolved into Flygon! With this, I finally have the ability to fully customize my team!

 

Now, we can finally bring Behemoth out to play! And with this, most of my team's strategies will finally be realized! Don't worry, now that I've captured him, he's going to be a bit better behaved. No more world-ending droughts. Only self-contained in-battle droughts!

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

If you carefully make your way down the steppes, gravitating more toward the west side, you can make your way to the other side of the small pond and here you'll find yet another ladder that leads back to B1F.

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

From here, we can make our way up to yet another secret entrance.

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

Meteor Falls: Depths

This room looks totally unassuming. Much like the Scorched Slab from earlier, you might assume this place is just here for TM02: Dragon Claw, which you can find right on the other side of the pool of water. Since it only takes 6 chances for a wild encounter to get that TM and leave, it's rather easy to overlook the other thing that makes this room very special.

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

 

Bagon isn't a pseudo-legendary like Dratini, but it has many conceptual similarities to Dratini and can arguably be considered a fire-oriented counterpart! Much like how the Dratini line knows a lot of water moves but isn't actually a water-type, the Bagon line knows a lot of Fire-type moves but aren't actually fire-type. In addition, Bagon's final evolution is Dragon/Flying just like Dragonite, and they evolve into their middle and final stages at the same levels, too: 30 and 55! And, just like Dratini and Dragonair... Bagon and its evolution, Shelgon are pretty useless. 

Now, I should mention that, while I could grind Bagon out and squeeze it onto my team, I'm not going to. It's just too late in the game for me to be enthusiastic about fitting another pokemon onto my team and I might not even reach level 55 by the end of the game. I don't want a Shelgon on my team going into the Elite Four. I'd much rather go in with a fully-realized team. From this point forward, I won't be rotating my team out and I'll just be focusing on my main 6 with the obvious exception of HM-users. 

Anyway, Bagon itself is actually relatively common in this room. It's only a 25% rarity. It's just easily overlooked because it's only available in this one, tiny area of Meteor Falls. And this drove me insane as a kid who wanted a Salamence. Do you have any idea how many hours of my childhood I wasted searching for Bagon at the entrance to Meteor Falls because that's where my Ultimate Handbook told me to look for them in "Meteor Falls"?? I never would have guessed you'd have to find him here of all places. Thankfully, it's not some absurdly elusive 1% rarity pokemon or anything crazy like that. 

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

If we continue further past this room, we can make our way to another passage that leads back to the main area.

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

And here, in the south-east corner, we can find a PP Up which, I mean... is nice, but also a little anticlimactic considering this is at the end of such a dramatic dungeon with such a beautiful environment and ominous music. You would definitely expect to encounter a legendary here, wouldn't you? But no, not a single one of the legendary pokemon available in this game are even associated with this area! At least, not until ORAS which at least tries to tie it into one pokemon's story. 

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

Before we end off today, I also wanted to take note of Route 114 where we can find another waterfall. This one doesn't lead to anything too special, but you can get a Rare Candy up here!

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

Now, you might recall that this isn't the last of the waterfalls we have to explore, but the only other one I can think of is in an area with a special gimmick I've been holding off on. Depending on how much time I can buy, we may be heading there next...

[Aura]

Alrighty, so remember that dive spot on Route 134? Well, now that we've explored most of everything we can at the moment, I think now is a good time to focus on the rabbit hole this takes us down! Getting here might take a few tries if you're going in blind, but it's easy enough once you have an idea of where it is. Just stay low and when you get to the spot of shallow water just before it, start surfing from the center of the west edge. As long as you start off on the lower part of the route, it's mostly just a straight shot across. Just keep in mind that there are currents that push you away from the spot if you're too high or too low, so you wanna aim right for the center. These currents are offscreen which is why I specified to surf from the middle of the small island right before it. 

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

Once you've made it to this tiny dive spot and dive down, you'll find that there's a mysterious passage down here!

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

This leads to a... rather phallic looking ridge. We're... just going to chalk the curious shape up to coincidence and make our way to the end of the tunnel where we can find a very strange-looking inscription on the wall.

These dots are a visual representation of Braille. It's something somebody playing an RPG is likely to know how to interpret on their own, so this is an especially bizarre thing to find here. Imagine finding this as a child with no access to the internet. You would be absolutely mystified. If you try to surface from here...

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

Sealed Chamber

This... definitely isn't the ocean's surface. In this mysterious chamber, you can find many more inscriptions like the one down under. Inscriptions you cannot read, but if you're clever enough, you just might be able to recognize a pattern. From top left to bottom right, each of these walls spells out a portion of the alphabet in order. There are several layers to how one may have managed to piece this together back in the day, and the amount of problem solving I imagine some groups of friends went through to figure this mystery out must have rivaled even the Mew rumors. But thankfully a couple of years later, there was a much less convoluted solution to this puzzle.

Hidden away in the instruction manual for Pokemon FireRed and LeafGreen was this chart which I imagine for many may have retroactively unlocked secrets in their old game shortly after purchasing a brand new one. It's actually a pretty genius way to keep Ruby and Sapphire relevant and exciting even after the latest pokemon games' releases!

As we continue to use this Braille Chart to decipher messages from an ancient civilization, I think it's definitely going to evoke memories of the Ruins of Alph in Pokemon Crystal. There are many, many similarities here, though the use of Braille makes this one much, much more cryptic and, in my opinion, more memorable!

With this newfound knowledge, we can decipher the message from underwater which instructed us to "GO UP HERE." Furthermore, we can read the inscription on the back of the room which reads "DIG HERE." If we bring a pokemon that knows Dig, thankfully we got a TM for this from the Fossil Maniac's brother back on Route 114, we can use Dig here and, much like similar messages in the Ruins of Alph, the wall will collapse revealing a secret passage!

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

Sealed Chamber: Hidden Room

Here is where this mysterious chamber holds a bit more of an ominous tone if you didn't think it did already. In this room which seems to have been sealed away by some ancient civilization, we find more inscriptions that seem to tell the story of this chamber.

"IN THIS CAVE WE HAVE LIVED."

"WE OWE ALL TO THE POKEMON."

"BUT, WE SEALED THE POKEMON AWAY."

"WE FEARED IT."

"THOSE WITH COURAGE, THOSE WITH HOPE."

"OPEN A DOOR. AN ETERNAL POKEMON WAITS."

It's worth noting that the use of particles like "it" isn't really a factor, that was ad-libbed in the english translation. This is going to become relevant pretty soon as the pokemon this is referring to is kind of up for debate. It's unclear whether these messages are referring to a single pokemon or multiple pokemon. But it's quite possible this translation may have either inspired or been foreshadowing a pokemon we wouldn't see until the next generation. Either way, this story is rather mysterious. It seems whatever civilization left these messages once lived peacefully with this pokemon, but something about this pokemon frightened them, so they wound up sealing the pokemon away. The last two inscriptions seem to imply these messages were left to be discovered by someone with an adventurous spirit to free this "eternal pokemon" from its prison. The japanese version also says to "Have courage" and "Be full of hope," so that translation seems to imply that this is a journey that we'll need to strengthen our resolve for. It's unclear what this quest was left here for, but we're the ones who discovered it, so there must be something we can do.

At the very back of the chamber, there is one more inscription.

"FIRST COMES RELICANTH.
LAST COMES WAILORD."

Remember how I said a Wailord and Relicanth would be necessary soon? Well, here it is!

 

If we read this inscription with a Relicanth at the front of our party and a Wailord at the back, we'll hear a mysterious sound. It's described as the sound of a door opening in a distant place. 

I really love the use of Relicanth and Wailord here. I didn't consider this until reading up on Bulbapedia, but these two pokemon actually fit really nicely into the theming of Ruby and Sapphire and the relationship between the Land and the Sea. Relicanth is based on the real-world Coelicanth which is believed to be the closest living relative to the ancestor of all living vertabrates on land. Meanwhile, Wailord is obviously based on a Whale which are mammals who are believed to have returned to sea after adapting to life on land due to the presence of lungs and lack of gills. So in essence, between Relicanth and Wailord, we have a pokemon that came from the sea and adapted to life on land, and a pokemon that came from the land and adapted to life in the sea. 

But just what's the deal with this door? Well, I think we all have an idea. I've taken note of the familiar rock formation several times throughout Hoenn. I think now is a good time to take a look at these mysterious spots.

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

Route 111

That's right, now that we've opened the door to the sealed pokemon, the there are three chambers hidden throughout the region of Hoenn where we can find these mysterious doors suddenly open! The first of these chambers is in the desert. It's easiest to get here by flying to Lavaridge Town and traveling East.

Toward the southern reaches of the desert, we can find the Desert Ruins!

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

Desert Ruins

Inside these ruins is a seemingly empty room with yet another Braille inscription.

"RIGHT, RIGHT, DOWN, DOWN, THEN USE STRENGTH."

Seems simple enough. If we read these inscriptions and then follow their commands, moving right twice and then down twice, then using Strength, the seal will collapse and the door will open to the mysterious pokemon of myth.

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

Vs. Regirock Lv. 40

Regirock is an extremely physically defensive monster. It can also hit pretty hard as well, so you'll definitely want to watch out. You may want to take advantage of its high defense to help chip its health down.

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

 

All it took was a few hits from Bullet Seed to bring Regirock's health down to a reasonable catch range. It didn't take long though for it to take Seedling out with SuperPower, a really powerful fighting-type move that has the downside of reducing your attack and defense after using it. The trick to dealing with these beasts is to bait them into reducing their attack with SuperPower on some of your pokemon before sending out your more delicate ones which they'll now struggle with since they've softened their blows to plush standards. Just be wary though, because they also have Curse and AncientPower which can help boost their stats right back up.

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

 

Numa came next and after a bit of endurance, I was finally able to catch Regirock in an Ultra ball! 

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

Golem (Regirock); Lv. 40

 

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Rock Throw, Curse, SuperPower, AncientPower

It might come off as a lame nickname, being named after a generic pokemon, but I named Regirock "Golem" specifically after the anthropomorphized creatures created from clay in Jewish folklore. I thought it was too fitting of a name for what appears to be an automaton made out of rocks.

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

Route 105

The next cave we found was in the sea on Route 105 north of Dewford Town. It's pretty easy to get here either by flying to Dewford and surfing North or flying to Petalburg and surfing south from Route 104. Either way I believe it'll be about the same distance away. If you're annoyed by wild pokemon encounters at this point, there are some islands on the dewford side that you can hop between to reduce the tiles you have to risk encounters on. 

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

Island Cave

The inside of this chamber looks identical to the one we found Regirock in. The inscription is different, though.

"STOP AND WAIT. WAIT FOR TIME TO PASS TWICE."

In order to open this passage, you have to read this inscription and then stand perfectly still without pressing a single button for two whole minutes. This requirement is a bit worrying for someone with an internal battery, but thankfully for this puzzle, the game uses frame data rather than the internal clock to keep track of the amount of time that has passed. In hindsight, this makes sense. If it used the internal clock, you would be able to open the door while the game was off which could be done by accident and that could lead to confusion and sort of defeat the mystery of the whole thing. Let's just be thankful this inscription doesn't mean what I thought it did at first: Save the game and come back after 24 hours have passed. (That is, the current time has been passed twice, AM and PM, since you last moved).

In the sealed part of this chamber, we're met with another pokemon very similar to Regirock.

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

Vs. Regice Lv. 40

Regice is the specially-oriented counterpart to Regirock with a focus on special defense and a minor focus on special attack. Its physical attack is totally lacking, though, which is good for us considering its only special move right now is Power Snow. Still, don't underestimate this thing!

 

I started out with Numa. Eruption actually proved too powerful even for Regice's strong special defense, but it was able to take an Earthquake pretty decently before starting to pelt it with Ultra Balls. It was able to take out Numa after some struggling.

  

Behemoth, it was able to make quicker work of thanks to Powder Snow and Groudon's bizarre lack of Fire typing.

 

Thanks to Regice's reduced attack, Rarity was able to hold its own quite well. Unfortunately, the intense heat from Behemoth's Drought doesn't weaken ice attacks, though, so the permanent sunlight doesn't actually provide much here.

 

I brought Seedling out next for some free Fake Out damage. By this point, I was around 30 turns in and my Ultra Balls were running low, so I switched over to Timer Balls which max out at 30 turns at which point they're twice as powerful as an Ultra Ball. You can buy them at the mart in Rustboro City.

 

Against Marco, there wasn't much at all for Regice to do but spam Ancient Power in hopes of stat buffs. By this point, I finally managed to capture this thing in a Timer Ball!

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

Jotunn (Regice); Lv. 40

 

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Powder Snow, Curse, SuperPower, AncientPower

Since I named Regirock after a being from Jewish mythology, I decided to name Regice after something similarly associated with ice. I couldn't find any information on mythical creatures actually made of ice, so I settled on naming Regice Jotunn in reference to the Frost Giants from Norse Mythology. I thought that was quite fitting to pull from Norse mythology given the arctic theme of the pokemon in question.

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

Ah! The illusion is broken! There's no map of Route 120 from Ruby and Sapphire with the cavern open! I'll just have to take the lesser of two evils and go with the map from Ruby and Sapphire without the door open... just don't tell anyone. Our little secret!

The Ancient Tomb is located here on Route 120. The quickest way to this spot is to travel west from Lilycove City.

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

Inside, you guessed it, another inscription.

"WITH NEW TIME, HOPE AND LOVE, AIM TO THE SKY IN THE MIDDLE"

This one isn't too complicated. It has some padding around it that makes it seem more specific than it really is, but all that's important is that last bit. Stand in the center of the room and use Fly and the door opens. Easy as that!

On the other side, you find yet another pokemon like the other two.

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

Vs. Registeel Lv. 40

Registeel is the typical middleman of the other two. Its defenses are balanced out so this one can take quite a beating.

 

Numa was able to reduce Registeel's HP pretty easily with Earthquake. And once again the pokeballs came flying.

 

Seedling took Numa's place when she went down, Fake Out didn't do a whole lot but every bit helps!

 

Rarity was able to soak up a few hits.

 

And with a few timer balls at this point, I was able to capture Registeel with no problem.

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

Talus (Registeel); Lv. 40

 

Ability: Clear Body | Moves: Metal Claw, Curse, SuperPower, AncientPower

With the other two named after creatures from different mythologies, it only made sense to look elsewhere for the third option. And after a quick look around, the choice was very clear to name it after the Talus, which were bronze automatons from Greek mythology, similar to the Golems from Jewish lore. 

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

  

Now that we have the Legendary Titans freed from their prisons, I think it's time to go over my theory of, at least the original intent for their lore. Going off of the original Japanese inscriptions, I believe the inscriptions were referring to not one, but multiple pokemon, those being each of the three titans that were imprisoned around Hoenn. From what I understand of these inscriptions, it seems this ancient civilization once lived peacefully alongside the titans. However, some event caused them to fear the great power of these legendary monsters. If I had to guess, perhaps the titans started to behave erratically or violently. Maybe they began to fight with each other causing destruction to the surrounding environment. These pokemon seem immortal. They were locked away long enough for this entire civilization to be forgotten about and all of their pokedex entries, at least in Ruby, detail various ways these pokemon preserve themselves. Regirock finds new rocks if it's damaged, Regice can never melt, and Registeel doesn't seem to need to eat since no one knows what it eats. Considering the inscriptions in the Sealed Chamber said they owed their lifestyle to the pokemon, it seems that these titans may have been worshipped like gods. Perhaps they helped the ancient people to find shelter during the ancient battle between Groudon and Kyogre? The summit of Mt. Pyre has some mysterious architecture decorating it, although it lacks the iconic braille inscriptions or the six rock circle that seems to be the trademark of this ancient civilization. Still, I can't deny the possibility that the old couple watching over the Red and Blue Orb at the top of Mt. Pyre may very well be the descendants of this ancient civilization. 

Perhaps the inscriptions left inside the Sealed Chamber were made with the hopes that someone with a strong will would discover the inscriptions and pursue the titans with a love, understanding, and most importantly, strength to help bring these titans back under control so that they can live peacefully with people once again.

This is all very interesting, but to my knowledge, this one interpretation of the facts is entirely headcanon on my part. Still, this is the sort of thing I loved about Pokemon Crystal and I'm really happy to see this sense of mystery return for Ruby and Sapphire. Furthermore, if you want to interpret the inscriptions as referring to only one pokemon, it's quite possible that perhaps only one of the titans started to act erratically and was sealed away, thus angering the other two who would later be sealed in the same manner, but I think I like my first interpretation better. It just doesn't seem to make sense that they would seal one away, then go make an entirely separate chamber, then come back out and seal the other two in two completely separate chambers. 

The final theory, and the one that seems commonly accepted but I'm reluctant to agree with, is that the pokemon referred to here is just one pokemon, and that this place is foreshadowing Regigigas who would later be introduced in Diamond and Pearl. It's possible that perhaps they initially sealed Regigigas away in the Sealed Chamber, but then Regigigas mysteriously disappeared and the other three titans appeared only to be sealed away in a similar manner. I'm reluctant to believe this idea, though, because of how convoluted it is. I don't think Regigigas was even considered at the time as I imagine the Legendary Titans were designed to be a trio of legendaries as a Hoenn counterpart to the Legendary Birds of Kanto or the Legendary Beasts of Johto. Furthermore, while Regigigas is available in ORAS, its inclusion feels very tacked on which I think only adds credence to the idea that it was not an idea they had from the beginning. But again, I digress. The fun part of this whole mystery thing is that nobody knows the real answer, and headcanons like these are all we have to build off of!

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

Well, with three new legendaries under our belt, I think it's about time to move on. Again, I know there's some things we can still do, but I'll get back to those after I defeat the Champion. I'm handling things this way for a reason that will hopefully become clear soon after!

[Aura]

Now that we're done catching up on the rest of the world, it's finally time to bring our pokemon league journey to an end. Sailing east from Route 128, specifically from the ring of shallow water where the drought began, we can find our way to Ever Grande City, which is the Hoenn equivalent of Kanto's Indigo Plateau. In order to reach the main part of this "city," we'll need to ride up a waterfall. I would go ahead and put the map of the area up but, as you might expect, the map shows off a significant portion of the city that we cannot actually access just yet. All we can see of Ever Grande City from here is a single Pokemon Center surrounded by a serene meadow of flowers of various colors. 

At the northern boundary of this meadow, though, is the entrance to the foreboding Victory Road.

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Victory Road 1F

Now, let me tell you, Hoenn's Victory Road really set the standard for what to expect out of a final dungeon. This place is huge and very easy to get lost in. It has several branching paths, points of no returns, paths that loop back onto themselves, this whole dungeon is a mess. To top it all off, you're going to need at least two different HM-users to make your way through unless you just wanna navigate through the dark without Flash. You're going to need Flash, Strength, Rock Smash, and Surf, and you're also probably going to want Waterfall as well, though that last one's not technically required.

Here on the first floor, you really get a sense of the scope of this area. As you run around the lower part of the floor, you'll see all sorts of areas you can't access yet and you're already going to get a taste of some of the paths that loop back onto themselves. But this room is just baby talk compared to what you're going to be navigating the whole time. Oh, and let's not forget the obnoxious encounter rate. Of course, the whole way through, you'll be battling Cooltrainers with some really strong pokemon, too. As for the wild pokemon? Well, there's only one I was able to catch on this floor.

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That pokemon was Loudred, the evolution of Whismur.

 

It's already at the level necessary to evolve, so we can go ahead and make that happen!

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Believe me, I was able to encounter the others, but they were far more difficult to capture and they're more common on later floors anyway. We'll cover why that is in just a bit. But in addition to those annoying pokemon, you also have your Golbat which are scientifically engineered to be as annoying as all hell. They're rather fast and know Confuse Ray to Confuse you and make you hit yourself in the same turn, and Bite which can make you flinch, they're just bulky enough to be able to survive at least one hit from a non-super effective attack, they have Inner Focus which protects them from flinching thus rendering Seedling's Fake Out useless, and these ones happen to know Air Cutter which has an increased critical hit chance. And of course, as you've come to expect from caves, these are tied for the most common encounter on every single floor. You'll be dealing with a lot of these guys so come prepared or bring a lot of repels. 

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Victory Road B1F

As we make our way down a ladder from above, we find that the basement of Victory Road is extremely dark. You're probably going to want Flash if you're navigating this floor blindly because the majority of this dungeon is in the basement floors and if you don't have flash, the whole dungeon is going to feel even larger than it already is!

Down here on B1F, some of the encounter rates have peaked, so this is a good point to stop and hunt for them.

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First off, we have Hariyama. This pokemon is obnoxious to catch not because of a low catch rate, but because it knows whirlwind. Not only that, this makes it an incredibly frustrating pokemon to fight period. It's incredibly bulky so it's difficult to take it out in a single shot and it's very likely to just blow you away with Whirlwind. And to catch it, you of course have to intentionally weaken it without KOing it. Naturally, there are alternative solutions to this. You can put it to sleep or use Taunt to prevent it from using Whirlwind for a few turns, but you might not have pokemon capable of doing either of these things and using an entire TM just to teach one of your pokemon Taunt to catch a wild pokemon just seems like such a waste. 

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Don't worry, though, because Lairon will soon take the cake for most obnoxious pokemon to catch out of the wild. This thing is somehow both too bulky to weaken quickly and too fragile to hit hard. And, much like Hariyama, it can end the fight prematurely with its Roar attack. The same solutions that worked for Hariyama will work for Lairon, but due to its Steel/Rock typing, it's going to resist a lot of attacks really well, but most of the attacks it's weak to, it's really weak to and will almost certainly take it down in one shot. It's also rather lacking in special defense, so most special attacks will take it out as well. Your best bet for weakening this pokemon is to hit it with a strong Psychic attack. It resists psychic attacks, so it should be able to survive the attack with low HP. Then, just pray it doesn't respond with Roar.

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As you navigate through this floor, you'll quickly find you need both Strength and Rock Smash to progress, so I hope you heeded my warnings about the HM's! Don't forget to explore all the forks in the road to look for items because there are lots of useful items scattered around in here.

 

And of course, using Rock Smash allows us to encounter Graveler! And, you guessed it, these guys are capable of using SelfDestruct. Just when you thought you were done with the obnoxious pokemon to catch. Thankfully, this one can easily be circumvented since Geodude evolves at level 25.

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Victory Road B2F

Here on B2F, we can find the last new wild pokemon of Victory Road

 

Thankfully, Medicham isn't especially difficult to capture. It does have some issues, though. Namely, if it misses with Hi-Jump Kick, it'll crash and kill itself if it has low HP. But this is a rather rare occurence. For the most part, this pokemon should be relatively easy to catch compared to the others here.

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In addition to that last pokemon, this floor is where the dungeon starts to get really confusing. There is lots of jumping around between B1F and B2F with forks in the road everywhere. You constantly have access to multiple ladders at once and many areas look very similar to each other. By this point in the dungeon, you just might find yourself getting incredibly frustrated by wild pokemon encounters as well. If you have Waterfall, you can take a bit of a shortcut. If you don't have waterfall, you can still take the long way around, you'll probably want to take this route at least once anyway for trainers and items. In the northeastern corner of the floor, for example, you can find a ladder that leads to a portion of B1F where you can find TM29: Psychic just sitting there! For those who want to forego Waterfall since it's unneeded, Just be warned. In order to reach the end of the dungeon, you'll have to go down a Waterfall. If you don't have the HM on your team, this is a point of no return. If you want to escape the dungeon to return to a pokemon center, you will need to use an Escape Rope or Dig to get out. They really meant business with this dungeon's design. 

But, before we go down the waterfall in question, let's take a minute to explore this upper lake, because it's here that we can find an especially interesting NPC.

It's Cooltrainer Vito! Also known as Winstrate Vito! Remember the Winstrates from Route 110? This trainer right here is the super powerful older brother the family was bragging about, and as he battles us, this actually proves not to be a joke!

   

Cooltrainer Vito has a really powerful team of extremely fast and strong pokemon. You really don't want to underestimate him, especially with an exhausted and compromised team. Vito is by far the most powerful of the Cooltrainers here on Victory Road. But he's definitely not the most powerful trainer here. As we progress through the rest of the cave, we start to hear rumors of a really powerful kid from Petalburg City making his way around the cave. I think I have an inkling of just who that might be...

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After making our way through the confusing labyrinth of Victory Road, we finally reach the end! But as we start to approach the exit...

We're stopped in our tracks by Wally, who challenges us to a rematch with the promise that will not lose this time! Wally's changed a lot since he started his pokemon journey and we can really see that in him, now! I kind of wish he had a more prominent role in the story, because as a kid, I kinda completely forgot about him after Mauville City. 

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Vs. PKMN Trainer Wally #2

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Altaria Lv. 44

He lead off with an Altaria! Definitely a powerful pokemon to lead off with. If he gets Dragon Dance set up, you're basically done for right there.

 

This was probably one of the worst possible matchups for my lead, Behemoth, but a few Slashes and Altaria just couldn't hold up.

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Roselia Lv. 44

When his follow up was Roselia... well... yikes. 

 

It was pretty clear at this point, I had a rather clean sweep set up. Roselia had no chance against Behemoth's solar-charged Fire Blast. 

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Delcatty Lv. 43

 

Delcatty was next but since Groudon is genderless, Delcatty was also rather helpless against Behemoth.

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Magneton Lv. 41

 

...This one went about as well as you'd expect.

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Gardevoir Lv. 45

 

And as much as I'd love to say his Gardevoir was able to slay the beast... yeah, it wasn't. It, too, went down to a single Earthquake. I really, truly, did not intend to completely sweep Wally's entire team, but by this point in the game, my pokemon were just too powerful for him. My pokemon are all averaging around level 47 and 48 at this point, so I imagine most of my pokemon would have had this same result. I don't think I got this sweep purely because of Groudon's status as a legendary pokemon. 

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After defeating Wally, he thanks us for inspiring him and promises that he'll continue to grow stronger so that he can defeat you one day. This is a really interesting dynamic and it honestly really makes me wish that Wally was your rival instead of the opposite gender character. Wally has a significantly more interesting story than May and we haven't even seen May at all recently outside of a single optional battle at Lilycove City. She really just kind of appears and disappears at random. It's strange...

Well, leaving Wally to his training, we can finally advance through the exit of Victory Road.

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

Ever Grande City

We've finally arrived at the northern edge of Ever Grande City and this moment of anticipation really overwhelms me with nostalgia. Although I was playing Sapphire version, the mood still fits. I distinctly remember the excitement and anticipation I had knowing I was about to face off against the Elite Four with my own team of pokemon for the very first time in my life. And now, over 10 years later, I'm back here again with much more experience and knowledge under my belt. Next time, we challenge the Elite Four.