All the Pokemens

[Aura]

Starting up today, it seems that Nibble has taken it upon himself to invite some friends over to watch TV! I guess they've already watched Part 1 and are on Part 2! I guess Pokemon really do enjoy this thing, huh?

Nibble soon says goodbye to his friends and we check the report channel.

Prof. Oak comments on how Nibble has completely settled into our home, but then tells us that Smeargle 2 has now been upgraded and we can use it on any channel! We just might have to finally suffer through the woes of artistry one more time...

As per usual, Delibird came by to deliver our order from the previous day: A Poliwag doll and a Lapras Doll. 

In the garden, our plants have finally bore fruit! We can share the fruit with a local pokemon. In this case, Treeko!

Back at the Campsite, Togepi seems to have been replaced with Magby! The sky is still cloudy, though, so no stargazing, still.

Magby's question is another choose the most absurd statistic question.

Back at Coastal Cove, I did a little bit of fishing and managed to catch another Remoraid. This time I didn't misclick and got its card.

At Mt. Snowfall, we can find Espeon!

This is another question that seems to be written more for comedic purposes rather than actually being a genuine question.

We can also find that there's now a second snowball! Now our snowman might not look so lonely!

After rolling the snowball around a bit, Nibble manages to but the foundation for a cute little snowman!

After calling Nibble's attention back to it, he finishes it by decorating the face! The little snow pikachu is cute!

Yeah, unfortunately since I'm only able to play pretty late once again, there's not much new I can really do. I'd really like to play in the early morning but that doesn't seem like it's gonna be possible anytime soon. I might come back and do a bit of a retroactive cleanup. If you're following along, let me know if you'd like to see that or if you'd just rather I move along!

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

Of course, we have some new shows, but first thing's first, we've gotta catch up on some of our old channels. I usually do this offscreen because not much exciting really happens here, it's just for consistency's sake. At this point, our daily checklist is rather simple: Guess on the Egg, Play through a full show of Quiz Wobbuffet, and watch some Shop 'N Squirtle. As long as we do this every time, we should have no shortage of income.

As for the egg, though, this is the second white egg that's appeared. I assumed previously that Goldeen's egg was white because it was like a pearl, but now I'm not so sure. It isn't out of the realm of possibility that the eggs are white due to an emulation error. The egg pattern didn't really seem to fit any of these pokemon, so I just went with Lapras as an arbitrary guess.

From Shop 'N Squirtle, I bought another Nice Cards pack, a Friendship Poster, and a Shroomish Frame. The Shroomish Frame will go around our painting. We can't allow such art to go unframed, after all!

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

Now for our new shows! Once again, we have four including the next part of Pichu Bros. In Party Panic! Let's work our way down the list, shall we?

Mareep Farm is the first of our new shows.

It's a show about... counting... sheep... Yup, you've got that right. This is the entire show.

Time actually does pass while you're painting, so I decided to take this opportunity to show off the new Smeargle 2 upgrade! It works... about as well as you'd expect!

Here it is! "Duality of Man!" Surely this one will get my art career off the ground!

In the time that it took me to make that painting, 26 Mareep had jumped the fence and Snorlax had fallen asleep. If you watch this uninterrupted long enough, Pikachu will predictably fall asleep as well.

Once 50 Mareep have jumped the fence, the show is marked "To be continued," what a riveting cliffhanger. I wonder what's gonna happen next!

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

The next show is Chum Chum Ranking, which Nibble does not seem to be very excited about.

And he really has reason not to. It's just a statistics channel.

To start off, Smoochum ranked 5 pokemon off of what seems to be a totally arbitrary points system.

There are also surveys. In this case, Electric or Rock type?

It seems that, among pokemon, Rock type is the more popular answer.. I find that hard to believe, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

And then there's.... my secrets??? I don't recall ever signing off on this! ...maybe it was part of that contract I signed at the beginning of the game? Dang...

This section just lists three arbitrary statistics about you. In this case, how many times I've visited Mt. Snowfall and Cobalt Cove as well as how many times I've used Smeargle 2. I'm a little uncomfortable that this TV station knows so much about me and is broadcasting it on live TV...

Next up is Odd One Out!

This is another quiz show that is entirely luck based. You'll have to guess whether there will be an odd or even number of pokemon and the longer it takes you to guess, the less the prize will be. Since it's down to luck no matter what, you're better off just arbitrary choosing right away.

After you place your guess, other pokemon will line up to be paired off.

They'll walk off in pairs to reveal if there's an odd one out.

If you guess correctly, then you can go double or nothing! I'm not the type to press my luck on things like this so I think I'll just take my 45p and go.

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

PIchu Bros.: In Party panic! -- Part 4

Now it's time for the next edition of Pichu Bros!

The party is all coming together and Meowth is proud of how it's all worked out!

Cubone gets excited and accidentally falls over, knocking over some of the tables.

This, of course, makes Meowth angry and he yells at Cubone.

Of course, this gets the reaction you would expect from the timid little guy.

So, Meowth tries to cheer him up by telling him he'll have the Squirtle clean it up and that he can just keep on doing his thing.

Of course, Cubone gets excited again and starts jumping around.

The Squirtle Squad all work together to clean the mess up one item at a time which of course causes Meowth to yell at them since they're running out of time!

Back at the Pichu Posse's clubhouse, the pokemon are all sad that they've lost the invitation they were chasing after, but that's when they hear Pichu's voice!

The Pichu Bros. return and, look what they have! It's the invitation!

The other pokemon are ecstatic to see the invitation in the Pichu's hands! These little guys never fail to impress!

But their celebration is short lived as Smoochum arrives with the sad Oddish from before. She explains that the Oddish had lost its invitation because it got blown away in the wind!

The Pichu with the invitation hides it behind his back, but his brother insists he give it back.

It takes some convincing, but he decides it's the right thing to give the invitation to its rightful owner.

Oddish happily runs off, carefully clutching the invitation between its leaves this time!

The Pichu feel great about helping the Oddish, but quickly realize that they just gave up the invitation they've chased all over town and now they're right back to square one. It's then that they hear something coming around the corner...

It's Azumarill! And he's holding a balloon?

On closer inspection, the Pichu Bros. notice what's tied at the end of the balloon: Invitations!!

Apparently, Azumarill was supposed to deliver invitations to every pokemon in the city, but had somehow managed to forget about the Pichu Posse's clubhouse.

The posse is ecstatic that they each finally get their own invitations! But when Azumarill goes to hand over the invitations...

The balloon escapes his hand!!

There it goes!

The brothers watch the balloon in dismay and quickly try to think of a plan.

One of them then spots a nearby balloon and gets an idea!

With the help of the other pokemon, they all gather supplies!

With some hard teamwork, they pull a large sheet together with a basket.

And then, using Magby's Flame, they've created a hot air balloon!

The brothers hop in as the balloon starts to take off.

The invitations got stuck on a pole, so all hope isn't lost!

It's a rollercoaster of emotion for the posse as they watch their friends go through this dangerous operation.

Because of the swaying of the hot air balloon, it's difficult to reach the invitations!

Finally, they manage to grab it and the scene fades to white!

We cut back to Meowth and the gang who are standing on top of the roof once again overlooking the sunset. It's almost time for the party to start!

With the party started, all the pokemon of the city are gathered together and enjoying the delicious fruit.

The posse enters the fray!

Immediately, they're blocked off by the Squirtle Squad, but...

Every single one of them shows their invitation!

The Squirtle Squad happily steps aside and allows the posse to join in on the fun!

Everyone begins chowing down on some delicious fruit while the Squirtle Squad start to take their leave.

It's almost time for Meowth's show to start!

Soon, Meowth makes an announcement over the intercom for everyone to make their way to the next room.

They all listen and follow along. What kind of show does Meowth have in store?

Of course, the Pichu posse isn't far behind at all.

And then, in a very bizarre change of pace, the game switches to a pre-rendered 3D cutscene in an artstyle you may or may not recognize from a certain tech demo...

Meowth hops off his chair, announces that they've gotta get going for the show, and he and Wobbuffet both make their way out the door.

This is where Part 4 ends. Definitely a bizarre ending... I wonder what will happen in part 5?

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

Well, today was a rather short update. Due to the time I was able to get around to playing, there unfortunately wasn't much new I was able to explore out of here. I think we only have one more day before the end of the game, so it won't be too much longer!

[Aura]

Today, things started off with a very different tone! A breaking news broadcast from PNF!

A Program Disc has gone missing?

We can see a recording of how the disc went missing here.

Blaziken entrusted the disc to Magnemite to deliver to the broadcast center.

Magnemite accepts the task and flies off with the disc.

But shortly after, something goes wrong!

Magnemite reports back to Blaziken with the unfortunate news before being sent off to find it.

It seems that Pichu Bros. Part 5 was supposed to make its debut today, but it will have to be postponed until that program disc is retrieved!

He suggests that the disc may have fallen into Mt. Snowfall and asks if we could help to find the disc. It's a rather convenient location, so why don't we see if we can help?

Oh! And of course, Betray Of The Eye was sold for 98 p! Again, apparently the value of art really is in the eye of the beholder.

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

The stuff we bought yesterday came in the mail including our Nice Card pack which contained a Machop Motion card as well as singles for Lanturn, Squirtle, Zubat, and Cloyster.

We've finally hit 50 Nice Cards, so now Prof. Oak rewards us with the Prime Binder which can hold up to 101 cards.

Of course, the new card binder can be found right where we left it.

Just like before, this one comes with cards for many more TV hosts. 

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

As you can probably tell from the shot of Magnemite earlier, I was able to play the game earlier in the day today, a little past noon. Because of this, we should be able to find quite a few new pokemon hanging around.

Checking back on my garden, we can find that the plants have died. As far as I could tell, there was no way to water them after eating their fruit, so I'm just going to assume this is inevitable.

In Springleaf Field, there's quite a lot of pokemon running around! Duskull here also looks a bit troubled, so first let's see what he wants.

Ah, so he just wants a ball! Well it just so happens we know exactly where that will be!

Retrieving the ball form the hole, we can give it to Duskull.

Duskull is glad to receive the Ball and will offer a lamp of his likeness as thanks. Not quite sure what this can be used for right now, but maybe it'll come in use later?

Eevee's next with another Pokedex trivia question! Its body composition changes in response to its environment!

Wynaut's question is another matter of process of elimination.  Tag and Hide-and-Seek don't really have anything to do with the move Counter, so Mashing against each other must be the answer. I wouldn't be shocked if this is also lifted from his pokedex entry in Ruby or Sapphire.

Nibble also managed to find a Four-Leaf Clover! He gave it to me as a gift.

The Four-Leaf Clover will be placed up on the windowsill in our room as a cute little nic-nack.

At the Bus Stop, we can find Mr. Mime!

Of course, Mr. Mime doesn't like its Pantomiming being interrupted!

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

It's raining in Viridian Forest! This was a weather condition I was starting to get worried we wouldn't see.

We the Magnemite cameraman here to record another show with the local residents Gloom and Bellsprout. But we're more interested in them!

Gloom's honey is incredibly sweet, but the anime heavily implied that Gloom typically smells awful. I was actually a bit conflicted on the answer to this question but went iwth the guess that Gloom does like it and indeed, this was true!

Another pun question, Mandrake is obviously the right answer.

If we look over here, we can find that there are different types of mushrooms growing.

Nibble hasn't learned his lesson and decides he wants to roast these.

Naturally, he wen to eat it shortly after. 

This one seemed to be good! I guess he's going to continue down this road of eating random mushrooms in the woods...

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

At Cobalt Coast, we found Exeggutor!

Of course, Exeggutor's head transforms into Exeggcute, but I can see the logic of it turning into a Togepi. That could actually be an interesting relation between two pokemon...

If we look around the beach a bit, we can find that someone seems to have played Tic-Tac-Toe here!

Seeing this, Pikachu decides he wants to play with you!

The game didn't last very long...

Nibble is not very happy about how the game went, but I don't hold back!

I decided to ease the tension a bit with some more fishing...

I found Krabby who naturally releases bubbles from his mouth when he's in danger.

Corsola's branches become treasures when they fall off!

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

Finally it's time to make our way to Mt. Snowfall

I don't know if there's a person who knows what Pokemon is that doesn't know that Jigglypuff makes you sleepy when she sings.

Over to the far right of the area, though, we can find a new sign pointing us toward the Ruins of Truth!

There are lots of different pokemon hanging around here which give this place a rather menacing aura.

Getting caught in Koffing's gas definitely doesn't sound like a pleasant experience. You'll never be able to stop your tears!

Weezing's is another pokedex reference. I recall his pokedex entry mentioning that his gasses can be used to make perfumes!

Misdreavus is a prankster, she loves to cause mischief!

Gengar isn't here to give us a Nice Card, though. He's here to block our way into the ruins! Thankfully, it seems that Duskull Lamp from before can be put to use here...

The light fromt he lamp scares Gengar off, allowing us access to the ruins.

But now it's time to make our way inside...

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

Inside, it is predictably rather dalk, but it almost gives off the vibe of an empty void.

Looking around a little bit, we find a couple of strange-looking flowers.

Interacting with the flowers gives Pikachu the idea of using Electricity.

After shocking the flower, it begins to glow! It naturally follows to use the same process on the next one.

Once both of the lights are lit, a new sign appears allowing us to go deeper into the dark ruins.

As we go deeper into the ruins, we find this mysterious altar with a giant O and X. An ancient tablet on the altar offers us a riddle.

This is actually a question I could see some people messing up on. Even I wasn't totally confident in the answer I provided. But Pikachu doesn't sense anything with its electric pouches. It only uses its pouches to generate electricity. I wasn't confident in this answer, though, because it wouldn't have surprised me if Pikachu had the ability to sense nearby sources of electricity with its pouches and, technically, you probably could use its pouches to find electricity which could be argued as a form of "sensing."

Anyway, after pressing the right button, the torches surrounding the altar light up and the altar sinks into a hole below.

In its place, a large Golbat statue emerges from the pit!

It seems like an extremely dangerous idea to just jump right into the mouth of a mysterious statue in search of treasure in an ancient ruin, but Nibble seems to have no problem doing so.

Pikachu does end up getting stuck in the statue and you'll have to wiggle the control stick to get him out!

Eventually, he comes out and-- what's that? It's the missing Program Disc! What's it doing here??

It's definitely a bizarre place to find the disc, but we know what to do from here! Let's give the statue back to Magnemite!

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

Once we got home, Nibble developed an interest in learning how to change channels. That is the face of a monster who is about to obtain his final form.

It doesn't take long at all for Pikachu to become obsessed with changing the channels. Every opportunity he gets, he'll suddenly start pestering me to let him play with the channel buttons! I can't watch any shows like this!

Eventually, he does manage to settle down enough to let me watch the Weather channel. It's still early in the day, so I wanted to get the most out of the day by letting the weather change. At Mt. Snowfall, the weather became clear! So, back there we go!

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

We found Sunkern and Cleffa out here.

Sunkern only has leaves to defend itself. It has no hair and if it had a Sun Stone, why wouldn't it be evolved?

Cleffa is said to have arrived from space, so a shooting star is the most obvious choice.

Back outside the ruins, we can find Cubone!

No one's ever seen Cubone's face because it wears a skull, of course.

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

Back home, I purchased some more items from Shop 'N Squirtle: Another Nice Card Pack, a Machop doll, and Gray Wallpaper!

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

You may have noticed it already, but there's only one new show today and that is PIchu Bros. In Party Panic part 5, the final part!

This time, however, while I don't have the entire episode, I do have something to share here. This is the beginning of the episode. It's in the same 3D art style as the end of Part 4. However, I could only find the italian version of this. That said, it is just a song and the english version of the song can be found on its own as part of the game's OST! I'll link the song in the video below if you're curious about the lyrics in english. It features the voices of Jessie and James of Team Rocket singing along! 

Again, I'm sure these videos probably won't last, so I'll still post screenshots below in addition to the videos.

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

Pichu Bros.: In Party Panic! -- Part 5

The show begins with a close-up of the Pichu Bros swinging on a swig suspended overhead.

The camera zoom out to show the rest of the Pichu Posse standing on top of Skiploom holding the swing in place.

The camera pans down to show the party below with all the pokemon cheering for Meowth to come on stage.

Meowth soon makes his appearance rocking a bright red guitar!

Meowth runs around the stage pressing switches to cause various special effects to happen. 

He'll also jump into the audience and interact with various audience members. This is perhaps the most interesting part of the episode because Meowth's movements are actually random here! Every time you watch the show he'll interact with a different set of audience members who will all display a unique animation. All of these models are ripped from Stadium and so too are their basic animations, but some of them, like Sudowoodo involve special props.

Eventually, Meowth steps on a tile that warps him to the top  of the stage.

This gives the Squirtle Squad their chance to dance along.

Meowth takes a slide down to the lower part of the stage.

He finishes the song and the screen fades to black.

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

The scene fades right back into the familiar anime aesthetic, thank god, because this looks so much more natural.

On the roof of the building, Meowth is preparing a big finale to his party: A fireworks show!

Wobbuffet pushes the lever, but Meowth is disappointed to find that the fireworks seem to be a dud.

Rather annoyed, he approaches the fireworks wondering what was going on before...

Come on, there was only one direction you could have expected this scene to go. Looks like Meowth is blasting off again!

From the ground, the Pichu posse stops to see the show overhead. 

It's a spectacular sight to behold!

With an overhead view of the city, the screen slowly fades to black.

And that's the end of the special episode of Pichu Bros.

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

Now, remember how I said the aesthetic of the 3D segments may have seemed familiar for some people? Well, that's because this party scene has a bit of a history.

At Space World 2001, this tech demo was played to promote the upcoming GameCube! It used many models from Pokemon Stadium 2, Meowth playing a red guitar, the Squirtle Squad, many pokemon on screen at once. Many people thought this to be an upcoming Pokemon spinoff.

I'm unsure if this footage is from the same show at SpaceWorld, perhaps as part of a clip show, or if it was leaked, but I was able to find this footage on YouTube as well which seems to be the same runder under clearer lighting and different camera angles. 

The evidence is rather clear that this final part of Pichu Bros. was likely designed around this tech demo. It's unclear if Pokemon Channel was under development at the time, but considering this was the first 3D Pokemon game on the Gamecube, second only to a glorified software app, I'm inclined to believe this is something somewhat different. Again, I'm gonna hold off on explaining my thoughts on this until a certain game in the near future, but I'll be really enthusiastic about doing so!

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

After sending in our report, Prof. Oak announces that every program is finally on air and he thanks us and Nibble for our contributions. As thanks, he also tells us that he's preparing a special gift just for us which will be available tomorrow!

On our way out, Nibble has fallen asleep on the top of the dresser.

He wakes up and groggily waves goodbye at us...

...and then immediately falls back asleep. I totally get you, Nibble.

Let's leave Nibble to his rest and say goodnight. We've got one more day left and I hope to do some cleanup. There are a few things I was hoping we'd get the chance to do during our playthrough but it doesn't seem likely we'll be able to at this point. I imagine we'll probably be doing one more day than necessary. While I'm excited to move on to some of the upcoming games, I want to stress that I really don't want to just burn through these games for the sake of completion. I really do want to take my time and enjoy them as I go by and as many jabs as I've been making at this game, it definitely holds a soft spot in my heart. There may not be a whole lot to the game, but I used to love having my own pet Pikachu as a kid and I can't tell you how many times I used to watch the Pichu Bros. short just to use Smeargle 2 to paint the perfect frames and I loved all the little discoveries you could make.

I'm getting all sentimental again, but we've still got another day to go! So I'm gonna cut myself off before I finish writing another essay here!

[Aura]

Starting up on day 6, we're met with Pikachu sleeping on our bed!

Of course, he wakes up and greets us groggily once again.

Prof. Oak tells us that the gift he's been preparing, the Star Projector, is nearing completion and that a certain pokemon has been sent to get you.

Right on cue, the mythical pokemon Jirachi makes an appearance!

He'll take us straight to Camp Starlight for our surprise!

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

When we arrive, we can see the massive Star Projector in the background of the camp!

With the Star Projector up and running, we can sit back and watch the show they have prepared for us!

The Star Projector turns around and the camera pans upward into the starry sky.

Soon, the projector turns on and a familiar image starts to appear on the starry sky.

It's part 1 of PIchu Bros. In Party Panic!

As the credits roll, the special will play out in its entirety!

All five parts will be played in a marathon back to back, so you're gonna be along for the ride for quite a while. But it is kind of nice to have it all lined up neatly into one cohesive story like this! The short as a whole is cute and funny enough to be an enjoyable watch, I think, so I really don't mind this finale.

As you reach the end, a falling star will shoot past in the sky. It disappears rather quickly, though, so unfortunately I couldn't get a screenshot with the star visible. But it's yet another neat touch.

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

The game isn't completely over yet just because we've seen the credits, though. This post would be much too short compared to the others! Right now, I want to cover the other things we can find.

Starting up the game again, we find that Togepi is waiting outside our house! Letting him in, he'll give us a program disc for Pichu Bros. In Party Panic: Hosted by Kasumi! In case you're unaware, Kasumi is the Japanese name for Misty, as you can probably infer from the art on the disc. I imagine they considered trying to get the english voice for Misty to replace this as a dub, but it wasn't in the budget for the localization.

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

It's raining in Springleaf, so that means we can find a new pokemon! Hoppip is in the yard.

Hoppip are easily blown away in the wind, so it makes sense that they'll cluster up to keep that from happening.

You're going to want to check the Wooden Box here every day starting now if you're interested in completing the game. From what I understand, you can randomly find two more Program Discs for different versions of the Pichu Bros. special. It's nothing really worth going out of your way to get, but it's nice to have all the programs available. Unfortunately, they seem to appear randomly, so I didn't get either of them today. Just found a banana.

In the front yard, we can find Totodile!

Totodile loves to bite things that move in the anime, so Movement makes the most sense to me!

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

In Viridian Forest, under the clear sky, we can find Raichu!

Raichu discharges electricity by digging its tail into the ground! That's where electricity naturally travels!

At Mt. Snowfall, we can find two more new pokemon outside the ruins: Crobat and Vulpix.

How many wings does Crobat have? I mean... he's right there in the background...

Vulpix's is actually a little tricky. It's a little known fact that baby Vulpix is born blonde with a single tail that darkens and splits into six as it matures. I can see some people getting confused and thinking this is a trick question since Ninetails is lighter in color.

If we make our way further into the ruins, we can find a new riddle in place!

Sudowoodo is, of course, a Rock-type that is easily mistaken for a Grass-type, so the answer is false!

For getting the riddle correct, we earn the Platinum Golbat card!

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

I tried to watch a lot of Shop 'N Squirtle today to see if I could get a few certain items, but I was completely unaware that there was a limit to how many items you could order in a day! Unfortunately, I bought a bunch of junk because I have a problem...

Don't worry though, because I have a plan to showcase some of the missing content we haven't covered yet! There's a little bit more to talk about!

As for that new Program Disc, it's exactly what it sounds like! This is the Japanese version of Pichu Bros. In Party Panic but narrated by the Japanese voice actress for Misty! I could be mistaken, but I believe she has extra lines over the normal narrator, narrating the story more like a storybook. The songs are also subtitled in romanized Japanese, so you can sing along to the Japanese lyrics if you like. As someone who's self-teaching Japanese, it's always nice to have resources like this to help understand!

The other two program discs you can get by checking the Wooden Box are a disc for the full English version which we watched during the credits, as well as the full Japanese version. As you might expect, these languages differ between regions. They're swapped in Japan and I think the Spanish version of the game has the Italian version as its foreign language version? 

Anyway, I know this probably hasn't been the most exciting game for me to cover, but we have one more post to come where we'll be covering the rest of the miscellaneous content we haven't had the chance to show! There isn't much so it's not going to be a particularly long session, thankfully. Until next time!

[Aura]

Today we'll be doing our cleanup on Pokemon Channel! We've already seen just about everything the game has to offer, but here we're going to be showing off all the optional stuff we missed during our playthrough. No, I didn't sit down and grind out to get everything in the last 24 hours, this cleanup will be coming to you courtesy of a save downloaded off of GameFAQS by a user named Batwing321! This save file is nearly 100% completed with only a few minor items missing, namely a small handful of platinum Nice cards.

One of the most significant things this save has to offer is some of the game's e-Reader content! You may have noticed on the boxart that earlier copies of this game came bundled with a set of e-Reader cards which could be scanned into the game by connecting your e-reader to your GBA and your GBA to your Gamecube using the adaptor. By scanning e-Reader cards, you could unlock special content within the game including new colors and patterns for painting with Smeargle 2, as well as special lineart that you could color in as well! Unfortunately, I don't think this save includes any of said Lineart. It's probably something that simply pops up as soon as you scan it and doesn't actually get saved unless you save it over the portrait in your room.

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

I've already mentioned that, by hitting the "special" button on the title screen you can watch the Pichu Bros. short without interruption, but there's a little more to this than I let on.

If you press start at any point during the show, you can more easily paint a particular frame. You can also press L or R to rewind or fastforward through a scene which should further help you get to just the right scene. Additionally, you can seemlessly change the language between English and Japanese, though if you want to hear Kasumi's narration, you'll have to watch from inside the game.

As for those new colors and patterns, you can access them easily enough by pressing up or down on the control stick while selecting your color. There are 30 new colors and patterns in all! Considering the distinct lack of secondary tones in the default set of colors, these can really help you make a decent-looking image. The special patterns can also help you make a rather blank-looking area a bit more interesting as well, but I kind of think it just looks tacky. Then again, you're gonna have a hard time using this limited color pallet to make anything that doesn't look tacky.

Shield your eyes because this is the monstrosity I created to show you all the different patterns available to us! Well, it's not all of them, but you get the general idea from this. No, I'm not saving this.

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

hat Jumping into the game, we can see that there are many, many items we were missing. There are many dolls stacked on the shelves next to the TV.

More dolls can be found in the cupboards along with a Snorlax doll in the corner opposite of Lapras.

More dolls are in the little alcove in front of the bed and you may have noticed that even the wallpaper is different! All of the dolls in this game are from Gen 1 and 2 pokemon because, of course, they lifted the models for the dolls straight from Pokemon Stadium 2. Strangely, some were omitted, though. I guess they just couldn't find an appropriate place that wouldn't leave the room feeling cluttered?

Lastly, there are more posters hanging beside the bed and a Gengar Doll is here as well.

It seems that whoever made this save was actually able to make a rather beautifully drawn picture! I must say I'm impressed! With the limited color pallet and broken functionality, it's really difficult to make something like this work.

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

Here are the logos for the last two channels we were missing before: The Full version of Pichu bros. and the Japanese version! No need to watch these through since we've already seen them.

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Remember how we could change TV's freely? Well, it turns out there are a LOT more options than I expected and it's more than just surface-level, too. Many TV's directly alter the way the image on the screen is displayed, much like how the Retro TV displayed the screen in Black and White. Why don't we go down the list and look at each one?

The Aipom Tv seems to be a standard TV that just happens to be shaped like an Aipom.

The Hoothoot TV is displayed in a deep green filter as if you're watching in night vision.

The Hoppip TV projects clouds onto the screen. It's actually rather distracting to say the least. The clouds will scroll from one side to the other.

The Lanturn TV projects a spotlight that moves around the screen.

The Magnemite TV seems to be another standard one that's just looks like a Magnemite.

The Marill TV adds a rain effect to the screen.

Pikachu clearly isn't much of a fan of the Meowth TV. This was an unexpected but rather hilarious touch!

The TV itself is pretty standard, though.

The Mudkip TV is next. Similarly to the Marill TV, it projects a faint waterfall effect over the screen.

The Old TV has a typical CRT curve to it.

The Pikachu TV is the most expensive item in the game, going for a whopping 500p, but PIkachu seems to really like having a TV to his likeness.

The Pokeball TV is another standard one.

The Smoochum TV has a bright pink filter overlaying the screen, and Pikachu begins doing his aerobics in response to it.

The Stage TV is a fun one. While it's off, the curtains are closed, and it opens up whenever the TV is turned on.

The Stump TV has a cute Togepi sitting on top of it. This one is probably my favorite of the TV's. Apparently Pikachu wants to explore the inside! Let's hope he... doesn't.

The Sudowoodo  TV has a small Sudowoodo sitting on its right. The TV itself displays a sepia tone.

The Sunkern TV is huge! It has adds bright yellowish tint to the screen.

The Voltorb TV almost comes off as a joke. The only difference between it and the Pokeball TV is that it doesn't have that black line dividing the red and white. Voltorb's face is on the back of the TV, but you can't actually see that outside of the PokePad.

The Wooper TV looks really cute at first, but then you turn it on and....

Ooh... my god...

The Wynaut TV  displays a rainbow filter over the screen.

With how many TV's there are, I'm surprised it took all the way until the last day for me to ever find a single TV on sale. Then again, with how many dolls there are, I suppose it shouldn't be too much of a surprise.

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

Our main focus today will be here at this desk, though. But we've got one more pit stop before we get to that.

As I said before, this save came with a nearly full set of Nice Cards with a few minor exceptions. Thankfully, the game only requires you to collect at least one of the three rarities of each species in order to consider it a full set, though some rarities are missing. Once you have one pokemon of each of the 101 species, you'll be gifted with a set of 9 special Pikachu cards!

These 9 Pikachu cards are all based on his various animations and expressions throughout the game.

Last but not least, the main reason I wanted to download this save is because I wanted access to this! Pokemon Channel comes with a collection of Pokemon mini titles. With the Pokemon mini you can find in the beginning of the game, you start with one game: Snorlax's Lunchtime. However, there were five other titles that have a chance of showing up randomly on Shop N Squritle and we're going to play them all!

Of course, some of these will look familiar. Three of these games are ports from Pokemon Party mini, but there are also two new games that we unfortunately couldn't play before but can retroactively experience here, at least to a limited extent. I'll explain more about that when we get there. 

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

The first of these returning games is Slowking's Judge

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

The next is Chansey's Dribble

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

And the last is PIkachu's Rocket Start.

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

The first of these games we were previously unable to complete is Pokemon Pinball mini petit. This is essentially a demo version of the full game. It's not quite the same as playing the full title, but it's the best I can do and, I'll be honest, I'm not exactly hurting to play more mini titles.

As we can see from the menu of this game, the only mode we have access to is Quest.

Additionally, only the first 10 stages are available. Beyond that, your data doesn't save here.

This game really has very little to do with Pinball at all. Instead of heaving two paddles to hit the ball with, you only have a single diglet and there's no hole at the bottom of the board for the ball to fall through. Instead, your goal is to sink the ball into the holes at the other side of the board within the given time limit. Let me tell you that, without two paddles on either side, this is a really difficult task to accomplish. I already suck at Pinball, so this handicap makes this game nearly impossible. Thankfully, I don't have to play every single level.

This first level features three holes in a rather confined area, making it pretty easy to figure out what's expected of you.

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

The second stage features two pockets on a split path just beyond some rocks that will collapse if you hit them hard enough.

Level 3 is much like level 1 but with the pockets much higher up.

Level 4 features four pockets surrounded by bumpers that will bounce the ball around sporadically.

Level 5 is what I believe is called a Score Attack level. There are two pockets at the top of the board and your goal, rather than sinking the ball into both holes once, is to sink the balls as many times as you can into any hole within the allotted time.

Level 6 is another score attack level. There are two more holes hidden under the rocks as you collapse them.

Level 7 is another Score Attack level, but it has a ditto wandering from the left to right in an attempt to block your ball. Just continue trying to sink as many balls as you can.

Level 8 features a large number of holes that are all relatively easy to reach but naturally the stage will get increasingly more difficult as you progress.

Level 9 has 5 pockets at the top of the stage you'll need to reach your way to. The ones in the middle left and right are particularly difficult to reach.

Finally, in Level 10, you'll need to catch Pikachu by hitting him with the ball 9 times and then sinking your ball into the hole at the top of the screen. If you hit the Pichu, they'll hold onto your ball for a little while, costing you some time, though they can potentially throw you right back into Pikachu.

After capturing Pikachu, the stage is clear!

No other stages unlock after clearing these. Like I said, this is more or less a demo version of the game and your data doesn't save when you exit. I do have to wonder if the full rom is actually contained on the disc and accessible via action replay...

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

The other title that wasn't previously available to us is the original Pokemon Puzzle Collection! Or, Pokemon Puzzle Collection petit. Yup, it's another demo.

Just like Volume 2, the first puzzle type is Motion Puzzles!

This time around, there are only three levels available in each puzzle type. The first level 1, level 2 and level 3 stages are available. None of the others can be unlocked.

The first puzzle is simple enough, it's Poliwhirl!

The next stage is a little mroe complicated, but not by much. It's Octillery! His tentacles wiggle around making it a little difficult to keep them straight, but there's still enough information in most of the tiles to be able to figure everything out.

And the last puzzle is Hitmontop who is only more difficult because of his constant spinning, but his movements are rather consistent so it's still pretty easy to figure out where everything is. It's kind of a breath of fresh air to only do the easier puzzles and not the agonizingly impossible ones that will come later on.

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

Shadow Puzzle is the next mode.

This is just like the one from Volume 2. None of the puzzles in this demo are particularly challenging. In general, you just place the pieces where they fit best and you'll have the shape filled in no time. This first puzzle is a Staryu!

Next up we have Haunter

And the level 3 puzzle is Delibird!

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

The final puzzle mode, Rescue Mission, is exclusive to the first volume! This was replaced with Stretch Puzzle in volume 2.

Rescue mission has a simple objective. Navigate the lost pokemon to the hole so that they can escape their blocky prison! You can move the blocks by pushing in the direction of the arrow and you can press A to change blocks. I really wish the controls were handled better for this, though, because it seems like the blocks you're moving are arbitrarily chosen after every move. You would think pressing up three times would move one block up three spaces, but depending on the arrangement of the blocks, you might move three completely different blocks up once. It would have been much better if you just had to select a block with a curser, press A, and then press a direction to move it. 

Anyway, blocks can obviously not be moved over other blocks or over the four tiles the pokemon takes. You'll have to carefully push the blocks around in order to make an open space for the pokemon to walk into. You can move the pokemon just as if it were a 2x2 block.

Due to the small size of the screen, these puzzles can get rather difficult and can feel very claustrophobic very fast. I'm not as much of a fan of this puzzle mode as I expected to be.

Level 2 features a Vileplume along with verticle and horizontal 1x2 blocks. 

And the third level features Wooper and a much more complicated setup of blocks. I wish I could be more descriptive about the solutions to these puzzles, but I really just solved them by pushing blocks around in different ways until something worked. 

With that, we've completed all of the levels in Pokemon Puzzle Collection Petit.

As you would probably expect, the last puzzle cannot be unlocked in this game.

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

We can finally say goodbye to Pikachu and finally we're going to be moving on to other games. There is just one more thing I would like to address about this game before we move on, though.

If you happen to be playing the PAL version of this title, you'll have access to a special gift with this game! After watching all five parts of Pichu Bros., you can return to the options menu and select Download. This will allow you to download the mythical pokemon Jirachi to your copy of Pokemon Ruby or Sapphire using the GBA-GCN adaptor!

Jirachi; Lv. 5

 

Item: Sarlac Berry or Ganlon Berry

Ability: Serene Grace | Moves: Wish, Confusion, Rest

Because of this, you might find that, in the PAL regions, this game just might be an important purchase for pokedex purposes alone. Unfortunately, the US version of the game has no such present. We have a different method to obtain Jirachi... a much more convoluted method.

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

I've already said my piece about this game. It's clearly a lower budget title, but it still has its charms every once in a while. There isn't a whole lot to actually do, but I don't think that's reallyt he point. It's mostly just something to come to to relax, especially for a child who doesn't exactly have a whole lot going on. There are so many hidden details that you'll only uncover by sitting around in certain areas for a while, I'm sure there's all sorts of behaviors Pikachu can exhibit that I've never known about. There's also many changes you might completely overlook and cute little surprises such as being able to play Tic-Tac-Toe with Pikachu. I was still discovering new things in the game up until the very end which was really nice and, to this day, it's the only source where you can officially watch Pichu Bros. in Party Panic and while that alone doesn't justify the price for the game, it's still a really cute story to relive it from my childhood was really nice.

Anyway, it seems there isn't anything else for us to uncover in this title so next time we're going to be moving onto a new game that I'm not really sure how much I'll commit myself to in terms of completion. I'll give it an honest effort, but I've said already that I kind of suck at this sort of game. We'll just have to see how it goes!

[Aura]

Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire

On August 1st 2003, Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire for the GBA hit store shelves! This is a sequel to Pokemon Pinball on the GameBoy Color which I voiced some pretty heavy frustrations with earlier in this thread. Considering my recent confession that I'm really not good at all at Pinball games, it may come as a surprise that this is a spinoff I've really been looking forward to! A bit part of my frustration with the previous Pokemon Pinball games is the excessive jank the games' physics had. This game, on the other hand, is the most satisfying pinball game I've ever played. If I ever get the random urge to just play some Pinball, this is usually the game I find myself coming back to. There are so many long-term goals to work toward that aren't particularly intrusive to the actual game. While I still admittedly suck at Pinball games, making many seemingly simple tasks much more difficult, very little about this game feels genuinely unfair aside from a few circumstances where you can get screwed over with bad RNG.

Anyway, let's get into the game, shall we? This game is available on the Wii U Virtual Console, so there's no need for emulation this time!

 

Much like the first Pokemon Pinball, when you first start this game, you'll be given a choice between one of two pinball boards named after the main games of the generation. In this case, the Ruby or Sapphire board. We're going to be starting with the Ruby board today as it's my favorite of the two. It's a much smaller board which makes everything easier to aim for, but it does come with its own set of frustrations if you're not very good at aiming the ball. 

Like most pinball games, things can get a little overwhelming at first, but the more you play, the more you understand and you begin to realize that the game really isn't all that complicated. Many of the mechanics are returning from the original Pokemon Pinball, but since I didn't really go into detail about that game, I'll take a moment to talk about them here.

Ruby Field

This field is pretty standard stuff. I suppose we should start with the main focus of Pokemon Pinball: Catching pokemon. Every time you start a game, the roulette will roll to decide which location you'll be playing from. Your location will determine the list of pokemon you will be able to encounter. After your first location is decided, the "Catch" arrow will light up. If you shoot your ball hard enough into the slot the arrow is to, it will be caught by the Sharpedo at the end of the slot and you will enter "Catch 'em Mode" where a silhouette of a pokemon will appear over the location. During this time, the "Bumper" arrow will light up. A two-minute timer will also start counting down.

The silhouette is split into six tiles and you'll need to hit the bumpers. The first time you hit a bumper, one tile will be revealed. The second time, two will be revealed, and the third time, all three remaining tiles will be revealed. If you can hit the bumpers three times without the ball falling back down, you'll get a special animation revealing all of the tiles at once which can save some time.

The first pokemon I encountered was Loudred which Bulbapedia falsely lists as a pokemon that requires evolution to be obtained. It is an evolved pokemon, but it is clearly available in the wild. I believe I was in the cave at the time. Anyway, once the portrait is revealed, the pokemon will pop out with the faded letters "CATCH!" underneath it. You'll now need to hit the pokemon with the ball. Each time you do, two characters in "CATCH!" will light up. You'll need to hit the pokemon three times to light all the letters up. If you can do this three times, the pokemon will be caught!

Once you've caught your first pokemon, one of the pokeball icons below the location will light up. Usually, your next goal after catching a pokemon is to evolve it. This can be the greatest boon to your points, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's first focus on setting up some safety nets. After all, we only have three balls to make as much progress as we can. At the start of each ball, the Ball Saver icon between the bumpers will be lit. While the Ball Saver is active, any time your ball falls, your ball won't be lost. This can actually be exploited in a number of ways, but it is worth noting it can waste some time. The Ball Saver isn't permanent, but there are a number of ways you can bring it back. It will always appear briefly at the start of Catch 'em Mode or Evolve mode, you can get it as a result of the slot machine, and you can buy it from the store. We'll cover all of these soon enough but it's all pretty standard.

The first thing you're going to want to do is build up your charge by hitting the Panel with Pikachu's face on it as hard as you can. Every time the panel flips, the charge will increase. Once it's full, the Pikachu in the gutter will start preparing to use Thunderbolt. When this happens, Pikachu will use Thunderbolt to save the ball if it lands on top of him, but this will return the charge back to zero so you'll want to make sure to fill your charge back up before the ball falls back into the gutter. Also keep in mind that you can change Pikachu's position by flipping the flipper on the opposite side. Try not to be wasteful! You never know when you might accidentally end up in the gutter. You're going to want to keep your charge as long as possible. So, if your ball is in the gutter and you have a Ball Saver active, try to switch Pikachu away from your gutter!

Still, let's say you really want a Ball Saver or don't want to have to pay attention to Pikachu's location in order to save your ball. What do you do then? Well, there are a few ways to achieve this. If you're feeling lucky, you can try the bonus roulette! You see those four lights over the gutters and flippers? These spell out "HOLE" and they'll rotate as you flip your flippers. If you can light up all four of these lights, the pokeball in the center of the field will open up. Shoot your ball into the hole and a bonus roulette will begin. From here, you can get a variety of bonuses such as a small or large gift of points, coins, ball savers for 30, 60, or 90 seconds, and one which will have Pichu take the empty gutter slot to protect both sides of the gutter as long as you have a full charge. Since all of these prizes are free, they're all great, but of course, some are far better than others. Also, keep in mind that it doesn't matter what direction the ball passes the light in. So, if your ball is caught by Pikachu's Thunderbolt, go ahead and try to rotate the lights so that you can light up a new letter as the ball passes by on its way back onto the table.

But what if you're just not very lucky and the slots aren't giving you the prize you're looking for? Well, that's where the Mart comes in. Shoot the ball up the Mart arrow with enough force and you'll knock on the Mart's door. After this, the door will open. Shoot the ball back into it, and you'll be able to purchase one of many prizes, most of which are available in the bonus slots. I personally recommend saving up your coins though, because the most consistently useful reward is the Extra Ball for the max of 99 coins. It's a huge commitment to save up for, but for a whole extra ball, it's well worth the price. Once you purchase an item from the mart, the gate will close and you'll have to knock on it again. Just hit B if you don't want to buy anything that's currently available! If you want to make some money, try to aim for the arrows labeled with numbers just above the Chikorita on the left side of the map. Shooting the ball through here will give you "1," "5," then "10" coins. This is the most consistent way to get coins, but you can also get them from the slots. 

Now that we've covered our tracks, let's talk about the ball multipliers! At the top of the board, just above the bumpers, are three lights. This is a pretty typical feature of Pinball tables. ANy time you flip the flippers, the lights will rotate. This is the quickest way to build up point multipliers. When you light up all three lights, your pokeball will be upgraded to a Great Ball. Do it again, and it'll become an Ultra Ball, then a Master Ball. The level of pokeball you have shows the multiplier to your points. x2, x3, or x4 respectively. However, your multiplier will go down one level after a while, so make sure to get the most out of it while you have it! Since you can rotate the position of the lights, though, you can regularly get the ball trapped at the top of the bumpers, constantly bouncing up into the same light. Just flip the flippers to rotate the unlit lights into place as you pass through and you can light all three up with ease! Also keep in mind that you can tilt the table to your favor. Sometimes you can get a really easy multiplier right off the bat of launching a new ball by timing your tilt just right. (You can also use this technique to make quick work of freeing up a pokemon during Catch 'em Mode, but keep in mind it can take a little while to get out of the bumper area).

This isn't the only way to get a multiplier, but the other methods aren't nearly as fast. First, you can buy a single upgrade from the mart. Second, that round orb with an arrow on it is also an upgrade. In order to get it, you'll need to knock the ball into the Nuzleaf twice. This will cause him to fall over and form a bridge between his path and the one with the orb. Then, hit the ball through his path one more time to get the upgrade. But that path is in a rather inconvenient location, isn't it? Normally, it may seem inaccessible, but there's one more trick to this board. If you hit the button below Chikorita, he'll use Razor Leaf to hit the two Linoone on either side of the board. If you can hit these Linoone before they retreat back into their holes, they'll offer special effects. The one on the right will cause the Makuhita above it to take a battle stance. As long as he's in this position, flipping the right flipper will cause him to punch. If he punches the ball at the right time, he'll launch it straight into the Nuzleaf's path! He can also pretty easily hit it into the coin path which is arguably just as good.

If you hit the Linoone on the left side, a Gulpin will drop down onto the left side of the table. Once three Gulpin have appeared, travel mode will begin! Shoot the ball through the flashing arrows and then into the slot in the middle and you will have the choice to travel or not. If you choose to travel, the location will change. Here on the Ruby board are two exclusive areas: The Volcano and Safari Zone. In addition, the pokemon available on this side are pokemon available in Ruby Version while the pokemon available only in Sapphire are excluded. It's important to travel as much as you can, because there is a special area called The Ruins which can only be found after traveling six times. You will never start out in The Ruins, but there are many exclusive, rare pokemon here including Beldum, the Legendary Golems Regirock, Regice, and Registeel, as well as the mythical pokemon Jirachi!

Now that we have covered just about everything on the board, let's finally talk about getting more pokemon! Depending on what your first pokemon caught was, or if you failed to catch the first pokemon, your next main goal will differ. If you caught a pokemon that can evolve, you'll probably want to evolve it ASAP. Evolutions of pokemon caught in the wild are far rarer than their base forms. Typically, final-stage evolutions aren't available in the wild so you'll have to catch the pre-evolved form first and then evolve it in the same game. The process of actually evolving a pokemon can be a little bit frustrating for someone like me. You'll first need to shoot the ball over the "EVO" arrows on the left side with enough speed. Once the ball passes through the large arc, one of the arrows will light up. You'll need to repeat until they're all lit at which point the Pokemon Mart will transform into a Pokemon Center. The gate will always be open at this point so you don't have to worry about knocking on the door thankfully, but you won't be able to access the Mart until after evolving a pokemon. Once you hit your pokeball into the Pokemon Center, Evolution Time will begin and you'll be able to select one of your pokemon to evolve. You can check their evolution by pressing up. If it shows up as a "?", it's a pokemon that isn't yet recorded in your pokedex. Once you've selected your pokemon to evolve, you'll then have to collect three items that will appear around the field. These can either appear in really easy to reach locations or really frustrating ones, so you'll need to get really comfortable with the physics of the game. The items you collect will depend on how your pokemon evolves, but all of the items behave the same way so it's purely aesthetic. Once you collect the three, simply hit the ball into the center slot and your pokemon will evolve.

Evolving a pokemon will light up two pokeball lights instead of one! This means you should have three lights already lit!

 

Now, if you were unfortunate enough for your first pokemon to be one that doesn't evolve, then you're going to have to go for the alternative of catching another pokemon. You'll notice that the "catch" arrow isn't lit anymore and just hitting the ball back into Sharpedo's mouth isn't going to do the trick. In order to start Catch 'em Mode again, you'll need to light up the three "GET" arrows on the right side, just like the "EVO" arrows on the left. This will light up the "Catch" arrow once again.

This game introduces yet another new way to catch pokemon, however, and that's by hatching them from eggs!

 

If you hit the ball into the cyndaquil, it'll retreat toward its house. Hit it enough times and its flames will warm the egg on top of its house and cause it to hatch! The baby pokemon will then roam the table for a short amount of time. You'll need to hit it twice before it retreats back into the house. 

Since evolving a pokemon lights up two lights instead of one, you might want to hold off on evolving your second pokemon until you've caught a third, and then evolve it to light up the first two lights on the next set. But sometimes you just gotta take what the game offers you. You might be tempted to focus your efforts on evolving pokemon hatched from eggs since they typically have two evolutions, however it's worth noting that an egg pokemon's first evolution is usually available in the wild. It's generally better to focus on fully evolving your pokemon caught from the wild instead!

Finally, once you've lit up all three pokeballs, we can start describing our main goal for "beating" this game! Lighting up all three lights will begin a bonus stage. Simply hit the ball into the center slot to go to the stage.

On the Ruby board, the first bonus stage will be the Kecleon stage. You have two minutes to hit Kecleon 10 times. That catch is, as you can probably expect, Kecleon likes to turn invisible. You'll need to watch for ripples int he water or ruffles in the grass to see where he is while he's invisible. If you're still having trouble, hit the ball into the tree at the top and a Devon Scope will appear.... I guess these just grow on trees, huh? If you hit the ball into the Devon Scope, you will be able to see Kecleon for a brief amount of time, making it easier to hit him. After hitting him 10 times, you'll earn a large sum of points based on your ball's multiplier. 

Once the bonus game is finished, you'll be returned to the board where you'll once again have to light up the three pokeball lights. Just rinse and repeat! After completing the Kecleon Stage again, the next stage that appears is the really important one. 

Groudon Stage

This is a boss fight against Groudon! This stage is exclusive to the Ruby field, as you can probably guess. You'll need to hit Groudon 15 times in 3 minutes but he's got several moves to protect himself. First off is Rock Slide which will cause boulders to fall from the ceiling. You can break these boulders by hitting them enough times, but they can appear in really unfortunate locations that either stall for time or trap your ball really close to the flippers, making it difficult to keep the ball in play. Thankfully, losing a ball in a bonus game only results in a time penalty and doesn't actually lose your ball. His next layer of defense is Eruption  which will cause a shockwave of fire to knock your ball away and create four pillars of fire surrounding himself. You won't be able to hit him with your ball until you hit the pillars of fire enough times to make them retreat into the ground. If you hit your ball at the right angle at the right time, though, Groudon's shockwave will actually knock your ball behind him and it will be trapped inside the pillars with him, causing lots of rapid hits in a row! This is the best case scenario so try to get the ball behind Groudon as much as possible! Groudon's final layer of defense is that he'll regularly shoot Fire Blast at your ball. If he hits your ball, it will lose all its momentum. You'll have to flip your flippers to extinguish the flames and it will simply drop straight down from wherever it was hit. If you're really unlucky, it could fall right between your flippers and waste a lot of valuable time. Try to keep your ball moving at high speed and avoid just going for direct shots to Groudon to protect yourself from Fire Blast.

Don't be disheartened if you can't clear this bonus stage on your first attempt, it can be really tough and some bad luck can really screw you out of an otherwise fantastic run. The first time you clear the stage, Groudon will retreat and you'll earn a large sum of points for clearing the stage. You'll then need to clear the Kecleon stage again in order to challenge the Groudon stage yet again. If you can defeat Groudon a second time, you will successfully catch him, getting you a second huge bonus on top of the bonus for clearing the stage!

The fun doesn't stop there, but unfortunately I wound up losing before getting to that point. Besides, I think it'll make for a fun finale to the game if I need to come back for this extra challenge.

Here's a summary of how my game transpired:

Loudred (Catch)

Exploud (Evo)

[Kecleon Bonus Stage]

 

Mawile (Catch)

 

Trapinch (Hatch)

 

Tentacool (Catch)

(I see that Bulbapedia's transparency issue is a returning in full force today. I hope you excuse any awkward sprite transparency issues.)

[Kecleon Bonus Stage #2]

 

Carvanha (Catch)

Sharpedo (Evo)

[Groudon Bonus Stage]

Tentacruel (Evo)

 

Solrock (Catch)

[Groudon Bonus Stage #2]

 

Groudon (Catch)

 

Chimecho (Hatch)

 

Vibrava (Evo)

[Kecleon Bonus Stage #3]

 

Wurmple (Hatch)

Unfortunately, I wound up losing my last ball shortly after hatching this Wurmple.

I should mention that there's two more bonus stages I failed to access during this playthrough. Both of these are available between both tables, so I don't think it's totally necessary to cover them both right now, but the method to reach one of them is different between the boards.

I am referring to the Spheal bonus stage. To my knowledge, this stage can't actually be "won" per se. Rather, your goal is to earn as many points as you can within the alotted time by scoring hoops. The Spheal will swim around in the pool and occasionally try to climb up the slides. If you hit them with the ball while they're trying this, you can knock them up the slide and onto the head of the Sealeo who will balance them on their nose before tossing them into the hoop. 

In order to access this stage, you'll need to hit the button on the wall next to the bumpers at the top of the table. This will change the bumpers in a number of ways including causing all the bumpers to start spinning around, be replaced with Lotad, or even be replaced with a Whiscash. If there is a Whiscash in the bumper slot, you can hit the ball into Whiscash mouth to be taken to this game. You can also cause this bonus game to appear through the slots or by purchasing an item at the mart. 

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

Anyway, with all that said, I've managed to catch Groudon so, at least for now, that's enough to consider "beating" the ruby table. Next time, I'll definitely shoot for catching Kyogre in the Sapphire table. That is a significantly harder task, though, so let's cross our fingers!

[Aura]

Sapphire Field

On the surface, this field looks very similar to the Ruby field, especially with this zoomed out view. However, the differences become readily apparent when you actually get into gameplay. This is a significantly harder board for a number of reasons.

Perhaps the most significant difference here is the fact that most of the arrows that point to the different areas are offscreen while the ball is near the bottom of the table. This makes it significantly harder to aim the ball toward a specific area. You're going to have to play for a while to really get a feel for where everything is and how to consistently hit the ball into the appropriate areas. And since, again, I'm not very good at all with this sort of thing, I'll only get the ball to go where I want it about 10% of the time. The rest of the time it's kind of just a crapshoot whether the ball wants to go into the right section or bounce off the corner and fall right back down onto the slingshots at the bottom of the table. And yes, I did go out of my way to look up pinball terminology so that I don't look like a total idiot trying to describe the table again.

You're also probably going to find yourself having a harder time catching pokemon on this field since the bumpers are so far away and you also can't shake the ball into them from the spring lane since that now follows a strict rail path that will always dump the ball into the same spot.

The Mart is harder to access here because, in order to get to it, you'll need to hit the ball into the + and - buttons to cause the Plusle and Minun to stop charging the gate. Only then can you hit the ball between them and get inside. Thankfully, the gate is still always open while you're trying to evolve a pokemon. Evolving pokemon, however, is also much more difficult due to the board's much larger size.

That said, I actually think I found it a bit easier to stay alive on this board. I think this is mainly attributed to the board's size as well. It makes it much less likely for the ball to coincidentally land in the out lanes. By the time it does, you've usually built up a charge to protect yourself. Because of this, I was actually able to make some more significant progress this time around.

The Sapphire Field contains two exclusive areas: The Wilderness and The Lake and, of course, pokemon that are exclusive to the Sapphire version.

Hatching eggs on this field requires use of the incubator on the top-right corner. You'll need to hit the ball through the Hatch lane until all four lights surrounding the egg are lit. Then, you'll need to hit the ball there again to hatch the egg. Again, catching the pokemon will be more difficult since there's more open space for it to wander around.

Instead of a Whiscash, Pelipper will sometimes swallow your ball and carry it off the field to play the Spheal bonus game. Other times, he'll drop your ball right at the top of the bumpers, allowing for some easy ball upgrades. There is no upgrade orb on this board, so you'll have to light up the three indicators or buy upgrades from the shop. Again, though, I will always recommend prioritizing the extra lives for 99 coins.

Instead of Linoone on either side of the board, there are simple buttons, cutting out the middleman that was Chikorita in the Ruby field. Instead of a Makuhita that would punch your ball into an upgrade orb, you'll instead get a Zigzagoon who will stand at the ready to stop the bonus slot whenever you press A. You have to pay real close attention to the timing, though, because it's pretty tight. But, I imagine getting really good at that timing can be a huge boon.

All in all, the Sapphire board is much more difficult to accomplish specific tasks in. However, staying alive and playing for a longer period of time is much easier. I was even able to discover that catching 15 different pokemon can earn you a 1-up!

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

Of course, we can't cover this board without covering the unique bonus stages.

Dusclops Bonus Stage

Instead of Kecleon, Sapphire's first bonus Stage is themed after Dusclops. First, you'll have to hit 20 duskull who will float back and forth across the screen, sometimes annoyingly moving through the gravestones. You'll want to accomplish this task as quickly as possible because you only have 2 minutes and after doing this, you'll need to deal with Dusclops. Dusclops will need to be hit only 5 times, but he's much harder to hit. I'm still not entirely sure how this fight works, but from what I understand, there are only two ways to damage Dusclops. You'll have to hit him from the sides, or you'll have to hit him while he's walking. If you hit the ball straight into him while he's standing still, he'll catch your ball and hold it for a few seconds before tossing it straight down. You're going to want to hold your flipper up to catch the ball while you wait for Dusclops to start moving. It's much less risky than trying to hit him from the side and waste time when he catches your ball. Be careful doing this though, as every time he stomps, your ball will bounce off of your flippers. You'll want to hit him quickly or your ball might bounce right out of reach of your flippers.

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

Kyogre Bonus Stage

As you can probably expect, the second bonus stage here is Kyogre. Kyogre's battle is a little bit different than Groudon's. While Groudon mostly stood his ground and remained on the defensive, Kyogre is much more actively offensive. If you don't hit him quick enough whenever he's at the start of the battle, he'll unleash Sheer Cold and instantly freeze your ball, to the same effect as Groudon's Fire Blast. Next, he'll use Whirlpool to create vortexes that will wander around the stage and trap your ball if they hit it. Contrary to Groudon, you're going to want to keep your ball as still as possible when fighting Kyogre as hitting these whirlpools can be a devastating blow to your time. While the whirlpools are roaming around, Kyogre will dive underwater and resurface in varous locations around the board. Watch for the bubbles as he rises and aim to hit him as soon as he comes up. If you're lucky, you can even get multiple hits! Patience is a virtue here. Try to aim only for clear, quick, and direct shots at Kyogre whenever he's vulnerable. 3 minutes is plenty of time as long as you aren't being careless. I recalled Kyogre being much more difficult than Groudon, but in hindsight, I think he's actually significantly easier due to the decrease in RNG elements. Since you don't have to keep your ball moving, you can get all the time you need to line up your shots and get some smooth hits in. That said, the Dusclops Bonus Stage is undoubtedly harder than the Kecleon one, so I suppose it evens out.

Just like the Groudon Bonus Stage, clearing this bonus stage twice in the same game will result in you catching Kyogre.

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Rayquaza Bonus Stage

This one isn't exclusive to the Sapphire Field, however, this was my first time reaching this stage in this playthrough. Once you catch Groudon or Kyogre, Rayquaza will then enter the rotation. He is a bit of a mixture of both Groudon and Kyogre. He will occasionally use Thunder to strike your ball if it's still for too long, but he'll also whip up some twisters which have a similar effect to Kyogre's whirlpool. Except, instead of just wasting time, the tornado will also blow your ball high into the air, causing it to land at a completely random place on the board, even right between your paddles. With his last attack, he'll use ExtremeSpeed to blow your ball toward one side. He can't use Thunder while doing this, so feel free to hold your ball with the flipper until he's back on screen. While he's vulnerable, he will wander from left to right at the top of the board. He moves rather quickly and he looks like a rather large target, but only his head is vulnerable to damage, so make sure to aim for that! If you can defeat Rayquaza twice in one game, you can catch him. But of course, that's a much more difficult task to accomplish given that you'll need to deal with the other bonus games as well.

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

All in all, it seems that the Sapphire board is designed overall to emphasize careful aim of the ball. It's full of much more difficult, precise shots across fields of large open space, and even the bonus games require you to be more precise with the angle of your shots.

I believe we've covered all of the major differences surrounding the Sapphire field, so now it's time to summarize the pokemon I got:

 

Magikarp (Catch)

 

Zubat (Hatch)

 

Trapinch (Hatch)

[Dusclops Bonus Stage]

Gyarados (Evo)

 

Wingull (Catch)

[Dusclops Bonus Stage]

 

Magikarp (Catch)

 

Azurill (Hatch)

Pelipper (Evo)

[Kyogre Bonus Stage]

 

Carvanha (Catch)

 

Clamperl (Catch)

 

[Kyogre Bonus Stage]

 

Kyogre (Catch)

Dustox (Evo)

 

Aron (Hatch)

[Rayquaza Bonus Stage]

 

Horsea (Hatch)

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

Unfortunately, I lost my last ball shortly after catching Horsea and wasn't able to get one more evolution in so I wasn't able to get to the next bonus stage. From what I recall, though, I would need to complete the Dusclops stage once again before I can get another shot at the Rayquaza stage for a chance to catch him. Rest assured that next time, we will be fully committed to catching Rayquaza. I'm not actually sure which board I'd prefer to try that on now, but I feel like the Sapphire stage might prove to be more consistent, to my surprise, as I recall the Sapphire board being my least favorite of the two. I'll definitely give the ruby board another shot though now that I have a better feeling for the game's physics.

[Aura]

Let's talk a thing or two about Rayquaza in Pokemon Pinball.

Catching Rayquaza is one of the most grueling tasks to accomplish in this game. Of course, you're first going to have to go through all the requirements to get to the Rayquaza stage first. This alone is already extremely difficult. Then, on top of actually beating the Rayquaza stage, you have to do it all again. That's right, this was far more difficult to accomplish than I ever realized before. It's not just a matter of Rayquaza replacing Groudon/Kyogre going forward or even having to defeat Groudon/Kyogre one more time. Nope, you actually have to go out of your way to catch a second Groudon/Kyogre in the same game before you get your second chance at battling Rayquaza. Only at this point can you finally catch him. For all intents and purposes, Rayquaza is the final boss of Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire. Naturally, I think we should be going out of our way to accomplish this.

Now, considering the best I've ever done is a few pokemon after battling Rayquaza once, I'm going to stress that I did use the Wii U's Restore Point system to keep myself alive, so as satisfying as it was to see a lot of the content I got to explore today, I can't really claim any of this is achieved through legitimate gameplay. Anyone who can catch Rayquaza without any sort of external assistance in this game deserves a massive applause because it seems near impossible to me.

There's also one more feature I wanted to touch on: The Ruins. I've touched on this briefly before, but I was able to reach the Ruins today, so I wanted to go into a bit more detail. The Ruins is an extremely rare location that can only be reached after travelling 6 times. This is where many of the rarest pokemon of Hoenn are available including the Legendary Golems and Beldum. There's also one more mysterious pokemon to be found here: Jirachi. Jirachi will only appear as a slot machine reward. This makes Jirachi a lot easier to obtain in the Sapphire board where the Zigzagoon can help you stop the slots right on him. When you get this slot result, Jirachi will appear like any other pokemon in Catch 'em Mode, but instead of just standing in place, Jirachi will hover back and forth, similar to an Egg pokemon. Thankfully, he's a larger target, so it's not too difficult to hit him. The catch is that you only have 30 seconds to do so! The exclusivity of Jirachi makes him arguably the rarest pokemon in the entire game.

Since I've already covered both boards, there's not much else to talk about here, so I suppose I'll jump right into the summary of events. I decided to play on the Sapphire board this time. I did give the Ruby board a try, but I've grown so used to the larger open space of the Sapphire board that the Ruby board just feels too compact to survive for a long time on. I'd also like to mention that, at the start of the game, you get the choice between a Normal or Slow ball. I strongly recommend the Normal ball. You might think the Slow ball would be easier to survive with, and you're not technically wrong, however, the amount of time you have in the bonus stages doesn't change based on your ball speed, so you're going to find precision to be a lot more necessary when using slow ball speed. Considering the RNG at play during a lot of these, having some more wiggle room is almost a necessity.

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

Note, this was a long game so I may have some details about certain pokemon mistaken. All I know for sure is that I had 29 pokemon at the end so I'm going to try to remember how it all played out to the best of my ability.

 

Slakoth (Catch)

Vigoroth (Evo)

[Dusclops Bonus Stage]

Slaking (Evo)

 

Poochyena (Catch)

[Dusclops Bonus Stage]

 

Wurmple (Hatch)

 

Gulpin (Hatch)

 

Makuhita (Catch)

[Kyogre Bonus Stage]

 

Shelgon (Catch)

Swalot (Evo)

[Dusclops Bonus Stage]

Cacnea (Catch)

 

Silcoon (Evo)

[Kyogre Bonus Stage]

 

Kyogre (Catch)

 

Regirock (Catch)

 

Jirachi (Catch)

 

Beldum (Catch)

[Dusclops Bonus Stage]

Metang (Evo)

 

Oddish (Hatch)

[Kyogre Bonus Stage]

Metagross (Evo)

 

Lotad (Hatch)

[Dusclops Bonus Stage]

 

Registeel (Catch)

 

Regice (Catch)

 

Nosepass (Catch)

[Kyogre Bonus Stage]

 

Kyogre (Catch)

Cacturne (Evo)

[Dusclops Bonus Stage -- Bonus Slot Reward]

 

Natu (Hatch)

 

Grimer (Catch)

 

Aron (Hatch)

[Rayquaza Bonus Stage]

 

Rayquaza (Catch)

 

Horsea (Hatch)

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

With Rayquaza and the pokemon from the Ruins caught including fully evolving Beldum all the way to Metagross, I should mention that there are a couple more special pokemon.

 

 

Every time a wild pokemon is rolled, there is a 1% chance of it being a Latios or Latias depending on the board you're playing. Odds are, you'll find one of these two by the time you've caught all the generic wild pokemon. To my knowledge, they have an equal chance of appearing in any area, in reference to their role as wandering legendaries in the main game. So there's  no real strategy to seeking them out. Just keep playing and you'll eventually find them. 

I'm not going to list which pokemon are available in what areas because, quite frankly, I don't really know. 

As for my opinions of this game? Well, I think I've made it clear that I actually enjoy this game quite a lot! Despite not being very good at Pinball, this game does a really good job of making sure there's always something to work toward. Even when you fail at your main goal, you're still making progress toward smaller goals. It's a game that actively encourages you to improve your skills rather than openly discouraging you for being bad at the game. That's a really difficult balance to strike and this game does it so well! I'm really happy Nintendo made this available through the Wii U Virtual Console because this is a game I always wanted as a child but was never able to get my hands on. 

Now, though, it's time to move on to our next project. If memory serves me right, we're going to be exploring one of my favorite spinoffs in the entire franchise next! Excitement only builds from here!

[Aura]

 

Pokemon Colosseum

Hitting the shelves in Japan on November 21, 2003 was Pokemon Colosseum! The name immediately calls to mind Pokemon Stadium and there's a pretty obvious reason for that. This is Nintendo's answer to Pokemon Stadium for the still new GameCube! However, there are many departures from the staples of the Pokemon Stadium titles that came before it that might come off as a bit disappointing in some areas, but the reason for this departure should become clear shortly after starting this game. Rather than simply making an updated Pokemon Stadium, the development team at Genius Sonority decided to go a step further and create an entirely original story set in the pokemon universe. Whether the events of this game are considered canon to the overall story of Pokemon, I'm not really sure, but this game takes a very unique approach to telling a story in this world. There are no gym badges to collect or pokemon to catch, at least not in the traditional sense. Instead, this game plays almost like a more traditional RPG separated into pretty clearly distinct chapters and story arcs. There are many unique twists on the Pokemon series that will make this game an interesting play even if you're not a fan of the third generation. We'll get into more detail about exactly what sets this game apart from the main series as we approach specific examples. But one of the first things you'll put together from the opening demo on the title screen is that this game boasts the 3D Debut of all of the Hoenn Pokemon who did not make an appearance in Pokemon Channel (that is to say, the vast majority of Hoenn pokemon). That's right, every pokemon from Bulbasaur to Jirachi (Shhh, I don't think we're supposed to know about a certain other pokemon just yet) is accounted for! ...sorta. Again, we'll elaborate on what exactly "sorta" means a little bit later on. Just know using your favorite pokemon isn't quite as simple as just choosing from a list of rentals. In fact, the vast majority of pokemon in general are only accessible by transferring them in from a GBA title. And since Ruby and Sapphire were the only pokemon games available at the time of this game's release and weren't compatible with Gold and Silver, you were pretty much exclusively limited to whatever pokemon you could obtain in this game and in Hoenn.

Not only did most Gen 3 pokemon make their 3D Debut here, but to my knowledge this was the first ever model trainers in full 3D alongside their pokemon! The extra power of the GameCube's hardware allowed them to do much more, after all! However, looking at these 3D models up close... yeah, you can tell it was someone's first time ever 3D Modeling a human. Often times the camera zooms a bit too close into the character models and only succeeds in showing just how derpy some of their faces and other proportions are. I don't usually gripe too much on stuff like this, but sometimes the appearance is so bad it's genuinely distracting from the story beats. That's not to give a hard time to the modeler, though. I imagine these models weren't meant to be viewed up close but the programmer behind the camera positioning didn't get the memo, that or the textures were originally mapped to higher poly-count models that had to be cut down for resource constraints.

Yes, yes, I'm starting out on a bit of a sour note, I'm well aware, but trust me when I say that while I recall being met with some level of disappointment when 7 year-old me first rented this game back in 2004 expecting it to be Pokemon Stadium 3, I quickly found myself absolutely loving the unique perspective this game had to offer.  I wanted to get many of my complaints out of the way because I'm going to be gushing about all of the things I love about this game a lot. It even had me wondering how long it would take for the main series games to go full 3D! (As it turns out, that would indeed come to pass 9 years later and to this day I still find myself preferring Pokemon Colosseum and XD's animations over the more recent Pokemon games. They just feel so alive here! 

Buckle up, by the way, because this is another title with lots of content to explore. Completing the main story is only a fraction of what this game has to offer.

As you start the game, you're given a choice between Story Mode and Battle Mode. For now, we're going to start with Story mode to get ourselves immersed in this world.

Diving right in, we're met with an intro cutscene that really shows off just how different this game is striving to be. Rather than starting out in some small, peaceful town, this game is set in the middle of a harsh desert wasteland where our protagonist, Wes, sets off an explosion in the hideout of an evil organization to steal a strange device. Team Snagem immediately tries to chase him down, but they're too late to stop him and he's already sped off in his desert bike. 

Outskirt Stand

This is where we first gain control. If we check our pause menu, we can see the pokemon we have which may come as a surprise!

My Team:

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

Espeon M; Lv. 25

Item: None

Ability: Synchronize | Moves: Confusion, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Umbreon M; Lv. 26

Item: None

Ability: Synchronize | Moves: Bite, Secret Power, Snatch, Taunt

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

That's right, not only do you start with two pokemon instead of one, but they're far stronger than the typical level 5. Wes is clearly an experienced pokemon trainer and these two pokemon even start out with some experience toward their next level. Their happiness maxed as well, showing that Wes does indeed take good care of his pokemon. These two pokemon are clearly meant to play off of each other's support. Their movesets seem very well catered toward double battles and there's a very solid reason for that, and it's the same reason we have two starters. That's right, as you can probably guess, this game is entirely designed around double battles! There is an extremely minimal number of single battles in this game. In fact, to my knowledge, you can only play Single battles in Battle Mode. Other than that, the closest thing to a single battle you'll ever get is both trainers being down to their last pokemon.

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

We can also check our P*DA. There's not much to look at here, but we can see a "Snag List" as well as a page for E-Mail where we can even set our ringtone! If we check our items, we can see that we also already have a wide variety of healing items as well. Both of these menus are empty for now. 

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

The Outskirt Stand is, as the name implies, a stand in the middle of nowhere. It seems to be a gas station of sorts where we make a quick pit stop.

 

As we move toward the stand, we can see a couple of suspicious guys come out of it. They climb into a vehicle with a wiggling bag boasting about the reward they're going to get for the boss. I have a feeling we'll be seeing this guys again soon.

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Outskirt Stand Interior

As we enter the inside of the stand, we overhear a news report covering the explosion at Eclo Canyon which revealed to authorities the location of the infamous Team Snagem's hideout. Unfortunately, the hideout was already abandoned and in ruins by the time authorities arrived. With Team Snagem flushed out of their hideout, the streets are about to get a bit more dangerous, but this just might be a good thing as it'll help the police to arrest these criminals!

After chatting with the customers and owner of the stand, we head back out.

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

As we step outside, we're challenged by Rider Willie who could tell that we're a trainer just by our appearance alone.

 

Zigzagoon Lv. 24 & Zigzagoon Lv. 24

The very definition of a tutorial battle, Rider Willie will offer a chance to play around with our pokemon's abilities and get used to double battles if we aren't familiar with them yet.

 

Naturally, my only choice to lead is Umbreon and Espeon. This is obviously a very one-sided battle. A couple of Bites from Umbreon and Confusions from Espeon is all it really takes. If you wanna get fancy, you can play around a little bit with Umbreon's Taunt to interfere with their growls and tail whips and use Espeon's Reflect to reduce the damage they can deal. These are the sorts of strategies you're going to be using early on, so it's good to get a feel for them for now. We're going to be exploring lots of double battle dactics throughout this game, so you'd better get used to thinking of your pokemon not only based on how well they'll handle themselves, but how well they can work alongside each other!

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

After defeating Willie, he suggests we head off to Phenac City if we want to find other strong trainers and points us in the right direction. So, let's head on over!

Phenac City

This is a beautiful town built around an oasis in the desert of the Orre Region.

 

Before getting anywhere, though, we're met by a familiar duo who seem to be struggling with their haul from before. After a bit of a struggle, a voice can be heard calling for help! The guys mention that the tape they gagged the girl inside the bag with didn't hold. As we overhear all of this, it's only natural they'll spring on the offensive and try to silence us.

Shady Guy Folly

 

Whismur Lv. 24 & Whismur Lv. 25

Folly's team is easily dealt with in the same way as Rider Willy. It's nothing to do a second take over.

Once Folly is defeated, the two guys realize they've attracted too much attention and flee, leaving the bag behind. The locals approach and you help them to untie the tight knot on the bag revealing a young woman!

The girl introduces herself and you actually get the chance to give her a name! The default name is Rui so we'll just stick with that. Rui asks if the pokemon you battled were particularly strange, but everyone agrees they seemed like ordinary pokemon, so she shrugs it off before focusing her attention on you. She thanks you for saving her and asks that you keep her company in case those guys happen to come back for her. She mentions that she saw those goons with a strange pokemon and that's why they grabbed her.

After agreeing to go with Rui, she'll follow us around everywhere from this point forward. I actually think it's pretty cool to have a co-star following you around. A part of me wishes she could carry her own team of pokemon and could help you out in more difficult battles, but I suppose an idea like that might mess with the balance of the game.

 

As we wander around town, we can find a couple of trainers who are willing to battle us for a little bit of extra Exp. There's not much to say about these battles, but for beating Roller Boy Kaib, you'll be rewarded with TM41: Torment which can be a really useful move when used strategically. I'm not gonna be covering every single trainer in this game, but I will mention that this game is very battle-heavy. With no wild pokemon, almost all of the gameplay is build around battle after battle. The similarities with Pokemon Stadium don't end at just 3D Battles. 

The locals suggest we stop by the Mayor's house to express our concerns with the thugs we've been dealing with, but one pointed us in the direction of the Pre Gym as a good place to brush up on our knowledge of battling. So, why don't we head there first?

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

The Pre Gym, or the Prestige Precept Center, is a central location for fledgling trainers to learn the basics of pokemon battles. In a region without wild pokemon, a place like this is probably pretty hard to come by, so why don't we take a look around here? If we walk around to the west side, there's a teacher offering a lecture in the typical trainer school style. If we talk to the teacher, she'll upgrade our P*DA to include the Strategy Memo. This is basically your pokedex. It'll record all the pokemon you've seen, their type, possible abilities, and the typical 3D pokedex features like being able to zoom in on the 3D Model, listen to the cry, etc. Obviously, there's no habitat page. 

Across the room, there's the head of the gym, Justy. Talk to him and he'll set you up with a training regime. An endurance round against four trainers in a row. These four trainers all specialize in different types of pokemon.

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

The first trainer, Cooltrainer Botan, uses Grass type pokemon.

 

Sunkern Lv. 27 & Hoppip Lv. 26

These are some of the weakest pokemon possible, so this first battle is a bit of a joke.

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

Cooltrainer Liqui

 

Surskit Lv. 27, Marill Lv. 26

Liqui is obviously a water-type specialist. Again, the surskit is nothing to worry about. It'll start out by building up its speed but there's not a whole lot it can do with that. Focusing your efforts on Marill first and then finishing off Surskit should be simple.

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

Rich Boy Dugo

 

Trapinch Lv. 27 & Swinub Lv. 27

This battle was a little more involved. Since Trapinch probably knew a Dark-type attack, I decided to focus all my fire power on him to take him out first. In the mean time, Swinub went for Dig, so I was able to follow up with Reflect from Espeon to reduce the damage. From there, Swinub wasn't able to endure the damage.

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

Lady Gwin

 

Geodude Lv. 27 & Rhyhorn Lv. 27

This is a sort of sword and shield duo of pokemon. Rhyhorn is incredibly offensive and Geodude likes to build up his defenses. Though I can only assume Rhyhorn would prioritize trying to reduce my defenses with Leer, but by this point your HP is probably starting to run a little low. I didn't want to take an unexpected amount of damage from that Rhyhorn. I know from experience that Geodude tends to take some turns to set up, so I felt justified in focusing my efforts on Rhyhorn. Thankfully, since our pokemon are higher level than your typical starters, we have some decent special moves to work with so these two rock types aren't nearly as imposing as early-game rock types in other Pokemon games. These special attacks help to circumvent Geodude's defenses as he's taken a little too long to set it up.

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

For defeating all of these trainers in a row, Justy rewards us with a White Herb and requests we come back to challenge him to a battle once we have a full team of six pokemon.

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

As we finally head over to the Mayor's house, a strange man comes out of the house with a design that's certainly not one of a villain at all. Unfortunately, I can't find any images of this character that aren't a little bit spoiler-y, but just trust me in saying subtlety wasn't their priority here. 

Stepping inside, the Mayor doesn't address the strange man who just stepped out of his home. Rui informs him of the incident that she witnessed. She claims she saw a pokemon with a black aura who had no reservations about attacking people. The Mayor insists that he'll order an investigation and asks us to go check out the main attraction of their town while we're here: The Phenac Stadium.

The TV here has another broadcast covering the Snag Machine that was stolen from Team Snagem's hideout. They warn the public that the stolen Snag Machine is portable enough to be carried by a single person, and warns the public to be cautious about the possibility of a thief using such a device to steal pokemon in battle.

With nothing else to do, let's make our way to the stadium at the northern border!

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

Phenac Stadium

Unfortunately, the tournament at the Stadium has already begun, so we can't enter just yet. We'll just have to turn back around...

  

As we head back outside, we're stopped by a group of Team Snagem members who call to attention some rather critical information. In case you couldn't piece it together just yet, Wes happens to be an ex member of Team Snagem. Snagem now sees him as nothing more than a traitor and have come to steal the Snag Machine back from him. Surprise, surprise, the machine we stole in the intro was indeed the portable Snag Machine. They explain that the machine has the power to transform regular pokeballs into Snag balls that are capable of catching pokemon already owned by other people. Rui is shocked to hear this but after personally witnessing your good nature, she decides to still stand by you. Meanwhile, the gears are starting to turn in her head.

Of course, this interaction can't end butting some heads.

Team Snagem Wakin

 

Korphish Lv. 25 & Koffing Lv. 27

Koffing is weak to Espeon's Confusion, so I was able to take care of him easily enough. From there, Corphish was easy to pick off.

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

After this encounter, Team Snagem scatters again and, going over the information she's just uncovered about us, she comes up with an idea in how we can help deal with that strange pokemon she saw before. She suggests we go find some pokeballs.

As we head to the Mart to look for pokeballs, the lack of demand for them becomes incredibly apparent for a region with no wild pokemon to be seen. However, a man at a table in the mart recalls the Outskirt Stand once selling pokeballs a long time ago. This is as good of a lead as any, so we head out.

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

Back at the Outskirt Stand, the owner expresses surprise that we would be interested in pokeballs in this barren land, but he is indeed able to find his old stock of pokeballs and even adds them back up for sale. He gives us 5 pokeballs for free, but of course we can go ahead and purchase some more, and even Great Balls are available. Naturally, I'll be buying 10 of each.

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

With these pokeballs in tow, we return to Phenac City where the locals seem to be in a panic. Apparently, the goons from before showed up again and stormed the mayor's house!

 

We make our way straight there, of course, and are met not only with the goons from before, but with an especially eccentric man of style who introduces himself as Miror B. Although his appearance is rather silly, he carries with him a rather menacing demeanor. He explains to us that Rui is problematic because she can see things that normal people can't and that just won't do with their plans. Of course, we just won't allow them to do as they please and he knows that. He has no time to waste lollygagging around here so he shrugs us off and reinstates the importance of capturing Rui to his men before entrusting the simple task to them once again. He's a very busy man and insists that Rui be brought to him in Pyrite Town.

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

Miror B. Peon Folly

 

Lotad Lv. 25 & Whismur Lv. 26

Folly comes at us with a Whismur one level higher than its predecessors and a Lotad. Naturally, Lotad can know Astonish, so we should probably take him out first since Espeon has a weakness to that. Naturally, this battle doesn't last long.

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

Miror B. Peon Trudly

 

Duskull Lv. 25 & Spinarak Lv. 25

Trudly leads off with two pokemon that are weak to our own. A bite from Umbreon to Duskull and a Confusion from Espeon to Spinarak can make quick work of them, though Duskull was able to hold on with some extra health.

Makuhita Lv. 30

Now here is where this game starts to get interesting. The moment Trudley sends out his final pokemon to take the place of the KO'd Spinarak, Rui catches our attention in the middle of the battle to point it out. Though it looks like a normal Makuhita on the surface, she is capable of seeing a mysterious black aura emanating from its body. It's finally time for her plan. She insists that we have no choice. We must use the Snag Machine to try and Snag Makuhita!

 

Of course, we'll need to do some preparation first. I had to have Umbreon pick off Duskull while Espeon set up reflect to reduce the damage output of this Makuhita because it's rather high level and knows some potentially dangerous attacks.

Now that we're down to just Makuhita, it was time to focus on catching it. With some extra finesse, I was able to reduce its HP with Espeon's Return and Umbreon's Secret Power which was even able to paralyze it! From there, a pokeball was all it took to snag the thing!

Makuhita M; Lv. 30

Item: None

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Shadow Rush

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

Naturally, Trudly was shocked that we were able to snag his Makuhita. He and Folly are now in a panic that they'll have to report their second failure to Miror B. who is undoubtedly not going to be happy about this. We're going to need to pursue them to Pyrite Town where Rui claims she was abducted from!

On our way out of town however, we find each exit to the town is blocked by a men in strange, almost stormtrooper-esque suits. Each one is colored Red, Green, or Blue respectively. Your choice of which one to approach is actually much more important than you might immediately assume. The reason? You're already about to encounter yet another pokemon with black aura and each one has a different pokemon.

I ultimately decided to approach the man in the green suit who introduced himself as Verde.

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

Mystery Troop Verde

 

Grimer Lv. 26 & Spoink Lv. 24

 

Once again, the two leads are weak to my main pokemon, but I naturally wanted to give my new pokemon a shot. And so, I led off our battle with Makuhita and Espeon. Naturally, Espeon was able to make quick work of Grimer.

Bayleef Lv. 30

 

Rui points out yet another Shadow Pokemon to us. So it's time to double down and catch it! Of course, we can't afford to get careless, either. Naturally, Makuhita has yet to make a move, but when it comes time for it to make its move... It's emotions rose to a fever pitch and it entered Hyper Mode! It didn't attack at all! On the next turn, I retreated Espeon in exchange for Umbreon. Thankfully, it seemed Verde was more interested in targeting Espeon over Makuhita despite the super-effective type match-up. By switching into Umbreon, I was able to avoid damage entirely from Spoink's attack. I called Makuhita's name and that seemed to calm him down a bit. On the next turn, Umbreon was able to take out Spoink and I tried to attack Bayleef with Makuhita's Shadow Rush but, again, it entered Hyper Mode! 

Eventually, Bayleef was able to KO Makuhita which brought out Espeon. Between Return and Secret Power, as well as Taunt to prevent it from using Synthesis to heal, I was able to get its HP low enough to catch in a Great Ball.

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

Bayleef M Lv. 30

Item: MiracleSeed

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Shadow Rush

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

After defeating Verde, he lets us in on just what these mysterious pokemon are. He calls them Shadow Pokemon and tells us that the door to their hearts have been artificially closed to turn them into heartless fighting machines. This is absolutely unforgivable! Rui tells us that her grandfather suggested once that if the door to a pokemon's heart ever gets shut, battling and spending time with it can help it to open the door again. With this in mind, she insists we continue trying to rescue as many shadow pokemon as we can and spend some valuable time with them all to help improve their health.

If you go to check for the other two, they disappear along with Verde. Unfortunately, you'll only get to battle one of these three. At least for now.

 

It's probably not necessary for me to say, but as you can probably guess, yes, the other two trainers use a Shadow Quilava and Croconaw respectively in place of Bayleef. And they come with Charcoal and Mystic Water.

Now, I should mention that I do indeed know a lot more about these Shadow pokemon than I'm letting on right now, but that's because the game is actually pretty thorough about explaining most of the finer details on its own, and it won't be too far in at all before that happens. So for now, I think I'm just gonna relish in the mystery that is these Shadow Pokemon.

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

Anyway, I think that's a good place to end this first post. I can't wait to see what else comes from this playthrough of one of my favorite Pokemon games in the series! I can't wait to all in love with this game all over again!

[Aura]

Construction Lot

On our way to Pyrite Town, we stop by a Construction Lot. I'm really not sure why the game forces you to stop by here. There's literally nothing to do right now. I suppose it's a bit of foreshadowing as the men here talk about how we should come back when construction's finished so that we can see the completed tower and visit the colosseum at the top, but aside from that brief dialogue, there is absolutely nothing you get from here. Turn around, though, and you can now select Pyrite Town from the map.

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

Pyrite Town

The music in this place is fantastic. I regularly find myself humming along to it at random parts of the day as far back as I can remember. Honestly, this game has some incredible tracks but this is by far the most memorable to me. It's got this jazzy tune mixed in with the typical West Side Story style snapping beat that just feels good to hum along to. I love OST for this area so much that I'm going to be linking the songs over the name of the area.

This old, run-down town in shambles seems to be in total disarray. The first thing we see when we first arrive is a police officer, Johnson, questioning some guy named Cail. Cail feins ignorance about whatever Officer Johnson is asking him and the officer decides to let him off easy for now. He mocks Johnson behind his back and if we try to talk to him, he'll only warn us that we'd better watch our backs here. 

Immediately to your left as you enter the town is a Fortune Teller. As you'd probably expect, this Fortune Teller will leave you hints as to where you should be headed next in order to advance the story if you haven't played in a while or have simply found yourself getting lost.

Straight ahead is the police station and local jail. This is where we'll find Chief Sherles, the head of the police here. As we enter, Johnson bumps into us while trying to inform the chief of the many reports of strange pokemon being used in the streets. Chief Sherles admits that he's already aware of the reports and even tells you that it's probably for the best to get out of town at the moment because it's devolved into lawless chaos.

Moving forward, there are some typical houses and a mart as well as a hotel where you can stay the night for 100p. While this is definitely affordable, it's totally unnecessary. Why? Because there's a PC right in the Police Station where you can store your pokemon and heal them for free. Admittedly, it comes with a slight drawback of reducing the pokemon's happiness, but nowhere near a notable amount. Even better, there's nothing stopping you from just going to the back of the town and healing at the healing machine in the lobby of the Pyrite Colosseum. Trainer battles in towns like these don't really function quite the way they do in the main series. You'll only battle NPC's in towns if you talk to them first. There's also no story events that'll block you on the way, either, so you're free to go all the way there to heal up and come back to the front to continue exploring. But, if all that fails and you just want to stay at the hotel and pay the 100p for the convenience, that's understandable as well.

The last notable building is the home of Duking: The toughest guy in all of Pyrite Town. While he isn't a formal leader of any sort, he's highly respected among the locals and that pretty much gives him the authority of mayorhood. Normally, his influence keeps the streets peaceful but it seems recently he's grown quite shockingly complacent. There isn't much going on in here when we first enter, but we see a kid standing guard in front of a bookcase. As it turns out, there's a switch on the side of the bookcase that allows it to open up like a door leading to a secret room! This room is home to a secret clubhouse of kids who are all talking about the weird pokemon people are using. They don't seem too concerned with our presence. It seems as though they're really just a bunch of kids hanging out. This little hideout is a rather interesting design as it appears to be a cave with an underground lake and even a large tree? I don't see any trees reaching out into the surface, but I suppose I'm not supposed to think that far into it.

As we leave the cave, we find that Duking is being accosted by an associate of his: Silva. Silva is demanding that Duking take action against the recent appearance of strange pokemon in the streets but Duking just won't budge on the matter and chooses to remain silent. Frustrated by his negligence, Silvia runs off to take matters into his own hands. He's probably up to something reckless but it doesn't seem there's any stopping him. He might even help uncover some valuable information!

 

As you make your way through town, there's a new trainer class here: A Chaser. For the record, I'm not certain that the trainer classes actually reflect the type of pokemon the trainer uses which is why I haven't focused too much on them this time around. This game does feature a lot of original trainer classes rather than the typical staples like Campers and Hikers. Its more urban, western-inspired setting and exploration of themes of crime and underground business lends itself to a more rebellious-looking cast of trainers. Still, some familiar ones will poke up every once in a while, like the Cooltrainers, Rich Boy, and Lady classes we've already seen.

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

The real fun here begins when we reach Duel Square. Rui will stop us to mention that this is where she saw the Makuhita with the black aura. As you might expect, talking to the trainers gathered around here will net us some interesting results.

 

Rider Vant & Misdreavus Lv. 30

 

Rider Nover & Noctowl Lv. 30

 

St.Performer Diogo & Flaaffy Lv. 30

 

Rider Leba & Skiploom Lv. 30

 

Bandana Guy Dieval & Quagsire Lv. 30

 

Roller Boy Lon & Slugma Lv. 30

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

These are all trainers you can battle in this immediate area. You can challenge them as many times as you like, so no need to worry about failing to catch any of their pokemon. Obviously, these shadow pokemon aren't their only pokemon, but if I go through this entire game detailing the entire battle with every trainer who has a Shadow Pokemon we'll never get through this game. In general, fi it's just an optional battle like these, I'll be covering them in passing just like this. Rest assured, I am going through and making sure to catch all of the Shadow Pokemon in this game. Let's just say it's important for pokedex completion and leave it at that. As you catch these pokemon, you'll find yourself filling up your team in no time. This is good. Starting at such late levels, you're going to want a variety of pokemon early on to cover a variety of opponents. The pokemon here are well equipped for just that purpose. 

One thing you may notice while battling your way through Pyrite Town is that your Shadow Pokemon aren't gaining any experience. One of the biggest downsides to being a shadow pokemon is that it cannot level up at all. Don't let this discourage you from using them, though! Without revealing too much, I'll just say that the Exp the pokemon would be collecting won't be going to waste and it won't be too long before we find why that is.

As for the benefits of Shadow Pokemon, well, the trainers here are all familiar with what they're like to use and they'll give you advice on how to use them. Kind of odd that people in such a shady town would be willing to help out the guy who just stole their pokemon, but maybe they haven't noticed? 

Every Shadow pokemon has a preference for a single move: Shadow Rush. This is a 90 power typeless physical attack with recoil. Being a typeless attack means that this move will never be super effective, but it will also never be resisted. Trying to use Shadow Rush seems to give the pokemon an increased chance of entering Hyper Mode. Upon entering Hyper Mode, a shadow pokemon will waste its turn. While in Hyper Mode, its critical hit ratio will be increased. A shadow pokemon also seems more likely to enter Hyper Mode whenever it uses Shadow Rush. The downside to Hyper Mode? Well, occasionally the pokemon will refuse to listen when you tell it to use a move other than Shadow Rush. Beyond that, a pokemon in Hyper Mode cannot be healed with items. There are a number of ways to snap a pokemon out of Hyper Mode, but the easiest way to do this is by calling them. 

Calling is a mechanic I also haven't touched on yet, so I guess I should cover this here as well. Since there's no wild pokemon in this game, there's obviously no need for a Run command. As a result, this game now features a "Call" command instead. Using "Call" can have varying effects depending on the circumstance. Most of the time, it's just a sort of "do nothing" command that will simply pass the turn with no effect. It's a good option to stall for time if you have nothing better to do while the opponent is underground or you're anticipating a protect, destiny bond, etc. Calling a pokemon while it's asleep will cure its sleep status. This may seem OP but when you consider this is the same generation that had items like the Blue Flute, and the PokeFlute was available in Gen 1, it isn't really that surprising. I'm honestly more surprised you can't also call your pokemon to heal Confusion or Infatuation as well. Maybe that would've made the game too easy since Confusion and Infatuation are meant to emphasize switching out. The last advantage of Calling is, as previously stated, to snap a pokemon out of Hyper Mode. This will also clear up a significant chunk of the Pokemon's heart gauge. We'll cover that in more detail as the game does.

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

As we progress further, we'll find a giant chasm bridged by a really shoddy-looking bridge that looks like it might fall apart any second. Next to this bridge is a mysterious abandoned building with a locked door. We have no choice but to cross the shaky bridge toward the Pyrite Colosseum and see if we can find anything out about these mysterious pokemon.

[Sorry for the atrocious quality in some of these images, by the way. It's really hard to find images from my typical sources as they don't have very many maps or screenshots from this game in particular. Using the images provided by those sources can lead to some minor spoilers here and there for a future title that I'm trying to avoid so for the most part I'll be focusing on images from Google which seem to mostly be comprised of snapshots from YouTube videos.]

As we approach the end of the line and arrive at Pyrite Colosseum, we find that the challenge is already underway and they aren't accepting new challengers at the moment. We aren't the only ones affected by this, obviously, as the man standing near the counter seems rather bummed about this. If we talk to him, he explains that he wants to get a special pokemon just like Cail's. Rui immediately recognizes the name of Cail as the guy being questioned by the officer earlier and immediately suggests we go back to talk to him.

We do so, returning to the entrance of the town where Cail is still hanging around. After asking him about his "special pokemon," he confidently retorts that it'll be much better to show rather than tell.

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

Vs. Rogue Cail

 

Ralts Lv. 29 & Furret Lv. 33

As we've come to expect, Cail opens up with his own Shadow Furret. This thing is actually quite powerful compared to the other Shadow pokemon we've battled so far. It's pretty significantly higher level than Espeon or Umbreon, so it'll be able to outspeed us.

 

I led off with Espeon and my Shadow Quagsire. A Shadow Rush from Quagsire was enough to take out Ralts while Espeon set up Reflect to protect against Furret's offense. Furret was able to deal a decent chunk of damage off of Quagsire with Shadow Rush before Reflect was able to be set up, though.

Seedot, Lv. 29

 

After Ralts was KO'd, Seedot took its place. Since this was a Grass-type, I wanted to focus my efforts on knocking it out first and foremost. Between the attacks of Espeon and Quagsire, it went down.

Machop, Lv. 29

 

Next up was Machop which should be simple enough. I allowed Espeon to pick it off with Confusion while Quagsire focused its firepower on Furret.

From here, I was able to focus all my attention on whittling down Furret's HP while throwing Great Balls at it. It broke out of a few Great Balls, but it didn't take too much to snag it. I think this is a good time to mention that there's actually a pretty significant glitch in this game that can actually be extremely beneficial in saving time.

If you use your first action in the turn to throw a snag ball, during your second action (since every battle is a double battle), you can go back into your inventory and sort the pokeball you used into a different slot using the X button. This will cause a pokeball to be used without actually decrementing the number of pokeballs you have remaining! Exploiting this bug, you actually have an unlimited number of pokeballs.  Strangely, it seems that despite this clearly being unintended behavior, there seems to be a failsafe in place that prevents the wrong item from being depleted. In other words, if you swap the Great Ball's position with the Poke Ball, you won't lose any PokeBalls after throwing your Great Ball. As a programmer, I would have assumed this to be the case as I'd imagine the cause of this bug was that the game would simply decrement the number of the item at that index location. But apparently there's some form of check to ensure that the right item is being depleted, or perhaps they ran into a different bug trying to fix this one and decided to leave it. It's worth noting that, at this point, you've never been able to use Pokeballs in a double battle before as double battles are exclusive to trainer battles at this point in the series. Even going forward in the franchise where you are capable of getting into double battles with wild pokemon, you still can't throw pokeballs unless there's only one pokemon remaining. Perhaps this bug is simply an issue with the fundamental coding of the game?

There are a few limitations to relying too heavily on this bug, however. Namely, you have to throw the pokeball with the pokemon in your first active slot. This means you can't switch that first pokemon out, use attacks, or issue any other commands using that pokemon. Your second pokemon can do whatever it wants as long as you remember to sort the pokeball you're using out of its current slot. For this reason, if you plan to exploit this bug, I recommend trying your best to keep a more support-focused pokemon in the second active slot while keeping a more offensive pokemon in the left slot. Or vice versa if you want to throw pokeballs at a Shadow Pokemon while barreling through the rest of the opponent's team with your second pokemon. Usually, though, difficult to catch Shadow Pokemon tend to appear as the trainer's last pokemon.

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and admit that I'll be exploiting this bug to a reasonable extent just to save time. But for the sake of fairness, I'll abstain from exploiting this bug to gain any sort of artificial advantage outside of convenience. I won't be using this to catch certain extremely tough Shadow Pokemon earlier than you're expected to be able to and I also naturally won't exploit this glitch to get multiple uses out of the Master Ball.

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

After defeating Cail and snagging his Furret, he insists that Miror B. lied to him about the pokemon he'd been given. He was told that it was a really powerful type of pokemon called a shadow pokemon, but was disappointed by how standard it really was. He then warns you to watch own for swindlers and then tells you that he got it as a prize for winning at the Pyrite Colosseum. Sounds like we have our next destination!

As we make our way back toward the Pyrite Colosseum, though, an employee stumbles out of the town's windmill and mentions that Silva had stolen a gear from the windmill, preventing it from turning and supplying power to the colosseum! The man in charge of the gears requests our help in finding it. Naturally, without power, the colosseum can't operate. Indeed, if we go to the colosseum, we find that the lights are off and the door leading inside can't open without power. However, it seems the Healing Machine and PC nearby operate on their own backup power supply, so we can still heal and access or PC. 

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

We look all over town but just can't find Silva or the gear anywhere! It seems we're going to have to look outside of town as well.

Well it just so happens that there's one area that's been available to us that hasn't had a purpose so far. So why not check out the Construction Lot? Sure enough, one of the men here is complaining about some kid coming along and dumping a gear here as if it's some sort of garbage dump.

Again, why is this area here? It seems like they placed the Gear here solely to justify making this place available right now but it serves no purpose and I can imagine people getting frustrated looking all over Pyrite Town for the damn gear that's not even there! To my knowledge, none of the NPC's point you to the construction lot. The only NPC who might be of help is the Fortune Teller who might give you a hint as to where to look. There's also an NPC near the entrance to the town who mentions seeing Silva running out of town, but it's kind of hard to expect you to run around talking to NPC's when half of them are going to battle you the moment you talk to them. It also makes absolutely no sense for Silva to steal the gear, leave town, and just dump the Gear off in an arbitrary location like this of all places?

We go to the corner to retrieve the gear and bring it back to Pyrite Town. As we arrive at the Windmill, we find that Duking is here. He is angered as soon as he finds out that Silva is behind the theft, but the employee in charge of the gears insists that he can't hold it against Silva because he knows Silva's just trying to do what he can to help the town.

After we reveal that we've found the gear, Duking is surprised and apologizes for the curt way he dismissed you before and requests that you go take the Colosseum's challenge. Recognizing your courage and dedication, he thinks that you could have what it takes to really get to the bottom of whatever's going on with these pokemon.

I think this will make a good stopping point. We're about to approach a more Pokemon Stadium-esque area that I think we'll be justified in dedicating a post to. This might end up being a rather short post. I'm still trying to get my bearings on where exactly I should be splitting this up as it is rather unorthodox compared to the other titles. While I said in the beginning the game was clearly broken up into distinct "chapters," I don't think playing an entire chapter per post is a good idea as these posts will get incredibly long and that mindset will lead to absurdly long play sessions. There is a lot to do in each chapter. Even just breaking it down into completing an entire area per post like I normally do is a lot to cover in a single post. Again, I want to pace myself for this thread to avoid burnout. Rather than forcing myself to play to pre-determined stopping points, I'm probably going to be stopping wherever I can feel a natural division. I imagine this will lead to quite a few posts like this that are purely about exploring a new area with little actual story progress but I'm okay with that and I hope you are, too!

[Aura]

Pyrite Colosseum

Here's where we get to the part of the game that might call back memories of Pokemon Stadium. When you take the Pyrite Colosseum challenge, you'll be faced with a series of four opponents in a row in a similar vein to the Pre Gym. The difference here is that, surprisingly, this is a friendlier environment. Your pokemon get healed before every battle! This is somewhat akin to Pokemon Stadium's Gym Leader Castle where you'd fight three trainers before the gym leader. This time, it's portrayed more like a tournament. However, a significant difference between the colosseum and Stadium's gym leader castle is that this plays more like an extension of regular story mode battles. That is, your pokemon still gain Exp, level up, learn new moves and potentially evolve between battles. In addition, rather than both players selecting three of their six pokemon to enter battle with, you'll simply go in with whatever pokemon was at the top of your list. You can't change pokemon order between battles, so make sure to open up with the ones you want to lead with in every battle. 

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

My Team:

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

Espeon M, Lv. 29

Item: None

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Confusion, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Umbreon M, Lv. 29

Item: None

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Secret Power, Taunt, Snatch

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

Makuhita M, Lv. 30 [3/5]

Item: None

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Shadow Rush, Focus Energy, Vital Throw

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

Bayleef M, Lv. 30 [2/5]

Item: MiracleSeed

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Shadow Rush, Synthesis

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

Flaaffy F, Lv. 30 [0/5]

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: Shadow Rush

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

Quagsire F, Lv. 30 [1/5]

Item: None

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Shadow Rush, Amnesia

For Shadow Pokemon, since their levels are stuck in place, I've decided to also list the progress on their heart gauge whenever I list them on my team. This is the closest thing to gauging a Shadow Pokemon's "level," as the more segments of the heart gauge you clear, the more moves the pokemon will be capable of using. Again, we'll cover this in more information as the game goes in more detail about it.

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

 

Due to the unreliable nature of Shadow Pokemon, I decided to focus my lead on my most trusted partners: Espeon and Umbreon. They're starting to fall behind on levels with all these level 30 shadow pokemon, so I think it makes the most sense to use them. That said, you may want to take this colosseum challenge as an opportunity to open up the hearts of your shadow pokemon a little more to uncover some of their moves. None of the battles here are particularly challenging and you might be surprised by what sorts of powerful attacks they're holding out on you.

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

Round 1

Hunter Honks

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

 

Barboach Lv. 30 & Sandshrew Lv. 30

This guy seems to have a preference for ground-types. I was anticipating this Sandshrew might go for Dig, so I figured I'd set up Reflect and focus my efforts on taking out Barboach. Sandshrew just went for Scratch so he was easy to pick off alongside finishing off Barboach on the next turn.

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

Round 2

Chaser Tisler

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

 

Natu Lv. 30 & Medicham Lv. 30

A Psychic-type specialist! This is nice for Umbreon, but Medicham's fighting type is vaguely threatening. I first set up Reflect with Espeon and had Umbreon attack it. It went for Hidden Power which happened to be a fighting-type attack. A rather unfortunate typing for medicham considering you typically want Hidden Power to cover one of your weaknesses, but it's not too bad of an option since he gets STAB from it. Thanks to Reflect, Medicham wasn't able to do much damage and Natu's Peck was rather useless as well. On the next turn, Espeon finished Medicham off with Confusion and Natu was nearly taken out with Bite. It was helpless at this point, though, and another set of attacks was all it took.

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

Semi-Final Round

The music is different here! The mood is a bit different as the battles get tougher!

Bandana Guy Vilch

 

Electrike Lv. 30 & Cacnea Lv. 31

Electrike's Static is concerning to Umbreon. However, I didn't want to give it the chance to potentially use Thunder Wave and paralyze my pokemon, so I decided to bite the bullet and attack it with both of my pokemon. Sure enough, Static took effect and paralyzed Umbreon which was unfortunate, but he went down! Since neither of these pokkemon are known for their physical attacks, I didn't bother setting up Reflect and just went on an all-out offensive. All Cacnea could do in retaliation was use Poison Sting. Since Umbreon was already paralyzed, it could only deal some damage.

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

Vulpix Lv. 32

 

Vulpix came out next and, once I figured Cacnea probably wasn't much of a threat and that Vulpix was a greater concern. This time, I focused my physical attacks on it. It didn't quite go down, so the next turn I let Umbreon finish the job while Espeon used Confusion on Cacnea. The next turn, it was just a matter of giving Cacnea one more push.

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

Final Round

Minor spoiler in the title of this new track, it's not too big of a deal, but if you're concerned, try not to look at the title.

Bodybuilder Mirez

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

 

Bagon Lv. 32 & Goldeen Lv. 32

These two pokemon are very physically oriented, so I decided to let Espeon open up with Reflect while Umbreon started attacking Bagon who I immediately assumed to be the more threatening of the two. That is, until Goldeen revealed that it knew Surf! Surf is an especially powerful attack in this game since it's not only a powerful attack, but it hits both opponents and doesn't compromise its power in doing so like many other multi-targeting attacks. Since I'd already built up damage on Bagon, I decided to finish him off with Espeon's Confusion while Umbreon turned his attention toward the new bigger threat.

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

Magnemite Lv. 31

 

Just when you thought things couldn't get more awkward, out came Magnemite! As a Steel Type, Magnemite resists all of Umbreon and Espeon's attacks, but since its special defense is lacking, this wasn't too much of an issue. I'd still be able to some damage built up on him. Still, I couldn't deny the risk of its support moves, so I decided to have Umbreon hit it with Taunt to stop its potential Thunder Wave, SuperSonic, or any other move it decides to surprise me with. This seemed to be fruitless though because all it ended up going for was ThunderShock. Of course, the main threat was still Goldeen, so I finished her off with Espeon. Upon KOing Goldeen, Umbreon leveled up to level 30 and learned Confuse Ray! This is sure to make Umbreon much more useful going forward.

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

Delibird Lv. 34

 

Delibird was a strange pokemon to finish off on. Its only attack seems to be Present, but don't underestimate the attack! It can be pretty pathetic and can even heal you, but it also has the potential to be a really devastating attack! Expect a really powerful Present to come out of nowhere when dealing with Delibird. Eventually, I finished off Magnemite by focusing my attacks leaving Mirez with just his Delibird. It didn't stand a chance and I was able to defeat him!

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

After defeating Mirez, we've won the tournament! We're rewarded with some prize money as well as TM06: Toxic! 

Like I said before, I think it's for the best to count these colosseums as their own areas since it's quite similar to challenging an area in Gym Leader Castle. Next time, we'll look into where these Shadow Pokemon are coming from by going straight to the source!

[Aura]

Upon completing the colosseum challenge and making your way back across the bridge to the main part of Pyrite Town, you're met by a man in a similar outfit to the men who tried to block us in back at Phenac City. Having noticed our victory, he asks us to follow him and leads us into the mysterious building nearby.

Pyrite Building

 

As we enter the building, the man leads us to a counter where a woman in a similar, purple outfit greets us before pausing at the sight of us and freaking out when she recognizes you as the trainer Miror B. warned them about! The man who brought us here is caught off guard and immediately starts to panic before challenging you to a battle in an effort to kick you out.

I should mention that this next battle is our first case of a "missable" shadow pokemon. I put "missable" in quotes because you will have unlimited chances to catch any shadow pokemon you miss the first time around. Sometimes it's as simple as asking the trainer for another battle, sometimes a shadow pokemon will be owned by a recurring character in the story, but sometimes, mostly with these Cipher Peons, you're not going to have another chance to catch these shadow pokemon for a long time. In fact, they won't be available for a rematch until after the game's main story is over. So, if you see a pokemon you're interested in using on your team, you may want to make it a point to save first as one poorly timed crit can ruin your only chance. Remember that you can only save at the PC in this game, though, so you'll unfortunately have to make the long trek back.

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

Cipher Peon Nore

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

 

Pineco Lv. 32 & Yanma Lv. 33

 

The Cipher Peon leads off with two bug-types. At the moment, I happened to have Umbreon and Quagsire at the lead. I started by hitting Yanma with Taunt to stunt the annoying status moves Yanma is typically known for. However, it was faster than me thanks to its level and was able to get off a SuperSonic to confuse Umbreon. Quagsire was able to get a Shadow Rush off, so the turn wasn't a total waste.

 

In order to get rid of the confusion on Umbreon, I decided to switch him out for Espeon. In the meantime, Quagsire unfortunately went into Hyper Mode, so it was unable to damage Yanma. To follow up, I set up Reflect to protect my team from any physical damage that might come my way and called Quagsire to get it out of Hyper Mode. Then, another Shadow Rush on Yanma was enough to reduce its health to a reasonable catching range while a Psychic was enough to take out Pineco.

Nincada, Lv. 31

Nincada came out next. I threw a Great Ball at Yanma to try and catch it and successfully did so!

Surskit, Lv. 32

 

Unfortunately, with the combined efforts of both the opponents' offensive presence, Espeon was unable to hold up even with the effects of Reflect, and Nincada was able to take Espeon out with Leech Life.

 

Naturally, I moved to replace Espeon with Umbreon and continued fighting. A couple of Bites finished off Nincada while Shadow Rush took care of Surskit.

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

After defeating Nore, the two peons start to blame each other before scrambling to report their misstep to Miror B. Duking and the kids rush into the building. Duking wanted to check if we were okay. His daughter tells us that Cipher had abducted his Plusle and that's why he's been so reluctant to do anything about Cipher's presence in the town. Upon hearing the purpose Cipher had been using the Colosseum for, he gets angry but admits that you're clearly much more skilled at handling this situation than he is, so he decides to entrust the task to you.

Now, we're going to need to climb the rest of the building. But first, there's a file written by a man named "Ein" sitting here on the counter. This seems to be a document from his research notes about Shadow Pokemon detailing Hyper Mode and the advantages and disadvantages it provides. This includes the increased crit chance as well as the inability to use items, chance to ignore orders, and it even mentions something I forgot to: The fact that a shadow pokemon in reverse mode will occasionally attack you, its ally, or even the opposing trainer. In the first and final cases, it doesn't actually have any effects on the battle aside from passing the turn, but it's interesting to see regardless. 

Your first priority is definitely to move around to the other side of the counter. You'll have to battle a Roller Boy in order to get to the door, but this'll free up a healing machine and PC for your convenience. After this, you can go back and challenge the one trainer you moved past before if you're interested, but she's not actually blocking anything right now and none of the other trainers aside from the Cipher Peon in this building have any shadow pokemon to catch. 

Since none of the trainers in this building have any shadow pokemon, I'm not gonna detail every single battle. I'm gonna treat these just like required battles on a route in a main series game.

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

1F Trainers:

 

2F Trainers:

   

3F Trainers:

   

The last two trainers on this floor are female variants of classes we've battled before. These are the female hunter and female bodybuilder. 

As you can probably recognize from the sheer number of trainers here, this is perhaps one of the biggest complaints I have about this game. Many of the dungeons are long and rather tedious. This building is full of nothing but repetitive hallways with a few items scattered around. Overall, there's just nothing going on and you'll probably find yourself going all the way back down to heal yourself and with the brisk pace Wes moves at, this can get really repetitive. If you're not stubborn like me, this might not be an issue because you'll probably just be using potions and such to get by. I just happen to stubbornly refuse to use items that I'm obviously never going to use because I never want to use them. ...It's a struggle.

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

As we reach the roof of the building, there's one more small room and an entrance to a cave being blocked off by a hunter. Talking to him, he says that they've captured an intruder. He mistakes you for another thug like all the others and tells you to go help deal with the intruder in the room. If they have a prisoner, it seems we're needed!

 

Inside, we find two girls standing over that very intruder: It's Silva, of course! Naturally, the two girls are frustrated to see us and, as per Miror B.'s orders, they'll both challenge us to a battle one after another, so come prepared for an endurance round!

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

My Team:

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

Espeon M, Lv. 31

Item: None

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Confusion, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Umbreon M, Lv. 31

Item: None

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Secret Power, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Makuhita M, Lv. 30 [5/5]

Item: None

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Shadow Rush, Focus Energy, Vital Throw, Cross Chop

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

Bayleef M, Lv. 30 [5/5]

Item: MiracleSeed

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Shadow Rush, Synthesis, Razor Leaf, Body Slam

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

Flaaffy F, Lv. 30 [4/5]

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: Shadow Rush, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Quagsire F, Lv. 30 [5/5]

Item: None

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Shadow Rush, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

 

I decided to lead off against these two battles with Umbreon and Flaaffy to aid in setting up against my opponents as well as get some better odds of catching these upcoming shadow pokemon.

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

Vs. Miror B. Peon Reath

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

 

Spinarak Lv. 33 & Remoraid Lv. 20

Yeah, that's not a typo. Her shadow Remoraid really is only level 20 and considering it's such a fragile pokemon, that makes it a really easy pokemon to miss. Being extra careful here, I gave my best efforts to catch Remoraid by paralyzing it with Flaffy's Thunder Wave and using Umbreon's Bite. I hadn't taken note of this until just now, but my Umbreon has an Impish Nature which is pretty bad. Impish increases its physical defense but decreases its special attack which, for a Dark Type, definitely isn't the best.

Anyway, even with just a single Bite, Remoraid was already nearly knocked out which isn't good considering Shadow Rush deals recoil damage to it. Meanwhile, her Spinarak just set up with Agility so there's not much to worry about in that department. On the next turn, I focused Flaaffy's Thundershock on Spinarak while throwing a Great Ball at Remoraid for the catch.

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

Luvdisc Lv. 32

 

Luvdisc is sent out to take the place of Remoraid. From here, Luvdisc is easy to take out with a Thundershock for the conclusion of the battle.

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

Vs. Miror B. Peon Ferma

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

 

Aipom Lv. 32 & Mantine Lv. 33

Mantine is the shadow pokemon of Ferma. I naturally started by hitting him with a Thunder Wave from Flaaffy to make him more catchable. Keeping in mind that Mantine's catch rate is incredibly low, I think inflicting paralysis is the most important part to get by. It's also capable of dealing some surprising amounts of damage with its BubbleBeam.  With Umbreon, I used Confuse Ray to hopefully reduce Aipom's influence on the fight. On the next turn, I used Flaaffy's Thundershock to hit Mantine. He should be able to survive the hit thanks to his high special defense and higher level. Sure enough, he was able to take the hit. Next up, Umbreon focused its efforts on Aipom while Flaaffy nailed it with another Thundershock and... critted. 

Again, we're going to have a second chance at catching this Mantine later, and that's probably for the best since we only have Great Balls at the moment, but it's still a huge disappointment that this is how we failed to catch it. 

Furret Lv. 31

 

To take Mantine's place was Furret. Unfortunately, with the damage Flaaffy had sustained from Mantine's Bubblebeam, it wasn't able to hold up to a Quick Attack from Furret.

 

I brought Quagsire out next to hit both opponents with its Surf. Of course, I used Confuse Ray to stop some of Furret's attacks first and from there, Quagsire's Surf took out Aipom and set up some damage on Furret.

Yanma Lv. 33

 

I went for Taunt to prevent Yanma from confusing my pokemon, but it outsped. Thankfully, it just went for SonicBoom on Quagsire. Then, Quagsire took some pretty heavy damage from Furret. Another Surf was only able to do so much. On the next turn, I focused all of my firepower on taking out Furret, but Yanma was able to take out Quagsire with one more SonicBoom.

 

I brought Espeon out to take Quagsire's place and, rather than setting up Reflect, I figured the best bet was to just take Furret out with Confusion. Umbroen was able to cut off Yanma and end the fight from here!

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

After defeating both girls, they flee and we help Silva to his feet. He apologizes for his rash behavior and expresses his detest for Miror B.'s tactics. It's here where Miror B. shows up on the monitor with a message for us. After Rui calls him a coward for stealing Duking's Plusle, Miror B. objects and explains there is no fleeing at all. He even invites us to follow him into the cave outside. Could this be a trap? Perhaps, but we need to rescue Plusle by any means necessary!

But first, we're going to take a quick look around the room. We find another document from Ein about Shadow Pokemon. This document makes mention of a girl who is capable of seeing the black aura of shadow pokemon that is normally unseeable and explains that this is troubling for Cipher and must be dealt with swiftly. It seems it's going to be important to keep Rui safe. She has a very important role in all of this!

If we go down the stairs here, we can take an elevator back to the first floor and open a one-way door back to the main entrance. From here, we can heal up and save. I think this makes for a good stopping point for the day. Next time, we'll be delving deeper into the old mine that Pyrite Town was once known for at the depths of which Miror B. is waiting with the hostage Plusle.

[Aura]

After defeating Reath and Ferma, we can now head back outside and enter Pyrite Cave. Small note, unfortunately the one-way door at the base of the elevator doesn't unlock from the other side after you go through it. It's gonna stay locked from the other side, meaning if you went downstairs to heal or restock on items, you're going to have to climb all the way back up the building. So, yes, stocking up on healing items is definitely something you're going to want to do. There's quite a few battles between here and the next convenient PC location so depending on how cautious you are, you might find yourself running in and out of this building over and over. Keep in mind that you don't have to worry too much about saving before every Shadow Pokemon, you'll be able to rematch the upcoming trainers as much as you like. 

Just like before, there's still a hunter standing guard at the entrance to the cave. Miror B.'s invitation wasn't exactly a friendly one, and this guy has finally caught on to the fact that we were also imposters. Talking to him, now, he's going to battle us.

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

Hunter Doken

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

 

Goldeen Lv. 33 & Qwilfish Lv. 33

Right off the bat, he brings out yet another shadow pokemon!

 

I led off with Espeon and Flaaffy. I led off with confusion on Goldeen to turn its attack stat against it and Thunder Wave to paralyze Qwilfish. From there, a Thundershock and Bite was enough to reduce Qwilfish's HP to a reasonable catch percentage. However, Qwilfish also has a pretty low catch rate, so it took many turns to catch it. Meanwhile, I focused most of my efforts on Goldeen who was building up a surprising amount of damage on my pokemon. Qwilfish wasn't doing much but spamming Surf which wasn't going to be doing much damage between its low special attack and, from what I can tell, it seems that Surf actually does split its damage output like other split target moves which is a bit of a downside.

 

 

Eventually, I switched into Espeon to set up Reflect and then took out Goldeen with one more Thundershock.

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

Linoone Lv. 33

 

 

Linoone took Goldeen's spot and I just continued to pile Great Balls onto Qwilfish who still didn't want to be caught. Eventually, Flaffy ended up getting KO'd.

 

 

From there, I brought out Makuhita who hadn't really seen much gameplay at all up until this point. I tried to hit Linoone with a Cross Chop but missed because of a Sand-Attack. Finally, I hit Lineoone with a Vital Throw, leaving it just between me and Qwilfish. A few more Great Balls to go and Qwilfish was finally caught!

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

That battle was definitely an annoyance because of Qwilfish's catch rate, but we're definitely going to need to drop back down to heal up after that.

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

Pyrite Cave

This is the second phase of Miror B.'s dungeon. It's a bit more interesting to navigate but there's still lots of weird dead ends an dodd design choices that make it feel more like a maze than anything else. It's intentionally designed that way, though, and even leads to some funny dialogue if you pay attention to characters. Try to keep in mind where you have and haven't been and if you're worried about missing anything, make sure to turn around whenever it feels like you're advancing forward and make sure you've explored all the alternate paths. There's no surprise points of no return here, so you don't have to hesitate when entering a new area.

Entrance:

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

B1F Area 1:

 

 

Rider Twan & Meditite Lv. 33

Even if you're not interested in catching all the shadow pokemon or using Meditite, this one may be worth the capture because he happens to be holding a TwistedSpoon which will power up your Espeon's Psychic attacks!

Also, I suppose this is a good moment to point out something you may have noticed by now. That is, excluding the Makuhita at the very beginning of the game, this is the very first Gen 3 shadow pokemon we've seen! Every other pokemon we've encountered and obtained so far has been a Gen 2 pokemon!This game has a very heavy emphasis on pokemon that aren't available in Ruby and Sapphire or a certain pair of titles that were in development around the same time as this one. Since there was no way to transfer pokemon forward from Generation 2 to 3, it seems Game Freak wanted to go out of their way to make sure every pokemon could still be obtained within the generation and that seems to be a huge driving force behind many of the design decisions around this game. This means a significant chunk of Generation 2 pokemon are going to be made available here!

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

1F:

 

The two trainers in this area lead you toward a dead end. However, it's probably still in your best interest to come by them because they're guarding a chest with three Ultra Balls! If you have no shame, you can use the infinite pokeball glitch with these so that you never have to buy more. I'm not going to be doing this until the point where I can at least buy more Ultra Balls. Until then, I'll only use these three. If I use the glitch, it'll only be on Great Balls or lower for now.

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

B2F Area 1:

This floor is a part of the town's sewage system. Thankfully, unlike most Sewer levels in video games, this one isn't too terrible and even offers some rather ominous visuals as you cross these towering concrete structures over the roaring waters below.

Rider Sosh & Dunsparce

Not really sure what good Dunsparce is gonna do for us, but here you go! In all seriousness, Dunsparce isn't a terrible choice. Its Yawn can help you consistently put shadow pokemon to sleep, making them significantly easier to catch. Since opponents rarely switch out, you don't really have to worry about them stopping the drowsiness. And the opposing trainers also never call their own pokemon, so you don't have to worry about them waking up spontaneously either.

Also, don't go back and heal after defeating Rider Sosh! There's a healing machine right past her in front of the staircase leading to the next floor!

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

B1F Area 2:

We're back in the cave!

 

Hunter Zalo & Swablu Lv. 33

Believe it or not, right here is where we're already getting our final party member! Since Makuhita hasn't seen much play at all, I decided to replace him with Swablu!

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

Swablu F, Lv. 33

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Shadow Rush

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

B2F Area 2:

This area is an optional area but well worth your time to visit. It's another dead end with a few trainers here to rough you up. None of them have any shadow pokemon, but if you explore around you should be able to find four chests each containing various vitamins!

  

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

Miror B.'s Hideout

Eventually, you'll come across a large opening in the cave wall of a small area of B2F. Going through here, you'll hear some rather wacky music befitting of a certain eccentric criminal. As we go through the door, we find none other than Miror B. standing in the spotlight and dancing to the music. He stops the music to address you. He insists that your crusade will end here and challenges you to a battle himself this time.

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

My Team:

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

Espeon M, Lv. 33

Item: None

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Confusion, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Umbreon M, Lv. 33

Item: None

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Secret Power, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Bayleef M, Lv. 30 [5/5]

Item: MiracleSeed

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Shadow Rush, Synthesis, Razor Leaf, Body Slam

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

Flaaffy F, Lv. 30 [5/5]

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: Shadow Rush, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Quagsire F, Lv. 30 [5/5]

Item: None

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Shadow Rush, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Swablu F, Lv. 33 [1/5]

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Shadow Rush, Sing

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

Vs. Cipher Admin Miror B.

The same wacky music as before plays again during this boss fight, leading to a rather comedic tone to this battle. But don't underestimate him! Depending on how your luck goes, you just might be in for one of the more annoying battles in the game.

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

 

Ludicolo Lv. 29 & Ludicolo Lv. 31

That's right, to match the hispanic theme of his music, Miror B.'s team is filled with Ludicolo who humorously enough have an idle animation that makes it look as though they're dancing to the music! You just have to appreciate the small details that make up the humor of this whole bizarre character.

But that's where the humor ends, because these movesets are intentionally designed to be as obnoxious as an early game boss can be. Right off the bat, he'll prioritize setting up Rain Dance above all else. From there, one Ludicolo will spam Astonish to make you flinch as much as possible while the other one will spam Leech Seed to either drain a bunch of HP from your pokemon or force you to keep switching your pokemon out. To make matters worse, the Ludicolo with Astonish has Swift Swim, basically guaranteeing it'll outspeed anything you have while the one with Leech Seed has Rain Dish which will heal it every turn on top of Leech Seed and it also knows Mega Drain to heal itself with its own attack. You need to make sure you have some consistently high damage output against this thing in order to take it out, and the flinches from its brother aren't helping in the slightest!

 

 

Recognizing that my team wasn't very well equipped for dealing with Ludicolo, I decided to lead with the classic duo of Umbreon and Espeon to hopefully slow down their assault. Thankfully, their levels are rather low so I don't have to worry too much about their damage output or defenses dealing too much against me. The constant healing is a huge pain, though. I actually made a pretty big mistake, though. I was a bit too focused on hitting the healing Ludicolo with Secret Power and Confusion to take it out as quickly as possible that I completely forgot to jam its Rain Dance and Leech Seed using Taunt, which probably would have made things a little bit easier.

 

 

After Espeon got Leech Seeded, I switched into Bayleef. As a grass type, Bayleef would be immune to the effect of Leech Seed. From here, I used Confuse Ray to try and jam their attacks as much as I could while Bayleef used Body Slam to paralyze the two. Eventually, after a bit of switching back and forth between Umbreon and Espeon after getting Leech Seeded, we finally managed to overcome the healing Ludicolo.

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

Ludicolo Lv. 30

 

 

Yup you got that right. Yet another Ludicolo took that one's place. This one is a bit more offensively focused which actually makes for a much sloppier moveset. It's also a bit easier to deal with, thankfully. It just kept using Mega Drain and Fury Swipes while obviously keeping Rain Dance up as much as it could. Eventually, it went down as well.

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

Ludicolo Lv. 28

 

 

This is another Swift Swim Ludicolo. Thankfully, Bayleef attacked it as soon as it came out with a Body Slam, paralyzing it and crippling its speed. It's a good thing, too, because apparently this thing knew Ice Beam! After taking out Ludicolo with another round of attacks, we had one more pokemon to see.

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

Sudowoodo, Lv. 35

 

 

Ah yes, what would a boss fight be without a shadow pokemon? Well, at this point, the Level 29 Ludicolo that's been chilling there the entire battle is paralyzed and confused so I think it's for the best to focus our efforts on snagging Sudowoodo. With a Razor Leaf from Bayleef and a Secret Power form Umbreon, Ludicolo went down and some decent damage was built up on Sudowoodo.

 

From here, a Bite from Umbreon and another Razor Leaf, this time with undivided damage, should be enough to get him into catching range. But we can make things a little easier for ourselves.

 

The very next turn, I swapped out both my active party members. I set up Reflect with Espeon and used Swablu's Sing to put Sudowoodo to sleep. At this point, all it took was a single Great Ball to snag it! That wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting this battle to go!

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

After defeating Miror B., he is shocked by your skill and retreats from his hideout for now. He leaves behind TM49: Snatch and we can now open the door that was behind him to find Plusle!

Before going up and talking to Plusle, though, you might want to check out the Ein File here which is a file about purifying pokemon. It explains that the process of opening the door to the heart of a pokemon whose door has been artificially closed is known as purifying. Ein notes that the actual method of purification is unknown but that it does seem to be possible. It's clear from our own experience that merely reducing the heart gauge is not enough as the pokemon we've snagged are still all shadow pokemon! There must be an extra step that we're missing and we'll need to find it asap in order to save this pokemon. 

 

Once you interact with Plusle, Duking and Silva come rushing in and they're both relieved to see that you're not only okay, but have successfully forced Miror B. to flee! Duking brings you back to his place where he sincerely thanks you for saving Pyrite Town from Cipher's influence. With his Plusle back in safe arms, he can get to work cleaning up the streets all thanks to you. Plusle decides it wants to come along as well, which Duking agrees. He can't think of anywhere Plusle would be more safe than with us, so Plusle tags along!

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

Plusle, Lv. 13

Item: None

Ability: Plus | Moves: Growl, Thunder Wave, Quick Attack, Helping Hand

Yeah... Normally I'm all for making room for pokemon with sentimental value on my team, but I have absolutely no clue how or why they decided to do this. This is a huge missed opportunity which I'll go over in more detail later on, but, minor spoiler alert, there is no Minun in this game.

On its own, Plusle already has painfully poor stats. Its ability is worthless without Minun's Minus ability and the only way you can get a Minun in this game is to transfer it in from Ruby and Sapphire. In a game built entirely around double battles, this would have been the perfect place to let Plusle shine as originally intended! Instead, we just get a pokemon that's total trash in an already difficult-enough game. I don't mean to be too harsh on the little guy, but he's just no good for battles which is a shame because I really would love to fit him on my team if he could contribute well to any role. But he's not fast enough to outspeed anything, he can't take a hit to save his life, and he can hardly deal any damage. All he's ever going to be good for is Helping Hand and Thunder Wave. And to make matters worse, it comes at level 13 meaning you have to go out of your way to train it up just to be "on par" with the rest of your team. I'm sorry, that's just not happening.

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

Well, with Miror B. defeated and Pyrite Town saved, I think we've reached a solid stopping point. Next time, maybe we'll take a look around the newly cleaned up streets and see if we can find our next calling.

[Aura]

With Pyrite Town cleaned up, there really isn't all that much left to do here. That is, not yet anyway. The truth is, a lot has opened up here, but I don't think now's the time to deal with most of it as I want to make purifying our shadow pokemon our top priority. Still, there's a few things I wanted to make note of.

First of all, you can now re-enter the Pyrite Colosseum. There are some valuable TM's you can get through this, but uh... the pokemon are much higher level this time. I'm talking pokemon in the level range of 50-53. You're probably not going to get very far with your team as it is and it's gonna be quite a while before that becomes a possibility.

In addition, if we revisit the Pyrite Building, all of the trainers inside will challenge us on sight once again, this time with higher-level pokemon. This is much more manageable right now than the levels we're dealing with at the colosseum, but it's basically repeating the entire dungeon all over again with very little actual difference. There is something at the end that kind of makes it worthwhile, and we'll definitely be coming back soon to see that, but it's nothing too terribly important. If you missed the Macho Brace and Ein File back in Miror B.'s Hideout, you are going to have to tunnel your way through all those trainers again, though.

As we explore the rest of the town, we find that many NPC's will be talking about a small town called The Under which exists under Pyrite Town. It's an old town in a crevasse under the giant chasm Pyrite Town's bridge overlooks. It's said that not many people come and go from there. This is information that will probably be important to keep in mind. It sounds like a rather convenient place for a criminal to retreat to...

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

I've mentioned before that none of the shadow pokemon we caught here are "missable," in the same sense as any of the boss fights. What I haven't mentioned yet is that, after you've snagged their shadow pokemon, the rest of their team will also grow stronger similar to rematches in Ruby and Sapphire. In addition, their shadow pokemon will be replaced with another pokemon to fill a similar role on their team. Typically, the replacement will be another pokemon of the same type. If you're interested, you may want to rematch all of these trainers. This can also help you to clear up the heart gauge on some of the shadow pokemon you've caught along the way, so it might prove to be well worthwhile.

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

Returning to the police station, Officer Johnson bumps into us again in his haste to inform the chief of Miror B.'s spontaneous retreat. Yet again, Chief Sherles has already received word of this and thanks you for your incredible support. Perhaps one of the odder details here is that we can now find a Jail Key on a nearby table. With this key, we can open the jail cells and let the people inside free. Folly and Trudley refuse to believe that we were able to defeat Miror B. and still keep themselves holed up in their cell. In another cell, though, there is a Chaser who is much more happy to be let free. Humorously, he even just walks right out, right past the chief of police and they have nothing to say to us about the matter. The really bizarre fact about this is that the game expects you to do this. Because inside this cell, there is a chest containing TM46: Thief!

I should also take this time to note that, I actually did some more thinking and decided that it probably would be for the best to teach Toxic to Umbreon over Secret Power. I know Secret Power is capable of doing more damage than Bite given Umbreon's higher attack stat, but in general, I think having the Super-effective Bite is much more helpful overall and the difference in damage really isn't all that much anyway. Having Toxic, on the other hand, is a great way to build up damage on a defensive pokemon.

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

Lastly, on our way out of town, we'll find The Mother of Pyrite Town: Fateen standing outside her fortune telling house. Talking to her, she'll advise us that the solution to opening the hearts of our pokemon lies in the forest to the north. Rui recognizes the area the woman is talking about immediately as Agate village. It's where her grandparents live! In fact, she just recalled that she was off to visit her grandfather when she was abducted! With that in mind, we have our heading!

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

Agate Village

Yet another really iconic area of this game. Build into a tall mountainside with a waterfall towering over it, this is a really nature-centric community grown around the remains of a giant tree with its sprawling roots covering much of the town. The music is really peaceful but still energetic enough at points to emphasize that this is a peaceful rest stop, but it's still part of a grand adventure.  Much of the village's residents are elderly people with an admiration for the youth, so it's actually quite a pleasant place to imagine yourself in.

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

The town itself has many small secrets that play with the perspective of the camera. Right off the bat, if we walk around behind the nearby cliffside, we can find a secret cave entrance that leads into an area with two chests containing some more Ultra Balls and a Silk Scarf which is going to Quagsire since he's the only pokemon with a normal-type attack that doesn't already have a held item. If you go around behind the giant tree at the top of the village, youc an find another secret path that leads to yet another item box holding an Exp Share! This will be invaluable if you want to make use of that level 20 Remoraid. Less secretive, at the topmost cliff of the village is a man whose Tailow gathers berries for him. Every day, you can talk to him and he'll give you a random berry! For the most part, they're just pretty standard berries, but you don't have to worry about any internal batteries getting in the way of making these renewable! 

At the bottom of the village is an entrance to a cave that leads into Relic Forest. There's a man standing guard at the cave entrance who explains that legend says the mythical pokemon Celebi is known to visit. However, because of its cultural significance, only the locals are allowed to enter the forest. If we go around the other way, though, we can find a long crevasse in the mountainside that leads to another chest which holds a Quick Claw! We'll give that to Umbreon to help him get better use out of Taunt and other status moves.

We probably shouldn't hesitate to bring Rui to her grandfather, but I do want to make one more quick pit stop here. The northwesternmost building is home to the Day Care! This Day Care can only take care of one pokemon at a time, so no breeding can be done here. However, if you leave a Shadow Pokemon at the Day Care, its heart will slowly open up as it gains Exp. This can be a nice way to open up a shadow pokemon you aren't interested in using. Beyond just the Day Care service, though, we can also find the Name Rater in here! With this, we can finally nickname our Espeon and Umbreon!

I'm kind of surprised the game didn't prompt you with the option to name your starters alongside your character at the start of the game, but you can properly give them a nickname so it's time to come up with another theme for nicknames! It's strange how limiting yourself to a central theme makes it easier to come up with ideas for nicknames. It's a lot of fun and the nicknames feel a lot more satisfying to boot! In this case, since this game is about building your relationship with pokemon who have been abused, I was thinking a neat theme this time around could be focusing on elements of friendship. Precious things that can take years to build but only one moment to shatter completely. 

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 33

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 34

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

Trust and Faith I think make a really nice cornerstone for the rest of the cast. It's gonna be a bit of a challenge staying true to this naming convention, but it should lead to some really nice solidarity among my team. Of course, you may have noticed that we can't nickname shadow pokemon. Don't worry, we'll have our solution to that soon enough.

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

Finally, we should head off to the home of Rui's grandfather: Eagun. He lives in the house underneath the giant tree overlooking the village. It makes sense he'd live in such an important-looking house since he was supposedly a legendary pokemon trainer in his youth according to Rui.

 

Inside the building, we meet Eagun and Beluh personally. They seem to be a really sweet old couple and are overjoyed to see their granddaughter safe and healthy, and bringing a handsome young man with her to boot. The family reunion is soured rather quickly, though, as it's not long before the man who was guarding the Relic Forest comes running in, saying outsiders have forced their way past him and entered the forest. Shocked by this, Eagun immediately takes action and runs off with the guard, leaving Beluh who expresses her concern about Eagun's energy given his old age.

These invaders definitely don't sound good, so we should make haste to the cave as well!

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

Relic Cave

As soon as we step inside the cave, we're met with a familiar foe.

 

Yes indeed, the outsiders who have forced their way into the forest are a part of Cipher who seem to be on a mission and whatever this mission is, it can't be good considering we were sent here with the idea that we'll be able to open the hearts of our shadow pokemon.

When we make our way to the end of the cave, we're ambushed by yet another Cipher Peon who drops in from the ceiling. This is something you're definitely going to want to get used to when dealing with Cipher going forward. 

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

Relic Stone

This beautiful, serene meadow in the middle of the forest is home to the Relic Stone, a monument dedicated to Celebi. 

 

But the serene atmosphere is interrupted with the presence of someone who clearly doesn't belong. We arrive just in time to see catch Eagun challenging this mysterious man who goes by the name Skrub. ...Yeah, Skrub. I'm not sure if that name was intentionally chosen to be ironic or if it was just poorly thought-out, but at the very least it seems like we're intended to take him seriously.

As the two battle, Skrub's level 38 shadow Hitmontop is able to completely dominate Eagun's level 50 Pikachu. He mocks Eagun who is left completely defenseless in protecting this important monument. That's when we approach. Naturally, we're going to have to take him on.

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 34

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Confusion, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 34

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Bayleef M, Lv. 30 [5/5]

Item: MiracleSeed

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Shadow Rush, Synthesis, Razor Leaf, Body Slam

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

Flaaffy F, Lv. 30 [5/5]

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: Shadow Rush, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Quagsire F, Lv. 30 [5/5]

Item: None

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Shadow Rush, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Swablu F, Lv. 33 [4/5]

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Shadow Rush, Sing, Safeguard, Fly

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

Cipher Peon Skrub

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

 

Clamperl Lv. 38 & Geodude Lv. 38

 

 

I opened up with Trust and Bayleef which couldn't have been a better lead here. With Umbreon, I used Toxic on Clamperl and a simple Razor Leaf form Bayleef was all it took to get rid of Geodude with a 4x weakness.

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

Hitmontop, lv. 38

 

 

With Geodude cleanly swept away, Hitmontop came out. Clamperl still had a decent chunk of HP left, but all it did was use Iron Defense which was useless to protect it from Toxic.

 

 

Naturally, anticipating some harsh feedback from this Hitmontop's physical fighting-type presence, I retreated Trust and brought out Faith so that I could set up Reflect. Even with a resistance, Espeon's physical defense is lacking so it was able to deal a significant chunk of damage. Still, it wasn't able to build up too much damage so I was able to set up Reflect with about half my health remaining.

 

 

In the meantime, I switched Bayleef out with Flaaffy to paralyze Hitmontop and reduce its immense speed. I didn't want to just carelessly use Confusion, so I went for Return from Faith against it and then began chipping away at its health with Flaaffy's Thundershock. It wasn't too much longer before Clamperl succumbed to its poison.

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

Wynaut Lv. 37

 

 

Of all pokemon to follow up in Clamperl's place, it just had to be Wynaut. Wynaut's Shadow Tag ability prevents me from switching out unless my pokemon are fainted. On top of that, its sole purpose is to counter whatever you do. The best way to deal with these things is normally to nail 'em with Toxic before they can set up Safeguard, but even then you really have to watch out for Destiny Bond, which will faint you instantly. Wynaut is just as annoying to deal with as Wobbuffet only slightly less so since it has lower stats. Unfortunately, because I couldn't switch out, Hitmontop was able to finish off Faith before I could catch it. But I was able to get a little bit of damage on Wynaut first with Return.

 

 

Umbreon took the lead again after Faith came along. Thanks to Taunt, I was able to ensure that Wynaut couldn't use Destiny Bond. From there, a simple Bite was all it took to finish the job.

 

From here, I was able to focus my efforts on catching Hitmontop who was proving to be quite resilient to Great Balls. It took several turns to catch it and it was still able to persevere long enough to nearly take out Flaaffy. I got its HP low enough, though, and then switched out to a more resilient pokemon.

 

Bayleef was basically immune to anything Hitmontop could do to it thanks to Synthesis coupled with Hitmontop's parafusion and the inconsistency of Triple Kick. The only thing I had to worry about was it knocking itself out with Shadow Blitz (it didn't have enough turns of confusion left to knock itself out through that alone). Still, Great Ball after Great Ball wasn't enough.

 

Eventually even Trust was out of commission and I had to bring out Quagsire. Finally, though, I was able to snag Hitmontop several great balls later. 

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

After defeating Skrub, he complains that Cipher's plan to capture Celebi seems to have fallen through before retreating. Eagun thanks you for defending the Relic Forest and brings you back to his home. From here, everyone discusses why Cipher wanted to capture Celebi so badly. That's when Beluh is reminded of an old tablet that gets passed down through their family from generation to generation and goes to look for it. In the meantime, Eagun mentions another person in town who might know a thing or two about Celebi and suggests we go speak to him while his wife searches for the small tablet.

I think this will make a good stopping point for the day. We're steadily approaching the chance to purify all of our party pokemon but we're still not quite there yet. Almost, though! There's still one more rather significant hurdle we'll need to jump through, though, and that's probably what we'll be getting to next time!

[Aura]

On our way out, we can take some time talking to the locals. 

There's a Fun Old Man here who will ask you for a battle. After winning against him, he'll comment about how your pokemon are powerful, but expresses concern about their violent behavior.

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

Anyway, if we go into the home Eagun pointed us toward, we can find an old man named Senilor watching the news. If we ask him about Celebi, he'll tell you that Celebi has the power over time travel and, using this power, it can cause pokemon to recall their most pleasant memories, fully unlocking the door to their heart. Now, we can return to Eagun's home where Beluh has returned and now offers us the Small Tablet she'd found. With this, we can finally call forth the power of Celebi from the Relic Stone!

On our way out, though, we receive an email from Duking who tells us that he just received word that a place called Mt. Battle is under attack and no doubt by Cipher! We'll definitely need to deal with this threat but not before taking the time to revisit the Relic Stone!

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

Relic Stone

If we make our way back to the Relic Stone, we'll find Relic Cave is much more serene with no music and the forest clearing itself is filled with a beautiful harp-centric melody that strongly suits the area. There's also an Ein File that was left here by Skrub which talks about the power of Celebi. Ein notes here that something must be done about the Relic Stone as it contains the power of Celebi and is capable of purifying a shadow pokemon by helping it to recall their most pleasant memories. This is unfortunate for them, but we finally have a beacon of hope for our shadow pokemon!

As we approach the Relic Stone with the Small Tablet in our hands and a pokemon ready to open the door to its heart in our party, the stone will begin to glow! And if we bring out one of those pokemon....

Bayleef's black aura is finally dispelled! With this, it regains all of the Exp it would have gained over the course of all the battles it participated in. This was enough to level it up from 30 to 32 which also means...

Bayleef evolved into Meganium! Let's go ahead and run the rest of my team through here...

 

In addition to purifying the pokemon, Shadow Rush gets replaced by yet another new move. In this case, Sunny Day! The pokemon also obtain the National Ribbon for being purified and we can give them a nickname!

Let's run my entire team up to the stone and see what we get!

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 34

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Confusion, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 34

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Growth (Meganium M); Lv. 32

Item: MiracleSeed

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Sunny Day, Synthesis, Razor Leaf, Body Slam

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 34

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 33

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Mud Shot, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Swablu F; Lv. 33 [4/5]

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Shadow Rush, Sing, Safeguard, Fly

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

Unfortunately, Swablu is right at the edge but she's still not quite prepared for purification so we're going to have to come back shortly. For now, let's head off to Mt. Battle! But we do have one more stop we might wanna make...

If we revisit Outskirt Stand, they're now selling a wider variety of Pokeballs including Ultra Balls, Net Balls, and Nest Balls! I don't really have the money to get all spend-happy at the moment, but I do recommend you buy a significant amount of Ultra Balls.

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

Mt. Battle

As we arrive, sure enough, that same familiar music starts to play again and all the NPCs are talking about the commotion going on. As we run inside, and tell the receptionist that we were sent here by Duking, she allows us through to help deal with the criminals inside.

     

  

Inside, we're met with a series of hovering platforms connected by bridges and staircases. On each platform, there's a trainer working with Cipher stationed to slow us down. There isn't much to talk about here, their pokemon are all at levels ranging from 34-37. You can always go back into the lobby to heal, so this isn't a gauntlet despite having the appearance of one. It probably won't come as a surprise at this point, but none of these trainers have any Shadow Pokemon, so you can feel free to just move along.

As you work your way up the gauntlet, the numbers on each platform will count up from 1 to 10 battling through team after team of enemies. In my case, my pokemon grew a few levels. Faith and Trust both reached level 35. Faith learned Psybeam while Trust tried to learn Faint Attack. I decided to keep Bite though because I figured the occasional flinch would be more helpful than a consistent hit when Umbreon hardly deals any damage anyway. In addition, Swablu's heart guage was finally emptied so now I could take a quick trip back to the Relic Stone to get her purified!

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 35

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Sing, DragonBreath, Fly

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

 

As we reach Area 10, we can see two men in a battle. The large ape-like man seems to be another admin from Cipher: Dakim while the smaller man is Vander, the Area Leader of this part of Mt. Battle. Vander tried to fight off Dakim as much as he could, but was unable to deal with Dakim's powerful shadow pokemon. Naturally, we're going to have to step in just like before.

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 35

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 35

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Growth (Meganium M); Lv. 32

Item: MiracleSeed

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Sunny Day, Synthesis, Razor Leaf, Body Slam

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 34

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 34

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Mud Shot, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 35

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Sing, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Cipher Admin Dakim

 

Golem Lv. 38 & Metang Lv. 37

 

 

Right off the bat, Dakim's strategy is made clear the moment one of his pokemon uses Protect. This is a rather typical double battle strat. One pokemon uses Protect to protect itself from damage, and the other uses a powerful attack that damages all pokemon on the field. Naturally, I'd set up Reflect with Faith and I figured that with Golem up against a Water-type, Dakim would probably prioritize using Protect with him  and attacking with Metang. Figuring that Metang would be left unguarded, I focused Stability's firepower on Metang using Mud Shot which was able to deal a big chunk of damage against him. Thanks to Reflect, Metang's Earthquake wasn't able to deal too much damage to me.

 

 

For the next turn, I debated using Helping Hand to ensure Golem would go down, but I figured that between the double weakness and low special defense, he might go down pretty easily so I switched into Trust instead. Unfortunately, I was proven wrong and Golem was able to hold on with a little bit of health left. That's annoying, but between a Bite from Trust and a Mud Shot from Quagsire, I was able to take out Metang!

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

Camerupt, Lv. 38

 

 

This setup was pretty fantastic. I immediately tried to hit Camerupt with Toxic but was caught off guard by it protecting itself. I hadn't considered the possibility of Golem using Earthquake again, which took out Stability.

 

 

I brought out Joy as a bait and switch move to help stall out Golem's next defensive move.

 

 

I immediately switched into Bliss while Trust set up Toxic to punish Dakim's defensive stalling. I was a bit caught off guard when neither of his pokemon used Protect, though. Sure enough, neither used Earthquake. Instead, Camerupt tried to hit Joy with Flamethrower which was walled thanks to Bliss' Dragon type while Golem tried to hit Trust with a simple Rock Throw. Naturally, none of this really did anything. Next, I figured neither of them would end up using Earthquake this next turn since I obviously have a Flying-type out. 

 

 

I needed to deal with that Golem soon, but in order to do so I wanted to use Growth, but as long as Camerupt was there, I couldn't do much about it. Now that toxic damage was building up on Camerupt, I needed to stall out a bit longer for it to succumb. So, I switched into Joy as another attempt to bait him out of an Earthquake.

 

 

Once again, Dakim is no fool and didn't take the bait. Umbreon was hit with another Rock Throw and Growth was smacked hard with a Flamethrower. Thankfully, Growth managed to survive the attack and on the next turn, I used Confuse Ray to help stunt Camerupt's attacks a bit more while Meganium went for Razor Leaf to finally get rid of Golem.

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

Marshtomp Lv. 38

 

 

I went for Razor Leaf and a Bite again but Camerupt managed to fight through it. Thankfully, I got a lucky flinch and Camerupt was unable to hit me with another Flamethrower. This allowed my Razor Leaf to get off and deal a large chunk of damage against Marshtomp. I next used Toxic on Marshtomp while Meganium went for Razor Leaf once again. To my surprise, Camerupt hit himself in confusion! From here, Razor Leaf was enough to take out the both of them!

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

Entei, Lv. 40

In case it isn't clear, this is the pokemon I argued you're "probably not expected to actually catch here." While technically it is manageable, you really haven't had the opportunity to build up enough money to purchase a massive supply of Ultra Balls and I really don't think it's worth the effort to capture Entei. We're going to have future encounters with this man and we'll have more opportunities to catch this thing.

As I promised before, I'm not going to be using the pokeball glitch to catch Entei. If I fail to catch him here, I'll just keep moving along.

 

Meganium's luck was probably about to run dry, so I decided to hit Entei with Confuse Ray. Still, I went for Body Slam hoping for a paralysis. Entei's Fire Blast went off and took Meganium out in a matter of seconds.

 

I brought out Bliss next and hit Entei with Sing. After this, I started pelting Entei with DragonBreath to steadily weaken it while I used Trust's turn to throw Ultra Balls. Eventually, Entei was able to wake up, but I hit him with DragonBreath and even managed to get the lucky paralysis! Still, he managed to take out Trust with a Shadow Rush.

 

I brought Faith back out to set up Reflect in order to reduce the recoil damage Entei was doing to himself. With a couple of Bites, Espeon went down.

 

I was down to my last two pokemon: Joy and Bliss. Sadly, it didn't seem like I'd be able to hold out much longer. Both of our teams were getting rather weak. I tried to hold out as long as I could until I'd have to bite the bullet and finish the fight. Eventually, Entei did hit Ampharos with Shadow Rush which ended up taking himself out and I was indeed unable to capture Entei, but this marked the end of the battle.

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

 

Skrub soon arrives on the scene to provide backup but Dakim admits that Skrub's failure was only natural against an opponent so out of his league. Dakim is impressed by your strength but leaves with a promise that you will not be successful.

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

After Dakim leaves, Rui explains to Vander who they were and Vander comes to understand that they must have been under the Time Flute he had. Much like the Relic Stone, the Time Flute is capable of calling Celebi himself. With this rare item, you can call Celebi to instantly purify any pokemon! I strongly recommend holding off on using this item unless you have a pokemon you want to immediately make a part of your team. There are some shadow pokemon that take a crazy amount of time to purify, so these items are a lot more valuable than they may seem to be right now. Across the entire game, there are exactly three and there are a lot of shadow pokemon to cover between now and the end of the game. So I definitely recommend, at the very least, that you wait until the postgame to use these flutes. For now, let's just hold onto this.

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

And that's going to be it for today! I think we've reached a good point to start going back and doing some cleanup in some familiar areas. We also have a handful of shadow pokemon that we need to get to work purifying and we happen to have the perfect place to do just that as well! Needless to say, it's gonna be a little bit before we make any more story progress, I think, but we'll just have to wait and see what next time holds!

[Aura]

Mt. Battle

With Cipher cleared out, the environment here returns to a nice, tranquil and upbeat tune it was before. The main attraction here is currently fixing up after the unexpected attack, so they're unfortunately closed for operations until further notice. That's fine, though, because this gives us a good chance to take a break from the action and cleanup some of the things we've missed this whole time. For starters, let's look around right here! We may not be able to enter the Mt. Battle Challenge, but there's a chest here with TM47: Steel Wing! There's also some NPC's to note. Namely, the old man at the right side of the lobby is the Move Deleter of this region! Talk to him if you want to delete any HM moves your Shadow Pokemon might know.

Outdoors, there's an Athlete here who will challenge you to a battle if you talk to her, but there's not much to say about her other than that.

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

Outskirt Stand

I haven't mentioned it till now, but for a while, we've been able to revisit the Outskirt Stand and challenge Rider Willie to a rematch. One of his Zigzagoon has evolved, but he's stillpretty much just a joke.

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

Phenac CIty

It's been a long time since we've come here. There's a couple of things we can do here, but we're gonna leave some of that for a little bit later. Instead, remember that promise we made to Justy in the beginning of the game? Well, we definitely have six pokemon now! Let's go see what all the hype is about!

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

Pre Gym

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 35

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 36

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Growth (Meganium M); Lv. 32

Item: MiracleSeed

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Sunny Day, Synthesis, Razor Leaf, Body Slam

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 35

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 35

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Mud Shot, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 35

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Sing, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Pre Gym Leader Justy

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

 

Cacnea Lv. 41 & Sunflora Lv. 40

 

 

Starting out, Justy's team doesn't seem all that dangerous. Growth can't really do much here, so I'll start out by switching him out. IN addition, I'll have Bliss go ahead and target Cacnea with Fly.

 

 

And it's here where the obnoxious gimmick of Justy's team becomes apparent: Both of his pokemon open up with Double Team. Great. This is a pretty niche situation where replacing Bite with Faint Attack probably would have been the smarter decision. But, we're just going to have to make do with what we have. I'm not too worried about that Sunflora's damage output, but I also don't like the idea of its evasion building up so high that I can't damage it enough. So, I decided to split my focus with Trust focusing on keeping Cacnea at bay with Taunt to prevent it from building its evasion, Toxic and Confuse Ray to take down its health without having to consistently hit it every turn. Meanwhile, Bliss was focused on dealing with Sunflora. Since Fly gave him two turns instead of one to boost his evasion, and is much less accurate, I switched tactics to DragonBreath which saw a bit more success. Eventually, Cacnea went down but Altaria was still struggling to hit Sunflora.

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

Gligar, Lv. 41

 

 

When Gligar hit the field, I decided to hit it with Taunt to prevent it from setting up, but it naturally outsped Trust and brought out... sandstorm? That definitely wasn't expected. The goal is obviously to whittle down our health while he evades everything, but it seems pretty counter-intuitive considering some of his pokemon are vulnerable to the damage. He tried to mitigate that with Sunflora's Ingrain to heal off the damage every turn, but this only stunted Sunflora's endurance and it wasn't long before it couldn't hold up any longer.

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

Azumarill, lv. 40

 

 

Now that Sunflora was out of the way, I had an opportunity to switch into something that could make quick work of Gligar!

 

 

I decided to also switch out Trust so that I was prepared to deal with Azumarill as well. Unfortunately, Gligar used Dig to avoid my Surf attack. However, the Surf combined with Joy's Thunderbolt was enough to take out Azumarill!

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

Sandshrew, Lv. 41

 

 

Sandshrew was next, but I had a couple of options for my switch-in.

 

 

I decided to bring Growth back out instead of Bliss who would be able to avoid damage entirely, simply because I figured Meganium would be the better fit for the fight. Gligar really caught me off guard with a harsh Aerial Ace that nearly took Growth out. Stability wasn't quite able to take out his opponents. Growth's Razor Leaf also just wasn't enough and Growth ended up going down!

 

  

I brought Trust back out to finish the job here. Gligar, of course, outsped and took out Stability, but Trust was able to take Gligar out with Bite.

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

Nosepass, Lv. 42

 

 

Nosepass was his next pokemon and with Faith out, things were looking pretty solid. I quickly hit Nosepass with Toxic just in case he'd set up some Double Teams and hit Sandshrew with a Return from Faith for the KO.

 

Now it was really just a waiting game as Nosepass built up its evasion while we tried to hit it with attacks. I wasn't worried at this point since he was poisoned with Toxic and would inevitably go down no matter how long he stalled. Eventually, he did fall leaving me the victor!

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

As a prize for defeating him, Justy rewards you with TM27: Return!

Now, as I said, there is one more thing we can do here in Phenac City right now, but I think it's for the best to leave that for another post. Instead, we're going to head off to the next stop on our little tour: Not Pyrite Town, but Agate Village.

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

Upon entering the village, an old man approaches you expressing concern about the commotion at Mt. Battle. He asks that you go see Eagun since he's been worried sick about you. I made my way up to Eagun's home and spoke with him. He congratulates us both on our accomplishment for driving Cipher out of Mt. Battle and when told about the Time Flute, he is amazed. He tells you that flute can be used to summon Celebi in Relic Forest!

...Don't get your hopes up, you don't actually get the chance to catch this Celebi. Celebi merely appears to instantly purify a shadow pokemon in your party and then leaves. If you try to go to Relic Forest, the man standing guard will warn you that you can only use the Time Flute once, so you should be careful how you use it.

While we're here, Cooltrainer Dury is now available to battle. Obviously, no Shadow Pokemon here either, but you're gonna want every bit of Exp you can get.

Near Cooltrainer Dury is another Cooltrainer. She isn't here to battle you. Instead, she'll ask you if you know about Cologne Massages. If you tell her no, she'll explain to you that it's a special way to develop a closer bond with your pokemon and suggests that you give it a try. She'll give you a Cologne Case which will allow you to buy special colognes from the mart here in Agate Village. These Cologne massages are yet another way you can reduce the heart gauge on your Shadow Pokemon. This is essentially a way you can funnel your unused cash into helping to cut down on time purifying the abundance of shadow pokemon you'll be building up.

Of course, let's not forget the berry man who decided to give us a Rawst Berry today.

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

Pyrite Town again! Of course, I've mentioned that you can rematch the trainers here before, but I decided that now is the best time to do so. Cail is actually shockingly tough with four pokemon that are all around level 40.

The Bodybuilder outside the colosseum is now available to battle as well, so have at it there, too! 

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

The main attraction we're here for, though is, you guessed it, the Pyrite Building. I said there was something special to be found here but it's going to require going all the way through both this building and Pyrite Cave all over again. All of the trainers here have pokemon around level 38-41 so this is some really solid Exp going through this dungeon again. And without wild pokemon stopping you every three steps, it's not nearly as frustrating as exploring an old cave in a main series title.

As we reach the end of Pyrite Cave and arrive at Miror B.'s hideout, we can see a peculiar character standing where he once stood. He looks to be a Cipher Peon with a suit painted in the colors of Miror B's golden suit and even his helmet is painted red and white to match Miror B.'s afro. 

At first glance, one might assume this to be a stand-in for Miror B. A sort of joke character thrown in to give you an excuse to "rematch" Miror B.'s team and get a second chance at catching his Sudowoodo, but nope. This is MIrakle B.: The Self-proclaimed rightful heir to Miror B and upon challenging him, we're met with perhaps the most bizarre... boss fight(?) in the game.

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 39

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 39

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Growth (Meganium M); Lv. 39

Item: MiracleSeed

Ability: Overgrow | Moves: Sunny Day, Synthesis, Razor Leaf, Body Slam

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 38

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 38

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Mud Shot, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 39

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Sing, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Cipher Peon Mirakle B.

Right away, you'll notice that Mirakle B.'s battle theme is a bizarre sped-up version of Miror B.'s already extremely bizarre battle theme. Other than this, the only other similarity is his preference for particularly annoying battle strategies.

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

 

Electrode, Lv. 39 & Seaking, Lv. 39

 

 

Starting off, I happened to have a really good lead this time! At least, so I thought. Right off the bat, Seaking opened up with Protect to keep itself safe from Joy' Thunderbolt and Electrode set up Light Screen to further protect his team. Uuuuugh.

Yes, Mirakle B.'s only strategy seems to be to waste your time with spamming Protect and doing absolutely nothing else. With a few Mud Slaps, I was able to take Electrode down. I was worried about it Exploding, and apparently it does know Explosion, but thankfully it never went for the move. (Reminder that Stability has Water Absorb and not Damp, so this isn't the reason, at least as far as I can tell).

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

Linoone, Lv. 39

 

 

I hit Linoone with a Thunder Wave to slow it down, but with a few focused hits targeting Stability, he was next to go down.

 

 

I next brought Faith out to set up Reflect in order to defend against the onslaught of physical attacks. After a bit of back and forth, I was able to get past the Seaking.

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

Sandslash, Lv. 39

 

 

In the meantime, Linoone was able to take out Joy.

 

 

This brought out Bliss who was ready to fight. With a DragonBreath, Bliss was able to take out Linoone.

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

Sudowoodo, Lv. 39

Just like his idol, Mirakle B. uses Sudowoodo, quite fitting given its use of Mimic.

 

 

Sandslash still had an attack, though, and was able to take out Faith.

 

 

After this, out came Growth. Altaria was able to take out Sudowoodo before he was able to use the DragonBreath he'd mimicked. Then, with Razor Leaf's damage output no longer split, I was able to take out Sandslash as well to finish the fight.

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

You don't get any reward at all for defeating Mirakle B. aside from the decent heap of money. The real prize was the Exp we gained, though. That said, while exploring this cave again, I've found myself starting to question whether or not I want to keep Growth on the team. Unfortunately, I just don't think he's serving as much of a purpose as I expected. Right now, my plan for him is to have him learn SolarBeam and then demolish his opponents with the powerful Sunny Day and Solar Beam combo, but really, he and Bliss are the only ones who will benefit from sunlight in my final team. The sunlight would even hinder Stability and remove the option of Thunder for Joy. Beyond that, Meganium's main role is as a bulky pokemon with a decent offensive presence, but I already have a few defensive pokemon on my team who already fill that role and I've found myself missing more offensive pokemon. Grass also isn't a very good defensive typing at all. The few things I can switch Growth into, I can more effectively switch Bliss into. I'm starting to think that, perhaps, I should have held onto my initial plan to use Quilava instead of Meganium.

This isn't all bad, though, it's just a bit of a shame I recognized this pretty late in. I'm thinking about replacing Meganium with a more physically offensive pokemon. I'm leaning more toward the idea of a Fighting-type and right now, the biggest idea I have my eyes set on is the Hitmontop I snagged from Skrub. It's a pokemon I'd considered using back in Gen 2, but it was just too awkward back then to make work. However, chanaging plans mid-game is less than ideal. I'm going to have to look into this idea a little bit to decide if Hitmontop is really the best choice or if it still shares its same problems in Gen III as it does in Gen II (I'm willing to bet that it probably does). For now, I'm just gonna leave you with a heads up that I might suddenly change pokemon without warning.

Anyway, that's all I have planned for this post. Next time, I'm thinking we'll be headed to Phenac City to enter the challenge at their stadium!

[Aura]

So, I know I said this time I wanted to go take the Phenac Stadium's challenge, but I also decided to replace Bayleef at a rather awkward time, so it's only natural that I'd want to take some time to make sure I had a suitable replacement. After doing a bit of research, it turns out that, indeed, Hitmontop's moveset has indeed been greatly improved for the third generation! Namely with the addition of some much more useful TM's. With that in mind, I think my choice of Bayleef's replacement is clear:

Hitmontop; Lv. 38 [0/5]

Item: Black Belt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Shadow Rush

Naturally, it's going to take a little bit of work to get his heart gauge down. So on my way out of Pyrite Town, I did one more rematch with all the trainers in Duel Square and I was at least able to reduce a decent chunk of the first heart gauge segment, but it was very clear he wasn't going to be ready anytime soon. I briefly considered bringing Bayleef back onto my party for a little bit just to do the Phenac Stadium for this post, but then I decided to check back up on Mt. Battle. I figured it wouldn't be available until a bit more story progress had been made.

At it turns out, I was mistaken. The receptionist at the gate for Mt. Battle told me that the challenge was now up and running! Uh-oh, looks like story progress is going to have to wait for quite a bit longer because this is a doozy of an opportunity that's gonna take a couple of days. Not only do I want to get Hitmontop purified, but this is also the best place in the game to get to work on purifying the rest of the shadow pokemon I've gathered together and while that's one hell of an undertaking, it's a requirement for this game's ultimate reward and for national dex completion within this gen. If we don't want to tediously purify every single shadow pokemon in the entire game at once at the very end, we're gonna want to periodically take the time to purify all the shadow pokemon we've collected after each story beat so that we can stay on top of it.

If there's ever a shadow pokemon you want to use right away but don't want to waste a time flute on, this is the place to come to. It's not as instant as a Time Flute, but you'll be able to get their heart gauge cleared up! What's more, pokemon of any level will be able to find appropriate opponents to battle against here. Even that unfortunate level 20 Remoraid you might have just thrown into the Daycare!

So, what is the Mt. Battle Challenge? Needless to say, it's a sort of endurance round. Somewhat akin to the Battle Tower but with some very notable differences. The mountain contains a series of 100 battles of progressive difficulty starting with levels as low as 15 and capping out at level 60 at the summit of the mountain. Just like the Battle Tower, you'll be healed automatically between each battle. The 100 battles of the Mt. Battle challenge are divided evenly among 10 areas with a designated Area Leader to defeat at the end of each one. Aside from the already apparent differences from the Battle Tower, you're also allowed to enter with a full team of six pokemon even if your opponent doesn't have six pokemon and your pokemon are capable of gaining experience, evolving, etc. over the course of the challenge. This is the primary destination for all of your grinding needs. At each of the Break Rooms, you can suspend your challenge and return to the entrance. You can then resume your challenge starting from any area you've reached. So don't be too concerned if you find yourself hitting a wall with the levels. You can always resume your challenge later on when your pokemon are stronger, or you can go back and grind up against the earlier pokemon. 

I'm going to stress right now that I don't want to get overleveled. I really don't like overleveling because it makes the rest of the game completely trivial and removes a lot of excitement from really tense boss fights. That said, I don't mind grinding out a little bit here because this game is rather infamous for its difficulty compared to most Pokemon adventures. I recall a pretty significant level spike coming up soon, so it's definitely a good idea to at least push up until you reach the levels you're at.

In this post, I'm going to be focusing on doing just that, clearing as much as I reasonably can of Mt. Battle without going too overboard and ending up significantly overleveled for the rest of the game. In the next post, I'll be returning to the lower levels with full teams of shadow pokemon and going until they're ready for purification. In the interest of time, I'm not going to be listing every single trainer here, but there are multiple resources online that list them. I'll list the level range of the trainers in the area along with a link to the bulbapedia page for the respective area. Keep in mind, this is specifically the Story Mode section we're concerned with. Still, I'll be making particular note of my battle with the Area Leaders since they're obviously the most relevant.

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

Mt. Battle Area 1

Levels: 15 - 20

Reward: 100 Coupons

Early on, you're going to find most of these battles to be a joke. You could easily clear this first area just by mashing A even with your team from the very start of the game. There's not much at all to say about these trainers so I won't be providing much commentary here.

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 39

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 39

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 38

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 38

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Mud Shot, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 39

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Sing, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Hitmontop M; Lv. 38 [2/5]

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Shadow Rush, Focus Energy

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

Area 1 Leader: Vander

 

Whismur Lv. 20 & Jigglypuff Lv. 20

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

 

 

Between Shadow Rush and Thunderbolt, everything on Vander's team went down in a single hit.

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

 

Slakoth Lv. 19 & Skitty Lv. 19

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

 

 

Again, their levels were just too low.

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

Zigzagoon, Lv. 18

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

 

Yup, not even a chance to attack. 

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

Mt. Battle Area 2

Levels 20-25

Reward: 200 Coupons

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 39

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 39

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 39

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 39

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Mud Shot, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 39

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Sing, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Hitmontop M; Lv. 38 [3/5]

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Shadow Rush, Focus Energy, Triple Kick

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

Area 2 Leader: Arth

 

Pineco, lv. 25 & Ledyba, lv. 25

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

 

 

Second verse same as the first. Although Pineco actually managed to survive a Bite from Trust, allowing it to get a single Pin Missile off and go down the next turn instead.

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

 

Surskit, Lv. 25 & Nincada, Lv. 24

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

 

 

More bugs to squash.

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

 

You'll never guess how this one went down.

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

Mt. Battle Area 3

Levels 25 - 29

Reward: 400 Coupons

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 39

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 40

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 39

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 39

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Mud Shot, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 39

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Sing, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Hitmontop M; Lv. 38 [4/5]

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Shadow Rush, Focus Energy, Triple Kick, Rapid Spin

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

Area 3 Leader: Renson

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

 

Staryu, Lv. 28 & Horsea, Lv. 29

 

 

Renson being a water specialist was a little bit annoying with Stability taking the lead, but only a little since Mud Shot was more than enough of a substitute. These pokemon are still too low to put up a decent fight, but they're at least strong enough that I can't just one-shot them with my weakest moves anymore.

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

 

Corphish, Lv. 29 & Goldeen, Lv. 30

 

 

More fish down!

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

Surskit, Lv. 30

 

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

Mt. Battle Area 4

Levels 30 - 34 [One outlier with levels 23 - 24 for... some reason]

Reward: 600 Coupons

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

Just when you thought every area would look the same, suddenly we're met with Area 4's extremely foreboding volcanic terrain. The atmosphere tells you that the real test is only just beginning and the battle music changes to match the new tone as well, though the levels are still rather lacking. The battles themselves don't actually feel all that much more serious.

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 41

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 41

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 41

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 41

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Mud Shot, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 41

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Sing, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Hitmontop M; Lv. 38 [5/5]

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Shadow Rush, Focus Energy, Triple Kick, Rapid Spin

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

Area 4 Leader: Trinch

 

Rhyhorn, Lv. 35 & Phanpy, Lv. 36

 

 

I finally have to start being a bit more strategic with my moves around here. Nothing crazy, of course, they're still significantly below my level, but they're actually capable of taking some decent hits now. Still, I can get away with just spamming offensive attacks an going after weaknesses wherever I see them. In this case, right off the bat, I hit Rhyhorn with a Triple Kick but there wasn't much Joy could do against two Ground-types so he was forced to retreat.

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

Barboach, Lv. 34

 

 

A Shadow Rush to reduce Barboach's health while Bite took care of Phanpy.

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

Nosepass, Lv. 34

 

 

Now to switch targets! A Bite could finish off Barboach while three hits from Triple Kick was all it took to take out Nosepass in the same turn!

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

Lileep, Lv. 34

 

It never stood a chance against Umbreon's Taunt, Toxic and Confuse Ray between Hitmontop's barrage of physical attacks.

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

You may have noticed in my team summary that Hitmontop has reached [5/5] on his purification! With this in mind, I decided to suspend my challenge so I could make a quick trip back to the Relic Stone.

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

Balance (Hitmontop M); Lv. 42

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Agility, Focus Energy, Triple Kick, Rapid Spin

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

I wanted to name him Perspective, which I thought would be more of an original name for a Hitmontop, but unfortunately there's that pesky 10-character limit so Balance will have to do.

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

Mt. Battle Area 5

Levels 35 - 40

Reward: 800 Coupons

This is the final task for the first half of Mt. Battle and it's here that the levels are starting to catch up to us.

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 41

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 42

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 41

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Cotton Spore, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 41

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Mud Shot, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 41

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Sing, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Balance (Hitmontop M); Lv. 42

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Agility, Focus Energy, Triple Kick, Rapid Spin

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

Area 5 Leader: Zentin

 

Beautifly Lv. 40 & Swellow Lv. 40

 

 

Now that Hitmontop is purified, I was free to change up my second pokemon some more! Joy was naturally able to make quick work of Swellow, though I'd completely forgotten that Beautifly was capable of knowing Absorb. Still, it's only a 20 power attack without STAB, so even with the 4x weakness, it wasn't able to make too much of an impact.

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

Masquerain, Lv. 39

 

 

Needless to say, Beautifly was my next target for Thunderbolt while Stability just kept Surfing away.

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

Pelipper, Lv. 39

 

 

How could I resist a quad-weakness? Don't mind if I do~

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

Golbat, Lv. 40

 

 

Surf hit here and with a Thunderbolt to take out Golbat and one more Surf for Masquerain, the last two foes were down.

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

While I could call it quits here, it's a good stopping point, after all, the midway point of the entire challenge, but I figured I'd try to push just a little bit further until I'm battling trainers that are above my current level. After all, the battles were only just becoming interesting, so I didn't want to walk away now!

Mt. Battle Area 6

Levels 40 - 44

Reward: 800 Coupons

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 43

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 43

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 43

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Light Screen, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 42

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Earthquake, Amnesia, Surf, Slam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 42

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Dragon Dance, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Balance (Hitmontop M); Lv. 43

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Detect, Focus Energy, Triple Kick, Rapid Spin

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

Area 6 Leader: Loko

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

 

Wigglytuff, lv. 44 & Azumarill, Lv. 44

 

 

It seems that in the later half of the challenge, teams start to get a lot more strategic. These two, for example, are rather bulky pokemon that open up with Defense Curl and follow up with the powered-up Rollout. It just so happens, though, that we have a little trick of our own. As you may have noticed if you looked at the progression of our team, Stability has just recently learned Earthquake! Earthquake does come with the minor drawback that it can't be used as freely as Mud Shot, but I can't resist the ability to hit both of my opponents with such a powerful STAB attack. The biggest caveat to this idea is that I have to watch who Stability is paired up with. With Bliss, I have nothing to worry about since Bliss is a Flying type. But with a pokemon like Joy, I'm definitely gonna need to switch her out first. Of course, there's also the option of moves like Protect and Detect, and Reflect can also help reduce the impact of an unintended misfire. You want to be really careful relying on your partner's type, though, because you never know what the opponent might surprise you with an unexpectedly powerful attack, KOing that pokemon and leaving you no choice but to send out something else that your Earthquake just might end up KOing as well. 

Anyway, it took a few hits, but Wigglytuff went down a bit sooner than Azumarill.

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

 

Ariados, Lv. 45

 

 

Ariados is a little annoying to deal with. I decided to use Fly on it while I earthquaked to continue damaging Azumarill. While Bliss was in the sky, Ariados pelted Stability with a few harsh hits of Signal Beam. Keep in mind that Signal Beam is still physical in this gen! It's easy to forget stuff like this these days. Eventually, Bliss came down and knocked out the Ariados.

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

Wailmer, Lv. 45

 

 

The Earthquake was able to damage the incoming Wailmer but Azumarill annoyingly held on with a sliver of HP. On the next turn, Dragonbreath took out Azumarill.

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

Wobbuffet, Lv. 45

 

 

Wobbuffet is always a scary sight to behold, but play your cards right and you won't have to worry about him. He was brought out into Quagsire's Earthquake which was now able to take out Wailmer as well.

 

Lastly, Wobbuffet is weak enough now that Counter and Light Screen can't be used if we dogpile our attacks on him. Even a Destiny Bond isn't gonna save her at this point.

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

Anyway, while I still feel that I have yet to truly press my limits, I definitely think I should cut my progress here at Area 6. I'll probably come back here once my whole team is above level 45, but I'm confident that these later areas are going to take significantly more time to get through, so we're not going to have a marathon like this one every time. Anyway, as promised, next time is probably going to be a significantly shorter post. There's not going to be much to talk about other than purifying all my shadow pokemon and sharing what I named them all.

[Aura]

Not a whole lot of tangible progress today as far as this thread is concerned. As I mentioned in the last post, I spent today mostly purifying my buffer of Shadow Pokemon. I suppose I'll take this opportunity to talk about my process for doing so. There are a number of ways you can minimize the grind for purifying all the shadow pokemon in the game.

The most notable method mentioned by Chuggaaconroy during his lets play of this game is that there is a certain corner along the right side of Relic Cave which you can run into and Wes will start to rapidly gyrate. This is obviously a bug, but the significance in this case is that as long as Wes is gyrating like this, it will count as you taking steps forward but Wes will stay in place. I think you can see where this is going. If you're used to tricks like this, then you can set up a contraption to point your control stick in the appropriate direction and just hold it there while you go eat lunch or something and you'll build up steps rapidly. Why is this relevant? Well, it just so happens that one of the ways to reduce the heart gauge of a pokemon is to walk around with the pokemon in your party! So, fill your party with six shadow pokemon, get your rubber band or whatever ready, and head on over to Relic Cave to open those hearts!

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

Of course, if you know me well, you'll know that I don't personally like taking approaches like that. It feels more robotic and less personal. Even if it's longer, boring, and tedious, I prefer to purify my shadow pokemon the old fashioned way: Through battling! The quickest way to do this is to head on over to Mt. Battle, of course. Just load up your team full of shadow pokemon and get to battling! I recommend starting out with opponents in an area a bit below your pokemon's level as Shadow Pokemon tend to go into Hyper Mode a lot early on, so you're going to be missing a lot of turns. Fight your way through the areas until you hit a wall where your Shadow Pokemon can't seem to fare well against their opponents. Once you've reached your limit, I suggest suspending the challenge and returning to an earlier area you feel more comfortable with.

This method is rather tedious as it will lead to you doing the same areas over and over again, but it does come with a bigger plus: PokeCoupons! There are lots of incredibly valuable items you can get with these, including Tms for Flamethrower, Ice Beam, and Thunderbolt which are otherwise only available (renewably) in Ruby and Sapphire at the Game Corner. 4000 Poke Coupons seems like a far more reasonable price. Of course, there's also many of the iconic Held Items like the Scope Lens or Choice Scarf you might have your sights set on. These are a lot more expensive, though, so every little bit helps!

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

Anyway, with my method established, I went through Mt. Battle's challenge, mostly revolving around areas 4 and 5 since Area 6 features a bit of a difficulty spike compared to the floors below it. Eventually, I was able to purify most of the shadow pokemon I'd collected with the only exception being Sudowoodo who was going to take a much more significant amount of attention. I didn't want to waste several more hours on top of the ones I'd already invested into the rest of the pokemon just because of Sudowoodo's stubbornness. You see, each Shadow Pokemon responds better to different things. I'm not really sure about all the details, but from what I understand, how difficult a pokemon is to purify seems to be dependent on not only which shadow pokemon it is, but also by their preferences. I believe I recall hearing that these preferences are determined based on the pokemon's nature, but I could be completely wrong on that.

Long story short, different pokemon will respond better to different things. Some pokemon prefer to be purified through battling, others prefer massages or walking around. Some pokemon respond better to being called out of Hyper Mode than others, too. Some, most notably boss pokemon like Miror B.'s Sudowoodo, are incredibly difficult to purify no matter what the means. I mean it when I say that I could take Sudowoodo through an entire area of similar-level pokemon and still come out with only half a segment cleared. The main issue I ran into was that Sudowoodo rarely seemed to enter Hyper Mode and even when he did, calling him only reduced a small sliver of his meter. Sending him into battle wasn't very helpful either. I even tried cologne massages which barely did anything. Ultimately, I left him at the daycare with the remainder of his heart gauge. I'll be sure to bring him back out when it comes time to go for round 2 of the purification game.

My main motivation for stopping battling with Sudowoodo was rather simple: I didn't want the rest of my team to get too high of level. I'm already worried we're going to be overleveled for the next significant boss as it is. Beyond that, I still want to do Phenac Stadium before we get too overleveled for that as well! Oh, it's a neverending nightmare! Anyway, for now, let's just focus on the Shadow Pokemon I purified today:

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

Pheanc City:

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

Smile (Makuhita M); Lv. 30

Item: None

Ability: Thick Fat | Moves: Foresight, Focus Energy, Vital Throw, Cross Chop

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

Pyrite Town:

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

Wisdom (Noctowl M); Lv. 30

Item: None

Ability: Keen Eye | Moves: Steel Wing, Hypnosis, Reflect, Fly

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

Laughter (Misdreavus F); Lv. 31

Item: Spell Tag

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Psybeam, Confuse Ray, Mean Look, Shadow Ball

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

Will (Jumpluff M); Lv. 31

Item: None

Ability: Chlorophyll | Moves: Synthesis, Sleep Powder, Cotton Spore, Mega Drain

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

Persistent (Slugma M); Lv. 31

Item: None

Ability: Magma Armor | Moves: Sunny Day, Yawn, Rock Throw, Flamethrower

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

Flexible (Furret F); Lv. 34

Item: None

Ability: Run Away | Moves: Iron Tail, Helping Hand, Quick Attack, Strength

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

Pyrite Bldg:

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

Speed (Yanma F); Lv. 35

Item: None

Ability: Compoundeyes | Moves: Detect, Supersonic, SonicBoom, Uproar

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

Fluidity (Remoraid F); Lv. 21

Item: None

Ability: Hustle | Moves: BubbleBeam, Lock-On, Psybeam, Aurora Beam

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

Protection (Qwilfish M); Lv. 34

Item: Poison Barb

Ability: Swift Swim | Moves: Pin Missile, Minimize, Poison Sting, Surf

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

Pyrite Cave

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

Peace (Meditite M); Lv. 34

Item: None

Ability: Pure-Power | Moves: Detect, Calm Mind, Confusion, Hi-Jump Kick

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

Tranquill (Dunsparce M); Lv. 34

Item: None

Ability: Serene Grace | Moves: Spite, Glare, Yawn, Take Down

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

And with that, all of our Shadow Pokemon (except Sudowoodo for previously explained reasons), have been purified and given names! I know it's a rather short post to day, but I got a lot done on th gameplay side of things! Next time, we'll be poking around Phenac City, I promise this time!

[Aura]

Now that we've gotten most of our Shadow Pokemon purified, there is one more stop I want to make before taking on the Shadow Pokemon Lab. I am worried about my levels already being a bit higher than they should be, but I want to go ahead and do this before my levels get even higher.

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

Phenac Stadium

The Phenac Stadium is now accepting challengers and actually has been for quite a while. You may be wondering why I didn't bring my Shadow Pokemon here to purify them. Well, the reason is that you're not actually allowed to bring Shadow Pokemon into the competition. If we try to enter with a Shadow Pokemon in our party, Rui will mention that it's probably not a good idea to bring such a violent pokemon into a competition like this with all these eyes watching. It could get you disqualified if somebody gets hurt. If we'd done this at any point prior to having access to the Relic Stone, we'd be stuck with only Umbreon, Espeon, and Duking's Plusle. That said, I don't think that's particularly out of the question because none of the battles here are particularly difficult. The pokemon all linger around level 40, but their movesets are like those of level 10-20 pokemon. Anyway, I'm more than prepared for this tournament, so I'm not going to be spending a whole lot of time describing my expeerience. It's mostly just using my attacks on the most effective targets.

There are some differences here than the Pyrite Colosseum challenge we took before, though. This is our first real tournament entrance which means this isn't just a matter of clearing one set of four battles. For every colosseum like this, there are four different variations of the tournament that the game will rotate through. For clearing each one, you'll earn prize money and, for the first time clearing a round, you'll receive a TM!

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 44

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 45

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 45

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Light Screen, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 44

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Earthquake, Amnesia, Surf, Ice Beam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 44

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Mirror Move, Dragon Dance, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Balance (Hitmontop M); Lv. 44

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Detect, Focus Energy, Triple Kick, Rapid Spin

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

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that Stability now knows Ice Beam! This is because I exchanged my coupons from the shadow pokemon purification for the Ice Beam TM at the end of the last post.

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

Round 1

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

Battle 1: Rich Boy Flitz

 

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

Battle 2: Roller Boy Greb

 

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

Semifinal: Athelete Adel

 

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

Final: Cooltrainer Rewin

  

Reward: TM18: Rain Dance

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

Round 2

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

Battle 1: Guy Lang

 

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

Battle 2: Athelete Bilal

 

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

Semifinal: Fun Old Lady

 

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

Final: Cooltrainer Buna

  

Reward: TM11: Sunny Day

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

Round 3

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

Battle 1: Lady Rima

 

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

Battle 2: Fun Old Man Varl

 

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

Semifinal: Athlete Emia

 

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

Final: Teacher Holen

  

Reward: TM19: Giga Drain

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

Round 4

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

Battle 1: Guy Harl

 

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

Battle 2: Lady Brin

 

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

Semifinal: Cooltrainer Tock

 

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

Final: Teacher Glais

  

Reward: TM22: SolarBeam

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

After completing all four rounds, the rotation will start over. Unfortunately, you won't be able to get duplicates of the TM's by replaying the round, you only get the TM your first time clearing it. I don't think there's much point in doing play-by-play summaries of the battles here as most of the pokemon here just went down to a single attack as I said in the beginning. As for the prizes we've received, I can't imagine much of this will see a whole lot of use. My original plan was to teach Solar Beam to Meganium to take advantage of Sunny Day, but with Growth taking the bench, these TM's aren't really all that useful for me. I do have the option of teaching Rain Dance to Joy so that I can teach her Thunder later, but I think I'd rather just stick to Thunderbolt. Still, having extra TM's is always nice! You never know when you'll wish you had them!

[Aura]

Shadow Pokemon Lab

Now that we've cleared up all our progress up to a certain point, it's time to finally advance the story! A new area has been discovered on our map: The Shadow Pokemon Research Lab. When we arrive here, however, we find that the gate is locked and there's an electrical fence surrounding the facility that bars our entry. As soon as we set foot outside the fence, though, we receive an email from Duking mentioning that two goons who worked for Miror B. have been detained at the Pyrite Town Jail. Before we leave for Pyrite Town, however, if we explore the perimeter, we can find a chest on the outside of the fence holding some revives! 

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

If we make our way back to the jail in Pyrite Town, we'll find Ferma and Reath have been trailed on their way to escape into The Under. Just as we suspected, The Under seems to be tied directly to the distribution of Shadow Pokemon in Pyrite Town. If we can get there, we might learn something about that research lab! If we use our Jail Key from before, we can get inside and find that Reath has a key tied around her neck. This Elevator Key can be taken from her while she's asleep. With this, we should be able to gain access to a certain elevator, but where did we see an elevator we couldn't access before?

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

Back in the Pyrite Building, there was an optional trainer standing guard in front of an elevator. Making our way there, now, we can find the same chaser strategically guarding the elevator. Battling our way past her, we can reach the previously inaccessible elevator and use our newly obtained Elevator Key to open the gate.

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

The Under

Once again, the music here is incredible! Welcome to the Under! An Underground town that was once a settlement for the minors of Pyrite Town. This dark and suspicious place is now the crime capital of Orre, and the people here intend to keep it that way. Their security is really tight! The moment we set foot inside the town, an emergency broadcast booms over the entire town as a different news reporter than usually seen on the regular news broadcasts on the surface. This broadcast announces that spies have been spotted in The Under.

Then, the beautiful idol Venus shows her face and pleads with the people of the town to capture these spies for her. It seems we're going to have to be extra careful to blend in down here. As we talk around with the locals, we can come to understand that Venus' charm has managed to capture the hearts of almost every man in the town who would do anything to make her happy. She's also very careful to remain out of the public eye so that most people can only see her on TV. 

There is a Hunter here who you can battle, but surprisingly, no Shadow Pokemon to be had. Just past her is a vending machine where you can purchase Fresh Water, Soda Pop, and Lemonade which are as good of a deal here as they've always been so try to stock up!

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

The mart here sells many TM's! TM10: Hidden Power, TM14: Blizzard, TM15: Hyper Beam, TM16: Light Screen, TM17: Protect, TM20: Safeguard, TM25: Thunder, TM33: Reflect, and TM38: Fire Blast can all be purchased here! While I'm normally not a fan of these less accurate but more powerful elemental attacks, I really want a Fire attack on my team, so I bought the TM for Fire Blast and taught it to Bliss in place of Mirror Move. While Mirror Move is a fun attack to use, it's unfortunately very situational. I think FIre Blast will come in use much more often. I also bought TM17: Protect and taught it to Joy over Thundershock, there's no reason to keep Thundershock when it also knows Thunderbolt and with Protect, I no longer have to switch Joy out just to use Earthquake with Stability!

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

In the main square, there's a hotel which you can stay at for 1000p to heal. This is even more of a blatant ripoff than the one in Pyrite Town because, not only is it much more expensive, but there's a PC right upstairs! Beyond that, with the F-Disc you received from Dakim, you can access a healing machine nearby as well! If we go upstairs, we'll find ourselves at a bar where a TV dispalys another news broadcast.

Once again, Venus expresses her disappointment and great distress over the fact that the spies have yet to be captured and once again pleads with her followers to capture the spies, claiming she's depending on every single one of them! The men in the room discuss a plan to capture the spies and ironically tell you to buzz off while they do so.

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

Heading outside on this floor, we'll naturally find ourselves on the roof of the first floor.

If we cross the bridge between the two buildings here, there's a chaser we can battle but his team isn't very impressive at all featuring a magikarp, feebas, and a Wailord as his only real threat but it's essentially 2-on-1 here.

Behind this chaser is the Junk Shop where an old man claims his grandson has recently joined a group called the "Kids Grid," and that ever since, parts have been missing from his store. If you recall, the Kids Grid is the same group Duking's daughter and her friends were a part of. They've been trying to connect children from distant places in an effort to help investigate the happenings in Orre.

If we go downstairs, we'll find a young kid named Perr who immediately recognizes us by name! He then asks us to deliver a part for him and insists that it'll help with your cause. He doesn't seem to be against us, so perhaps we've found an unlikely ally down here...

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

At the northern part of town is a strange machine. We can insert the F-Disc we got from Dakim into the machine to set the programming of the UFO nearby to move forward. We can then stand on the UFO and it will carry us straight across the giant chasm below. From here, we can reach the Under Colosseum, but other than the Pokemon Center and PC here, there's not much to do or get here. We can come to find out though that Shadow Pokemon are pretty openly discussed here. Just like in Pyrite Town, Shadow Pokemon are being given out directly as gifts to winners at the colosseum. They're also handed out personally by Venus herself. Between the chance of winning a new Shadow Pokemon and to meet Venus in the flesh, everyone in The Under wants to win at this colosseum challenge! Unfortunately, the colosseum isn't accepting any new challengers until Venus has met with the winner of the previous round who is hanging out downstairs waiting to meet Venus.

Outside of the colosseum, we can find an old man who seems to be speaking nonsensically as though he's lost his teeth. I suppose we'll just have to help him keep a look out for them. Aside from that, there's also an herb shop here which sells the typical herbal medicine you can find in the main series games, much cheaper than standard healing items, but their taste is hated by pokemon.

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

Back across the chasm, I think it's time we deliver that Powerup Part from Perr. If we make our way to the west, we can find a small building elevated above the rest of the town.

There's a kid standing outside who, just like Perr, immediately recognizes us. He introduces himself as Bitt and doesn't hesitate to invite us inside.

 

In the basement of this building, we find two other kids who started the Kids Grid: Nett and Megg. Talking to these kids, it's made clear that we've become a hero in the eyes of the Kids' Grid and that they're doing everything they can to assist us. We deliver the Powerup Part to Nett and he explains that their signals have been receiving interference, presumably from a Jammer set up by Cipher and with the Powerup Part, they should be able to improve their signal strength and overcome the jammer. From there, Nett believes he can hack Cipher's servers and steal valuable information that could be of use to us. As we make our way out, Megg asks for our P*DA number so that they can deliver important information to us as they uncover it. It seems these are kids that should not be underestimated. They'll likely prove immensely useful going forward! Though hopefully these kids don't get themselves in too much danger...

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

As we step outside, the town is immediately on high alert as we hear people yelling about a spy having been found! This can't be good! But as we walk out, we find that the strangers gathered around don't seem to be onto us, at all, but rather someone else who has been successfully captured.

Heading back to the entrance of The Under, of course, it's SIlva whose gotten himself in trouble yet again. This time he's been detained by two cipher peons who throw him into a small prison. We're going to have to rescue him again, it seems! We run up to the Peons who recognize us and immediately challenge us to a battle.

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

Cipher Peon Kloak

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

 

Volbeat Lv. 38 & Ledian Lv. 40

It seems like ages since we've encountered a good old fashioned Shadow Pokemon! And Kloak here has just the thing to wet our appetite. 

 

 

Right off the bat, I had Joy use Thunder Wave on Ledian to make it easier to capture. I didn't want to risk using Thunderbolt on it and KOing it unexpectedly, so I had Trust use Bite on it instead. Apparently I should have focused my attention on Volbeat though, because it immediately got to work using Double Team. I had Trust continue biting Ledian though, figuring I'd just have to suffer through the frequent misses. Just one attack is probably all it'll take to connect given my lives anyway. Ledian seemed to have other ideas, though, as he used Supersonic to confuse Joy. 

 

 

I switched Faith in to start using Psybeam against Volbeat. Naturally, I couldn't land a hit and it ended up using Confuse Ray to confuse me again. By this point, Ledian was running low on HP so I decided to start throwing Net Balls at it and I was able to successfully snag it!

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

Spinarak Lv. 39

 

 

Kloak sent out a Spinarak to take Ledian's place and Faith's Psybeam did connect but was unable to finish the job. Volbeat's Confuse Ray hit Trust, so I needed to retreat him this time.

 

 

I swapped Bliss back into battle and used Fire Blast on Spinarak while Faith finished the job on Volbeat.

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

Cipher Peon Dagur

Immediately following Kloak, her partner Dagur challenges you to a follow-up battle.

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

 

Ariados Lv. 38 & Gloom Lv. 39

 

 

Dagur is a little bit tougher than her partner, but she lacks a shadow pokemon. With Joy, I was able to take out Ariados pretty easily while Trust used Taunt to stop Gloom from landing its Stun Spore.

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

Illumise Lv. 40

 

 

Thunderbolt sadly wasn't enough to take out Illumise.

 

 

I retreated Trust for Faith. Thankfully, Illumise seemed to be built more offensively and used Signal Beam to attack Joy. Psybeam was able to take out Gloom and Joy was now able to finish off Illumise.

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

Thinly veiled naming gimmick aside, Kloak and Dagur retreat to report their loss. Unfortunately, we can't open the gate they locked Silva behind. Instead, we'll have to go around the side to talk to him. He'll give us an R-Disk he managed to snatch and tells us that it must be important down here. If we plug this disk into the system, the UFO will now move to the right, giving us access to the studio where the news broadcasts are made from. 

In here, it seems the crew is preparing for yet another shoot and at first mistakes us for a regular patron, shooing us away because we're disrupting them. Most importantly, though, we have Venus here in person who recognizes us on sight and is furious we've managed to make our way here. It's then that she challenges us to stop us once and for all.

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 45

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psybeam, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 45

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Taunt, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 46

Item: None

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Light Screen, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 45

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Earthquake, Amnesia, Surf, Ice Beam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 46

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Fire Blast, Dragon Dance, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Balance (Hitmontop M); Lv. 45

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Detect, Focus Energy, Triple Kick, Rapid Spin

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

Cipher Admin Venus

 

Delcatty Lv. 45 & Steelix Lv. 45

 

 

Venus' team is all about using Attract to immoblilize your pokemon while she racks up damage on them, quite fitting for her position in The Under, but not very helpful if you're onto her tricks! I lead off with Trust and Faith this time, using Taunt on Delcatty to stop it from using Attract while Faith set up Reflect to reduce the physical damage from Steelix. From there, Steelix used Earthquake more to its own detriment, hurting Delcatty more than it was able to damage either of us. I then used Confuse Ray on Steelix to further hinder it while Faith used Psybeam to finish off Delcatty.

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

Banette, Lv. 45

 

 

Banette took Delcatty's place while Steelix hit itself in confusion. From here, Trust started using Bite on Banette.

 

 

I retreated Faith for Bliss who was a better fit for dealing with these particular opponents. Steelix again couldn't attack because of its confusion and Trust was able to take out Banette with another Bite.

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

Vileplume, Lv. 44

 

 

Vileplume came next.

 

 

Since LIght Screen was running out, I decided to switch in Faith to target Vileplume while Bliss used Fire Blast to take out Steelix, but he managed to hang on with a bit more halth.. The next turn, I used Psybeam to damage Vileplume and finished Steelix off with DragonBreath.

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

Suicune Lv. 40

 

 

Suicune is a bit less intimidating when its level is below yours. But, as you'd probably expect, it is indeed a Shadow Pokemon. Expecting an Ice attack, I retreated Altaria while Faith focused on finishing off Vileplume.

 

I brought out Joy who would be able to take an Ice Attack pretty well. Suicune kind of caught me off guard by going for Shadow Rush instead of Ice Beam which I was pretty confident it knew. Regardless, I decided to reset Reflect with Faith and Light Screen with Joy to minimize Suicune's damage output.

 

From here, I retreated Faith into Trust while Joy started using Thunderbolt to reduce Suicune's HP. On the next turn, I used Confuse Ray with Trust and started throwing Net Balls with Joy. Starting with the turn after that, I threw Net Balls on Trust's turn while continuing to reduce its health on Joy's turn, ultimately snagging it in just a handful of balls. Our first successful legendary snag!

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

On her defeat, Venus flees down the nearby stairs leaving behind a chest containing TM45: Attract and Ein File F which details some final notes on Shadow Pokemon which details the burst of Exp Shadow Pokemon obtain upon purification and suggests the idea that this could be used to create even more powerful shadow pokemon.

As we pursue Venus down the stairs, we find that this studio is linked directly to the colosseum. Venus flees through an exit along the south wall, but we can take a brief detour to unlock the nearby door and gain access to the Colosseum again where we can heal up our team. Things are starting to get exciting in the story! For now, though, we just cleared a boss so I think that makes for a good stopping point. Next time, we'll investigate Venus' escape route and see what we can find!

[Pro skater boy]

HOW DOES ONE own a Suicune and snag it?? 

 

[Aura]

1 hour ago, Pro skater boy said:

HOW DOES ONE own a Suicune and snag it?? 

 

I'd be pretty upset if my Suicune was snagged out of nowhere!

[Pro skater boy]

Imagine team rocket stole your pikachu in yellow version so you had to hunt them down to get em back 

 

[Aura]

As we pursue Venus deeper underneath the colosseum, we come across a large tower of stairs and scaffolding surrounding an elevator in the middle which Venus naturally escapes into. The elevator door closes behind her allowing her to get away from us. We're just going to have to take the stairs! Along the way, there are naturally trainers around to slow us down. As it turns out, this is where the trainers with Shadow Pokemon have been lying in wait.

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

 

Hunter Frena & Gligar Lv. 43

 

Chaser Liaks & Stantler Lv. 43

 

Bodybuilder Lonia & Piloswine Lv. 43

 

Rider Nelis & Sneasel Lv. 43

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

All of these trainers seem to be previous winners of the Under Colosseum, much like the trainers at Duel Square in Pyrite Town. Interestingly, they're all women despite the fact that all the men were pining over her in the town. Maybe they were all too lovestruck to battle properly? Well, the next winner was a man, so perhaps Venus only keeps the women around?

Anyway, I was able to successfully snag most of these shadow pokemon, but the Stantler unfortunately offed itself with Recoil damage before I could snag it. These Shadow pokemon, along with Kloak's Ledian are all "missable" in the same vein as other Cipher peons. We'll get another chance in the postgame, but if you failed to snag one and want to use it during the main story, you'd best reset now. Along the way down the stairs, there's an offshoot leading to a room with two chests containing a pair of Timer Balls and Max Potions.

As we reach the bottom of the stairs, it turns out this must be one inefficient elevator because Venus has just now reached the bottom as well despite the fact that we not only took the stairs but had to do several battles to get down here! She runs into a room labeled "Station."

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

The Under Subway Station

As it so happens, this is the very same subway the owner of the junk shop used to conduct! If we chase Venus onto the subway, maybe we can stow away and infiltrate the true source of the Shadow Pokemon! Inside, we can find several cages used to transport shadow pokemon which is surprisingly off-putting compared to the pokeballs you'd probably expect to see. Are these pokemon straight out of the wild? Do trainers have to catch the Shadow Pokemon themselves? As we cross over to the other side of the Subway, we see no sign of Venus or her lackies. Stepping off, it seems they've fooled us and merely used the Subway as a diversion! The train needs a key to operate which she has, and she never had any plans to start the train knowing we would stow away. She taunts us before fleeing the other way. We give chase back out toward the scaffolding but, ironically, Venus dropped the key as she made her grand escape through the elevator. With this key, we can operate the subway!

Venus may have gotten away for now, but we now have not only snagged her Suicune, but we've also obtained a way into their base! Before we head off, though, since things have cooled down a bit, I wanted to take a look around the station as there are a few more items we can find here. Behind the scaffolding, there is a chest containing some more Ultra Balls. Around the actual Subway, there are a few doors in the back. One of which leads to a chest containing BlackGlasses! After some consideration, I decided to give this to Trust in exchange for his Quick Claw and gave the Quick Claw over to Joy who currently does not have a held item. Unfortunately, this means I won't be able to use Taunt as much to stop status moves in their tracks. That said, I always figured relying on a held item with a random chance of triggering to justify a move isn't really worth while, but I have a plan to address this issue shortly.

Well, with that brief detour out of the way, let's start up this Subway and see where it goes!

 

On the other side, we do indeed arrive at what appears to be some sort of base for Cipher. Upon getting out, we find two peons who are shocked to see us here and immediately retreat into the next room where we hear a massive explosion that even knocks the door right off of its hinge! Entering the next room reveals that it's all on fire and there's a giant rift now between us and the rest of the base! One of the peons comments on how that plan might have been a bit much but they agree it was an effective strategy and retreat up the stairs, leaving us with no way to get across. Luckily, remaining on our side, it seems one of the peons had left something of value: His Main Gate Key! With this, we should be able to get into the Shadow Pokemon Lab! 

We have no choice but to come back the way we came, but before we take the Subway back, we're going to want to check the chest behind the subway to find a U-Disk!

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

Now, we could go ahead and head off to the research facility now, but I think it might be best to let the heat die down for a bit, right? It seems they expect that they've successfully foiled our plan, so they might not expect us to have a key that will lead right through their front door. Instead, I think we should take a moment to check out how our actions have affected The Under. We also have that U-Disk to try out. On our way back out into the Colosseum, we can see that the victor of the previous round is committed to waiting patiently for Lady Venus to show up, almost like poor Hachiko. The Colosseum itself is now open for new challengers, but again, the levels are a bit high so competition is going to be rough. We'll come back later.

Returning to The Under, it seems Bitt has been able to free Silva from his prison. The Kids' Grid has been fully restored! But the general public doesn't seem to be taking nearly as kindly to us here as the people of Pyrite Town. We're the ones who drove out their beloved idol, after all, so most people are upset to hear that she's gone, some even completely in denial. Thankfully it seems that not everyone knows it's us, so we should probably make our stay here quick. I revisited the shop to buy another Protect TM and taught it to Trust over Taunt, figuring Protect would probably be more consistently helpful and make Stability's Earthquake that much more reliable. We can also rematch Chaser Gurks who has now replaced his Feebas and Magikarp with two Wailmer.

Most siginificantly, though, using our U-Disk, we can take the UFO up and out of The Under. It'll go even further up into Pyrite Town and bring us to a secret room in a building where Cipher seems to be stashing Time Flutes they've successfully seized. There's only one here, but I can imagine this is where they would have hidden the one from Vander had they successfully stolen it. Considering Ein's consideration of using the purification process to level up Shadow Pokemon only to close them again, perhaps Cipher intended to use these Flutes to power up their Shadow Pokemon even further. Either way, we've reclaimed this Flute for our own purposes and I have no intention of returning it. 

On our way out of The Under, instead of leaving through the elevator we entered from and fighting our way back out of the Pyrite Building, we can instead head to the Under Colosseum. There's an elevator on the west side which will take us to a secret entrance hidden in a rock on the surface. From here, we can go straight to The Under from the world map! No need to go through Pyrite Town to get here anymore!

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

Instead of just finishing off here, since not a whole lot has happened, I figured I may as well get some other fairly boring post stuff out of the way in this post and catch up on purifying the Shadow Pokemon we've collected so far!

Of course, we can't forget the Sudowoodo we left at the daycare in Agate village. I stopped by to take him back out for 2500p. He's already ready to be purified so I went and did that, too, before heading out to get some work on the freshly-snagged pokemon.

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

I'm still worried about leveling too much, so I still don't want to push further in our actual challenge just yet. We're just here to purify the Shadow Pokemon we've snagged so far in the areas we've already completed. This is by far the worst part of this game, though it is entirely optional, it's not if you want to complete the national dex in this generation, which I at least want to aim to do in theory. I'll elaborate more on that as we near the end of the gen.

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

Today's Purified Pokemon:

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

Admiration (Sudowoodo M); Lv. 40

Item: Hard Stone

Ability: Sturdy | Moves: Flail, Block, Low Kick, Rock Slide

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

Enthusiasm (Ledian M); Lv. 42

Item: None

Ability: Swarm | Moves: Baton Pass, Safeguard, Supersonic, Comet Punch

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

Spiritual (Suicune); Lv. 42

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Rain Dance, Leer, Aurora Beam*, Surf

*learned by levelup after purification. Replaced Gust. Apparently I was entirely wrong about Suicune knowing Ice Beam in Venus' battle.

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

Truth (Gligar F); Lv. 45

Item: None

Ability: Hyper Cutter | Moves: Faint Attack, Screech*, Poison Sting, Slash

*learned by levelup after purification. Replaced Sand-Attack.

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

Comfort (Piloswine M); Lv. 45

Item: None

Ability: Oblivious | Moves: Endure, Odor Sleuth, Dig, Blizzard

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

Haste (Sneasel F); Lv. 45

Item: None

Ability: Inner Focus | Moves: Faint Attack, Screech, Fury Swipes, Icy Wind

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

Again, unfortunately, I never successfully snagged Stantler, so naturally I couldn't purify it here. However, we have no successfully purified every shadow pokemon we've snagged so far: 22/22! So far, the only Shadow Pokemon we've missed are three: Ferma's Mantine, Dakim's Entei, and Liaks' Stantler. For now, we're just going to have to make sure we keep that number low! Next time, I think it's an appropriate time to break into the Shadow Pokemon Lab and see what trouble we can cause there!

[Aura]

Shadow Pokemon Research Lab

Now that we have the Main Gate Key, we can make our way inside the Shadow Pokemon Research Lab Proper. Inside the electric perimeter, we can find another chest holding some full heals and two shutters leading inside. One of the doors is locked shut so we'll have to enter the other one. We won't get very far inside, however, as there's another door inside that requires a Key Card.

Nearby is a control panel that will allow us to open the shutter outside, so we'll leave and enter through there.

Inside the second door, we can find a PC we can use for healing, but this is the only source of healing in the entire area so you may want to come stocked up with potions or lemonades. Before we move on, we'll want to check the little alcove in the northeast of the room where we can find a chest containing a whole 3 PP Ups! That's too good to pass up.

As we explore the area, we'll come across some stairs that lead deeper underground where we'll come across a researcher who is griping about being assigned miscellaneous tasks while there's still packing to for moving out of the research lab. Upon noticing us, he calls us suspicious and challenges us to a battle.

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

Researcher Myron

 

Voltorb Lv. 38 & Voltorb Lv. 38

These two Voltorb make Myron easy prey for the duo of Balance and Stability. A simple Earthquake is all it took to take them out.

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

After defeating this researcher, we can get ourselves the Card Key we needed to get through the door in the other side. Going down the stairs, we can find that we're on the other side of the room that the two Peons blew up before! There's nothing we can do from here, but this helps us to understand better where we were before and where we're headed now, so let's head up and out back into the main part of the facility.

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

Shadow Pokemon Research Lab Interior

Now that we're in the main part of the building, we can gather more intel on the creation of Shadow Pokemon. Of course, we won't be snooping around without resistance. As we move around the facility, Cipher Peons will drop from the ceiling to ambush us and Researchers will battle us as we walk by. 

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

Most of the researchers just use variations of the same basic team built around the Electrode and Magneton lines. The real focus here are the Cipher Peons who, here, all have a Shadow Pokemon to snag!

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

B1F & B2F Trainers

 

Cipher Peon Cole & Aipom Lv. 43

 

Cipher Peon Lare & Murkrow Lv. 43

Cipher Peon Vana & Forretress Lv. 43

 

Cipher Peon Lasar & Ariados Lv. 43

 

Cipher Peon Tanie & Granbull Lv. 43

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

Much of this building is really just a maze of hallways and elevators. It can be a little easy to get lost and there are many forks so it can be difficult to figure out where you should go next as well. Most dead-ends aren't very far in, though, so if you want to thoroughly explore, you're going to want to turn around if you feel like you're not meeting any resistance. Sometimes even elevators will only lead to dead-ends, so you'll want to take note of everywhere you've been. 

As you explore the facility, you'll find that, unfortunately, most of the information on Shadow Pokemon you could have potentially collected seems to have either already been transported or destroyed. They knew you were on your way and already had a backup plan. Still, you should find three DNA Samples. Their locations are actually randomly generated every playthrough, presumably determined by your Trainer ID or something like that. The DNA Samples you find will be used for a simple puzzle at the end of the dungeon, and since they're randomly generated, you won't be able to simply memorize the answer from a playthrough on YouTube or anything, you'll need to make sure to find the three samples throughout the labyrinth of gates and elevators.

Eventually, you'll come across two elevators next to each other. If you go into the far one, you'll find a machine which you can use to analyze the DNA Samples you've collected. This will show one of the shadow pokemon available so far. You'll want to remember which three pokemon are depicted on the samples before you head back up and take the other elevator.

In this next area, you'll be met with a researcher standing in front of a panel on the wall. As you'd probably expect, he'll challenge you to a battle. Upon defeating him, he'll press a button on the panel sounding an alarm and annoucning that you'll never escape the lab now! ...Except that you totally can by just walking back out the way you came with absolutely no resistance. You'd think you'd be ambushed by Cipher Peons or something on your way out, but nope. You're free to escort yourself out, go back to the PC to heal, or even leave to stock up on items elsewhere. There is absolutely no urgency tied to this alarm.

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

As we move forward after the alarm is sounded, we're met naturally by further backup.

 

Cipher Peon Remil & Vibrava Lv. 43

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

Behind Remil, there is a locked gate with a keypad featuring the images of 9 different pokemon including the three featured on the DNA Samples. As you've probably guessed, the pokemon on the DNA Samples make up the passcode for this door. After we enter the right code, the door opens and we can push our way past where we're met with a familiar peon.

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

Cipher Peon Skrub

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

 

Wobbuffet Lv. 42 & Clamperl Lv. 43

 

 

I definitely wasn't expecting Skrub to start out with Wobbuffet as his lead. This was a bit of an annoyance as I naturally couldn't switch Faith out from the front with him there thanks to Shadow Tag. He was just spamming Mirror Coat, so I decided to focus my efforts on the other pokemon first. I started by setting up Reflect with Faith while Joy used Thunderbolt to take out Clamperl.

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

Graveler Lv. 44

 

 

This time, I set up Light Screen with Joy while Faith used Psybeam. From this, Faith grew to level 47 and learned Psychic!

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

Medicham, Lv. 41

If you failed to snag Skrub's Hitmontop back in Relic Forest, you would get another chance to snag it here.

 

 

A simple Thunderbolt was all it took to deal with Medicahm. Wobbuffet was just spamming Mirror Coat this entire time, so I figured I could go ahead and get some chip damage onto him by hitting him with Return.

 

With just Wobbuffet, I was able to take it out no problem by concentrating all my firepower on taking him out. Shadow Tag can be a little annoying, but in double battles, it's actually pretty easy to just brute force a Wobbuffet.

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

With Skrub out of the way, we can make our way to the floor below where we'll find a scientist downloading the last bit of data from his computer before they can completely relocate to a new location. He isn't surprised in the slightest to see you here and introduces himself as Ein. This is the man who's been making all those research notes we've been reading up to this point. This man seeks nothing more than to explore the limits of the power of a Pokemon whose had the door to their heart closed and he isn't about to let you get in their way. As of now, though, things are all going according to his plans, but he's still going to battle us in an effort to stop our adventure here. 

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 47

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psychic, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 48

Item: Blackglasses

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Protect, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 47

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Light Screen, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 47

Item: Silk Scarf

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Earthquake, Amnesia, Surf, Ice Beam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 47

Item: None

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Flamethrower, Dragon Dance, DragonBreath, Fly

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

Balance (Hitmontop M); Lv. 47

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Detect, Focus Energy, Triple Kick, Rapid Spin

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

Cipher Admin Ein

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

 

Altaria Lv. 46 & Huntail Lv. 47

 

  

I led off with Joy and Stability with the intention of using Earthquake on his team, but Altaria put a bit of a hindrance on that plan, so I wanted to get rid of it first. I targeted Altaria with an Ice Beam, but it unfortunately used Fly to dodge the attack. I decided to set up Light Screen in anticipation of some special attacks while Huntail set up Rain Dance to power up its water attacks. Between Light Screen and Stability's Water Absorb, though, I don't think he'll be taking advantage of Rain Dance anytime soon. On the next turn, Huntail decided to use Confuse Ray to stop Stability's Ice Beam. Thanks to Swift Swim, it was able to move faster than everything else now. I decided to use Thunderbolt to go ahead and take out Huntail before it could keep confusing my pokemon.

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

Lanturn, Lv. 47

 

  

Lanturn came out to take Huntail's place and Altaria came down to hit Stability.

 

   

I swapped Stability out to get rid of the confusion while Joy tried to target Altaria with Thunderbolt. Unfortunately, Lanturn used Confuse Ray on her and forced her to hit herself. However, Trust was able to use Confuse Ray to confuse Altaria to hopefully jam its Fly attack.

 

  

Naturally, I swapped Joy out for Stability. I decided to go ahead and get rid of Lanturn by using Earthquake and Protect, expecting Altaria to use Fly this turn. However, Altaria hit itself in confusion so perhaps it would have been better to target it with Ice Beam. Lanturn wound up hitting Stability with Confuse Ray, but thankfully I was able to attack through it and take out Lanturn.

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

Golbat, Lv. 48

 

  

Naturally, I needed to swap out Stability while I could. Golbat hit Trust with Confuse Ray but I was able to get Toxic up on Altaria.

 

  

I swapped Faith back in and set up Reflect to reduce Golbat's damage output.

 

  

Again, because of the confusion, I had to swap Trust out with Stability this time. By this point, it wasn't worth going for Ice Beam on Altaria since it'd just go down to confusion damage and Toxic. Instead, I tried to focus on hitting Golbat with Ice Beam and Psychic. Predictably, it moved to confuse Stability, but Faith's Psychic was able to take it out and Altaria succumbed to poison damage next.

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

Raikou Lv. 40

Who could have seen this one coming? Of course, Ein's shadow pokemon is the legendary Raikou.

  

My choice with Faith's move was pretty pointless because Raikou's next move was inevitable.

  

I took the opportunity to swap Joy in while Raikou hit Faith with Thunder for the KO.

 

Trust took Faith's place and used Confuse Ray to slow Raikou's attacks while Joy set up Light Screen to reduce its damage output. There was no way it was getting past this special wall now, but Raikou would try while I went on to paralyze it with Thunder Wave and whittle away its HP while throwing Ultra Balls at it. Eventually, I successfully snagged Ein's Raikou!

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

Of course, Ein was already expecting to lose. He'd only battled us with the intent to analyze our team and report to his superiors. There's clearly still someone higher up the chain of command who's no doubt tougher than anyone we've faced to date. It's gonna be a difficult fight, but a huge success. For now, Ein retreats and vacates the facility, leaving behind the Data ROM which contained the information he never got the chance to delete. It's encrypted though, so we won't be able to access it on our own. Thankfully, there's a certain someone we know who just might be good enough with computers to break in and figure this out and as we step out of the facility, we receive an E-Mail from just that person! Nett from The Under reminds us to bring him anything that might contain valuable information, so it seems like we have our heading for next time!

[Aura]

With a new area cleared means a new batch of Shadow Pokemon to purify. But first, we've gotta drop off that Data ROM we got from Ein.

Returning to The Under, we can make our way over to The Kids Grid's modest HQ on the edge of town where they've constructed what appears to be a satellite dish. If we head inside, Megg expresses concern for us but is relieved when we assure her that we're both okay. Nett is excited to see the Data ROM. He can immediately tell that the ROM contained a list of all the Shadow Pokemon ever created, but unfortunately reveals that, indeed, the memory has been scrubbed. Still, he insists we let him analyze the ROM further to see if he can recover any lost data from the ROM so, we leave it with him. Bitt, standing outside asks if we've met with Silva recently. He mentions that Silva has gone off to a place called Realgam Tower and, on our way out of The Under, we'll find a construction worker who mentions that construction on the tower is finally complete. Indeed, on the world map, the Construction Lot is now replaced with Realgam Tower! But we're not headed there just yet. We've got work to do with these Shadow Pokemon!

I know, I know, these aren't the most exciting posts, but it's a necessary part of completing this game! By this point, we're pretty well-acquainted with Areas 4 and 5. By the end of area 5, our Shadow Pokemon are having difficulties staying alive, so I don't want to push too hard toward Area 6.

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

Purified Pokemon:

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

Outreach (Aipom F); Lv. 45

Item: None

Ability: Pickup | Moves: Baton Pass, Tickle, Fury Swipes, Swift

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

Value (Murkrow F); Lv. 47

Item: None

Ability: Insomnia | Moves: Faint Attack, Mean Look, Night Shade, Fly

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

Shelter (Forretress F); Lv. 45

Item: None

Ability: Sturdy | Moves: Explosion, Protect, Bide, Rapid Spin

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

Attention (Ariados M); Lv. 44

Item: SilverPowder

Ability: Swarm | Moves: Spider Web, Scary Face, Leech Life, Sludge Bomb

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

Affection (Granbull F); lv. 43

Item: None

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Bite, Scary Face, Roar, Strength

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

Constant (Vibrava F); Lv. 44

Item: Dragon Fang

Ability: Levitate | Moves: Crunch, Screech, Sand Tomb, DragonBreath

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

Light (Raikou); Lv. 41

Item: None

Ability: Pressure | Moves: Rain Dance, Spark*, Quick Attack, Thunder

*Spark learned by level-up after purification. Replaced Leer.

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

After purifying these pokemon, I also made some adjustments to my team. I took the Dragon Fang off of Vibrava and gave it to Bliss to power up DragonBreath. I also realized the Piloswine from before had Soft Sand, so I took that and gave it to Stability to give Earthquake some extra oomph. I'd mistakenly assumed Piloswine didn't actually have any held items. I'll try to be more careful about this going forward! In addition, I brought Bliss to the Move Deleter at Mt. Battle to finally get rid of Fly and instead taught it Earthquake with the TM we got from Ein's room! Our team is really starting to come together, and that's good because the end of the main story is getting closer and closer! There's still some more to explore between then and now, though, so let's not get complacent!

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

Before leaving Mt. Battle, I also wanted to press a bit further onward since the level curve gets a little weird with some of the things I want to do coming up.

Mt. Battle Area 7

Levels 44 - 49

Reward: 800 Coupons

Here, we emerge from the Volcano to see that we're now above the clouds and rapidly approaching the crater of the volcano! The platforms continue to coil their way around the mountain and we steadily make our way up and this is definitely where the battles start to get more difficult. Many trainers here start to use moves like Double Team and Reflect so you're probably going to start to find many of these battles dragging on for a lot longer than you'd otherwise expect. 

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

My Team:

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

Faith (Espeon M); Lv. 50

Item: TwistedSpoon

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Psychic, Return, Reflect, Helping Hand

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

Trust (Umbreon M); Lv. 50

Item: Blackglasses

Ability: Synchronise | Moves: Bite, Toxic, Protect, Confuse Ray

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

Joy (Ampharos F); Lv. 49

Item: Quick Claw

Ability: Static | Moves: ThunderBolt, Thunder Wave, Light Screen, Thundershock

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

Stability (Quagsire F); Lv. 49

Item: Soft Sand

Ability: Water Absorb | Moves: Earthquake, Amnesia, Surf, Ice Beam

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

Bliss (Altaria F); Lv. 50

Item: Dragon Fang

Ability: Natural Cure | Moves: Flamethrower, Dragon Dance, DragonBreath, Earthquake

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

Balance (Hitmontop M); Lv. 50

Item: Blackbelt

Ability: Intimidate | Moves: Detect, Focus Energy, Triple Kick, Endeavor

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

Area 7 Leader: Athey

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

 

Mawile Lv. 48 & Machoke Lv. 48

 

 

Starting out, we had a pretty good matchup here. I didn't feel the need to go for Earthquake against these foes, so a simple Surf and Thunderbolt would suffice.

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

Quagsire Lv. 49

Of all pokemon to take Machoke's place, it of course had to be a Quagsire. Thankfully, it didn't have Water Absorb, so it wasn't nearly as much of an issue here as it could have been.

 

 

There wasn't much that Mawile could do here even after surviving the initial Surf. The next turn, I used Protect with Joy and Earthquake with Stability. The Quagsire survived the round, but Mawile naturally wasn't so lucky.

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

Dusclops, Lv. 49

 

 

Next came Dusclops which was a bit annoying to see. I decided to use Thunderbolt on Dusclops and Surf with Stability. The next round, another protect and Earthquake was enough to take the both of them down.

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

Altaria, lv. 50

 

The battle was won at this point. A simple Ice Beam was all I needed to land.

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

Again, I don't wanna get too ahead of myself here. We're technically already overlevel for the next chunk of story, but as I said, the level curve is a bit weird going forward so I'm not too worried about being overlevel period like before, but I still don't want to go too crazy with leveling. Everything in moderation. We are finally on par with some of the pokemon that have become available in the Pyrite Colosseum ever since we drove out Miror B., so next time, I think we revisit Pyrite Town and finally take on that Colosseum challenge!