Let's Play! Gotta Play (A Handful) Of Em' All (Current Project: Pokemon Platinum)

[Mex]

THIS quote. I have never understood this quote. Did Brock suddenly get a rash mid-battle? If so, why is he telling it to us? Is it saying something about the human condition? Is he crying out for help, knowing he is locked in battle for eternity instead of treating his aching boulders or wounds? What even is this line?
View attachment 538520

I always took this as him trying to hype up his pokemon's "impenetrable" defense, implying that your attacks are doing nothing but tickle them.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

New update, yay! And my reply got delayed to the point that there's a second update to reply to as well!

The wild battle remix is fantastic. Why aren't the Kanto wild Pokemon higher leveled? Such a baffling design choice when the Trainers are level 40+.

This is yet another of the quite many small things I disagree with you about (and that's okay). I'm not a fan of the wild Pokémon and regular trainer music in HG/SS Kanto. That said, I am a huge fan of the Kanto Gym Leader battle theme, it slaps so hard!

I agree about the levels though, they are so weird. Trainers being at level 40+ is still a little too low since you have just already beaten a guy with a level 50 Dragonite. And the levels of the wild Pokémon are even worse. There's wild Pidgey and Rattata at level 2 on Route 1, right next to the Gym Leader with a level 60 Pidgeot. Why this wasn't improved upon from G/S/C is something I will never understand.

I will never understand Johto's Kanto obsession with putting Cut trees in the POSTGAME. It's so unnecessary.

I'm guessing this was done to match how it was in the Kanto games. I think many of the design/layout choices in Kanto in the Johto games (both the good and the bad) are a result of this.

I don't mind Lavender Town's new song actually. I like the peaceful tune, even if it puts a damper on arguably Kanto's most iconic location.

I like it too, and I honestly think HG/SS has the best version of the Lavender Town theme. It is a bittersweet but not sad to the point that it is downright depressing.

This remix...wow, it's so solemn.

I agree. Cinnabar Island is one of my top three favorite tracks in HG/SS, everything about it is perfect.

Honestly, as a kid i never really used the Magnet Train, but in my recent playthrough i ended up using it way more. Hate how the game doesn't just let you fly between Kanto and Johto instead of having to stop off at Indigo Plateau between it though, feels like inconvenience for inconvenience sake

It is funny because it is the opposite for me. When I played G/S/C as a kid, I often used the Magnet Train when travelling (from Kanto to Johto at least). But I almost never used it in HG/SS. Being unable to fly directly between the two regions is extremely inconvenient and I think it is a prime example of bad game design, but despite that, I still used fly most of the time anyway, oing a middle landing... every single time. It felt faster than using the train, and it was easier when my goal was somewhere that wasn't Goldenrod or Saffron.

Brock is weird because you can easily face him late in the cycle given his unlock requirements.

When I played the Johto games, I never battled the Kanto Leaders in the right order. I think Brock was usually one of the last three I took on.

Also amazing battle against Misty.

And finally, a late reply to QuentinQuonce since there were some things I really want to comment on:

I remember a bunch of theories prior to release that Dragon's Den would be where you'd catch the Lati duo in HGSS. Kind of feel like that might have been more interesting than just shoving them into Kanto like they did, though I do like the Enigma Stone event and the link to Steven/Hoenn.

On the other hand though I actually think it's kind of cool that the dragon tamers in Blackthorn are one of the few groups in the games who aren't obsessed with legendary Pokemon, so I wouldn't change that. But it would have been cool to see an expanded Dragon's Den, like how in the anime it leads to a massive valley full of dragon Pokemon.

That's a really cool theory, too bad it didn't turn out that way. I have never liked the concept of roaming legendaries, I'm glad they have moved away from it in recent generations. Dragon's Den would have been better, they could simply have had both this and the Enigma Stone. You catch your main Lati at the Dragon's Den and then the other one through the Enigma Stone, problem solved!

And I agree, the lack of a legendary obsession at the Dragon's Den is fairly unique, but it is also understandable since there were no legendary Dragon-types before Gen 3.

It's funny, BW are the first games that outright force you to catch the mascot, but people generally forget that that annoying trend started here (myself included). I don't mind it so much here because you can still KO it or run, but the railroading has gotten more and more intense as time's gone on and it's a change I really dislike. I don't mind legendaries being part of the plot and required encounters, but the moment I start to feel like I'm being steered into playing the game a certain way, my enthusiasm rapidly starts to wither.

I wanted to take a look at how it has been throughout the generations and games. This might be a bit off-topic but I don't know where else to post it. Color-coded, inspired by Pikachu315111:

R/B/Y: All legendaries are optional.
G/S: All legendaries are optional.
Crystal: Battling Suicune is mandatory during the main story, and if you don't catch it, it will be gone forever. Edit: Battling and catching Suicune is optional, you can avoid it by not going to the Tin Tower.
R/S: Same as Suicune in Crystal Battling Groudon/Kyogre is mandatory and it will be gone if you don't catch it.
FR/LG: Same as R/B/Y, all legendaries are optional.
Emerald: Everything is optional. Unlike in R/S, you are not forced to catch Rayquaza.
D/P: Battling Dialga/Palkia is mandatory, and as far as I know, it will be gone forever if you don't catch it.
Platinum: Battling Giratina is mandatory, but catching it is optional as it will respawn after beating the game if you don't catch it.
HG/SS: With Ho-Oh/Lugia, it is the same as for Giratina in Platinum.
B/W: You are forced to catch Reshiram/Zekrom at the end of the story, UNLESS all your boxes are full, in which case it will be skipped and the dragon can be caught at Dragonspiral Tower during the post-game.
B2/W2: You have to battle Kyurem-B/W, but you can't catch it until the post-game.
X/Y: Catching Xerneas/Yveltal is mandatory during the story.
OR/AS: You are forced to obtain the main Lati during the story. Battling Groudon/Kyogre is mandatory, but catching it is optional (if beaten, it will respawn in the post-game). You are also forced to catch Rayquaza during the Delta Episode.
S/M: Catching Nebby is mandatory during the main story. You are also forced to battle Tapu Koko directly after beating the game, but it will respawn if you beat it.
US/UM: All legendaries are optional during the main game, but during the post-game, you must obtain Type: Null (as a gift) and catch the two Stakataka/Blacephalon before you can access some parts of the post-game.
LGP/E: Never played these, but I assume everything is optional here, just like in R/B/Y and FR/LG.
S/S: Battling and catching Eternatus is mandatory during the main story (but it is a guaranteed capture). The wolf is post-game only.
BD/SP: Never played these either, but from what I can find, it seems like you are required to battle Dialga/Palkia, but it will respawn after beating the game if you defeat it.
L:A: You have to catch Dialga and Palkia at the end of part 1, the others are optional. Then you technically have to catch all other legendaries before the end of part 2 since you need a full Pokédex to reach Arceus.
S/V: You have Koraidon/Miraidon with you during the whole game, but you can't use it in battle until the very end of the game, where it is mandatory. No need to catch it though, it is automatically obtained.

Personally, I prefer when legendaries are optional. But if they can bake them into the story in a good way, then that sort of makes up for them being mandatory. B/W, S/S and S/V did this the best IMO.

 

[ScraftyIsTheBest]

I always took this as him trying to hype up his pokemon's "impenetrable" defense, implying that your attacks are doing nothing but tickle them.

It's kind of a flavor in-universe thing really. He's usually the first Gym Leader most new Trainers in Kanto face as established by the original Kanto games, and his whole thing is that because Rock-types in Kanto have high Defense and resist Normal, Flying, and Poison, his Rock-types are usually a challenge for new Trainers because he is nigh impenetrable to the likes of Rattata, Pidgey, Pikachu, and the bugs (the things newcomers would have against him), and their attacks are mere itches/tickles to his Rock-types. Of course, then there's always the possibility that a newcomer will have Bulbasaur or Squirtle, or if they went out of their way, Mankey, but only the former two can truly break past his Rock-types by picking on their achilles heel (double weakness+poor special bulk), while Mankey has to deliver multiple blows to take them down.

His whole schtick is that he's the first challenge because Rock-types are impervious to Kanto's most basic introductory Pokemon barring two of the starters, and physical attacks at that point can't do much to them. Which is of course funny because as the Johto player we're going in as a Champion and he's coming at us with a stronger team.

Also, this is the second remake where someone has a Rhyhorn instead of a Rhydon. We are in the postgame. At least with Onix I can semi-understand why it stays, it's the iconic first gym ace and the typing would change as Steelix like I said. But this Rhyhorn? This makes literally no sense. And no, this isn't fixed in rematches: Brock replaces it...with a Relicanth.

While Giovanni having a Rhyhorn instead of Rhydon in FRLG is likely a mistake with no other justifiable explanation, my guess is that Brock was intentionally weakened in his first match in HGSS to still reflect that he's the first Kanto Gym Leader and is supposed to be the weakest as a result since he's faced by less experienced Trainers. I also think him having Rhyhorn instead of Rhydon was to separate him from Blue, the final Gym Leader who is the strongest Kanto Gym Leader and at this point also a former Champion, and Blue has a Rhydon in HGSS that eventually evolves into Rhyperior for his rematches. Going for the unevolved form was likely a flavor design choice emphasizing the power gap between Brock and Blue as well, the former is a newbie's roadblock while the latter is literally one of the strongest Trainers in Kanto second only to Red, and the latter's team is comparatively much stronger both in his first match and rematch.

At least Brock gets Golem (evolved from his Graveler) for his rematches, which is still a solid pick to have, and adds Rampardos to his roster.

 

[QuentinQuonce]

And finally, a late reply to QuentinQuonce since there were some things I really want to comment on:

Yo.

That's a really cool theory, too bad it didn't turn out that way. I have never liked the concept of roaming legendaries, I'm glad they have moved away from it in recent generations. Dragon's Den would have been better, they could simply have had both this and the Enigma Stone. You catch your main Lati at the Dragon's Den and then the other one through the Enigma Stone, problem solved!

And I agree, the lack of a legendary obsession at the Dragon's Den is fairly unique, but it is also understandable since there were no legendary Dragon-types before Gen 3.

Well yes. I'd actually quite like to see more reverence given to non-legendary species in the same vein as Sprout Tower and Slowpoke Well but that's another topic. Sinnoh does a vaguely similar thing with Croagunk being Pastoria's mascot, but it's mentioned by about two people and plays precisely no role in the game beyond that weird board gimmick they did in Platinum and then reused for some reason in B2W2.

I wanted to take a look at how it has been throughout the generations and games. This might be a bit off-topic but I don't know where else to post it. Color-coded, inspired by Pikachu315111:

R/B/Y: All legendaries are optional.
G/S: All legendaries are optional.
Crystal: Battling Suicune is mandatory during the main story, and if you don't catch it, it will be gone forever.
R/S: Same as Suicune in Crystal, battling Groudon/Kyogre is mandatory and it will be gone if you don't catch it.
FR/LG: Same as R/B/Y, all legendaries are optional.
Emerald: Everything is optional. Unlike in R/S, you are not forced to catch Rayquaza.
D/P: Battling Dialga/Palkia is mandatory, and as far as I know, it will be gone forever if you don't catch it.
Platinum: Battling Giratina is mandatory, but catching it is optional as it will respawn after beating the game if you don't catch it.
HG/SS: With Ho-Oh/Lugia, it is the same as for Giratina in Platinum.
B/W: You are forced to catch Reshiram/Zekrom at the end of the story, UNLESS all your boxes are full, in which case it will be skipped and the dragon can be caught at Dragonspiral Tower during the post-game.
B2/W2: You have to battle Kyurem-B/W, but you can't catch it until the post-game.
X/Y: Catching Xerneas/Yveltal is mandatory during the story.
OR/AS: You are forced to obtain the main Lati during the story. Battling Groudon/Kyogre is mandatory, but catching it is optional (if beaten, it will respawn in the post-game). You are also forced to catch Rayquaza during the Delta Episode.
S/M: Catching Nebby is mandatory during the main story. You are also forced to battle Tapu Koko directly after beating the game, but it will respawn if you beat it.
US/UM: All legendaries are optional during the main game, but during the post-game, you must obtain Type: Null (as a gift) and catch the two Stakataka/Blacephalon before you can access some parts of the post-game.
LGP/E: Never played these, but I assume everything is optional here, just like in R/B/Y and FR/LG.
S/S: Battling and catching Eternatus is mandatory during the main story (but it is a guaranteed capture). The wolf is post-game only.
BD/SP: Never played these either, but from what I can find, it seems like you are required to battle Dialga/Palkia, but it will respawn after beating the game if you defeat it.
L:A: You have to catch Dialga and Palkia at the end of part 1, the others are optional. Then you technically have to catch all other legendaries before the end of part 2 since you need a full Pokédex to reach Arceus.
S/V: You have Koraidon/Miraidon with you during the whole game, but you can't use it in battle until the very end of the game, where it is mandatory. No need to catch it though, it is automatically obtained.

Personally, I prefer when legendaries are optional. But if they can bake them into the story in a good way, then that sort of makes up for them being mandatory. B/W, S/S and S/V did this the best IMO.

Small correction: Suicune is not mandatory in Crystal, you can skip it if you simply never go to Tin Tower at all (source: me, having done this before)

I'm of the opinion personally the more freedom the player is given, the better. Emerald's way is optimal to me: you have to trigger Rayquaza's involvement in the story, but beyond that you don't have to do anything.

Funnily enough I just mentioned the Jak and Daxter games in another thread and they're relevant here too (well, the second and third game specifically) as an example of what I mean by freedom: the game world is designed as a sandbox in which you can more or less go anywhere at any time, but there is still a straightforward plotline that's advanced by completing missions one after the other. Except that the "mission tree" branches out once you're a little way in: you have to do missions 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in that order, but after completing mission 5 missions 6, 7, and 8 are all unlocked at once and completing them will variously prompt other quests to unlock depending on how much overall progress you've made (shown to the player as a percentage). You still have to do every single mission in the game and you can't put any of them off for very long, but you've got the choice of walking away if you're finding one difficult and doing something else first.

The only downside to this is that you end up going back and forth quite often, since a lot of the time you have to go to point A to be given a mission and then go to point B to start it, which artificially bloats the runtime of the game. The third game improves things on this front a bit as several missions in that game start right where the previous one left off. But still! If I'm being railroaded I want a seriously good justification for it. And I'm yet to be convinced why I absolutely need to catch a Pokemon when I could just KO it instead.

 

[Suspicious Derivative]

Well yes. I'd actually quite like to see more reverence given to non-legendary species in the same vein as Sprout Tower and Slowpoke Well but that's another topic. Sinnoh does a vaguely similar thing with Croagunk being Pastoria's mascot, but it's mentioned by about two people and plays precisely no role in the game beyond that weird board gimmick they did in Platinum and then reused for some reason in B2W2.

I agree, it is cool when non-legendary Pokémon get a bit of the spotlight. Or if a non-legendary Pokémon just gets some time to shine, without necessarily being tied to a specifc area.

Small correction: Suicune is not mandatory in Crystal, you can skip it if you simply never go to Tin Tower at all (source: me, having done this before

Wow. I didn't know about this. It has been ages since I last played Crystal, I don't think I ever tried skipping the Tin Tower, I never even considered it. Either way, thanks for letting me know! If I replay Crystal in the future, I'll just skip Suicune during the main game and catch it in the post-game instead.

I'm of the opinion personally the more freedom the player is given, the better. Emerald's way is optimal to me: you have to trigger Rayquaza's involvement in the story, but beyond that you don't have to do anything.

Mostly agree. Regarding legendaries and their story involvement, I think B2/W2 and US/UM did that it fairly well too. You have legendary battles, but the captures are optional (during the main game), which is nice.

 

[Ernesto]

Yay, more updates!

HGSS Episode 16: WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED

book em boys

We start back in Pewter. Gym time.



Yeah this is a stupid limitation with Fly. 100% agree.

And no, I didn't grind, probably gonna do that after all this. I wanna make the Gym battles more interesting by being low leveled.

View attachment 538515
I like the detail that he calls you "Legend" instead of champ. Amazing touch.

Man, this random mook has a Rhydon and FRLG Giovanni didn't. Progressive.
View attachment 538516

Brock is weird because you can easily face him late in the cycle given his unlock requirements.
View attachment 538517


We set up a Light Clay boosted Reflect with Stantler, and when combined with Intimidate...
View attachment 538518
Yeah, that's pretty awesome, though he never hits me for the rest of the fight so lol. We get a free switch off of Defense Curl to Mismagius, then obliterate him with Choice Specs Magical Leaf. I do like how he has the fossils (great sprite of Kabutops here), but having an Onix is a little silly this late in the game, even if Steelix would break his typing.
View attachment 538519
THIS quote. I have never understood this quote. Did Brock suddenly get a rash mid-battle? If so, why is he telling it to us? Is it saying something about the human condition? Is he crying out for help, knowing he is locked in battle for eternity instead of treating his aching boulders or wounds? What even is this line?
View attachment 538520
Also, this is the second remake where someone has a Rhyhorn instead of a Rhydon. We are in the postgame. At least with Onix I can semi-understand why it stays, it's the iconic first gym ace and the typing would change as Steelix like I said. But this Rhyhorn? This makes literally no sense. And no, this isn't fixed in rematches: Brock replaces it...with a Relicanth.

wut

Mismagius is quickly becoming the star of the show. Having great type coverage and IVs and Speed will do that.
View attachment 538521

derrrrrrp
View attachment 538522

We give Mismagius the Thunderbolt TM to round out its moveset (I prefer Discharge on Ampharos due to the paralysis chance).

Music time.

Misty has an excellent redesign. It's probably the complementary blue coat with the orange hair.
View attachment 538523

We lead with Stantler once more, setting up Light Screen as Golduck disables it lol.
View attachment 538525

Literally no damage
View attachment 538526

We hit em with a Choice Specs THUNDABOLT, but this becomes hilarious when Golduck Disables that too, forcing me to switch.

We Charge as Ampharos to avoid Disable (was afraid of 2 Special Attack IV), then fry Golduck.
View attachment 538529

Quagsire comes in, and to make this fight a little more interesting, I send in Stantler because I don't want to lock into Magical Leaf. We set up Reflect. Light Screen wears off so we recast it as Quagsire sets up rain. Return deals decent damage considering Quagsire's bulk.

View attachment 538530

actually no damage
View attachment 538531
Lapras comes in and Sing gets the masochism chance. This fight is going in so many different directions lmao.
View attachment 538532

We switch back to Stantler and barely miss the kill, but we tank it pretty well and Sing misses.
View attachment 538533

Sadly she heals it and sleeps me again, and now both screens have worn off.
View attachment 538534

We switch to Ampharos and-
View attachment 538535

YOU MONKEY-FIGHTING SNAKE ON THIS MONDAY-TO-FRIDAY PLANE

I'm running out of options because I don't want to heal to keep things interesting....um, Typhlosion? Can you do something?
View attachment 538536
For the memes.
View attachment 538537
We actually pulled it off. My heart cannot take this fight right now.
View attachment 538538

I Night Slash but hit myself in confusion.
View attachment 538539

We die next turn sadly after a Sucker Punch.
View attachment 538540

!!!
View attachment 538541

She heals and we crit EQ. What in the absolute fresh heck is GOING ON
View attachment 538542

This is the craziest Gym battle I've ever had, holy moly.
View attachment 538543

NO
View attachment 538544

Okay, we have to Full Heal Mismagius. I think I earned that after suffering two crits.
View attachment 538545

Humorously, we live Ice Beam.
View attachment 538546

It's down to this.
View attachment 538547

We hit ourselves in confusion AGAIN.
View attachment 538548

YOU PIECE OF-
View attachment 538549

FINE. I'll Full Restore.

GO TO HELL!
View attachment 538550

"It contains a literally useless move"
View attachment 538551

We're stopping here! I was originally gonna do like three or four gym battles but we simply aren't topping that. Next time, we continue and take on Lt. Surge.

What just happened??????

I actually don't think I ever fought the Kanto leaders in order so Brock would generally come like sixth (being much more of a pushover than Sabrina or even Erika). I agree him using the fossils is a nice touch, especially since in Gen I it seemed that the ones in Mt. Moon were the only ones in existance since no trainer had them. He lowkey started the trend of Rock/Steel leaders using those from their respective gens so that's something.

I really love Misty's team in these games, Quagsire and Lapras cover each other's weaknesses well and Starmie is an amazing ace as always. If anything Golduck could be replaced with something like Mantine or Lanturn since those are generally absent from important trainers' rosters, but it makes sense since it's a nod to Misty's Psyduck from the anime. I'd say only Blue is a more competent leader (Sabrina can be tough because of her high leveled Alakazam but all the others are just blah). In fact, I dunno if you watched the videos from the guy who makes the NPCs battle it out to see who's best but Misty almost beat Lance! With hax, not unlike in your fight, but it still counts.

Getting anxious for that Blue fight!

 

[DrumstickGaming]

HGSS Episode 17: Lt. Surge is Boring

Onto Vermilion Gym. Have some rare footage of a levelup happening when a sprite isn't onscreen via Fly. Looks off, doesn't it?

Steelix got Crunch from this fight: I replaced Curse because I've almost never used it.

The only real thing I can say about this puzzle is that it's initially infuriating, but the second you try save scumming after the first lcck, the annoyance dies.

Anyway, Lt. Surge is actual cancer. I know Electric types don't have much to work with, but like...give him an Ampharos with Light Screen, give him a Lanturn, just do anything more interesting than Double Team. Even with this bad team, you could have a dual screen Electrode be the lead.

The only thing notable about this fight was how I think I got two Quick Claw activations in a row. Shock Wave is another useless TM (you can literally go grab Thunderbolt from Cerulean Cave). Lt. Surge has a cool sprite but this fight is still trash. Moving onto Erika.

postgame HMs are stupid

I actually prefer this censorship. Sometimes the shady stuff needs to be CUT

literally who

This puzzle isn't too bad though with interesting navigation. I don't love it, but it's at least better than Gardenia's lame flower clock in Platinum.

Erika's Chlorophyll team is neat on paper, but they are still Grass types and I can't really think of anyone who doesn't have a counter to them this late in the adventure. Also, why does one of the Twin mooks have a Victrebell with Sludge Bomb when Erika doesn't? Another lovely sprite though.

yeah okay

Actually, Jumpluff set Sunny Day, then Tangela outran and Sleeped me to death, so I guess it's Stantler's time to shine.

We set up a Light Screen just in case Honchkrow needs it.

Huh.

Victrebell actually outsped Honchkrow and set up Sunny Day but died to Fly, as did Bellossom. It really put Tangela's good physical bulk into perspective. Thankfully, Giga Drain is a pretty great TM to get, as was Rock Slide from Brock last time.

Johto-Kanto's Fuschia Gym is hands down my favorite Gym puzzle in the entire series! It's such a creative move to have the mooks all disguised as Janine, not to mention the invisible walls (which are needless with this gimmick but whatever).

Shoot I actually misremembered! I legit thought it was the bottom left one. SAVE SCUM

Looking back on the updated Kanto leaders, I'm realizing a few of them really love dumb status nonsense. WHY do two separate Kanto bosses have Double Team??????

Janine's sprite is definitely one of the best the DS era produced. I know I keep saying that sort of thing, but really the presentation of this game is just stellar in terms of looks. It's a shame the actual gameplay isn't up to par.

There's not a whole lot to say about the fight itself other than my Misty bad luck got redemption: I dodged confusion four times in a row and Mismagius decimated her team with Choice Specs Psychic (only Crobat survived). Poison Jab is a good TM but it's weird how less than half of her team uses it in battle. Also, Janine could have easily replaced one Ariados with Tentacruel or something. Overall, I really like Janine as a character! A girl ninja is a cute idea, she has a great puzzle, the only thing I can really call silly about her is her levels in the original GSC.

why is she weaker than Clair WTF

screw you i'm secretly 8

Anyway, Saffron Gym has a great visual flare to it. I'd call it what my editor originally called my book's genre for some reason: futuristic - which I still don't understand, it's more of a dramedy with both realistic and fantastical elements and in this essay I will-

Despite only having three Pokemon, Sabrina is one of the toughest Kanto leaders, because A) it's really easy to challenge her early when your team lacks levels and B) your team is very unlikely to have a Dark or Steel type that resists her onslaught and C) Calm Mind Espeon is a very scary sweeper and Alakazam is a scary clean up crew. Good sprite once again.

ugh

we killed next turn at least via a good roll

Zam sets up Reflect but we crit past it turn 2 and then subsequently crit Mr. Mime.

also, while I know we get Psychic in the same city, Skill Swap is a trash TM, to the point I think RBY's Psywave is unironically a better reward

We swap out Typhlosion for Lugia to Surf and Fly to Cinnabar.

I think this chick said it was her very best Pokemon...right

I like how Blaine's Gym is upstairs from Seafoam Islands. It makes the world feel more connected and a lot more interesting than your standard Gym in a building.

paralysis masochism

On the other hand, we got a lucky Overheat miss from Torkal letting Steelix kill it and a Discharge para into full para in another fight, so it evens out.

While this Gym literally doesn't even have much of a puzzle (guys step back when beat, woo, and it straight up had NO GYM TRAINERS in GSC) I find this line interesting. I like the multicolored floor.

Seriously, why do some of the Kanto leaders only have three Pokemon? Anyway, Blaine has interesting long-term strategies in Sunny Day and White Herb Overheat. I also do not have a Water type or any resists so I think this fight will be fun.

oh

Light Screen baby

We gotta improvise.

Magmar confused me and I paralyzed him with Thunder Wave. Back into Lugia.

he crit

We kill with Mismagius as he sets up sun

We Sucker Punch, then he recoils himself to red with Flare Blitz.

We paralyze him as Blaine heals up: he kills me as the sunlight fades.

I set up Light Screen and let him recoil himself to half.

This allows Mismagius to pick him off, though it was my last Pokemon. Fun fight, also Blaine has a great pre-fight animation and sprite.

BAOBA WHY THO

For real.

The leader is RED IN DISGUISE, I KNEW IT

Next time we take on Blue.

Also, do ya'll want me to do the Johto Elite Four rematches and Red? I have infinite Rare Candies but it'd mostly be content for the sake of it and I'd be fairly content to end the playthrough at Blue given my team isn't the best.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

HGSS Episode 18: Finale (?)

Decided to go ahead and wrap this series up today, though I am open to doing bonus episodes if I feel like it randomly in-between other projects.

AKA techical limitations

Also this gym is a total eyesore, and I say that as a proud lover of anaglyph 3D. I would honestly say this puzzle is visual vomit and what happens when you make a puzzle too complex for it's own good. I do like the black color of the floor and walls though, it's very sleek, which fits a final Gym.

Anyway, what's interesting about VIridian Gym is that the standard Trainers actually use Trick Room, the Gym's TM. It's one of my favorite moves in general so no complaints here, more Gyms should do this.

Had to happen sooner or later.

Ugh (amusingly it proceeded to hit hard with Flail afterward, tho it didn't OHKO).

I love this small bit of Blue's characterization: it's great.

Classic Blue, and also no, those Gyms are hard for the wrong reasons.

Man, I love that animation, and I LOVE this battle. So much conveyed in like, five seconds of a GIF. Additionally, Blue is hands down one of my favorite boss fights in the series. He A) has a varied team B) uses a team based around Trick Room which is epic and C) has amazing character development from the Kanto games. I'll say it: I think Blue is cooler than Red and Cynthia, because, y'know, Blue has an actual personality while also not not being completely insufferable. Blue in Gen 1 I could take or leave. Blue in Gen 2 is just an amazing character and battle all around: this is what Silver should have been.

But any good Pokemon character would be iffy without a strong team, and Blue definitely is a great final challenge that has actually interesting team members unlike Red. The only real dud is Pidgeot, but hey, grandfather clause, and Return is nice gameplay and story integration with Blue's character development. I also like seeing Machamp represented, not many bosses have it aside from Bruno.

Mismagius comes through for us once more as it effortlessly one-shots Exeggutor with Shadow Ball.

This prompts Arcanine in, and we have an Intimidate duel as I set up Reflect.

That hit like a truck.

After some healing, Mismagius beats it in yellow HP, actually outspeeding it. Rhydon comes in. I try to bait EQ with Ampharos so I can use Magical Leaf (remember, I have Specs), but...

-you are kidding me

We hit Focus Blast and got a Stone Edge miss. Things just got interesting. Flamethrower picks it off.

Gyarados comes in, and now it's 3 on 3. This is actually pretty close...

Unfortunately for us, Machamp has No Guard Stone Edge and I know for sure it will eat Fly. We're OHKOed, unfortunately.

Yeah, I think we've lost. Machamp takes Ampharos to the cleaners.

Fitting we lost to the first and last Gyms in the game as a sort of book end. In the rematch, we KO Eggs, Intimidate and set up a screen once more. Let's try something interesting.

With a screen up we live Flare Blitz really comfortably (and this was after a Dragon Pulse did like a fourth). Steelix gets a nice Quick Claw activation so we avoid a third hit.

Machamp comes in, and we Intimidate it with Stantler before giving Mismagius a free switch. Psychic time.

DUDE

Typhlosion kills it with Fire Blast as our screen wears off, so Stantler resets it as it dies to Rhydon.

We Quick Claw and crit EQ in the same turn, followed by him critting me lmao.

We got semi-good luck, hitting Focus Blast and having him miss Stone Edge again.

We crit Gyarados for good measure. We have three team members left for Pidgeot, so we should be okay.

We paralyze it just in case though, then roll a full para and 2HKO it even through Sitrus Berry. Not bad.

You bet I am.

Did he mistake me for Red?

He gives us Rock Climb and unlocks Mt. Silver, which I won't be doing yet because screw that noise.

Now over at Game Freak in Celadon (random Lyra cameo is random) his is reason #50,000 regarding HGSS with "good idea, terrible execution" - why why WHY do I get GB Sounds after all sixteen badges? It's such a waste.

And now, this.

Yeah you somehow made HGSS worse than GSC, guys, sorry.

I was originally going to rematch Misty but...

A) It requires dealing with Suicune and B) we simply can't take this team after we struggled with Blue. I edited the mention out of the last post for consistency (same with Blaine).

Yes, Gym Leader rematches are in this game and they suck.

It's yet another aspect of the game that requires a guide, because we didn't have enough of those already with the infamously rare Johto Pokemon. Have fun finding these on your own.

But because nothing in HGSS can ever be simple, then you have to call them at specific times, and not only that, but you have to call them during that period every single time you want to rematch them, turning what would otherwise be one of the coolest features in the series to needlessly annoying. Why couldn't they just give you the numbers after you win the first time then let you call anytime? Did we really need realistic people availability in a world with a goofy tsuchinoko and other silly oddities? No, we didn't!

I'm too tired to give a full team breakdown, so I'll say Typhlosion was good and reliable, Ampharos and Honchkrow merely existed and didn't do a whole lot to justify their inclusions, Steelix was pretty nice, Stantler hard carried our team with screens lategame and Mismagius was superb, the latter two being seriously sleeper picks if you want something different from a typical Johto playthrough if you do Kanto's postgame.

Oh yeah, and Jumpluff was trash.

HGSS Review

In case it wasn't obvious, I am not a fan of HGSS, it's honestly one of the worst games in the series. GSC is serviceable yet flawed, replacing HGSS's difficult battles with a campaign you sleepwalk through with Pink Bow Return Normals and elemental punches, though it also isn't nearly as egregious because it released at the turn of the millennium.

HGSS released in 2009, where good game design philosophy was well established, and is a bad remake where the only real good thing about it is its admittedly stellar presentation / graphics and sound. Nearly every feature, from Trainer rematches to Safari Zone to elemental stones to now postgame swarms to mostly untweaked encounter rates to GB Sounds - like seriously virtually every feature aside from the Running Shoes toggle - is clunky at best and an awful chore to engage with at worst, never mind the mostly unchanged level curve aside from Kanto, which would be cool if you didn't beat Blue and see the endgame stuff like Elite Four and Red have like 20-30 levels on you, so even then the stuff they improved wasn't as fun as it could be.

At best, HGSS is still a Pokemon game, and Pokemon's formula is inherently fun at its core, even when horribly mutilated by questionable design. At worst, it's an NES RPG in 2009 clothing, and I advise you steer clear and pick up pretty much any other mainline Pokemon game over this one, yes, even RBY. Say what you will about X and Y and SWSH being cliche storm central, but the gameplay mechanics never get in the way and they are still fun, albeit rather unexciting when compared to the high points of the series. Maybe I'll come back and do some postgame stuff if I grind, but for now, I'm glad we're done with this game. Thanks for listening. I don't know when the next LP will go up, as my motivation comes and goes and I have a book sequel to write anyway.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

So my next Let's Play of going to be of Pokemon Emerald, this time with Turdterra! I hope you enjoy their contributions!

Emerald Part 1: Old-School

Pokemon Emerald was my very first Pokemon game! I think that while it's rather difficult, it still holds up pretty well today! Let's get into it.

It's the friendly rival!!! The trend that won't be overused at all!

My starter is Mudkip. No nickname.

We fight May and I discover Mudkip has Mild nature.

We head over to Petalburg and get our Wally tutorial (insert comment about how rare Ralts is here)

We get a Tailow and HOLY MOLY MAN

We beat up the boring Team Aqua. Honestly they and Team Magma are pretty boring in this game. They try to give them a high stakes plot but they are only a small notch up from Team Rocket and still mostly generic villainy.

We get to Rustboro and head to the Gym!

Roxanne time!

Nosepass is pretty bulky.

Got Marshtomp!

Time to save a random businessman.

Peeko.

You know what this means right?

Had to do it.

DUN DUN DUN

Let's crush her dreams.

We catch a Zigzagoon and head to Dewford. Also, something something "my dad is not a phone."

Also, I was just messing with you guys about Mudkip: I'm boxing Marshtomp!

We also add a Relaxed Makuhita to the team!

YOUR FAVORITE MOVE SUCKS

Battle Girls have great sprites.

Brawly time.

Emerald Brawly is straight up one of the hardest early game bosses in a Pokemon game. High levels, little Trainers (unless you go to Slateport first) and just generally a solid team.

Oh man Machop is at +2.

Yeah baby.

We dead.

So we poison it and die to a double KO leading Zigzagoon to get the EXP.

We kill Meditite and Makuhita sends us to the graveyard.

We get back to Makuhita with half Tailow's HP gone and Tail Whip it.

Luckily we squeak out a win. We replace Focus Energy with Bulk Up.

We head to Slateport after some grinding some and I give Tentacool Swagger because Supersonic is painful.

We get into a fight with Team Aqua at the Oceanic Museum, complete with Carvahna doing its best Battlefield Earth cameraman impression.

I visit the Name Rater and we give some nicknames to our mons.

At the end of this post, I suppose I'll give my thoughts on earlygame. Roxanne is a decent first Gym Leader, kinda annoying if you don't have Mudkip but nothing too bad. Brawly is just rough no matter what you're fielding! I'm trying to use fairly atypical stuff to make this playthrough interesting to watch at the cost of my sanity. There won't be nearly as many rants about game issues because really, this game is pretty solid. It does warrant some HMs occasionally but it's not nearly as egregious as Gen IV.

We're gonna call it here. Next time, we head north!

 

[Turdterra]

DrumstickGaming asked me if I was interested in joining for Gen 3, so here I am. I hope you enjoy the different experiences that we have over the course of the game as well as our different levels of humor!

Part 1: Oh boy, here I go again

So I started my playthrough and it seems we are off to a...very interesting start to say the least.

(Please excuse my lack of screenies here)

We got our Balls and my 2nd encounter was.....

I swear...I ain't no cheat.

*Insert Spider Man meme* This was the third encounter after all the trainers.

Behold, in all of his glory....Dad. We are in the only gen that we have a Father! Can't wait to beat him up for his TM and Badge, all he is good for anyways, smh. (Technically we have one in Shadows of Almia but that's a spinny game with the evil Team School)

Yeah, you better be you clearly not special NPC you

No Sir, I have not seen your drugs in Pokemon form hiding the fact that I encountered 2 of them prior to this

Oh cool, my first leader is an Ex Student. Well, time for your final exam.

And....YOU FAIL, repeat the grade ya failure!

Fun fact, only Emerald has this fight

Our new party member, I've always held a soft spot for them. Now to cry at how horrible it is and whiffing all the Iron Misses in the game

Woah bruh, surfer dude brah. Even his name has Brah in it.

Behold, an almost exclusive use TM cause nothing really learns it

This game has some of the oddest event flags to grab. I can remember when I was a kid I had no idea where to go until I consulted my RS Game Guide.

You sir, are a pirate. You don't get to judge me on how I dress. Very rude of you good sir.

Special NPC man has a name. His name is Scott. Beam me up my guy.

New Member for the Questionable Life Choices Corp. Let's go woot!

This is gonna be a thing ain't it old man? Just gonna hide yourself in weird spots, spying on the strangers that come into your house? That's pretty sus man.

According to the in game clock time, this is what 11 hours later gets you. Mediocrity.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Emerald Part 2: Ew Wattson

I grinded to get BubbleBeam on Tentacool and got close to evolution on Makuhita. Tailow needs some levels.

We head north. Hi Birch.

Got Swellow.

We do the Trick House. You're weird dude.

On the next route we find Satan just chillin.' Tentacool and Swellow ream her easily though. That being said, this fight can actually be REALLY difficult if you have the wrong team.

We get to Maulville City, get Rock Smash, and the Acro Bike.

We beat up Wally because he sucks.

We get Hariyama from that battle.

Mauville Gym is neat, the puzzle is pretty fun.

The Illumise in this Gym with Shock Wave is really bizarre man.

This Zigzagoon had Thunderbolt LMAO

Emerald Wattson is actually a beast. Four Pokemon, two of which are evolved at pretty high levels is just really rough at this point.

Tentacool actually outspeeds and 2HKOs Voltorb. We also 2HKO Electrike which wastes a turn with Howl. Not too shabby.

We Fake Out Manectric for free damage.

After a couple of paralysis turns and a Bulk Up we KO it.

We switch out to Zigzagoon and Soda Pop up. After two MORE paralysis turns we actually OHKO Magneton. Holy crap we won first try.

We actually head back to Granite Cave because there's something I want to catch here!

Nosepass, believe it or not!

We call it Pathfinder!

Looks like the time it took for me to find a level 14 paid off, as we got Relaxed (I found one level 11 too). We take on the second Trick House challenge, where Nosepass actually beat a Numel and Wingull on its own: not too bad.

Aw yeah!

We beat up Cycling Road then give Nosepass the Shock Wave TM over Block.

Aw baby, Thunder Wave! Definitely taking that.

We smash the rocks in Rusturf Tunnel and get Strength. Definitely giving that to Hariyama and maybe even Nosepass.

We get the EXP Share as well.

The Winstrate family is pretty cool. I like how you encounter their son on Victory Road. Funnily, the Grandma's Meditite has Hi Jump Kick.

I forgot the Quick Claw in Rustboro, so we give that to Nosepass.

Water types are hilariously ineffective against our rock.

We head into Fiery Path and find our next team member, which is Torkal!

lol

really

better, we'll have a name for it next time

Next time we continue toward Fallarbor Town, and yes, mine and Turdterra's playthroughs are gonna be a little out of sync. Might do a part on my own to catch up to him, I just really need to grind Torkal some first. Also I might drop Swellow, I haven't been leveling it much and I don't see it providing many solutions down the road.

 

[Turdterra]

Part 2: Stuff happened idk

We resume our story with one of the hardest Rival fights in the series.

Did I say hard? Cause it wasn't really. Grovyle was an issue I guess. Amazing that when we use it, it's garbo but when they use it, it's like a gecko god saving 15% or more on their bike insurance. Also I got some tongs.

Oh man, the guy who caught one of the rarest pokemon on the third route. Time to beat him up

Geez, what a creep. Spying on girls beating up boys in a fight with animals. Must be related to the guy in Celadon outside the gym.

So Drums asked me to do a self imposed challenge and not use Marshtomp. Say hi to Graveler. Not sure if it will stay on the team or not since I already have Aron and Marshtomp.

Huh, funny. Surge says the same thing. You think all the electric leaders share one braincell? He even had electric gates. I smell someone projecting

So I forgot to screencap it all. Graveler really did not like Wattson. Magnitude 7, 8 , 9, and 10 respectively.

You ain't Bill. Calls Bill to report plagiarism of his work

This just in, man is looking lovingly at a rock. He likes rocks. Space rocks.

He speaks in the third person. Don't do that man. It's annoying and you ain't all that cool

You ain't Koga my guy. Only one man can do the "Fufufu"

My side. No one elses. I can't trust others. I'm a one woman army. Puts on sunglasses as an explosion appears behind

 

[Ernesto]

Hi guys, love the dual Let's Play! You actually reminded me I still have an unfinished Emerald mono-Water run, lol. I think I was in the middle of the E4 when I lost interest.

My thoughts are similar to yours, Brawly is a huge threat in this version where even my Gyarados struggled a lot to win (although tbf that's probably because my best move was Tackle at the time). Since I'd already played with Pelipper + Swampert I wanted to try out Gyara + Whiscash as the latter learns EQ early enough to free the TM. Wattson obviously still demanded Marshtomp even tho my actual starter was supposed to be Lotad because there's no other alternative of the very few that actually beat him that fit my squad.

Lombre isn't super terrible since you only have to baby it a bit more than the regular starters to evolve it (since I'm generally levels 38-40 by the seventh gym). Ludicolo is very cool, just sad it can't be used against Tate & Liza so it has very few strong matchups. The remaining members were Tenta (caught at level 34, powerful), Walrein, and Lanturn. Three slow experience mons made me have to grind in the last part but otherwise they were fine. The biggest issue was, to no one's surprise, Juan's Kingdra. Double-Team + ChestoRest is super annoying when your best strategy is to hit it with Sludge Bomb or Earthquake, I don't even know how I beat him lol. Hope you guys have an easier time!

I still had fun although I got a bit burned out in the end, If I manage to finish my run I'll edit the post with my mons. Peace.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Hi guys, love the dual Let's Play! You actually reminded me I still have an unfinished Emerald mono-Water run, lol. I think I was in the middle of the E4 when I lost interest.

My thoughts are similar to yours, Brawly is a huge threat in this version where even my Gyarados struggled a lot to win (although tbf that's probably because my best move was Tackle at the time)

You had a Gyarados at Brawly? That's crazy, kudos. Intimidate must have been a big help.

Emerald Part 2.5: Super Short Catchup

Skipped a little bit of the map and leveled the team offscreen. Tentacool evolved, Nosepass got Rock Slide and Torkal got Flamethrower. I really just wanted to get to the power moves. I'll hit up the Name Rater a tiny bit later for Torkal.

Cooltrainers / Ace Trainers have great sprites in these games, very HGSS Blue-esque. Figured I'd mention that since they start showing up on Route 111.

Anyway Route 113 is quite nice with a unique song. Kinda cool they started incorporating weather and the like in routes in this game! Other areas similar to this are the desert and the fog around Mt. Pyre. It's a little thing that goes a long way.

Confession time: I actually forgot Fallarbor Town's name when speeding through this game earlier. It's pretty filler and this game already has Verdanturf which is also filler, but at least Fallarbor one is nice and visually distinct unlike the painfully bland Maulville which ORAS fixed

Meteor Falls has a great song regardless of what Hoenn version you play. Very dramatic and mysterious!

Back in Part 1 I said Team Aqua and Magma are boring, and now that I think about it I think that's kind of from the fact the plot just kind of treads water until the climax (let's do this random thing...then this other random thing...then the plot actually happens!). In DPPT, for the most part Team Galactic have a lot more...cohesion because their actions with the exception of the theft of the Bike Shop owner is all energy related. In RSE though? Until the orb it's just very generic villainy solely for the sake of having a bad guy to fight. In theory two feuding factions is awesome! The problem is this is Pokemon runs on black and white morality and thus they can't have much moral ambiguity and in this essay I will-

TBF adulting is expensive so I think I'm gonna side with em on this one

I forgot how silly limited inventory space is pre-Gen IV, but then I also remember "holy CRAP it takes forever to find anything in those unlimited bags" so it goes both ways.

So Maxie ranted about his plan, regretted about ranting about his plan, and now we have to fight because videogame. sure

The Aqua / Magma battle theme is terrific, and Maxie has a great sprite, same with Archie really. Literally everything but their actual teams are interesting, haha.

We use Zigzagoon for Intimidate fodder and send out Nosepass. Bro crit and flinched me. Wow. On the other hand, I think we rolled Quick Claw into full paralysis the turn after, so it averages out.

We don't roll a flinch tho and behold the screenshot with the amazing invisible Nosepass

Masochism.

!!!

Hariyama takes Camerupt to school, bro can't even live unboosted Fake Out and Vital Throw.

lol no, pre Gen VI Knock Off was so trash

We presumably roll a Quick Claw activation and destroy Zubat. Not bad, Nosepass, not bad at all.

What's weird about this fight is that in both Ruby and ORAS, Maxie has a Golbat, which Emerald inexplicably changed to Zubat, not unlike Giovanni's Rhydon in RBY inexplicably becoming a Rhyhorn in FRLG. Also I'd be remiss to mention Maxie's losing animation in ORAS, which is honestly one of the funniest things to come out of this franchise
https://i-cdn.embed.ly/1/display?key=fd92ebbc52fc43fb98f69e50e7893c13&url=http://i.imgur.com/bQ9soul.gif
Amazing.

Fun fact: if you return this to Professor Cozmo back in Fallarbor Town, he will trade TM27 (Return) for a Meteorite. Not immediately obvious, but helpful given how great a move Return is.

We go nickname Torkal after the police officer from Freakazoid because it was the first thing that came to mind, and go switch out for the Mach Bike on the way back to Mt. Chimney.

We're stopping here now that Turdterra and I are at equal progress!

 

[Ernesto]

You had a Gyarados at Brawly? That's crazy, kudos. Intimidate must have been a big help.

I kinda had to lol, skipped him and went to Dewford first to train Magikarp (obviously on Switch Mode, otherwise it'd take forever). Don't think I did Wattson tho because I could've at least had the Rock Smash HM instead of just using Tackle/the weak special Bite.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Emerald Part 3: This Game is Getting Harder

We resume at Jagged Pass and head to Lavaridge Gym.

Flannery has a great "tough girl"-esque sprite.

Tentacruel destroys her first three mons and we send out Nosepass to have some fun with Torkal.

That damage is... not that great.

I get Attract, then switch out and...ew.

We got in love again and...ew.

We win the day with Hariyama.

We go get Toxic from Fiery Path and snag Toxic.

d We head into the desert.

I think when I was younger I thought the Ruin Maniac sprite had no head, maybe because of them grasping where their head would be without the hat. If you don't notice the magnifying glass (pretty plausible because the design has a lot going on). it looks really strange.

Petalburg Gym can be surprisingly tough, mostly for the fact they have evolved Pokemon and you still might not.

Norman has a simple but effective sprite. He gives me shades of Justy's style of design from the Orre games.

Fake Out + Strength surprisingly doesn't KO Spinda, who is annoying because it is faster and can confuse: luckily we snap out on the heal turn and OHKO it with Vital Throw.

Vigoroth's Slash does literally nothing to us and we beat it. Linoone provides no resistance either.

lol

that thing tanks pretty well though

Huh, I didn't know Norman was a descendant of Red. We also get Surf from Wally's father.

look I know it got Brine in later gens but bro what

Something of note is that after beating Norman you can return home and get the Amulet Coin. Pretty obscure, but very useful.

New Mauville time.

Also going to catch a Magnemite here as my fifth team member as I need a Water slayer.

I named it this because of the infamous Spider-Man clip

And done.

Naturally we give that to Magnemite.

It has a Calm nature, ironic given the meme

We head north of Rustboro and level up Magnemite. Experts have a great sprite. Also, we use an Iron on our magnet.

We get Magneton shortly after.

That's gonna do it for this part. Next time we do some more post-Norman stuff.

 

[Turdterra]

Part 3: I am running of ideas for these titles man

Resuming our run, we pick up our 5th member for the team. Don't fail Questionable Life Choices Corp now.

Bit after route trainers and the like. Flannery was....odd. She used Overheat yes, but did not at all with Torkoal allowing Marshtomp to come in and clean up the remaining members. Aron took out the Slugma, me hoping that Rollout would be able to take on Camerupt. I was a fool lmao.

I think you maybe overheating more than you think. Look at all the steam hun. Way too much.

Hold my beer.

My man had his priorities straight. Instead of providing for the family and not being there during our move, he instead tries to make it up to us by having a battle instead. Father of the Year award material here folks.

He's also believes in rough battling it seems. My man went balls to the wall insane. Vigoroth got 3 Crits from Slash in a row 2HKOing Machamp and OHKOing Kirlia. Manectric died to Belly Drum Linoone but managed to paralyze it for Marshtomp to get the kill. Aron took out Spinda with Rollout 3 and Slaking with Rollout 5.

Doing that lil Sidequest that just has a giant bomb underneath our feet, going haywire. Apparently children are certified bomb squad people in the Pokemon Universe. Oh ye, and I got Tbolt with immediately went on to Manectric.

QLCC's levels at this stage of the game. I did the entire Water route from Petalburg to Slateport. Was honestly really annoying.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Emerald Part 4: Yay Surfing and cheating birds

Levels. Let's continue.

Route 119 is an interesting grand adventure through fun setpieces.

Weather Institute time.

Ah yes, the famous "bro-balls" (if you know, you know).

lol no, Mystic Water will be helpful for Tentacruel though

let's destroy her dreams

Fortree is a fun little setpiece town. One thing I think Hoenn does really well is making most towns / cities and even routes (barring the infamous water) visually distinct from each other.

Great visual storytelling, let's fight Kecleon

Another great sprite. Honestly Winona can be kind of difficult. Flying is a pretty good offensive type and Altaria in particular is really hard to counter with Dragon Dance, Aerial Ace and Earthquake. Not to mention, 5 Pokemon is kind of a lot to muscle through.

Wow, Nosepass tanked Earthquake!

We did pretty good there, wasted a Hyper Potion. Magneton Thunderbolts it and dies, then Hariyama takes it out with Fake Out. Torkal roasts Skarmory.

Hariyama tanks through Pelipper, even though Winona uses another Hyper Potion. The Ai literally crapped the bed and used Tropius's Sunny Day so Torkal could roast it, haha. We win!

Winona definitely held her own though! We head onto the next route and I give Tentacruel Sludge Bomb because why not.

Hex Maniacs have a great sprite.

oh no

Monopoly man.

We make it to Lilycove, but head back because I want to catch something.

My last Pokemon is Shuppet!

Those moves suck. We give it an extra Thunderbolt TM from the Game Corner and the Quick Claw to get it going.

Thank goodness. We give it to Shuppet right away.

Mt. Pyre is a cool area. Great music, fun atmosphere, Chimecho sucks. It's got everything!

Aqua stuff. Yawn.

Well, they were right.

Evil really does tend to triumph in the middle, doesn't it?

Also we get this too.

bro we just fought like ten minutes ago

Shuppet beats her Tropius and Pelipper which was pretty cool

And with a little more grinding we get

And with that...

We have a fully evolved, well-leveled party. We're gonna end it off here! Might do some Trick House stuff offscreen.

 

[Turdterra]

Part 4: I forgot to Screencap things. Oops.

I was asked to go pick this up from a friend. They want me to suffer. (Props to whoever gets the reference on the name)

A bit of grinding done later to get it caught up with the rest of the team. Didn't take long since I used Route 117 with the Breeders on it.

This is where I forgot to do screencaps. Brenden is honestly kind of insufferable and arrogant in comparison to May. It's actually kinda neat how they differ a lot.

Good. I must assert my dominance as the Alpha in this world.

To round out the grinding prior to Winona, I evolved two Pokemon. I kept Cacnea unevolved until 37 to get Needle Arm much sooner since as Cacturne it would be getting it at 41 instead which is Tate and Liza Levels.

And we evolved Marshtomp to Swampert. Going from mediocre to strong though this won't show until I get EQ. Honestly, at times I can't see this as S Tier since it honestly doesn't feel like it once Wattson and Flannery are over. I think it just gets by because it's incredibly bulky and can hammer things hard. It's one of those weird mons that borders heavily on S/A Tier for me since I can never really make up my mind on where it should be.

Bird Lady speakin funny words. Les just battle. Must assert dominance

So this actually shocked me. Lairon was capable of taking an EQ from Altaria, living it, and then OHKOing it back with Rollout 3. I was hopeful for a sweep but Pelipper came in and finished it off with Water Gun. Sad days but still neat that I managed to take one of the most notorious Gen 3 Boss Mons without Ice Beam (self imposed challenge).

Manectric comes into finish off the remaining Mons with STAB TBolt. It's unfortunate that Magnet comes after this but at least it is in time for Juan. Also Manectric is a surprising power house. Sure it doesn't have the power of a Magneton and it's a boar to level early, but it does pay off a bit.

A. That's weird. B. How they heck does he know these things. What a stalker I have.

Honestly, incredibly relatable.

Ye, it me. Ready to be asserted again?

He was not.

What is with everyone talking in the third person if they are a big bad villain huh?

And this is where we are stopping for now. I should have an Aggron before I even get to Mossdeep so woot on that.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Emerald Part 5: Crisis! Exclamation Point Titles!!!

oh

let's beat em up. interestingly, Magma Hideout being here was entirely an Emerald addition. They were in Lilycove's...cove in Ruby, where the Aqua Hideout is.

he put blueberry spray on the screen, oh no!!!!

it's cool Capt. Stern comes back here, I like that little bit of continuity.

also we are secretly Dr. Doofensmirtz and we put self-destruct buttons on our inators

One cool thing about the Trick House is if your bag is full, the next time you walk in, he gives you the item. Very thoughtful! We give the Hard Stone to Nosepass.

Aqua Hideout time! It's cool you explore both hideouts.

I don't have much to say about the Magma or Aqua Hideout stuff. It's generic villainy after all.

buff derpy

makes me think of one of my favorite movies

go watch it sometime if you haven't!

who is saying this???

in other news we are evil

yeah okay

Tate and Liza are also really difficult if you have a bad team. Spread Earthquake sucks and Psychic doesn't have a whole lot of viable resists or immunities outside of Absol and a couple Steel types.

l
Unfortunately Banette hit itself in confusion so we're Surfing this turn.

I used Fake Out and forgot they had healing items. This is gonna be dicey.

They set sun up but thankfully we paralyze with Body Slam so we might have a chance.

We got a flinch with Rock Slide as they healed Xatu. Sun-boosted Flamethrower cut through their HP.

These are my last two mons.

e
and we died

we get an extra level and give a Persim Berry to Banette, let's try again

Xatu went for Calm Mind this time, we kill Claydol

+1 Psychic from Xatu wastes Nosepass

They heal up, but Fake Out + Thunderbolt kills Xatu

they crit Magneton with Psychic because of course.

we Thunderbolt Lunatone letting Vital Throw take it out.

We burn Solrock with Flamethrower which is hilarious.

That was rough. They got me down to my last two Pokemon

Magma time

I actually like this back to back three on one, it's pretty memorable

let's beat em for the final time

lmao Camerupt lived a Surf

look at yourself bro

we take out Curse for Amnesia on Torkal and give Magneton the Magnet post-Trick House

Dive has a great musical track to it. We give Rock Smash to Nosepass and Dive to a random fodder Tentacool.

oh boy

to the game's credit I like this line but we must beat him up

I actually like how things go gravelly wrong here, it's a logical conclusion to these idiots being idiots

let's save the world

gasp

I love the rain and thunder here, great ambience

Rayquaza time

he flies the coop

one criticism I have of Emerald is that the event flags get moderately more annoying as you go on, from the hideout stuff to finding Sky Pillar. It's not a huge issue but slightly annoying.

yay world saving

they depart

giving that to Hariyama over Vital Throw

we get the Waterfall HM and head inside the Gym

gaming?

Juan has a great sprite. Too bad he leads with a Luvdisc.

screw confusion and crits man. Hariyama takes out Whiscash and in comes Kingdra.

ugh

help

good, unfortunately they confused me

almost there

thank goodness, Magneton fried the rest of the team

those are my levels now, gonna go level grind offscreen before the next part

Next time we do Victory Road!

 

[Turdterra]

Part 5: Almost done!

So we start up and are greeted with Groudon showing me what it's like to be warm and toasty on a cold day.

Yes, I made Groudon fly by making him believe in himself hard enough and showing him how he will dominate the Ubers Format in 10 years or so. Man was so excited lemme tell ya.

So Maxie apparently is smart actually. He swapped Mighyena out from Machamp to Crobat. Then he swaps out of Crobat due to Manectric to Camerupt. I didn't know Maxie was a comp player.

And then he crit me with EQ. Bruh.

Oh hey, this guy. Yeah, totally important. Def won't see him again. Ever. Yep.

Telling me where your hideout is? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of a hideout? Just me? Okay. See you at your not hideout.

You don't say.

Really?

Oh. He has no shirt. He really is....cut above the rest. Look at them muscles.

Again. Guys. Why are you telling me where you are going?

A bit of grinding later, we get Aggron. The attack increase is very nice. Defense is nice too but most things that hit it physically its normally 4x weak to.

Wow, a very polite letter? I don't think I have ever seen any villain team do something like this. I'm doing fine. Thank you.

Hey, they asked nicely.

I think I drank too much. I swear I am seeing double and hearing double too.

Our actual first loss in this game. Claydol is more of a threat than anything for my team. The EQ hits very hard and my counter for the Sun and Moon duo is Aggron. He can take it but not two hits.

This was much better (Voir kinda got left behind in the levels here). Cacturne ended up Faint Attack Criting Claydol for an OHKO. Made the fight 10x easier. Honestly, Swampert can do nothing here. It's incredibly hard to get this guy in to deal any sizeable damage. Surf is pretty meh here and all their mons are immune to Ground STAB. Solrock also has Solarbeam under Sunny Day. So yeah.

So Steven's Aggron has Thunder. Why? For Water types? My guy. That's just no.

You don't say.

Why am I getting Bite at level 39? I mean it's still coverage and works well to replace Quick Attack but still. Why not Crunch?

Crack acquired. Cracks it open and watches Swampert snort the whole thing.

All the time. I'm just that good.

I had something funny for this. I have since lost what I was going to say. Hm.

Oh, the tales of my amazing dominating prowess?

Relatable.

We call that being rude my good sir. I will see you later and beat you down, take your crown, and reign supreme.

Honestly, for 2004-2005 this was something we had never really seen before in our main games. Now imagine being a kid when you get to this point. It just sticks with you as one of the coolest moments to your child brain.

Anyway, that's over. Back to our regular schedule programming of my ascension as the Alpha. Cacturne here shocked me a bit. It took an Ice Beam to its face (I couldn't remember if it had Ice Beam and then that happened lmao). Cacturne was integral tbh. Leech Seed allowed Machamp to come in, hit it with Brick Break, and then it died to the Leech Seed Damage right after. The rest is history. It's amazing that Juan is only difficult because this thing exists with a very nasty moveset of Water Pulse, Ice Beam, Resto Chesto, and Double Team. It can get out of hand very quickly and with nothing in the game that can really beat it easily other than a fellow Kingdra with a Dragonbreath or Rayquaza with DClaw, it's just a massive battle of attrition.

Yo, I'm fabulous.

Yikes. We will be grinding off screen so that my levels are a bit better for the E4. Prob mid 40s bordering 50s I think will be good.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

Emerald Part 6: The End Came Quick

I got pretty paranoid when level grinding my mons, but this should provide a good security net in case things go wrong. Let's head into Victory Road.

Here's one thing that genuinely bothers me about Emerald: level grinding in Victory Road sucks. Aron and Larion have Protect and Roar. Hariyama has Whirlwind. Golbat has Bite and Confuse Ray. It's just not fun.

Sky Pillar is noticeably better thanks to no phasing moves, but the Sableye there still have Detect and the Claydol have Selfdestruct, which, while it probably won't kill you will do a decent chunk.

that was STAB Rock Slide lmao

Alright time to wipe the floor with this scrub.

Hariyama beat Gardevoir lmao, the only other thing of note was Altaria Safeguarding on Thunder Wave.

I like how you find the last Winstrate family member here, saying he trained with his whole family. What I don't like though is that it feels like every single Cooltrainer here has healing items. It makes the fights way more tedious than they need to be, combined with the possibility you likely brought an HM slave to this place (thankfully I didn't need to).

The poor guy...

Man I forgot how obnoxious this Victory Road is without Flash. It's so easy to get turned around.

And now we're at the Pokemon League.

We should be just fine, honestly.

I gave Nosepass Sunny Day for the lulz.

You suck bro.

Even if the mechanics hadn't caught up with him yet, this team is still silly. Swords Dance Crawdaunt with only Strength? No-STAB Shiftry? No Shadow Ball Absol? Really?

Magneton fries Mightyena, Hariyama floors Crawdaunt and Absol, Torkal melts Shiftry and Cacturne.

I like Phoebe's design but her team is annoying.

Very difficult to one shot her mons, lots of status. Banette outsped her entire team sans Sableye, who Magneton fried.

Glacia has a great sprite but her team sucks.

Two unevolved Sealeo. There are no words.

Apparently Glacia didn't like Lemmy being a secretive father so she froze him, lol.

I somehow didn't OHKO Glalie with Flamethrower.

Glacia apparently REALLY hates Hariyama, because she crit Surf to OHKO. Magneton fries it.

Drake has another great sprite. I remember having a really hard time with this battle as a kid, probably because I didn't know the type chart super well yet.

This team is pretty competent. Hariyama takes out Shelgon, Tentacruel ices Altaria and Flygon, Banette somehow outsped and 1v1ed Kingdra (!) while Tentacruel came back in to ice Salamence.

Time for Champion Wallace!

Being real here, I don't mind Wallace replacing Steven too much. Sure, Steven's cooler, but I think Wallace has a noticeably better team.

Seriously. Water is a great defensive type and he has great moves.

Magneton outspeeds and OHKOs Wailord.

We paralyze Gyarados and set up Sunny Day. Magneton then fries it.

Thanks to a crit and a fail to basically 2HKO after Fake Out...

...we go down, but waste one of his healing items. Banette picks it off. Magneton outsped Tentacruel (!) and Thunderbolted it, we got a lucky Hydro Pump miss. Tentacruel took Ludicolo easily.

We outsped and crit Milotic with a Thunderbolt LET'S GO!

We're the Champion!

Love the music in this room!

That's our team. Most of them have been pretty alright, though Nosepass and Torkal were pretty bleh overall.

RSE's credits have great music and I love how it shows the Pokemon you caught on your journey.

Mudkip / Marshtomp showing up caught me off guard though: I totally forgot I dropped them LMAO

And that's it!

Not talking about much of postgame intro stuff because it's boring. We head back to Meteor Falls where we find

Him! We're doing this fight underleveled!

Let's do it!

It's interesting how it plays the Rival battle theme here.

Bro Nosepass actually lived Steel Wing. We proceed to Sunny Day. He unfortunately got Spikes up as Torkal fried it.

oh, we're dead lmaooooooooooo reset

Next match we KO Skarmory at the expense of Nosepass falling. Hariyama takes Aggron and Tentacruel takes Armaldo. We Surf Claydol and die, then revive it using Hariyama to barely 2HKO it with Surf.

RESISTED BODY SLAM GOT IT PARALYZED LET'S GOOOOOOOO

We Thunderbolt it with Magneton, Max Revive Torkal using Tentacruel, then Heat Wave for the kill.

We Max Revive Magneton and Hariyama, and then...

HE GOT THE ANCIENTPOWER BUFF FIRST USE. BRO

We paralyze Cradily and revive our whole team.

BRO HE GOT IT A SECOND TIME WTF

We crit him with our first use of Brick Break!

Reversal is putting in work.

He seemed to keep wanting to spam Full Restores and Ingrain or whatever, so we won. Very good.

We triumphed.

We'll have to wait and see.

And that's the end, as I'm not doing anything else in Emerald. Nosepass was surprisingly clutch yet still pretty toilet, Torkal teetered between halfway decent and borderline poor due to being slow, Magneton was freaking amazing, Hariyama was consistently solid, Banette was actually pretty fun, Tentacruel was pretty good, though it didn't contribute a whole ton in the last couple fights outside Drake.

As for what I think of Emerald, I think this is where the series really came into its own. I think it's a beautiful game for the Game Boy Advance even today. It's still fun to play in spite of slightly archaic mechanics like the lack of physical / special split and HM spam toward the end. Depending on how you look at it, the difficulty of this game could be a positive or a negative: I still think it's a pretty rough game today! The Gym Leaders really do not slouch, and while the Elite Four is kinda easy, Wallace definitely brings the difficulty back up.

As for other things, while it's not as bad as Gens 1 and 2, some moves and the like still weren't quite there yet, like 5 PP Giga Drain and Bug typed moves not named Megahorn, combined with the occasional Pokemon being unreasonably bad for certain periods, like Lotad pre-Surf, Electrike pre-level 20 Spark and Seedot pre-Faint Attack (level 31 as Nuzleaf). The Pokemon roster is still perfectly playable though. Honestly, I think my opinion on Emerald is pretty similar to Platinum in that both are difficult games with HM spam and the occasional odd movepools.

Overall, I think Pokemon Emerald is a really solid game anyone should try, but it being difficult could scare newbies off.

Thank you for reading this dual Let's Play and thank you to Turdterra for joining me!

 

[Turdterra]

Part 6: The End

These are the levels going into the final segment. Obviously very underleveled compared to Drums haha. There will be a noticeable lack of screenshots. I plan to join Drums down the line again and take much better screenshots.

We fight this nerd. I actually forgot he is at the beginning of the VR in Emerald.

Yeah. I know.

I did a bit of grinding after (off screen) and got levels up a little bit to better suit the VR and the endgame.

SAY THAT TO MY FEELINGS! (Joking aside, at this point my team was struggling due to my idiotic brain forgetting to grab some potions. We do end up getting through the VR the first time albeit barely)

I actually forgot to fight his family haha. But yes, I am better than your family so to prove that point, I go back and beat them up with Machamp (this is important much later down)

Heck yeah, a pep talk!

We have some post editing problems for the next few screenshots. It fixes later on. Anyway, first up is Sydney who isn't a threat at all. Any Fighting Type deals with him with ease.

That was a Cross Chop.....dat range yo (Intimidate really putting in work)

And with that, first one down. Honestly, not much to write home about. Machamp deals with pretty much everyone but I did swap for Manectric for Crawdaunt (needed to reset Intimidate debuff.)

So you see dead people? Sixth Sense was a trippy movie man.

Cacturne Sweep! I kid you not, he took down Pheobe by himself. Clops 1 cannot hurt him at all with Shadow Punch. So you are free to set up Leech Seed and then Growth to +6. Faint Attack with Blackglasses will OHKO everyone barring Sableye. You also outspeed all the Clops. You do take a bit of damage from the Banettes and Sableye though. Proud of this guy.

So why do you ONLY have Ice Pokemon from Hoenn on your team? You clearly are not from this region so where is the Lapras? Piloswine? Jynx? I get that the Hoenn Dex doesn't contain those but really? Missed opportunity. Maybe they didn't want a Lorelei clone?

Dat's no range. Oh boy. I know that there is a sheer level diff but here is the display that you get from Manectric in the endgame. If I had Modest, that may have been a KO.

Three down. Really there was nothing to note here. Machamp and Manectric pretty much cleaned house. One thing that Drums and I learned from this fight was that Blizzard is STILL 70% accurate under Hail. The perfect accuracy for it didn't come in until Gen 4 and on.

Ice Beam.

Ice Beam. (Kingdra was Leech Seed into Needle Arm Spam. Cacturne won.)

*Puff out chest* Yeah, cause clearly the adults are incompetent.

He wasn't that hard tbh. Manectric ate Wailord into 2HKO making Water Spout non existent, OHKOs Gyarados. Cacturne would have OHKO'd Whishcash with Needle Arm but a crit Hyper Beam said nah, so I had to use Machamp to beat it down which lead out Ludicolo who was Vital Throwed out since it was Double Teaming. Swampert dealt with Tentacruel with EQ. Milotic was TWaved by Manectric, Leech Seeded by Cacturne (revived since I had a free turn), and then Voir was swapped in and began to Calm Mind to buff TBolt to kill.

One last challenge to do. Yes I am far more underleveled than Drums. I actually had to pull back from this fight and go EV train a bit to make this a lot easier on me and even then it was still massively hard. The first issue was that Manectric's TBolt with Magnet was a 3HKO on average. We got the Macho Brace and beat the crap out of Spinda and Slugma since they give 1 Sp. Atk EV (2 with Brace) and got it to level 49 and capped its' Sp. Atk at 126. Machamp was also EV trained on Attack. It went from 160 to 199 at level 59. What told me I needed to do this was the fact Cradily took a Crit Cross Chop with high red HP left. This was not a range. Even with all that EV training, we got our butt clocked easily.

After quite a few tries, we took him down. Barely. I won't lie, my heart was actually pounding. To give you a play by play (I apologize. I really should have take Screeshots of it all and will do better in the future). Manectric's TBolt became a clean 2HKO for Skarm which is what I needed. The longer that is on the field, the worse everything gets. Taking out Skarm brings out Aggron who I had no realy answer to because Solarbeam and it's level advantage allowed it to outspeed Swampert. So I had to EQ Turn 1, Swap to Voir to sack it with Beam + EQ, then bring back in Swampert to finish it off with Surf or EQ (didn't matter). Then....Cradily. I tried quite a few methods. Toxic helped a lot to a point (Manectric was the user) and then made sure the range was fine for Machamp to come in and KO it with Cross Chop. Once that was down, Armaldo came in and that was another group effort. Aggron was sacked since he couldn't do anything in this fight which allowed Swampert to have a slugfest with it which could have ended badly due to Slash Crit. Then Metagross. I TWaved and then Leech Seeded it. This allowed Swampert to take hits and 2HKO it with EQ. Finally Claydol and that was just beating it down repeatedly with Leech Seed helping out there to manage HP.

The final screenshot for this playthrough.

So first I am gonna rate my team. I always do.

Manectric: You trade power for Speed if you don't choose Magenton. There were times I wanted that power but I cannot deny that the speed I was given allowed me to win fights I shouldn't have with TWave support. I would say just to make sure to get a Modest one so you get 10% more on your Tbolt.

Cacturne: Originally I took it as an attempt to suffer. Little did I know that he would be the very reason I would clear this game. He could put in the work but his Speed would hold him back quite a bit however some fights allowed him to just outshine the rest of my team. Tate and Liza, a bit of Juan, and various other instances. The sheer utility of his Leech Seed was phenomenal and allowed this team to succeed. Was easily one of the MVPs for Team Support.

Aggron: Honestly, one of my favorite pokemon. However, Steel/Rock in Gen 3 is...very bad. There is just so much that prevents him from actually accomplishing really anything. Norman, Winona, and Tate&Liza are really the only big impacts it will have. Rollout is really your best Rock Stab since Rock Tomb is only 50 BP in this Gen with accuracy so bad, it wishes it had Rock Throw. Rock Slide is in the Battle Frontier so there is really no hope. Rollout is only in Emerald too so RS Aggron is even worse off. I wish it could have done more but it really cannot.

Machamp: Honestly, MVP of the entire team. It kinda struggles a bit but it picks up a lot of the slack in the E4 with high damage output and bulk. It never really truly let me down and really slugged it out quite a bit. It does contend with Hariyama a bit in terms of who is more viable and I will say this. Both options are good, it's just harder to use Champ if you cannot trade.

Swampert: Honestly, I barely used it. It wasn't even really on purpose. It was just that via match ups, it was clearly in a rough spot. Sure, Roxanne, Wattson, Flannery, Winona (Ice Beam) and Drake (Ice Beam) are all things it excels at. But I already knew that and wanted other things to shine or take self-imposed challenges. Even with that though, the type matchups just showed the other members of my team were suited for the fight at the time. The bulk is undeniable. Don't get me wrong. It would also severely damage other Pokemon with STAB EQ, but at the end of the day, it just felt mediocre and Drums proves you can drop it and not really need it.

Gardevoir: This was used even less than Swampert. Again, this wasn't really on purpose. It just kinda...existed. The only time is really showed it's power was on Wallace and that was ONLY against Milotic after it had support from Manectric and Cacturne. When your job is to CM and then Psychic, it kinda really makes me deviate from you to used other Mons who ended up just doing more damage in the long run I guess.

Now like what Drums did, I will give my thoughts on Emerald. Honestly, it's a game I come back to pretty often. It has the challenge at times I am looking for that we have lost in the more recent installments. The game wakes you up at Brawly and it never really calms down. It spikes at Wattson and then it kinda plateaus for a time as your Pokemon are beginning to evolve and reach their final forms. Then it spikes again at Tate and Liza before it dips down a bit from Juan to the E4 and then goes probably around the same height of difficulty as the Wattson to Winona Segment.

While the game is archaic, that is the charm of it too. This is the game right before the entire battle system was overhauled with the Phys/Special split and certain moves got much need power boosts. Would I recommend this game to people who are getting involved into the series? No. Absolutely not. The difficulty can be a turn off at times. I would suggest either starting with B/W1 or FRLG. FRLG more since that is more modern on the battle system surrounding abilities and natures. B/W1 will teach the newcomer about the Phys/Special split and will also allow them to appreciate the changes like Infinite TMs and updated moves.

But anyway, I don't wanna droll on too much. Big thanks to DrumstickGaming for letting me tag along for this. It was fun to do a bit of it every week. Hopefully we can do another one together down the line and you guys can enjoy the dual LP then too!

 

[Ernesto]

This was a very fun read guys!! I wasn't expecting you to fight Steven what with the level difference but you did and won, impressive. One minor nitpick DrumstickGaming you posted the wrong Phoebe team, one of her Banette have Thunderbolt (I learned it the hard way).

Regarding Swampert I sort of agree that it looks less S-tier in the lategame, its low Speed starts to hurt around Tate & Liza and it struggles to sweep the Elite 4 (unlike the A-tier Zangoose which can just destroy everything with Swords Dance). It's still undeniably the strongest choice for the early game and makes the roadblock that would be Wattson a non-issue. Being an Earthquake hog is also annoying for sure.

I said that I was gonna edit my other post with my Emerald team but I'll just throw it here. Apologies for using your Let's Play but you were the reason I remembered to finish the run :o

Mono-Water squad

Since I had a save prior to fighting the E4 I used it to get some screenshots.

This is the team going in, I usually go with levels 45-47 so it's pretty high for a six-mon team but I wanted to have Dragon Dance on Gyara.

Not much to say about Sidney, Ludi floods Mightyena and Absol, Walrein KOs the Grasses and Lanturn finishes off Crawdaunt.

Phoebe needs more strategy because of Pressure and Protect. Luckily Ludi 2HKOs Dusclops in rain, Whiscash EQs both Banette and Sableye and Gyara 2HKOs Dusclops n° 2 after a DD (and three don't OHKO so it's pointless to set up before).

Glacia's Walrein is a real pain since it can survive hits from faster mons and OHKO slower mons with Sheer Cold. I basically had to pray it didn't hit. As for the rest, Lanturn beat the first Sealeo, Walrein + Whiscash took care of the first Glalie and Seal n° 2 and Tentacruel KOed the second Glalie and poisoned Walrein before going down.

Drake's a pain mostly because of its Kingdra which likes to Smokescreen and Salamence which has coverage from everything (even if four of my mons had Ice Beam). Ludi killed Shelgon and brought Altaria to heal range, Walrein finished it off, Whiscash lived two Dragon Claws from Mence and 2HKOed and Lanturn para'd Kingdra so Walrein could KO it. Funnily enough, Drake likes to switch Flygon into Lanturn so I took advantage of it to kill with Ludi's Ice Beam so Walrein could live an extra hit.

Wallace was to be DD Gyara's moment to shine: At +3 it OHKOs most mons, with Milo and Whiscash having a slim chance to live a hit (not like they're doing much back). His own Gyara's Intimidate means I don't KO either but unless I'm really weakened they're gonna try to set up so it's a free DD.
Question is: what to set up on? Wailord 3HKOs with Blizzard and can freeze, but even if it doesn't it's still too much damage. The best setup option is clearly his Whiscash. I tried baiting it with Lanturn but for some reason he prefers going to Gyara to revenge kill and that puts me in a tough position: EQ KOs me but if I try going to my own Gyara it could out-dance me and after three boosts Hyper Beam KOs. Of course I can bait it and sac something to rk with Lanturn but then still Whiscash won't come out, choosing Ludi instead. Wallace, you troll...
I decided to lead Ludi again then which can 2HKO Wailord, Tenta comes out next but my own Whiscash KOs with EQ (the only issue is if Wailord set up rain Tenta's Hydro Pump might KO after some prior damage). As Ludi comes I go to my own Tenta and 2HKO with Sludge Bomb which FINALLY baits the Whiscash. It's all downhill from there, I just DD twice and 2HKO it as it barely hurts with Surf, then his Gyara comes in and I set up two more times as it DD's and then OHKO it and OHKO Milotic. Who could've imagined a near mirror match (we share four mons but not the sets) could involve so much strategy?

This was all in Set mode and only healing between battles btw, which definitely isn't something I do often but I figured it'd be fun as a challenge.

The champs

I didn't use Tenta as much because I already knew how good it is due to its Speed and Clear Body—which makes it the perfect user of X-items if that's allowed. It unfortunately doesn't get many OHKOs due to its middling offensive stats but could definitely put strong performances (such as getting three KOs min against Drake since it outspeeds Flygon and Mence with a Naive nature).
As for the rest, Ludi was fun although definitely disappointing that it didn't get to participate much, in the end it was better at spamming rain-boosted Surfs because Ice Beam and Giga Drain aren't strong enough (failing to OHKO Altaria and Whiscash ffs, and not even 4HKOing Wallace's Milotic LOL). Whiscash was very reliable to tank a couple hits and do a lot back, Walrein wasn't super amazing against Drake due to its speed but good enough and Lanturn got some select kills that no other could thanks to its unique typing. Gyarados was the star of the last fight but it also could've prolly swept everything with healing items, boosting is so strong.

As for the game itself, I like Emerald overall. Brawly and Wattson are even more of a challenge, Tate & Liza is probably the hardest fight in the game depending on your team (in my case I struggled because only Tenta and Gyarados outsped stuff) and the addition of Kingdra to Juan and Drake's squads makes them tougher even if it's due to hax. Even though I prefer Steven because his team is more diverse while sticking to a core concept (plus it has a pseudo like Champions should) I very much like the Wallace fight. He manages to showcase how plentiful the Water-type options are in a way no other trainer did except perhaps GSC Misty. And well, Milotic just never dies as anyone who's fought Cynthia knows.

And here they are after winning (Walrein doesn't have a held item because I forgot you could only get NeverMeltIce in low tide, RIP. Not that it needed it).

Not sure if I'll fight Steven but if I do I'll just add it here. Overall it was a very cool run, got to use a bunch of mons I hadn't tried because I generally went with only one Water-type per run lol.

 

[DrumstickGaming]

This was a very fun read guys!! I wasn't expecting you to fight Steven what with the level difference but you did and won, impressive. One minor nitpick DrumstickGaming you posted the wrong Phoebe team, one of her Banette have Thunderbolt (I learned it the hard way).

Fixed: if I made any other errors I apologize. Maybe I was going a little overboard trying to be overly detailed anyway. But thank you for reading!