And we are back! Hope you’re not getting bored of me. Today we have a tall order: Catch three Pokémon in Diglett Cave, Vermillion City and Route 11, and then fight a lot of trainers to prepare for Surge. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Don’t we look cool on our bike? Fun fact, I still can’t ride a bike and at this point I’m too scared to learn.
We have reached Diglett’s Cave. I think there may be Diglett inside.
Hiker: I used it to go retrieve the fossil I left at Pewter City’s museum!
This is a very big hint as to how you can actually revive fossils at Pewter instead of waiting until Cinnabar in this game.
Well here he is.
With that out of the way, let’s get splicing!
I feel like this silhouette is going to end up being very deceiving.
DIGTH.
Scratch Mole is a fun classification. But we won’t be using one as it’s quite a bit weaker than the alternative.
Now this is more like it.
Sublime. Meowlett is going to be quite good right off the bat as I was able to choose Technician as its ability and it has Fake Out, Bulldoze and Bite, which will all be quite good with it!
Now we have two areas in which we can catch Pokémon!
There are quite a few different Water-type Pokémon we can find here.
I’m quite happy with this, the Krabby line has fantastic Attack stats!
AKA Lucky.
We can instantly find Lucky’s fusion partner here, and I’ll do so before fighting any trainers.
I am very much not averse to this catch!
The first fusion we’re seeing is flat out worse in stats across the board. The reverse is genuinely so much better.
It’s got a fab name though.
This form is just so superior. It actually has a high base stat total than either of the original Pokémon – this is a rare straight upgrade and I think it’ll deserve a place on our team.
Even if it does look like that.
This is the team we’ll be using for this update. I feel like Asterius, April May and Yuri will be the Pokémon I use in the next gym, assuming I can use three of them.
First fight of the update!
Oh wow I hate it.
But I do be loving the Amulet Coin.
With a 4x weakness to Psychic, Yuri decimates this thing.
Let’s beat up some gamblers!
With the Amulet Coin, gamblers give out a ton of money for winning.
This was two 5-hit Doubleslaps. Awful luck.
Yuri is a powerhouse, being very fast and having great Special Attack.
I was showing off the winnings of this fight, and then something very weird happened…
Valefor is evolving at level 22. I absolutely do not know why. I had an Ivysaur in my test run which evolved at level 32 normally.
She’s very early, but here’s Noctsaur, apparently. This is definitely a bug of some kind. But I’m not going to complain. I’m really liking the clock theme of Noctsaur’s design.
Look at how much bloody room she takes up now! That’s just ridiculous. A chonky gal.
It’s underground kitty versus underground magnet. Who will win? (It was the kitty, Technician STAB Bulldoze is lovely).
A newly coloured ball!
I love getting blue balls now! Also, look at how much money that is! I heart Amulet Coin.
And you won’t be winning today, my friend. With that very easy win Route 11 is complete and it’s time to take on the S.S. Anne finally!
There’s now a convenient little area where you can change your team about if you need that.
Man: …the ship! I, on the other hand, never miss anything thanks to this Pokémon move called Swift.
It’s another Move Tutor. Now that we have quite a nice stash of cash, I teach Swift to Asterius, who now has a full roster of useful moves boosted by Technician.
We will be using this room a lot to heal. I also quite like the new design of the ship, it feels more upper class and regal than it used to before.
Now let’s get on with the tra- wait what? Dude what are you talking about? I forgot to get a picture of it, but Gentleman Thomas here has a Meowlithe which goes down to Asterius’s Bulldoze. The item is a Super Potion.
Another weak Pokémon goes down to Bulldoze.
The lass in the next room over has this beautiful monster. What a name though, Golotto.
Tyler here has a Maran, a Machop/Nidoran fusion which goes down to a single Confusion.
You can take it from him! But he will only trade for a Pokémon that has a high friendship with you, which is an interesting one.
Don’t I know it.
The kitchen here is where we’ll find those Krabby legs that we were commissioned to find last update!
Tradition is tradition though.
I really don’t like this.
Then what you need is a much sharper knife. It’s blunt knives pressing down on the onion that releases the stuff that makes your eyes water. If you get a properly sharp knife it just glides through the onion without causing that reaction.
Chef: Of course! We have lots of leftovers! Here, enjoy! They’re still warm!
I really don’t know why the chef would just hand over food like this. I get it must be an all-inclusive cruise but… eh.
We only get thirty seconds to rush the seafood back to the hotel, but with the run function the game is super generous.
Even stopping to take screenshots I have plenty of time.
Man: Let’s try this. … Hmm! It’s so good! Thank you so much, mate. Thanks to you, I’ve got a taste of what it would’ve felt like to be on this fancy ship! As a thanks, I’ll teach the move Crabhammer to your Pokémon for free! Just come back and see me anytime for some free tutoring.
That last line is super suggestive, but yes we have yet another Move Tutor. And look at us, with a Crabhammer-less Citizen Snips! It replaces Bubble.
Man: Crabhammer is a pretty fantastic move, so teaching it to Krabby makes me feel less guilty about eating them!
I’m glad we’re getting explicit ‘humans eat Pokémon’ content in this game. Truly glad. Lovely to think about. Stay away from Citizen Snips.
Back on the ship, we’re taking on the lower floor!
No, but I know what they say about sailors and gay sex.
I think Zuder is objectively horrifying.
A very nice find.
I have some feelings about this dude. Not good feelings. Bad vibes, you know?
His Pokémon is cute though.
GAY POKÉMON TRAINER COUPLE ALERT do you think they have an onlyfans
Okay between Valefor taking up roughly the entire screen and whatever the FUCK Polichop is, this game is purely ridiculous to me now.
Payu is cute and has a cute name, 10/10.
Sweet.
Onto the upper decks!
I do love this attention to detail. But hmm, why can’t we rub her back?
I’m not exaggerating when I say if I don’t get a Seechu one day I may die.
The dialogue in this game is pretty cool. It really does feel like a mainline Pokémon game, apart from little bits like the guy who wanted to get high on mushrooms or the guy who confirmed that Pokémon are fully just food.
Stop shouting at me.
Bulldoze is a risky move as while it hits both enemies, it also hits your partner in a double battle, rather like Earthquake. It makes short work out of these doubly-weak-to-Ground scrubs though. Volta is amazing, by the way. Facts.
Our reward is Brick Break. I teach it to Citizen Snips to give him a bit more coverage.
Ah, the fresh salty air.
Well mate your pride is about to get one-shot.
You’d swear this next dude was half Rotom, but nope, just a cribbed sprite.
I love seeing the little translucent Tentacool roaming around in the water.
Draining Kiss means that Yuri is basically invulnerable against anything that doesn’t have a powerful super-effective move.
This… this is just a novelty hat.
Yeah I got nothing.
Looks like the S.S. Anne was made a little more tricky in that you actually have to explore it a little this time. We would have anyway, but this is a cool touch.
Before we take on the story, up here is the restaurant.
Oh, crap.
This doesn’t stop us walking around and talking to people though!
This guy is the Move Tutor for Hyper Voice, at a pricey 4000 dollars.
This is a condensed version of his dialogue but the long story short is that if you beat him, you get the choice between another two fossils.
Ah, Koffmer, my old friend.
Citizen Snips makes his battle debut here against a Kabuto. I’m quite sure this would have been an Omanyte had we chosen the Dome Fossil back at Mt. Moon. Anyway, Brick Break wears it down, though Snippy here is a bit weak at the moment.
Cradily looks better, sue me.
You can trade a Drowzee for a Seel here, and a Shellder for a Growlithe.
There’s also a small casino, but we have no Coin Case yet.
It’s time.
Interestingly, Rhys still hasn’t fused his Pidgeotto. I wonder if he ever will! After wasting his turn with Confuse Ray, causing him to attack himself, we manage to get a Wing Attack off before getting Whirlwinded out.
A crit Teleport finishes the Pidgeotto off.
Oh would you look at that, he’s reversed his starter fusion! And it’s at this point where I wish I’d either leveled up Asterius a lot more or somehow gotten April May a Ground-type move. Or brought Peach along for her Electric moves.
In a wonderful turn of events, Warmeleon wastes two turns using Scary Face and then goes down to a Swords Danced Sucker Punch without getting a single damaging hit off!
Manicate gets almost taken out in one hit with Rock Smash. Rhys heals her up with a Super Potion but thanks to the lowered defence the next Rock Smash takes her out completely.
My plan was to ruin Starbra’s day with Bite, but it used Camouflage immediately to change to Normal-type – not to worry though, as Bite still took it out in just two shots. Also, isn’t that design just so flawless and elegant? Shame about the name.
Typos notwithstanding, that was a very easy fight.
This scene goes on mostly as usual. Worthwhile to note that the Captain has the sprite of one of the Subway Masters from Gen V.
Er…
Yadda, yadda, now we can cut down small trees.
Big change from the original, now we can always come back. Useful if we want to use the Casino here instead of at Celadon, and if we want to learn Hyper Voice from the Tutor.
It replaces Swift, but only temporarily.
Whew, that was a long one. Next time, we’ll be taking on Vermillion City Gym and seeing what new things we can get with Cut! See ya next time.
Post-Update Summary
Tons of progress here! We caught three new Pokémon and acquired two new fusions. Our precarious money situation is all but abated with some clever use of the Amulet Coin, and we witnessed our first big bug of the game, with Valefor evolving a full 10 levels too early – sounds like a mistyped number to me. We delivered some seafood to a man in a hotel, rubbed a man’s back and met some gay sailors too.
New Pokémon
Diglett’s Cave: Asterius the Diglett
Vermillion City: Citizen Snips the Krabby
Route 11: Lali-Hoe the Drowzee
New Fusions
Meowth + Diglett = Meowlett
Drowzee + Krabby = Drowby
Noctsaur (Noctowl + Ivysaur) evolved into Noctsaur (Noctowl + Venusaur)
Curated Critiques 