Welcome to the double digits of this chronicle of absurdism. Today we’re going to be taking care of Lt. Surge’s gym and then dealing with some odds and ends.
I’m feeling confident about this gym!
This gym is very much the same as the originals. Defeat the trainers, then check all the trash cans to reach Surge. Why mess with a classic? (Maybe because it makes no fucking sense for the code to be in trash cans, it’s his JOB to fight trainers what the hell Surge?)
That’s quite the level difference but Magnechu will be 4x weak against Ground-type moves, so Bulldoze should take it out in one hit.
Or it would, if it didn’t one-shot Asterius with Magnet Bomb.
Well. Fuck. Our first death.
I am really quite annoyed. Asterius was going to be so good in this gym. I had so many good ideas for using him well and his moveset was really good. Forlornly, it’s time to make my way back to the Pokémon Centre…
RIP you brave boy.
I figure I need to train up a bit. With the Exp. Share and Yuri taking out this trainer’s Pokémon in one hit each, I level everyone up a bit. I also have an idea to check on how the daycare Pokémon are doing.
That’s not bad. I withdraw them both and level them up once each to get them their evolutions.
Something cute has turned into a monstrosity. That thing can not be airworthy.
Totally adorable.
Kill it with all the fire.
Sigh. It should have been Asterius. Anyway, let’s head back to the gym to see how we fare against the other trainers.
Well, Baily, what do you have for me? Hopefully something less heartbreaking.
It’s… bad. Swords Dance Ratqueen swept this guy’s team easily.
The last trainer in the gym has a team of very interesting Pokémon.
I forgot to get a shot of this guy going down to a Hyper Fang, but it’s what it sounds like. I replace Sucker Punch with Crunch too – the reliability of Crunch is more important than the priority of Sucker Punch, I feel. Every hit counts in this game.
The battle of the ‘chus! Squirtchu goes down to Play Rough while it tickles me with Electro Ball.
Confusion wins out the day.
We solve the silly puzzle, and it’s time to see the big boss himself.
Surge: …sure! I tell you kid, Electric Pokémon saved me during the war! They zapped my enemies into paralysis! The same as I’ll do to you!
This is… grim as fuck. Using Pokémon in war is dystopian. They’re food and weapons of mass destruction.
Without any reliable super-effective moves my strategy for this fight is to hope I can sweep with Swords Dance. April May has a healing berry, Yuri has the Amulet Coin and Valefor has a Lum Berry.
Please no more deaths these three are my most important Pokémon.
Starting off with a Water Pokémon is a clever move for Surge, as many trainers are going to bring Ground types as Surge is famously helpless against them. April May is a Ground-type, but also quite bulky, so she should be able to deal with what weak Water moves it throws at us.
We’re able to set up two entire Swords Dances, shrug off a weak BubbleBeam and take it out with a single Hyper Fang.
Wait. April May is a dude now. Huh. Turns out when we reversed his fusion his gender was also reversed. Genderfluid king.
Pikaotto is next up. Another one to foil the Ground-type Pokémon. Surge is no fool. I kept April May in as he has +4 Attack which would be silly to waste. The Pikaotto fires some weak Gusts at us after we heal up, and then manages to get off a Sand-Attack before going down to a Crunch – Hyper Fang missed twice. When it did hit, Static fired.
Surge’s ace is this Raibuzz. I’m nervous, but also immune to Electric-type moves which he certainly is relying on at this stage of the fight where he’s hoping to have already exterminated his foe’s Ground-types.
Raibuzz’s Quick Attack only scratched us, but he also used Double Team the turn after. We now have even less chance to hit.
I figure that he can only keep using weak Quick Attacks that I will keep healing up from with my healthy stack of Super Potions, so I use Swords Dance again to make sure that when I do hit, it hits hard. Hyper Fang isn’t 100% accurate at the best of times but it’s my best chance of a OHKO.
It hits, and I can now breathe a sigh of relief.
ALL HAIL THE RATQUEEN KING
It feels good to get this out of the way. I can’t believe the one casualty from this gym was from a trainer and not Surge himself.
I like praise.
Fuck you, Gentleman Tucker.
As we leave we are accosted by this gentleman.
Man: I’m here to inform you that you can now participate in the Trainer House challenge in Viridian City! You’ll be able to face teams of randomly selected Pokémon to earn Trainer Points that you can then spend on wonderful prizes! Here, take this. It’ll help you get around!
HM07 is, weirdly, Teleport! A move we already have! This is our signal that we can finally make use of it. And we will soon do that. First though, there are a few things we need to do in the area.
Today’s flute from the Flute Dude is the Blue Flute, which is basically a reusable Awakening.
Remember this guy who wouldn’t even deign to address us until we beat Surge?
Awful Man: I will give you something good if you can show me 10 Trainer Points that you’ve earned in Viridian City’s Trainer House.
As we’re backtracking, we’ll pick up the items that we missed because we didn’t have Cut.
This would be useful for catching Pokémon, though I find that Valefor is a decent enough catcher with her bulk and Sleep Powder.
Lots of good Pokémon use this to evolve.
Not bad. We have precisely zero Fire-type moves at the moment.
So I’m fishing here because while there are no Pokémon available to catch in Route 25, there are some Pokémon in the water here in the area known as ‘Cerulean Cape’. With the Old Rod, I can only catch two Pokémon, and one of them is Magikarp. With the rules of the Nuzlocke, I can skip Pokémon I have already caught and so it is guaranteed that my next addition to the roster is:
Beautiful!
Now let’s try Teleport!
The fly screen is pretty snazzy and is very reminiscent of Gen V’s. Note that the Sevii Islands and Johto are also available. This is going to be a long game.
So we’re back in Pewter City for the moment for some important stuff!
We’re going to revive a fossil which will be Carol’s fusion partner! I figure I need Pokémon sooner rather than later, so I’m doing this now. Fossil reviving takes a few hours, so I head to hotel to sleep for a bit.
You may see where I’m going with this already.
So of course we’re fusing and this was a tricky choice! Omastar works quite well with both Poliwrath and Politoed in either combination and I feel like I’m going to flip-flop for a while as we get to the point in the game where we have to make that decision, but at the moment, this is the order I won’t be going with.
It’s spirals upon spirals!
I really do be loving the colour scheme, my guy.
I am already apprehensive about what this sprite is going to end up looking like.
Look at that moustache! The happy arms! This Pokémon is going to sell you tickets to a magic show I just know it!
Please appreciate that our options for classification were “Spiral Tadpole” and “Tadpole Spiral”. Beautiful.
If you didn’t see this nickname coming I don’t know what to tell you.
Remember the quest from Vermillion City to pick up bricks and planks? We’re doing that today too.
Oh of course.
“Alex I’ll take ‘things I’ve never said’ for 500 please.”
MANDUDE ITS NAME IS MANDUDE ITS BOTH A MAN AND A DUDE
AND IT’S FUCKING FEMALE
This thing is a nightmare come to life.
I’m so happy that Carol Kane is thriving thanks to Exp. Share.
I wish people would just do their fucking jobs in this world. Imagine this in real life? Oh I have a parcel for you, but if you want it you’re going to have to fight me.
Oh wait, that’s what DPD is like anyway, never mind me.
Moving on, I’m sure you’ve noticed that tantalising Cut Tree to the left there.
I sure do, lady.
PokéPaleontologist: …forest that might contain the DNA of a prehistoric Pokémon! But when I went back with the excavating team, the site had been completely taken over a by a Beedrill’s nest and it’s impossible to go anywhere near it!
Of course we’re going to help! We love supporting both science and quest rewards!
On the way, we can finally access this little area to find a PP Up!
Here she is.
I’m with you there. If they were real, Beedrill would terrify me.
It doesn’t translate well in screenshot form but there are a lot of Beedrill swarming around very quickly. One needs only walk into one…
Surprise! A wild double battle out of nowehere!
Go! Brown superstars who are my best Pokémon!
There are only two of these fights and they are terribly easy. The Beedrill don’t have good moves and they go down super quickly too.
Canny Pokémon players will already know what this amber means.
Long-story short, the scientist lets us know that the machinery they have here isn’t sophisticated enough to revive the totally unknown (AERODACTYL) Pokémon from the Old Amber, so we’re tasked with taking it to Cinnabar Island to complete this quest.
Next on our exploration quest, we come here to the other end of Diglett’s Cave.
This interesting house has a lady who can make items out of mushrooms. You need quite a lot of mushrooms to make anything worthwhile.
Max Revives for example require a Balm Mushroom, something I’d much rather sell for 15,000 dollarydoos.
Bug Catcher: …any bug spray!
Another Move Tutor. Not a terrible move, but I don’t know whether it’s worth 2000 dollars.
Heading further south and we find… this. The item to the right is an Ether but it’s what’s inside the house that we need to interact with.
Old Man: …absence. I would’ve cut them myself if I was still a youngster like you but alas, I’m an old man now. Would you please help an old man with his garden?
We’re a lumberjack today pals.
This is just tedious.
I’m going to start hearing Alexandra’s cry in my nightmares.
This is the true prize. Now we never need to use Cut again, because we can use this Key Item instead. Fantastic stuff.
Back down in Viridian City we fight this guy, because workmen in this world are awful.
Dan and Dave. So blokey.
Digchoke me da- okay no.
DO YOUR JOB
Almost at the end of this update. We’re checking out the Trainer House.
It really looks like fighting here will be a very useful way to get cool items. Grinding for Berries would be useful. Can’t get enough of that Sitrus.
Very simply, the enemy teams are randomised but use Base Stat values to increase in difficulty. They get harder with each win, and you get more TP for beating multiple trainers in a row.
Your chosen team are locked to level 25, healed between every fight and don’t gain experience or anything. As far as I can tell you only gain 1 TP per fight so I have to win 10 fights to get the TP required for the quest. I won’t bloat this update with pictures of ugly fusions (lol, for a change) and instead tell you that on my first run I managed a streak of 7 battles and I quit after winning 3 on my second. Do you want to see what ended my first run?
That’s a fucking legendary Pokémon, Genesect, fused with a Sentret. The enemies being completely randomised is… something fun, actually. I’d hope that higher level challenges reward you with more TP though, as some of the prizes cost upwards of 50 TP each.
Back to Vermillion to finish off the update.
This might be useful on Valefor or April May, anything bulky that will take a lot of hits. If you didn’t know, Rocky Helmets hurt enemies who use physical attacks against the holder.
Not a bad haul if I do say so myself! But the real prize is what we get for helping 10 people with their quests.
This is the HM item for Flash, meaning we will never have to teach that all-but-completely-useless move to anyone! And it’s going to be very handy next update, when we take on Rock Tunnel! Tune in next time, please.
Post-Update Summary
Well, it was a long time coming I guess, we had our first death. Resting in the Graveyard Box, Asterius will never again see the light of day. On the other hand, we got our third badge and cleaned up a lot of extraneous shit that we had to do. Tomayto Tomahto. Carol Kane will hopefully be a nice new addition to the team, though I’m torn on what I’ll evolve the Poliwag half of her into – a Poliwrath or a Politoed. Maybe I’ll make it a poll when I get to that point.
New Pokémon
Cerulean Cape: Carol the Poliwag
Pewter City: Kane the Omanyte
New Fusions
Pidpip (Pidgey + Hoppip) evolved into Pidgeloom (Pidgeotto + Skiploom)
Clefursa (Cleffa + Teddiursa) evolved into Clefursa (Clefairy + Ursaring)
Omanyte + Poliwag = Omawag
Death Counter
Asterius the Meowlett
Curated Critiques 