So. It’s been a few hours, and I’m a bit more confident in my team now. Having a ton of easily accessible trainer rematches in this game makes everything go a ton smoother. It’s easy to just put something on Netflix and grind mindlessly with super-effective moves. On the way, we managed to hit two important milestones!
This should improve our chances of survival a lot too! I’m particularly loving Magnebok’s design. The little hands are adorable.
I also use a PP Max on Valefor, I think I’ll need this firepower for Erika’s gym. As you can see, everyone has had a big boost in levels since the last update, this game has a very unforgiving difficulty curve and I want to keep everyone relevant so I can show off as many team mates as possible. Plus, avoiding needless deaths is a plus.
I also pick up Flamethrower after a lot of Voltorb Flip grinding. It’s quite a fun mini-game once you get into the rhythm of it. Always nice to have some Fire-type coverage.
Anyway, we’re back where we left off at the Team Rocket base. This place would probably be easier without Nuzlocke rules. Alas.
“Is your name spelled Steven or Stephen?”
“No.”
“What.”
This is genuinely just a stuffed Persian head on an Arbok, huh?
I’M SORRY I MADE FUN OF YOUR HEAD, JESUS FUCK
That was a critical Swift that took Istwo out. Having a death after so much grinding is just… ugh. The level curve here is really not well-designed.
Ketchup gets the revenge-kill.
He really might, mightn’t he?
Back to the Centre to bury Istwo. This is quite the Nuzlocke luck, isn’t it?
Two Full Restores! We can’t actually access the other half of the base from the back, so our only route is north!
Oh, small base. I was expecting more of a gauntlet. That said, I don’t mind it too badly.
Erika you use bad fusions, bad moves and you’re up against a ton of Poison trainers. What chance did you have?
Me too, bruh.
Giovanni: …me. Because this won’t be happening!
Time to see if all that preparation paid off.
The first matchup. His levels are high but Captain Ike has Intimidate, cutting the Arnix’s attack upon entry. This should work in my favour. Hopefully we can weather a Rock-type attack and dish out some damage.
We of course, take a very hard Rock Slide and can only scratch it with Dragon Rage. The Arnix’s Attack stat will be a bit crippled by the fact that the fusion is half-Onix, who has atrocious Attack.
The obvious switch-in is April May, who is resistant to Rock and has a nifty solution for this Poison/Rock snake now.
It was a quick kill. This next Pokémon’s name confused me, I really couldn’t guess what it would end up being.
It’s a fucking Lapras Rhyhorn.
Thanks to Dig, I manage to scope out the fact that he’s trying to use Ice Beam on April May. I really should have switched immediately.
Citizen Snips deserves some of the limelight, finally. Crabhammer destroys the rest of Rhyras’s HP bar. Snippy here has really fantastic Attack.
The next matchup is quite in my favour, I think, despite the huge level difference. Haunkhan can only use Chip Away and Dizzy Punch to deal not-very-effective damage while I Crunch it.
Black Sludge makes it so that I don’t even have to use a healing item.
A non-essential critical clinches the victory.
It can and do be though, Gio.
Jelly is my current Exp. Share project, and gained a level during that fight.
A friendly blob ❤
Giovanni: A child like you would never understand what I hope to achieve. I shall step aside this time! I hope we meet again…
Dude you’re a crime boss why don’t you just fucking shoot us?
I feel so much less threatened by you now, Erika.
She leaves after this, asking us to come challenge her at her gym.
This is interesting. What was that other note we found all the way back in Cerulean?
…ask’s Download. What’s the beginning, then? Let’s find out soon, I bet that’s a password. Download is Porygon’s Ability, and a few Pokémon have names that end in ‘ask’ such as Yamask and Ninjask. Interesting.
Next up on our task list is to tackle the Pokémon Tower. I have a perfect tool to do this!
A very underleveled Caledfwlch. Wait, scratch that.
A decently leveled broken sprite! I kinda love the jankiness of it. I really hope the next sprites are more broken. The reason Caled here should be very effective in the tower is that it has a very high Attack stat and the Shadow Sneak move, without being Ghost-type itself.
On the way back to Lavender Town I remember that Breeders give eggs after battle and we pick this baby up. Unfortunately for this lil’ thing, it’s being used for the quest to find an egg to uh… scramble.
In we go!
There’s a soft foggy overlay, and all the Mediums here look creepy.
These trainers always weirded me out as a child.
Shadow Sneak proves quite powerful. It two-shots every enemy in this room.
The Mediums return to normal after beating them. I adore this touch – there seems to be a lot of nice additions to the game that make it feel more realised as a game.
I see a theme developing.
I missed it, but Deborah of course has a Gastly/Squirtle mix. Instead of using Shadow Ball like the other two did, it uses Skull Bash to do precisely 3 damage to Caledfwlch.
Just before hitting the stairs at the other end of the room we come upon our wild Pokémon for the tower! And what do you know, it’s this obvious encounter.
Should be a nice addition! Might be very useful for Sabrina’s gym.
As we climb the tower, the fog gets more opaque and the rooms get darker.
I absolutely adore this concept for a Ghost Pokémon, having the fossil sprites spliced into the ghostly gas. Doesn’t make for a powerful foe though.
A brand new trainer type, if I’m not mistaken!
This is a Digimon.
I’d rather not, thanks.
A Water Pokémon with high Special Attack might be quite problematic for Caledfwlch, in hindsight…
Ketchup to the rescue!
Another Spell Tag! I can’t see myself using these often, sadly.
On the next floor I find this little glitch. I can walk right through the ghostly tombstone there and walk along the wall to talk to this Haunted Girl. Quite an appropriate place for a glitch like this, at least.
Look at that tiny face!!
It uses Dig which will obviously decimate Ketchup, so Valefor comes out to avoid the hit handily and fell the beast with Razor Leaf.
Oh. No?
The Ghost fusions get really creative and I have to say I am loving them.
Wild Cubone. Would have quite liked one of these but a Gastly is probably a safer get in the long run.
This is so useful. Just walking into this area heals up all of our Pokémon entirely. This way we can take on the rest of this Tower with complete confidence and safety. Any deaths that happen here are not a result of low resources or fatigue, but bad playing or bullshit level inflation.
Oh dear. This is getting darker and creepier as we proceed.
There’s nothing really notable about this fight, although it’s here that I realise Ketchup makes for a far better Ghost-killer than Caledfwlch due to its higher defences. Shadow Ball just tears through Caledfwlch’s HP despite being not very effective – its Special Defence is just that low.
☹
Some nice pickups in this place, at least.
This sprite is amazing. Look at those fucking eyes. They are ludicrous.
….Palmer.
I was scared of Self-Destruct here, as I always am when facing round enemies. Crunch takes it out in two hits though.
I like Will-O-Wisp as a move, though I don’t know how to fully utilise it with the current team.
What’s nice is that the possessed trainers walk a lot slower than normal trainers when they’re coming to challenge you. It’s a nice touch that shows some thought in the design of the game.
That smooshed face turns what should be a horrific entity into a joke.
Curing all of the possessed trainers gets us this lovely deal. I teach this to Ketchup, replacing Crunch. Ketchup’s fusion gives it a much higher Special Attack than Attack so Dark Pulse should hit enemies a lot harder.
Boo to you too.
I would have loved to catch a Misdreavus here.
Time to face the real boss of this tower.
It’s a full-fledged trainer battle now. I’m sure Samara is a reference to a horror movie but I’m not that much of a horror movie buff. Is it The Ring? Who knows. You might. Comment below or DM me if you know what movie this is a reference to.
Level… 40…
This could be ever so slightly problematic.
Haunwak (lol Haunwak) uses Thrash which takes off around 75% of Ketchup’s HP. Now that it’s trapped in Thrash for a bit, it’s time for a hasty switch.
Caledfwlch may have basically no Special Defence but it can tank those Thrashes for hours.
I manage to get some very nice luck, and Haunwak hurts herself in confusion twice in a row thanks to Thrash, and then proceeds to succumb to a third and final Shadow Sneak. And with that, we’ve pacified the spirit of a broken mother with a haunted Arthurian reference.
Samara fades from existence while floating backwards.
We’re on the top floor now.
Oddly, no Team Rocket trainers here this time.
How did you know my name? We’ve never met – we’ve just seen you get threatened with torture and bundled away up a tower for some reason.
Mr. Fuji: These Team Rocket grunts came looking for a prototype of the Master Ball. I’m afraid I was no match for them… They took what they were looking for… I was truly worried about what such an evil organisation could do with such a powerful tool.
Mr. Fuji: Ryan. Your Pokédex quest may fail without love for your Pokémon. I think this may help your quest.
And… that’s all he says. For someone who has just been implied to be tortured horrifically, he’s bounced back quite well. And is also psychic, somehow.
Let’s blow this popsicle stand.
Using an Escape Rope while on one of the top floors of Pokémon Tower leads to this interesting visual glitch where the dark overlay doesn’t get removed because of the non-traditional teleport command.
Heading into any building and then outside again fixes it. Just a neat little quirk of RPG Maker XP.
To round out the update, I take the egg I got earlier from the PC and took it to the little girl in Celadon who wants to make an omelette. However, I just get this text:
The quest seems to be bugged. Ah. Wonderful. A hazard of playing these games. So while we can’t figure this out, I’ve posted on Reddit to see if there’s a fix. Instead, I decide to try and figure out the Lavender Town bell quest!
It involves sitting here and ringing the bell every now and then to try and get the right hour.
It takes a lot of trial and error but eventually at 03:15 (when both hands are facing right) this happens when I ring the bell. The quest giver hints at this time by saying the secret happens when the bell is rung when the time is right, referring to the positioning of the clock hands. The problem is you might not even realise that the design on the wall behind the bell is even a clock, seeing as it has the wrong number of points.
A whole new area!
It’s called the Hidden Tomb and just entering is enough to complete the quest associated with it. And since it’s a new area, it’s a cool thing that this happens:
Our first Hoenn Pokémon found in the wild!
I am happy with this.
At the end of the tomb we find this tombstone.
A very nice find, there are going to be a lot of Pokémon with high stats who can also technically still evolve. The devs however foresaw this and the increase to the defensive stats that Eviolite grants is only +25% instead of +50%. Oh well. I’ll still use this.
And hey, now we can end the update with a new fusion!
I figure this is going to be very reminiscent of the Gastly fusions we encountered in the Pokémon Tower.
This looks super cool. Unfortunately, it’s just not as good a Pokémon fusion as its reverse, which is bulkier and has better offensive stats. It’ll always have great Special Attack and when the Duskull half becomes a full Dusknoir, it’ll have very good Attack too. Its Speed is lackluster either way but we can always learn Trick Room to help a sweep.
We also have to deal with this… unusual and unique sprite.
And that is the end of the Lavender Arc of LPIF.
Post-Update Summary
With a the loss of Esduo (you better believe I was going to rename him Estres when he evolved lol) the update was off to an auspicious start, but my between-update grinding did prove useful and we conquered both the Celadon Rocket Base and Pokémon Tower. In addition, we picked up some useful items such as the Poké Flute and some Eviolite. Next time we’re back off to Celadon to take on Erika’s gym, and then we need to decide whether we’re heading to Fuschia or Saffron next.
New Pokémon
Pokémon Tower: Tina the Gastly
Hidden Tomb: Requiem the Duskull
New Fusions
Hypby (Hypno + Krabby) evolved into Hypler (Hypno + Kingler)
Magnebok (Magnemite + Arbok) evolved into Magnebok (Magneton + Arbok)
Wymer (Wynaut + Grimer) evolved into Wobmet (Wobuffett + Grimer)
Hondude (Honedge + Geodude) evolved into Honler (Honedge + Graveler)
Gastly + Duskull = Gaskull
Death Counter
Asterius the Meowlett
Yuri the Togebra
Istwo the Esduo
Curated Critiques 