Happy weekend and welcome back to Hoenn! Today, the goal is to reach Rustboro City. Hopefully, we can do that without seeing any deaths. More importantly, we would love to catch some useful Pokémon. We’re currently rolling with Daphne and Kristine, and neither of them fill me with confidence.
I’ll admit that there is something reassuring about Daphne, and that is that she is half Water-type. That will be helpful in Roxanne’s gym. Unfortunately, she’s also Bug-type. That will be lethal in Roxanne’s gym. I’m hoping we get a nice Grass-type addition before we reach there—let’s pray for a Shroomish in Petalburg Woods.
Going by the sprite alone, because the name is gloriously unhelpful, this appears to specifically be a Mudkip/Silcoon fusion, which means that at level ten we’re getting a half-Beautifly Pokémon. I would have preferred a Dustox, as that would have come with Confusion, which would have been potentially nice against Brawly, but making it to Brawly will be a challenge and a half regardless.
Kristine is a little more encouraging, oddly. Not for anything involving a Fighting-type enemy, naturally, but Dark/Normal with not-terrible Attack isn’t the worst of the bunch. I don’t really rate our chances, though. Pickup is nice, though, I suppose.
But this is all very early days! Let’s see what we can scrounge up in Petalburg.
We quickly come across the first big new thing—a berry growing competition! I plant some Pecha Berries. I also picked up some Oran Berries last time, but planted them back in Route 102. I’ll go harvest them today before we get into battles and attach them to Daphne and Kristine.
A nice little feature is that sitting on a bench will progress time incredibly quickly. The rate ticks up gradually until you’re spending only seconds per hour. This is how I’ll get my berries grown without having to wait in real time or mess with my internal clock.
In just minutes, we have Pecha Berries! I harvest them. That’s about it. While there’s a competition going on, I’ve no clue if it’s something we can actually enter. Maybe later.
Enough Berry Business, let’s get on with the story. Papa Norman congratulates a trainer on her attempt and then invites us into the gym.
As is tradition, we’re instructed to help Wally catch his first Pokémon. In a nice twist, this isn’t the automatic tutorial scene that we might expect. Instead, we end up getting followed by Wally and can take him anywhere. It’s not every day we acquire an ill boy as a follower, but it is this day, it seems.
A cute detail is that Wally is shown with us in the fight, even though he has no Pokémon. This turns wild battles into automatic doubles, which is also neat.
Doubles can happen naturally too, though I’ve seen them only when you’re playing with the overworld encounters and end up cornered by two Pokémon rather than relying on tall grass, which is what we’re doing thanks to the Nuzlocke rules.
I caught the Seeyena from the previous screenshot. Wally, however, decides to be a bitch about things. I already know that whatever I catch is going to be fused with his precious Ralts—it’s inevitable, right? That’s what the game creators do with the old canon: they fuse it.
Anyway, I got Wally a Seedot. Then, upon returning to Petalburg, Wally decides that he wants to try catching a Pokémon of his own. Here it comes, here comes the Ralts. I can almost feel the Ralts about to make an entrance and become permanently attached to a Seedot.
oh hi ralts
In a very cute little diversion, you actually get to instruct Wally in what to do. There’s no ‘battle’ happening mechanically, you just instruct the boy in what to do—attack or throw a Poké Ball. After he catches the Ralts, he has a very adorable little celebration, and this makes me feel bad for all the eye-rolling I did at the obvious story tells. It’s charming. Wally has always been one of my favourite Pokémon trainers.
Naturally, this happens in the following scene, and it’s quite good. Seets reminds me of my style when I was a 15-year-old emo kid.
Wally says thank you, Norman commands us to go take on the Gym Challenge, and we’re off on the rest of our adventure!
Naturally, this begins with Route 104’s encounter! And it’s a Taillow. I’m ambivalent towards this. I like Taillow, but this doesn’t fill me with confidence regarding our Roxanne chances.
While we’re in the route, we tackle a quick quest from Rhystie that explains weather conditions. In this route, strong wind allows Pidgey to spawn. We catch one for the quest, get a neat Sleeping Bag that will allow us to skip time until a certain weather condition, and then release the Pidgey unceremoniously because this is a Nuzlocke, damnit.
Let’s fight some trainers.
I regret fighting some trainers.
Magicool is not very cool. Magicool prays for the sweet release of a quick death, I feel.
Wingts is kinda rad, though. She tries a toxic Supersonic/Double Team strat, though, so I hate her. Luckily, she died quickly.
And we reach Petalburg Woods. Here, we’ll find the lucky sod who’s getting attached to a Taillow.
After no less than four encounters with Wurmple, we get a Shroomish! Exactly what I wanted.
Why does this bird have Eugene Levy brows
I name her Moira and we carry on.
We run into a Standard Video Game Quest. The mushrooms look like Shroomish. I bet I’ll have to fight some Shroomish when examining mushrooms throughout the forest.
This is basically a redo of the exact same quest type from the first Infinite Fusion that has you gathering mushrooms in Viridian Forest, fighting Paras all the while. Cute little throughline here.
Sure enough, it’s more Shroomish. Moira makes short work of them, nicely.
This is a disgusting baby with angel wings. I kinda love her.
We continue on!
After three regular-degular Wurmple, the kid sends out this brute. This seems to be a Wurmple/Wurmple fusion. Fusing a Pokémon with a copy of itself gives you quite gnarly-looking beasties, which is a really cool option.
It still dies to a single Peck, mind.
We get the standard encounter with a Devon guy at this point, who is naturally obsessed with Shroomish fusions here, and then a Team Magma guy interrupts. He only has a single Poochyena, which Moira takes down quite quickly and easily with a Leech Seed, Stun Spore, and some Pecks.
The rest of the woods don’t have much to cover. No wacky fusions to make fun of or difficult fights to commentate. I just harvest a bunch of Mossy Spores, return them to the scientist in exchange for some Repels, and then reach the northern half of Route 104.
A nice feature here is that this NPC has the TM for Echoed Voice to give us. Naturally, he wants to fight us to demonstrate, but I’m happy with that.
I am elated about that. LOOK AT HOW CUTE THAT FUCKING THING IS.
It’s actually quite an interesting fight. The Whisnx uses Roar and Howl a bunch, and never actually manages to use Echoed Voice, which is the entire reason for the fight. Stay inept, Pokémon trainer AI. Stay inept.
Winning gets us the- oh, it’s not even a TM. He’s just an infinite Echoed Voice tutor now. That’s kinda neat.
I don’t let him teach the move to any of my Pokémon, though. I don’t reckon it’d help any of them. But this is info to keep in the back pocket!
In the flower shop, we pick up the Wailmer Pail and a Flower Crown, which I instantly put on, because duh. And then, by talking to the lady in the centre of the shop, I get given a gift:
It’s one of the most useless Pokémon on the planet. But it evolves into something slightly less useless and I’ve already decided that I’m keeping gift Pokémon… so… yay?
Kinda obsessed with this gal’s default sprite.
With that addition to the team, though, I’m going to end for the night. We’ve made a decent chunk of progress, got a new teammate who is already pulling her weight, and also got a Sunkern. Next time, we’ll tackle Rustboro and the surrounding routes, hopefully giving Sunkern a partner who will ensure she survives (or at least doesn’t get relegated to the PC permanently once I gain some more useful allies).
Until then, ciao. Play good games, eat nice food, and don’t catch Sunkern.
Leave a Reply