Time for more regrettable actions! Last time, we made it to the north end of Route 104 and picked up a Sunkern. I said a lot of mean things about Sunkern. She’s a Sunkern, to be fair, but I forgot my place.
The first big challenge of the game is going to be Roxanne, who is a Rock-type Gym Leader. My team, as it stands, consists of two Flying types and a moody dog who can’t hit rocks for shit. Sunkern might, with some investment, become the lynchpin in my plans against said Gym Leader.
So, with that in mind.
“flowers in the shop, but… Achoo! I’m allergic!”
Time to beat up rich kids, swap-train my sad, stupid plant (to the rhythm of Pink Pony Club, naturally), and pray that I end up catching a suitable fusion partner for her.
The enemies on this route aren’t much to talk about. They’re underlevelled compared to where we’re at (Sunkern excepted, though with the big gap between her level and our enemies, her experience gain is quite inflated, so she’s catching up quickly!) and they also aren’t very interesting to look at.
I kinda stan these two, though. Both look like they’d be ‘annoying superior’ characters in ’80s sitcoms. Seelow is a Dad’s Army type, Logull is a Red Dwarf type. Fittingly for the latter, Kristine gets some good hits in here.
It isn’t long before we reach Rustboro, finally! Let’s explore a bit.
The majority of the NPCs here talk about the Devon Corporation. Most simply talk about it as the city’s economic hub and such, but there are some who talk about the pollution it produces and how powerful it is. It’s an interesting spread that feels a bit more interesting than what the original games offered.
On one of the TVs in Rustboro, I learned that the Berry competition back in Petalburg is actually finally happening now, so I sped all the way back, and look!
“…flocking in from all over the region!”
Guilty.
The interview here gives you a few opportunities to give your thoughts on the contest, which is just about as complex as ‘Berry Competition’ implies, it seems. I say that it seems ‘pretty fun’, and get the opportunity to give a one-word answer regarding my winning strategy.
💅
I’m told that the point of the contest is variety, so I plant one Oran, one Pecha, and one Chesto Berry. I’ll skip time on the nearby bench and see what happens after watering them with the Wailmer Pail I picked up last update.
This is a cute little side quest! I love this sort of thing!
I got third place. I hate this type of thing. This type of thing sucks. Waste of time. 2/5. The third place prize is some Oran Berries, which is insult to injury.
Back to Rustboro.
There’s a boutique selling clothes and haircuts. Here, you use a new currency called Glimmer Coins, which you seem to get solely from trainer battles. I had around 1,700 by the time I entered, and a random dude who explained the place to me gave me 2,500 just for visiting, which felt a little creepy.
The temptation is killing me…
The range of options here is legit huge, which I love. The game actually hung for about seven seconds to load the menu, which is always/never a good sign. The options range from standard video game hairstyles to gym leaders’ cuts to completely wacky shit. All good soup, ya know?
anyway i bought a black tee, jeans, and got myself the emo cut and some glasses, don’t judge me, i judge myself
A really nice detail is that you can wear two hats at once (with the ‘front’ hat being overlaid over the ‘behind’ hat for clipping reasons). Hats count as hats, naturally, as do things like ties and barrettes and hijabs. Hat means accessory, is what I mean to say. Anyway. I’m cute. Moving on.
This place is, and I realise that I’m using this word a lot, cute. There are a bunch of books and a computer that, naturally, purport to teach you about fusions and stuff. A few of them literally just get your default browser to open onto FAQ pages and the like, which is hilarious. Never change, Pokémon fan games.
While here I play a memory game with the Clefairy (which harkens back to the Pokémon Stadium days! Fun!!) and grab a Quick Claw from the teacher.
While out in Rustboro, I noticed a Meowth walking around. I talked to it. This made it attack me. Looks like I get a wild Pokémon encounter in the city!
You know what this means.
I kinda fuck with Sunth. Turning the Meowth coins into the petals on its head is kinda inspired.
I kinda rate our chances at using this Pokémon against Roxanne quite highly. Not weak against Rock? Check. A type with moves super-effective against Rock? Check. What more could you want? Well, in an Infinite Fusion where the enemy team will undoubtedly contain surprises specifically designed to counter Rock’s usual weaknesses, a whole lot of power and luck, but we can’t win them all.
But now let’s take a look at the surrounding routes. Papa needs to train before taking on the first gym. As you can see, Route 115 now has long grass, so between this and Route 116, we’ll get our fifth fusion!
The first half of the fusion? An Igglybuff. Not amazing, but there is potential there. I catch her quite easily thanks to Moira’s Stun Spore.
There’s not much else in Route 115, bar a Super Potion and a trainer who, after beating her, lets us get some hairstyles and clothes inspired by the Kanto games — like outfits based on the original starter Pokémon and direct copies of the male and female trainers’ outfits, which is neat — but we don’t want anything from her. Instead, we head to Route 116.
After two Poochyena encounters, we run into what will be Igglybuff’s partner.
This feels wrong. I don’t love this at all.
We spend the next couple of in-game days training up our team. I’m playing with a setting that enables level caps, meaning we cannot level up our Pokémon beyond the level of the next Gym Leader’s highest-level Pokémon. This prevents us from getting stronger than Level 15.
On the way to Level 15 For Every One Of Us, we run into a few interesting specimens.
Silchop: the manosphere twink.
Something I do love about the game, I will say, is that you can rematch trainers and they actually get stronger, with their pre-match dialogue getting adjusted to fit! Youngster Joey, Silchop’s unfortunate owner, ends up with this glorious bastard.
Silchop came out, and now he’s living his true self.
Still killed him with a Gust, but what can ya do?
Zigdude: Podcaster. Dead to Absorb. Then, dead multiple times more in rematches until Tina gets up to Level 15. C’est la vie pour une podcastiere.
While we’re training, we get the obligatory Whismur from Rusturf Tunnel. This isn’t something I’m mad about. But I am also not enthused.
While exploring, I found out that there’s a little hidden route to the beach to the west of Rustboro, where we get a side quest to clean up the beach!
Naturally, some of the trash turns out to be Grimer. If we hadn’t talked to the Meowth earlier, this would have been our Rustboro encounter, and we would have had quite a different roster for the gym!
The end of the quest has our first triple battle of the game!
This could have been quite a difficult battle, had I not been training already. They get two layers of Toxic Spikes off in the first round and poison everyone with Poison Gas in the second, but hard-hitting physical moves remove them all by the third.
I get a Pearl String for cleaning up the beach, which gets us a nice jackpot for selling.
Eventually, I get a bit tired of training everyone equally and decide that now is the time to take on the gym. If we’re doomed to fail, then we are doomed to fail. I predict that Tina will be our ringer, while Daphne and Moira will be reliable ‘mons to get us through the trainers standing in the way.
The gym has had a makeover!
The tip guy at the entrance has the usual spiel, but also makes it clear that Roxanne knows her stuff, and will have done something to cover the Water and Grass weaknesses of her Rock-type Pokémon. This makes me even more nervous.
The first trainer is a spinner, and I get caught.
Not a fan of this. Not a fan at all. Not only is it ugly as sin, but it almost nails me with its Bide strats. I survive, though.
The next pair seems designed to force us into a double battle, but I’m not taking that risk. That Hiker is getting ignored entirely.
I really like Geoscoon’s sprite. It’s a shame that it falls quite quickly to the barely-powerful Mega Drain of a leafy kitty.
And so, we’ve made it to Roxanne.
Gym Leaders in this game run on a ‘limited matchup’ system — Roxanne only has two Pokémon, so I can only bring two Pokémon to the fight. I’m going to pick Tina and Daphne. I’m hoping to lead with Tina and use Leech Seed and her Oran Berry to let her set up some Growths and then sweep. Daphne is in reserve as the ‘pray that Mud Slap works its magic and nets some evasion-based wins’.
Without further ado, let’s go.
First we’re up against a Geodude/Shroomish. I kinda like the sprite, but I also want it dead.
We open with Fake Out into a Growth, and Geoish goes for Rock Polish, which is a mite scary. It does reveal quickly, however, that its main methods of attack are… Absorb and Mud Slap. The latter is annoying with the accuracy drops, but Absorb does basically nothing to me.
I set up four Growths and quickly waste an entire two of Roxanne’s Potions on the fight. Then, Mega Drain takes the beastie out.
Arpass, a pretty heinous fusion of Aron and Nosepass, is her ace. I kinda love how demure and sad this one looks. I’m also quite nervous at the power it might have.
Mega Drain gets her down to roughly half. This might be okay.
I say that, only doing that much damage after four fucking Growths shows you just how useless a Sunkern/Meowth fusion is when it comes to Special Attack, but I am low on options here.
It came down to a real trial of luck at the end, with Tina taking a nasty Rock Tomb and recovering with an Oran Berry. It was not enough healing to get her to survive if the next attack was a high damage-roll, which makes me nervous.
But Arpass is slow as molasses and my grassy kitty is not slow at all, so Mega Drain takes the kill.
I am so, so sorry Sunkern-half-of-Tina — I said horrific things about you, and you solo’d the first gym of the run! You’re my favourite now!
That’s a lie, Daphne is my favourite, but don’t tell Tina that.
Yeah, like don’t fuse an Aron with a Nosepass, that’s just silly.
FIRST BADGE GET
As we leave the gym, the trainers we fought on the way make some complimentary comments and the tip guy congratulates us and offers us the opportunity to copy Roxanne’s haircut, which is another neat feature. We also got an ‘Aron Mask’ from Roxanne for winning.
I do not like this.
Upon leaving the gym:
Let’s deal with this next time. In the meantime, play good games, eat nice food, and have fun!
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