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Solitair posted:Did someone say Pokémon fangame? Glad I'm here early; hopefully the game picks up after this underwhelming start. It seems like it's pretty close to the pacing of the earlier generations of the Pokémon series, from what I recall. But yeah there's definitely not a ton happening in the first few towns. We'll see, though! There should be another update tomorrow, I finally got all my hours back at work and also got sidetracked playing Tsushima, but it's half done. This post should take us to the next page, too.
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Jul 30, 2020 05:58
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I'm not EXACTLY ground floor, but I'll be interested to see how this unfolds. Here's hoping it doesn't suck.
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Jul 30, 2020 06:25
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I saw a note on the rich kid trainers using a full restore in a level 9 battle and just wanted to point out that's been a thing in the official games since Gen III. You can first see it with the rich kids right outside Petalburg who will absolutely blow full restores on their Zigzagoons  Its a fun bit of flavor
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Jul 30, 2020 06:38
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Hey, welcome back, sorry this took so long. I'm finally back at work full time after a couple months of half time, and also I wanted to try and get this onto a second page. We're starting back off halfway through the last recording, so the video is still a little weirdly centered. The black bar should be gone this update though. Instantly after leaving Wiseman's Cave some guy jumps us. He has some level 6 and 7 Pokemon, which are shockingly not much of a challenge. From there we just move on to Route 504! We didn't exit onto it, it starts like 20 feet after the cave exit. Have to assume this is just inexpertly designed.   One of the guys we beat is off to the west, muttering to himself. He's mad at himself for losing to a kid, but in the middle of his speech he's confronted by...  They do some shtick here but the gist of it is that Mos recognizes Team DH as the people who attacked Holly's lab earlier, and chases this one (who he insists on calling George) around. The grunt doesn't have any conscious Pokemon thanks to Lyra so he runs away. This serves mostly to show you how the map here works. They run towards this cliff face...  ...and out this cave on the other side  So you kind of have to guess where the entrance is based on where you can see an exit. Besides introducing this, there's not a ton going on on this route.  This trainer's got three Jamberrees, which look very much like a Cherubi cousin. Their evolution, Strawna, also looks kind of like a Cherrim that gives up almost all of its defensive stats for Speed and Sp. Atk. I don't know anything about competitive battling, but that's usually all I want anyways. We can get a Jamberee soonish (and will), but not on this route.  Cuppa's the other new Pokemon we get introduced to here. It's available basically everywhere you can fish or surf, and evolves to a not very good Water/Fighting type. I might use it anyways if we don't have a different Vega water type at the point where I can catch one.  The female Poke Fan sprite has Cuppas, or Cuppa dolls, or whatever those are supposed to be instead of Wailmer, because Wailmer doesn't exist in this game.    Just before leaving the route I pick up Taillow's replacement, as well as a Pichu. Taillow's been pretty strong so far, really, but Mintch is new so I'm using her instead. Pichu is important for later purposes - that kid in the last town keyed us in on Machu being a Pikachu evolution, and there's noting on earth that'll stop me from using Machu. Route 504 leads directly into Route 505, so that's where we go now.   The light snowfall that's been happening this whole time turns into heavier snow here, and the screen gets a little darker. There's not a lot new on this route, but there's a couple things worth mentioning.   Bet this doesn't see a lot of use.  Another important part of getting a Pikachu is laying on the ground here.  I spend a lot of time leveling Mintch up here, and find a Buizel. It's not listed on the wiki here, so I have to assume that it's one of the Pokemon shifted into this area by Zeta Minus. Speaking of which, I've been looking at the availability of the Fakemon, and frankly the rest of the Pokemon in the game in general, while I was putting off writing this update and have concluded that it really could have done with spreading almost all of them out to the early and midgame. Like, why does a pure Normal type that evolves at 20 and 34 need to be stuck in a postgame area? Why does Voltorb? There's a ton of neat original Pokemon for this game and a huge percentage of them are only available after the Elite Four. It's not like the encounter tables so far have been particularly packed, and they remain fairly unpacked throughout this update. Anyways, I catch the Buizel. I'm going to need it soon.  After that, I go swap Buizel and Rynos into my team and continue doing some leveling. Mintch evolves very early, and having that power boost would be nice.  Getting their Nidorans knocked out by a bird with Confusion has done nothing to hinder these girls' lunch plans. Luckily, their poison dogs were also the push I needed for...   Blakjak! Mintch swaps its Normal/Flying for Psychic/Flying when it evolves, and learns a Vega-original move called Hypnopulse that's basically Confusion, minus some accuracy but plus some power and a chance to sleep. In Procyon and Deneb it's going to have a regional variant where its head is way bigger, and also is Ghost rather than Psychic..  That's about all I wanted to get done on Route 505, so we can move on to Seafin City now.  "A mysterious city full of loud spirits!" I do not like how Seafin City is laid out. Moving the Spirit Mansion and Museum (the big buildings that aren't the Gym) off to their own sections of town and making it look less just like a big forest clearing that people built some large buildings in would do a lot. In general, the towns so far have been kind of uninspiring. They look a ton better in the sequel games as far as I've seen, so I'm happy the devs also seemed to pick up on that.  A camper in the Pokemon Center suggests that the new Pokemon showing up in Tohoak are related to Team DH, as both came here from Hoenn. I don't know what was here to begin with, though. Someone else describes Capture Stylers to Lyra.  win battles. How regrettable... What, did you forget? Spit it out. Another guy mentions that Togetic evolves with a Sun Stone, not a Shiny Stone, in Tohoak. I think this is because nothing else in the region has a Shiny Stone evolution, so they're just consolidating.  In the bottom left corner there we can see someone who looks a whole lot like Cygnus (and is, in fact, Cygnus). He's blocking the entrance to the Spirit Mansion, but I don't want to go there yet.  really cool-looking! Seems like Cygnus has found an admirer. In one of the houses at the bottom right is a guy who tells Lyra that the Pokemon affected by the Hoenn Catastrophe can't be restrained by normal Capture Stylers. This might be what the Secure Styler is meant to solve?  The Name Rater's in the other house. I've got through the next Gym already recorded, but after that I can give whatever nicknames people want to any of our Pokemon.  It might have come from Wiseman's Cave. It won't move, and it repels Poke Balls... What should we do? Can guarantee this is a problem for Lyra to solve. Later, though, because if I interact with the Dugtrio now I can't do anything.  You can just barely see the tops of two people's heads behind the buildings here. The one on the left tells me there's a suspicious person hiding nearby. The one on the left...   Yeah, sure, whatever. Time to check out the museum. Someone in the house below the first guy gives you TM21, Leech Seed, also. I bet I'm not going to use that.  Hey, what's that?  There's some enormous statues of Dialga and Palkia here. It's very funny to me that they appear to be in a staff area behind the desk. The rest of the ground floor is pretty standard Pokemon museum stuff. There's fossils, there's a kid who loves fossils, stuff like that.  There is this, though. Scimitooth's a Rock/Electric type sabertooth tiger thing, and we'll get the fossil for its previous evolution at some point here. Upstairs is more of the same kind of thing. A few more fossils, and a spaceship exhibit from Pewter City. A girl tells us that the damage from the meteors during the Hoenn Catastrophe didn't spread to other regions because it was contained by what I assume is Rayquaza.  Hm? You... No, never mind. If you haven't beaten Seafin Gym's Geoff, there's no way you can get to the back of the Spirit Mansion. Oh... I'm in trouble... There's also this guy. Looks like we've got to find something in the Spirit Mansion, so let's go talk to Cygnus.  He tells us that he's grateful for the help in Wiseman's Cave, and that because he's getting more skilled in using his styler his Ranger Rank went up. Good for you, probably, buddy! After that he says he wants to keep going and get stronger, so challenges Lyra to a battle.  He's only actually got one new Pokemon with him though, this Nidoran.  It doesn't last long.  He's also, weirdly, got his Liquiput at level 15. It evolves into Hydrush at 14, so he has to have held it back on purpose. Looking at their movelists, the only reason to do that is if you don't want it to learn Confuse Ray? Very odd. Anyways, that loses to Blakjak too after it falls asleep from a Hypnopulse.  He says he's still got a lot more training to go, and also gives Lyra the Exp. Share because he's not using it. It's the old style Exp. Share, not the party-wide one.  statue with some sort of paper thing stuck to the back. I'm a bit curious about it, but I don't have time to investigate... You should investigate for yourself. ...I really wonder what it is, though. See ya! Gonna take a guess that that's what the scientist in the museum lost.   It's real dark in here, but Togepi knows Flash so it's not really a big deal. I'm still hauling that Togepi around because I haven't really gotten anything to replace it. The lady at the entrance explains it's so dark because it's old and not wired for electricity, and we learn from another couple people that the city keeps it that way so it can be a habitat for Pokemon that like the indoors or the dark.   It's a pretty big place - there's also a postgame basement. Our target is that Mewtwo statue on the second floor, but there's a lot of stuff worth looking around for here. I'd also be remiss to not point out the music here, it's a really good track. Right away, I run into the first new Pokemon for the area.   I'm really not a fan of this thing. It does have a unique evolution gimmick where each form shuffles its pretty bad BST around rather than adding to anything. Clotaku has the best speed, its second evolution has the best offence but bad defense and lower speed, and its third has alright defense but is slow. They're all based on some variety of otaku or NEET - Clotaku is the one with the Gunpla or idol obsession, Ajarimus is based on Mona the 2ch mascot that you might have seen in some form before and channers in general:  and Jarmit is the shutin hikkikomori. They're all pure Poison types and have Stench as an ability, and none are worth using.     These are the other two common original Pokemon for this area. They're both Fire types, with Maneko being Normal/Fire and evolving to Dark/Fire, and Willisp and its evolution Wisplode being pure Fire. I like them both a lot, and would be using one of the two if not for already having Capsaicin. Willisp in particular is a pure Fire type that can have Levitate, is decently fast, and can learn Energy Ball to cover the remaining weaknesses.. Maneko's evolution is kind of a sidegrade to or maybe a little worse than Houndoom, but makes up for all of that by being a kitty. Willisp also sort of reminds me of the Litwick line without the lanterns - there's also a candle Pokemon later on, but by the sounds of it Gen V came out pretty late in the development of Vega so I can't blame them for reaching similar design space as Game Freak at the same time. There are two more fakemon in this area. I'll catch one of them, I will not be hunting down the 1% chance one, especially since I can savestate cheat at cards at the Game Corner to get one later. A trainer here does have it though.  After defeating this Burglar he reminds us about the papers stuck to the statue.  This old guy tells us about his grandchildren, Chaz and Maya. They're the Mossdeep Gym Leaders now, which means Lyra's met and beaten them (even though I haven't).  A Collector has the rarest Pokemon here. Spelven's a Ghost/Psychic type and like I mentioned earlier I can get a guaranteed one at the Game Corner.  In the middle of the ground floor is this guestbook. I was very afraid Mos would have some dumb thing here, but fortunately he did not. I sign my name, since I figure some kid would probably think seeing that the Hoenn Champion explored the same place as them would be cool.  Minus also moved Magnemite in here. I catch one, but I don't really end up using it for much besides Flash (which as a reminder does damage now).  Finally, after a lot of running around and jumping off broken floors and stuff, I get to the statue and grab the Letter off the back. When I checked it in my inventory it says that it's a sealed letter containing important information about Legendary Pokemon. I don't know how I know what it's about if it's sealed, but I don't know Lyra's life. Maybe she recognizes the sender.  This Engineer trainer introduces me to the idea of what seems to be vigilante electrician work? He wanted to fix the wiring here and then get paid for doing it, but apparently nobody told him it's off on purpose.  My savings have now completely run out... The electricity and running water were cut off. If Seafin City doesn't buy this mansion, then... The diary cuts off here.  My mansion of despair was bought by Seafin City. Pokemon that prefer darkness have moved in, so I requested them to not turn the lights back on. They gracefully accepted my wish, and I'm relieved. With this, I can happily depart this life... The diary cuts off here.  Above those diaries is the potentially very useful Rock Slide TM. If I ever need a Rock move badly this is probably the one. Following that I spend a bunch of time sprinting around looking for one last Pokemon. It takes like 20 minutes, but eventually I find...   Not the most creative name. Baizeast is pretty good. It's Psychic/Fairy, which are two niches I do currently have covered, but if Blakjak falls off I'd be pretty happy to use one. It also, importantly, is a scary green horse covered in eyes. Baizeast is kind of slow, but that's probably not much of a problem. I do a bit more leveling before the Gym so I can get this.   Frozaiden! She looks very confident, which is the energy I would like when she's and a Buizel are going to have to carry me through a Gym. Speaking of which.   Like I mentioned earlier, Seafin Gym is Ground-type. The first three are kind of a tough draw for Peyero as a starter: Bug (but mostly Rock), Ground, and then Water. It's a pretty straightforward Gym: There's a little maze, with passages blocked off by Digletts. If you talk to a Diglett, they shuffle around.  None of the trainers here have anything new (all just Rynos and Diglett), so let's move on to Geoff.  but... You really are young! Hahaha! ...Oh, sorry. I'm Geoff! The Geoff who's Seafin City's Gym Leader! All right! Enough with this idle talk! Now, show me your power! The battle against the Ground user, Geoff, starts now!   He leads off with this Diglett. It knows (and mine could too, if I had leveled it) this move called Burrow, which is 75 power/90% accuracy/chance at severe Speed decrease if it hits. It proceeds to kick Buizel's rear end with it. Oh well, thanks for coming along, weasel buddy. Blakjak's immune to ground so I send her out to finish it.  Next up is not a Ground type. This particular Hitmonchan manages to get a flinch with Astonish, and then Mach Punch, but neither really does anything much. Two Hypnopulses knocks it out.  Geoff's last Pokemon is Nidoking. I was sort of hoping Blakjak would deal with him too.  Poison Tail hits very hard, and Nidoking survives Blakjak's attacks with what has to be like 1 HP left.  It's also got a Sitrus Berry, which recovers enough of its health that Reimu's first Powder Snow doesn't actually win.  It does get a lucky freeze, though. Geoff uses a Super Potion, but luckily for me Nidoking stays frozen the rest of the match.   The Arneb Badge lets Lyra use Strength outside of battle, not that we have Strength or have seen a Strength boulder yet. Geoff also gives us TM37, Mud Bomb, after the match.  how strong you were. Hopefully, you can keep up that strength and beat all of the other Tohoak Gym Leaders! Well then, I'm excited to see where you'll end up!  hm All in all I would say Geoff was not particularly tricky here. Here's what he has without the Minus patch, though  That's quite a bit nastier. The extra levels would be tough, but stuff like the potential for a Quick Claw Thunder Punch just erasing Blakjak, or a Rhyhorn surviving Buizel and hitting back with Thunder Fang or hitting Reimu with Fire Fang would have probably wiped me a couple times. As is, though, he felt a little tough but pretty much fine. Next time, we're going to get past that Dugtrio and get to the next city.
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Jul 31, 2020 02:57
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why is there a nidoking in the second gym
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Jul 31, 2020 03:52
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I don't think it's really that out of line compared to Gardenia's Roserade or something.
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Jul 31, 2020 04:30
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While that Hitmonchan is rather nasty in vanilla, the fact that you can access things with Intimidate does make things much easier; Gym 3 is probably the worst the vanilla game gets considering how early it is, as later things may be meaner but you also have more options to fight back. That said, Baizeast is an absolute monster who can carry you to the end of the game. I forgot to mention this last time, but Team D.H. is something of an impossible Woolsleyism; Dark Hole is the Japanese name for Dark Void, so the obvious route is to change that, but then you lose the connection to Team B.H. and W.H. from Altair and Sirius. If you're going to use Machu, be sure to evolve it early; it lacks good fighting moves by levelup, so the Highly Missable Rolling Kick is its best option. More on Machu when you get it, though.
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Jul 31, 2020 05:41
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LiefKatano posted:why is there a nidoking in the second gym I mean Misty throws a goddamn Starmie at you.
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Jul 31, 2020 07:51
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Baizeast is pure Psychic in regular Vega, but that’s fairly obvious. There’s only like... one case, if my memory serves, where the fairy type isn’t added on and replaces a type instead. Buizel, Maneko, and Magnemite were indeed all moved back. Buizel only a little, since it’s one of the few old rod encounters (there’s two others, one is Cuppa), but the other two were locked behind Waterfall, which is Gym 7 here. Semi-related by availability, there’s an ingame lore reason, but thankfully the distribution problem is much less of an issue in PD (even at 6 gyms, you have a solid ~230 options if you count all individual Pokémon, even if some of them are... basically post-demo, as of now) Due to how the AI works, if you have a Spelven and a Togepi, you can switch between the two against vanilla’s perfect coverage for everything you have at the time Hitmonchan to also severely neuter it. Spelven is alright with bulk.
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Jul 31, 2020 14:27
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The maps in this game sure aren't impressing me. Tiles seem to be put down without much thought in how they make sense, maps are mostly boring or feel like they were taken straight from FRLG instead of being something new built on top of the same game. The fakemons are mostly nice though, even if the second stage bird looks terrible and its variant is a lot better.
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Jul 31, 2020 15:17
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Blaze Dragon posted:The maps in this game sure aren't impressing me. Tiles seem to be put down without much thought in how they make sense, maps are mostly boring or feel like they were taken straight from FRLG instead of being something new built on top of the same game. Yeah, I agree. It's worth comparing to the other games this team has made to see why this might be - with some exceptions, the Altair and Sirius maps were literally just Emerald with some slight alterations as far as I can tell. That makes this their first shot at making their own region, and they did a mostly pretty boring job. I've been watching some footage of Procyon and Deneb though and the cities there look pretty good - there's a lot more variation than the snow/grass/snowy tree look that we've been seeing this whole time. Obviously doesn't mean the maps in Vega are anything to write home about, but I do like that the developers seem to be already making the sorts of changes to their games I'd want to see.
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Jul 31, 2020 15:56
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Draxion posted:I don't think it's really that out of line compared to Gardenia's Roserade or something. Fair point, I suppose. I had forgotten about Roserade and I failed to consider that it would be on-par with (or arguably superior, at least in some aspects) to Nidoking. Mostly just a knee-jerk reaction to seeing a giant dinosaur rhino thing in the second gym.
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Jul 31, 2020 16:25
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LiefKatano posted:Fair point, I suppose. I had forgotten about Roserade and I failed to consider that it would be on-par with (or arguably superior, at least in some aspects) to Nidoking. In Gen 1, you yourself can get a Nidoking pretty early on
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Jul 31, 2020 17:02
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:In Gen 1, you yourself can get a Nidoking pretty early on You sure can, I got a Nidoqueen by Mt. Moon in my Yellow Nuzlocke and she carried my goddamn team through the rest of the game. Until she died to Lance's Dragonite. That loving hurt.
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Jul 31, 2020 17:19
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I mean sure but it's weird to have it in the enemy's hands, imo. Especially if you can't get it yourself this early.
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Jul 31, 2020 17:23
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I stopped playing Vega after the second gym because I mostly play fangames for interesting new pokemon and most of Vega's were postgame or very near to it (and the gyms were bullshit enough to not be fun since I wasn't playing the minus patch).
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Jul 31, 2020 18:19
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LiefKatano posted:I mean sure but it's weird to have it in the enemy's hands, imo. You're definitely right that it's pretty unusual to see a second evolution Pokemon this early, especially one that's not a Beedrill or something. I can't get one myself for another few routes unlike R/B where Nidoran and Moon Stones were basically adjacent, but the place I can is pretty close by if I can Surf (coming soon). I do think that if you want to make an early Ground Gym Leader tough but still pretty surmountable, Nidoking's a good way to do it though. It's strong but not overwhelmingly so, and I have access to everything it's weak to. Leraika posted:I stopped playing Vega after the second gym because I mostly play fangames for interesting new pokemon and most of Vega's were postgame or very near to it I really wish they were more spread out. Maybe I'll do that myself once I'm done. Draxion fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Jul 31, 2020 |
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Jul 31, 2020 18:21
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Can I just say after Uranium that it's refreshing I can read the name of a Pokemon and see its design and be able to pronounce it and get the wordplay without bending over backwards and screwing up my eyes? Because it is.
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Jul 31, 2020 21:19
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I think the only name I haven't liked so far is Blakjak. Speaking of, the spritework for that birb is so much better in Procyon and Deneb.
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Jul 31, 2020 21:22
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Even Blakjak is one I can immediately read and at least get what they're aiming for after a moment (Blackbird by way of Jackdaw by way of Tic Tac because it evolves from "Mintch"). Also I can easily say pronounce it and say it and it's easy and pleasing to say in contrast to something like "Inflagetah".
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Jul 31, 2020 21:37
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Blakjak was apparently originally Peacoptic in English, but was one of the ones changed when the original devs gave some input on what they thought the English names should be. It's Cocjack in Japanese so really anything is better
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Jul 31, 2020 21:54
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Oh, that's interesting.
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Jul 31, 2020 21:55
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I hate Mosmero so much and I'm not going to get over it. How do you even pronounce Mos? Moss, like the fuzzy green plant? Like most, but without the t? Like Bose, but with an M? Why is it THE Mos? We'll never know. Anyway, it's smart that his cutscene was to demonstrate how the map worked, but very weird that that they even had to do that. They just really, REALLY wanted that underpass, drat it if it's too hard to tell it's there in the first place. Weird decision altogether. I am glad that you decided to link the music for Spirit Mansion though, since a) wonderful song, and b) from the map design and character interactions, I was getting the impression that this fangame was a bit low rent. Certainly made me appreciate the game more and consider its better aspects, like some of the sprite work. Baizeast, though.... hrm.... ugly, but I'd like to see it used. I really liked Mintch, but Blakjak is not doing it for me.
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Aug 1, 2020 00:34
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APOSTOL posted:I hate Mosmero so much and I'm not going to get over it. How do you even pronounce Mos? Moss, like the fuzzy green plant? Like most, but without the t? Like Bose, but with an M? Why is it THE Mos? We'll never know. This, so much. It really feels like he's one of the creators' self-insert or something. Also, for reference, I've been pronouncing Mos as mozz, like 'moss' but with z's.
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Aug 1, 2020 02:49
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I say if you want to tweak the encounter tables, you go for it.
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Aug 1, 2020 04:37
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Ooh, Jamberree is cute. And Cuppa... OK, so 'Kuppa' is the Japanese name of 'Gukbap', a Korean dish where you put rice in hot soup. Shigeru Miyamoto famously named Koopa (AKA Bowser in NA) after the dish. Could 'Cuppa' be a reference to the soup? Scimitooth looks dope, btw, but Clotaku is rude.
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Aug 1, 2020 10:33
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serefin99 posted:This, so much. It really feels like he's one of the creators' self-insert or something. Also, for reference, I've been pronouncing Mos as mozz, like 'moss' but with z's. He has to be. Just an annoying character because a dev really liked him. Ah well, I'll just let my eyes glaze over at his appearances and dumb little graffiti. And that's definitely the best way to say his name, thinking about it. Quackles posted:And Cuppa... This is some wild trivia that I've never heard before! It's certainly possible that's where Cuppa comes from, but I think it's more likely that it's named after the kappa from Japanese folklore. I kinda just figured that's where Koopa came from, honestly. Kappas are pretty turtle-y. But Cuppa looks exactly like a little kappa (its evolution is definitely one) and they're water creatures, which fits the typing. Maybe it's just a pun: cup (of water) + kappa = Cuppa. But the kuppa/koopa thing could be in the mix, too!
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Aug 1, 2020 16:52
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APOSTOL posted:This is some wild trivia that I've never heard before! It's certainly possible that's where Cuppa comes from, but I think it's more likely that it's named after the kappa from Japanese folklore. I kinda just figured that's where Koopa came from, honestly. Kappas are pretty turtle-y. But Cuppa looks exactly like a little kappa (its evolution is definitely one) and they're water creatures, which fits the typing. Maybe it's just a pun: cup (of water) + kappa = Cuppa. But the kuppa/koopa thing could be in the mix, too! Could he both.
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Aug 1, 2020 17:21
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Welcome back to a big ol post. If I'd been thinking I would have done the Gym first and the lab last, but I didn't. Last time we beat Geoff for the Arneb Badge. After beating Geoff, I've gotta head back to the Museum to turn in that letter from the Spirit Mansion.  There's important secrets about legendary Pokemon written in this letter. So important that I avoided receiving them through e-mail... But then I dropped the letter anyway! If only I had some way to thank you...  want something done about it? I don't think there's anything in my power to do about that... That's right! I know a Pokemon Ranger out on Route 505. I'll contact him on my Pokenav and let him know about this. I wonder if that letter will ever show up again. This is also another example of that weird habit of having people announce that they're using their Pokenav. I still don't have one, I'm just going to assume Lyra's being bullied by people with nicer phones than she does. We passed the Ranger on the way into town, we just have to go back up Route 505 to talk to him.  It'd be nice if I captured that Dugtrio and got it out of the way, right? Well then, come with me!  He captures it with his Styler, tells it that it was being a nuisance, and sends it on its way. I forget if had I mentioned it before but the reason we couldn't just capture it is that this was one of those wild Pokemon that blocks Pokeballs. However, before we go I remembered that I may as well run back to Junopsis City and make a trade for that Hoothoot just in case I ever need one.   I suspect I'll never use this guy, but it is a guaranteed shiny. I also grab my Pichu and stick a Soothe Bell on her, in preparation for later. With that done, it's time to move on to Route 506. There's another route south out of Seafin, but it needs Surf.  This route has something very weird on it, which we'll get to in a second. It's hard to tell from the map alone, because the design there looks like the devs did something far more typical for a Pokemon game than what they actually did.  Elekid's the first of them, and I believe the last Pokemon moved around by the Vega Minus patch. I remember Electivire being a profound disappointment in DoubleNegative's Insurgence LP, and so I have no plans to use one now. Besides, we've got a different Electric type in the works.   This woman appears to have given herself anemia by eating novelty bakery for every meal. She has, for reference, a single Pichu. None of the trainers on this route have anything we haven't already seen, they're just pretty standard trainers.   I also catch my own Jamberree. I talked about it last time, but it and its evolution are very similar to being Cherubi and Cherrim with a focus in Speed and Sp. Atk. I kind of intended to use this in the next Gym, but end up not needing it at all. Anyways, into the cave at the top of the route...   Except it's not another zone, it's a very weird tunnel! I can't think of another time in a Pokemon game I've seen this. It certainly may have happened, but it feels strange to do when the convention is normally to just stick you in new map the shape of the tunnel.  There's also a trainer in here!  This is the path through. Not showing the door at the end is also tricky, even though you can kind of figure it out by the geography. I don't know enough about Pokemon romhacking to know if there's a good way to do this besides putting you in a cave like normal, but even if there was I think I'd still just do that. Very odd piece of map design.  Inside the house on the other side is a girl who gives you the Itemfinder. I'm playing with the wiki open most of the time so it's not tremendously useful, but all the games at the time had it so here it is. Continuing west gets us to Route 519.  I could have sworn this route looked a lot more interesting in game but no, it doesn't. There's a lot of trainers around, which add some color.  You can also get to the bottom part of Route 518, but there's a Rock Smash rock blocking our way back north to Porcelia.   I do catch the new Pokemon for these two Routes there, though. I like Velvelt's design a lot. Sadly it has an incredibly unfortunate evolution, like basically the opposite in design of what you'd want from a slightly spooky stuffed bear with a big claw hand. I kind of expected its evolution might pick up the Ghost type, lean into the scary claw, but instead it's Neutral/Fighting and ugly. We'll get to it when we get to it.  I'm not taking a dive for a guy with one level 15 Houndour. Come back with something cooler and I'll consider making you look good, bud. I also strongly suspect that if you do lose this fight, he does not give you money.   I finally pick up a Cupricorn here too. There have been two other routes where it's been available, but at a 2% and 5% rate. It's 15% here so I just waited. Cupricorn is Steel type, becoming Steel/Dark on its second evolution. It's also very slow and doesn't learn Sucker Punch like Bisharp, but listen. It's a cool metal goat, and Bisharp isn't in this game. I'd be perfectly happy to use one after this Gym.  One of the trainers on this route manages to thoroughly kick my rear end with a Spelven, knocking out half my team with a combination of lucky confuses off Confusion, good Hypnosis accuracy, and Night Shade. I won't get one of these for a while, but it did impress me.  the last thing of note on this Route is the Daycare, in the house off to the left side. While gearing up for some grinding I noticed something pretty neat that I'll break out my MS Paint skills again to show:  You can tell it's the designated egg hatching/Daycare leveling area because there's this one tile wide path that runs the length of the map, and continues on into the Route to the north too.  Who are you? Why is there a bridge here? He's the last thing of any interest on this Route, but we'll be back for some rather extensive grinding shortly. For now, though, let's move on to Gamboge City.  The city where the wind of technology blows! If Seafin's city layout was dull, Gamboge is flat out bad. It's just a mess.  were changed. I was fortunate enough to buy a lot of them before the new ones came out. Apparently there's some sort of shadowy TM Commission that likes to change things up when the meta gets too stale? The TM list in this game isn't the same as most others. Earthquake's gone, for example. Its replacement (not TM26, which is Zap Cannon now) appears to be Raze Earth, which is even more powerful, just as accurate, but has 25% recoil. Toxic is as well, though it's on a Move Tutor now.  Rydel runs the bike shop here. Or skateboard shop, because that's what he actually has. Also, that looks like a Team DH grunt hanging out in front of the Gym. Lyra's Champion instincts are telling her she's going to have to be the one to solve this.   The Fishing Guru hands over an Old Rod, which means I can catch a Cuppa now.  Next door is a trade for a Snover. It doesn't have Snow Warning in this game so I'm not going to use it instead of either other Grass types or Reimu. Plus, I don't have a Miltank and haven't run into where I'd get one for a while still.  What's the point in having him say this if there isn't a hidden item in the rock immediately next to him   Whoops! I almost said the secret out loud! Reginald is some kind of DH admin, I assume. Inside this house is an old guy with another trade offer.  I'm going to run back and grab another Baizeast for this at some point later. The trade is for a Spheal, which I've always liked and won't otherwise get for a while. Going through the door at the back...   Prof. Holly's Secure Styler! Well then, Prof. Larch! If you're not going to tell us the easy way, then come over here! The two DH grunts march Prof. Larch off into yet another back area. I don't follow right away.  Instead, I go to the skate shop. I of course don't have enough money for one, but Rydel decides that if I can find all of his hiding friends he'll give me one for publicity purposes.  First one's up in the trees behind the store.  While looking for the second, I run into the Berry Master's house. I say yes. However:  How many Berries do you have? Not a one! I guess I don't like Berries enough to actually have any on me. I don't know that whether or not someone is hauling fruit around with them is really the best way to decide if they like it.  watch. What? You say I'm the suspicious one here? You idiot! There's no way someone as cool as me can be suspicious! The Team DH grunts in general are very convinced that they're the coolest people in any given area.  I saw a big dog Pokemon there. This is a hint at one of Tohoak's Legendaries.  The second hide and seek guy is here, hiding behind the PokeMart. He also tells me that one of the others is way back in Seafin.  This is him. He was already hiding back here before starting the game, maybe that's just what he spends all his time doing.  And there's the last guy, back behind the Gamboge Pokemon Center. He's the one who was standing in front of it before. It took me a frankly embarrassingly long time to find him. Now I can go back to Rydel and get this thing.  It's a skateboard, but by retracting the tires, it can become a snowboard too! Great, isn't it? And it has our logo on it, so it'll be great advertising too!  Hahahahahahaa thing this owns it's like the size of a surfboard What follows from here is a truly staggering amount of grinding to get Pichu and, to a lesser degree, Jamberree and Cupricorn up to par. I don't know how exactly friendship evolutions work, but this one takes a LONG time.  Pichu is level 7 at the start. It cannot fight anything besides maybe a Hoothoot on its own for quite a while, which slows things down by a significant degree.  This helps a LOT. Someone recommended I try to evolve Pichu early so I can get a Machu before level 18, which is when it learns Rolling Kick. I regret to inform you that I failed at that, I don't even have Pikachu at 18. I don't know if I get Brick Break or the Move Relearner first, but it'll be a bit.  While switching Pokemon around as I'm grinding, Cupricorn evolves! Hornikel doesn't pick up the Dark type yet, but it does look sick. I kind of miss Cupricorn's little tail cape thing though.   Oh my god FINALLY. This is the last possible level for it too, for a reason you'll see when Pikachu evolves. After getting all that done (like an HOUR of turbo speed grinding), I'm going to head back and deal with the Team DH invasion of Perimeter Labs.  I would agree with you. There's a bunch of Team DH milling around in this room - the one who will battle you has apparently lost to you before, in Hoenn.  The middle room doesn't really have anything going on, but the last one down the hall has the fossil reviver for this game. I give him our Root Fossil and immediately forget about it, but I don't really want to do a bunch more grinding anyways. That's all we can do out here right now.  It's a big beige maze! Apparently it's designed to simulate the interior of a PC Box, so uh...maybe I have some apologies to make to the things I catch and stick in there. I'm trying to get to the area in the top right with the rocks on the ground.  Thanks for letting me know!    There's a scientist under the textbox here that tells you about these traps. There's Team DH members who won't move in here, and each of these fuse boxes removes one. Removes how, or to where, I could not tell you. Probably safer to assume that they're getting launched through the ceiling Team Rocket-style than being vaporized or something.  But the Grunts from Hoenn wanted a name that honored their old teams, Black Hole and White Hole. We ended up as "Team Dark Hole!" Do you get why we just go by our initials now? You really shoulda stuck to your guns on this one, I think.  I haven't been showing much of these fights as everyone's mostly had the same stuff and none of it lasts long, but the Nidorans have upgraded to Nidorino and Nidorina now at least. Houndour, Cupricorn, Rynos, and Pineco make up most of the rest of the Team DH grunt teams.  need this much equipment? This guy is the last immovable grunt before the boss. The fuse box that gets rid of him is way back across the map, but after doing that and beating one more Nidorino/Rynos grunt, we finally get to the area's boss.  He doesn't have a unique overworld sprite, apparently.   You're the child who's been bullying my adorable subordinates, huh?  Hm? What's that? What's our goal here, you ask? Well, as always, it's the Secure Styler! So we hunted down Prof. Larch, who was involved in its development. You're rather slow on the uptake, huh? Anyway, you're here to rescue Prof. Larch, aren't you? But now you're the one in danger. There's no escape!   For all our sakes I'm skipping everything else he says. He makes fun of Reginald and then fights the grunt. Reginald faces Lyra.  I wish I could let you, man.   Capsaicin doesn't actually resist Fire any more thanks to his Steel typing, and this Houndour hits pretty hard. Reginald's team is somewhat nerfed in Minus, though I can't tell precisely how besides levels. Even with that he KOs Cap. It is here where I notice I don't have anything supereffective against Fire types on me, and the only thing I've got that's good against Dark is Reimu (and Fire resists Fairy anyways). I could have avoided that by continuing to level Rynos, but I did not.  It ends up not mattering because Reimu's faster and hits a bunch of Drain Kisses through Reginald's attempts to heal.  Next up is a Skarmory, which Reginald instantly uses an X Sp. Atk on for some reason?  Despite spending some time on that and Agility, Pikachu can't really touch it. Shadow Clamp is a new move for Vega, basically Ghost's premiere physical skill. 90 power, 90 accuracy, has a chance to confuse or sleep. This one was a crit, and Pikachu goes down instantly. Reimu, Blakjak, and Jamberree all go down to Steel Wing, Drill Peck, and more Shadow Clamps.  Eventually I end up having to use Hornikel, which resists most of that, to Growl Skarmory's attack down to nothing. Then I remembered I had a revive and get Capsaicin back up. Reginald switches out to a Staryu after one move.   With pretty heavy use of heals, Hornikel manages to beat the Staru, and thanks to a miss on the Hypnosis takes out Haunter too (which was also boosted with an X Sp. Atk).  Fortunately Cap's faster than the Skarmory and blasts its last bit of health off. Skarmories are TOUGH. Probably wouldn't have been nearly as bad if the Houndour, of all things, didn't manage to KO Capsaicin before I really noticed what was going on though. In Procyon and Deneb, by the way, Skarmory is getting an even tougher evolution (which also lets Skarmory use an Eviolite).  The grunt is not called George, but apparently Mos' name for him stuck. Sorry dude.   Larch thanks Lyra and Mosmero for helping out, Mos does some shtick, and speeds off somewhere. Larch also says we can talk to him later (read: immediately after I leave) for a reward.  Thanks to you, Team DH didn't learn the Secure Styler's secrets. If they had stolen the secrets, I wouldn't be able to look your father in the eyes ever again. You really saved us! Oh, right. I haven't given you your reward yet. Take this.  This is Surf! It feels really weird to get that before Cut and Rock Smash. On the other hand, it's also a move I'd actually want to have, so I'm not complaining. Immediately after getting it, the screen shakes violently.  That was certainly a big tremor... Could it be a sign that something's going to happen, or has it happened already? No, I'm probably overthinking it. It was just an ordinary earthquake. Are you sure? Because you really don't sound sure. I really love the "going to happen or already happened" line a lot, too. Like yeah, those are pretty much the options. I go sprint around the Spirit Mansion for a while after this until I can make that Spheal trade.  I....don't think I will be using this Spheal. Unless the Name Rater lets me change names for traded Pokemon in this. After all of this it's finally time to go fight the gym. The Gym Leader here is called Brooke, and seems pretty young. One of the people outside mentions she's got to check in on Brooke to make sure she eats and stuff instead of just doing Gym Battles all day long.  It's, uh, Misty's Gym?  Ah, no, it's Misty's Gym Deluxe. The gimmick here is basically not one at all. The Shellder are shooting water across the paths, and when you beat one a Shellder turns off. The trainers are mostly nondescript, but the last one provides a very important service to me and to us.     heheehehehHEHEHEHEEHE  of Gamboge City's Gym Leader. Were you surprised to see that such a young child is a Gym Leader? ...Oh? You don't seem that surprised. How interesting. With that kind of attitude, you should be an interesting person in battle as well. Then..The Water-type user, Brooke, is ready to begin! I suspect Lyra's run into a bunch of gym leaders who are children at this point. I think Mossdeep has two in the previous games? She's also probably not that much older than Brooke herself, given that it IS a Pokemon game, and she's a League Champion. Anyways, this'll go quick.    One punch.  One punch.  One punch.  One punch.  That's more like it. She hands over the Phact Badge, which lets us Surf out of combat and raises the team's defense. She also gives the TM for Aqua Bolt, a water move that can paralyze the opponent.  Fufufu... Recently, the Gym challengers had been quite unskilled, and I was becoming bored. If fate allows it, how about having another battle someday? It's a promise! It was? I'm glad to hear it you liked it, at least. If the wiki's to be believed, I'll fight her twice more after this, far in the future. Before I go, here's her non-Minus team. The big change is swapping that Kapwondo for a Shellder, along with leveling things down and taking some of the held items like normal. I couldn't tell you moves that were different, because Aqua Jet was the only one I saw.  That's as far as I've recorded, so for next time: If there's any team changes you'd like, let me know! Also! I've figured out how, and am thinking about editing in the majority of the postgame-locked fakemon to be accessible before the Elite Four. I know it's most of what I'm interested in here, and I suspect the same might be true for many of you. I'd be leaving things like fossils, starters, pseudolegendaries, and real pokemon that get new evolutions in the postgame anyways, but for most of the others I'd be sticking one or two in per route through the end of the game. Let me know if that seems like a worthwhile change to make - it'd be something I'd put some thought into, and not just stick them alphabetically or whatever. Draxion fucked around with this message at 19:50 on Aug 6, 2020 |
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Aug 6, 2020 19:23
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Draxion posted:Fortunately Cap's faster than the Skarmory and blasts its last bit of health off. Skarmories are TOUGH. Probably wouldn't have been nearly as bad if the Houndour, of all things, didn't manage to KO Capsaicin before I really noticed what was going on though. In Procyon and Deneb, by the way, Skarmory is getting Skarmory's getting...what? C'mon, don't leave us hanging like this! quote:http://lpix.org/3817398/2020-07-23 14-50-43_snapshot_02.09.10.950_2020.08.05_21.25.11_.png I don't know what happened here but that doesn't seem correct. Also I hate repeating this complaints but ugh, the maps. The cave thing was terrible but beyond that, I really dislike how the person behind this couldn't even be arsed to make snow tiles for grass so every time you have flowers or grass, there's suddenly patches of green that randomly break the snow. It's very visible and very distracting.
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Aug 6, 2020 19:45
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Blaze Dragon posted:Skarmory's getting...what? C'mon, don't leave us hanging like this! Oh, whoops, thanks! It's getting an evolution!  Absolutely no way it's not crazy good. Yeah the map work is not great. I don't really notice it when I'm zipping around at 300% speed, but looking at things like the mysterious bridge in the middle of dry land and the grass is very much Designer's First Map Project. Which like, it mostly is, but still.
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Aug 6, 2020 19:55
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I say go ahead and edit the new Pokemon in.
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Aug 6, 2020 21:28
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quote: The tunnel thing is wack, though.
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Aug 6, 2020 22:43
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Go wild with the encounter tables. You are the one playing through so do whatever makes it more interesting/enjoyable!
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Aug 6, 2020 23:08
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yeah, seriously, edit in the new pokemon if you want. it's kind of stupid to put most of them in the postgame, since if a fangame has unique pokemon people are going to want to see those first and foremost.
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Aug 6, 2020 23:09
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I'll go ahead and Nth the sentiment of sprinkling in more of the Fakemons. Speaking of Fakemons, though... I really, really do not like Machu. It's so loving stupid, and not 'funny ha ha' stupid either. It's 'why does this exist' stupid. It's, dare I say it, Pokemon Clover stupid. Apart from maybe the evolution line based off of otakus (and even then they actually put some effort into their sprites), nothing else in Vega's dex is really a joke design. If there were, or even better, if all the other designs were jokes, I wouldn't even bat an eye, but as it stands it's just so... jarring. Also holy gently caress that Starmie. Psychic, Ice Beam, and Discharge, when this is the third gym?! I know it's a common joke that Misty's Starmie is this big, bad road block, but this thing makes it look like a loving Sunkern...
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Aug 7, 2020 00:29
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 One Punch Mon this is baller as hell
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Aug 7, 2020 01:28
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Machu is hysterical, but I'm also the person who thinks The Mos is hysterical. So, yeah, the Water Gym is a huge problem spot. Machu and the Grass Berry Evolution help a lot as they'll be on-level and are happiness evos but the fact that they're all special attackers is a pretty big roadblock since you can't just use Intimidate and Charm. The best strategy is to bring a Baizeast with Synchronise to the Starmie as its best option for hurting you also has a 40% Paralysis proc. The fact that it's also doubled up with that DH boss is a bit of a problem, as...well, lemme paraphrase from a different Vega LP. quote:Houndour Lv25: Super Fang, Will o' Wisp, Ember, Dark Roar Yeah. Like I said, those two back to back are easily the worst parts of this game. I'd count an upcoming fight too, but it has its own quirk that kind of neuters it. From then on you have an assload more options. Also, I like the Bear Evo since it leaves the haunted nature of Velvelt untouched, and that's a good way to do horror. It is pretty ugly though.
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Aug 7, 2020 06:43
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Overall N'thing the "go for editing more things in" since a good number of things are just kinda bad by being postgame only, but I think the "can't evolve because no national dex" thing from FRLG is still a thing. Not sure what the flag for letting evolutions happen. without the dex is or how you'd go about it, though.
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Aug 8, 2020 01:02
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Faillen Angel posted:Machu is hysterical, but I'm also the person who thinks The Mos is hysterical. I love Machu. It looks like a Machoke wearing a Pikachu costume head, it's fantastic compared to how relatively normal (or weird, but in an "I can't tell what this is supposed to be" way) a lot of the other new pokemon are. Toyotasomi no Miko posted:Overall N'thing the "go for editing more things in" since a good number of things are just kinda bad by being postgame only, but I think the "can't evolve because no national dex" thing from FRLG is still a thing. Not sure what the flag for letting evolutions happen. without the dex is or how you'd go about it, though. Oh, that's a good call. I checked to make sure I could catch them at all without the game crashing or something, but didn't see if they could evolve. If they can't I'll figure something out - I'll look around to see if there's a reasonably elegant way of doing it, but if not there's probably some hackier stuff I could do like just unlocking the national dex now. e. actually hold on, there's a good chance that flips the elite four and stuff into their postgame versions, isn't there? I'll see what I can find. Draxion fucked around with this message at 01:26 on Aug 8, 2020 |
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Aug 8, 2020 01:14
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