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Part 15: Volcanic Clamber Citadark Isle Only a few steps into the next room before we fight another trainer.   We're facing quite a few Pokemon evolved or otherwise. While it's not too tough, it's great training for our Pokemon. Believe me, we'll need it.    Everyone's starting their long climb into the 40s. How far they've come.      We're responsible for keeping CITADARK ISLE ringed with vicious waves. Thanks to this place, it's not easy for ships to approach CITADARK ISLE.   I want to give all these nerds a massive swirly. We have the technology.  Gonna avoid this guy, I don't want to battle anyone just yet, gotta explore!   To terrify people into the pits of despair through battling... that is our purpose! With that clear vision, we are not about to lose!    Some interesting mons, but not high level enough to be a threat.    Ah, excuse me madam.    Rednammok stabs Kakyoin in the back, but he doesn't give a poo poo.   Special moves, however, really hurt, especially when Rednammok is right there.   Strap in, we're about to go on safari.   Aw man, one of the scientist's kids threw away their doll.   Kangaskhan, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rush/Earthquake, Shadow Mist, Sing, Tail Whip, Dizzy Punch Big momma is back as another Normal type without Return. Nifty. Well it doesn't really mind, as Body Slam or Double-Edge are perfectly fine substitutes, if not perfect. With a massive movepool, it can do basically anything you want, mainly physical attacks, as it has no SpAtk to use. So it coming with a free Earthquake is nice and Dizzy Punch is a perfectly fine move. Add in Shadow Ball and Brick Break and you've got a party. Other physical options are of course postgame, so there's not much to really go over otherwise. It has high stats and is a pretty standard attacker. As simple as that.    Banette, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rush/Faint Attack, Shadow Hold/Helping Hand, Shadow Ball, Curse Man that was close, this thing is fragile... We all know how good Banette is, Calbrena basically beat the Champion for me, and it stays good here, mainly cause Ghost is a good neutral attacker. While it can't do much aside from Ghost and Normal moves, its SpAtk isn't so awful you can't throw in Thunderbolt or Psychic, but Curse is a very nice move to take down tricky opponents, though it's less useful in these games, since those tricky opponents are Pokemon you want to catch. Still, it can dish out the damage, which is exactly what you want for the endgame. Just a shame it's so fragile and everyone loves to carry Shadow Ball themselves.   Uh    You'd think after five years he'd learn how to use this thing...   Anyway, welcome to Block Pushing: Hot Stuff edition.    It's, uh, really easy.   Now we've got 3 White Herbs we won't use! Let's get out of here, convection can only be ignored for so long.   Kakyoin feels the heat.     Then feels the ground. All in a day's work.   It's a boober   Oh this a mon to watch out for, as Rednammok just got one shot by it.    Magmar, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rave/Fire Blast, Shadow Rush/Follow Me, Shadow Shed/Cross Chop, Thunderpunch Goddamn those are some good moves, why can't every other mon get those? All you need to do is teach it Psychic and that's about a good a moveset as you're gonna get. Why am I using a mon so boring as Houndoom when this is an option? Great moves aside, Magmar has pretty good stats, being a nice and speedy mixed attacker. Aside from Normal moves, it only really gets Iron Tail and Brick Break, or in this case Cross Chop, so it's definitely something to treasure. Thunderpunch is just icing on the cake, letting it take out Gyarados with ease. If you're not sure on a final pick, this is a weirdly good choice. Pinsir, 45 catch rate (78%, low health, paralyzed, Net Ball), starting moves: Shadow Break/Guillotine, Shadow Shed/Helping Hand, False Swipe, Submission Ain't this just an apt comparison on how proper purification moves make a Pokemon? To make this mon useful requires a bit of work, but is definitely possible. You can tutor Brick Break back, as Submission is pretty bad and it'll learn Swords Dance in the postgame, which is pretty neat. Then you can give it Earthquake and then, ugh, Rock Tomb in the postgame. No STAB of course, the only Bug move it learns is Fury Cutter and that only became available via Emerald Move Tutor. That's it, no other STAB across all of Gen 3. Funny how GF let certain mons just slip through the cracks for a while...   Oh man we need this. Does it mean we're near the end of this place?   No. Does this look like the final update to you?      MASTER GREEVIL better not have seen this!  We're back into the heart of the volcano itself.   That looks fun, but how about we just ignore all that and go down the clearly obvious dead end. Like come on, I've played RPGs before!   There needs to be some kind of tell there's someone above you. Maybe if you could actually see them perched upside like a bat if you get the right camera angle.   Great time for a boosting move, I agree.    Oh god get ready to see Shadow Sky EVERYWHERE. It gets super annoying.   Rapidash, 60 catch rate (62%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rave/Solarbeam, Shadow Down/Baton Pass, Shadow Sky/Sunny Day, Flamethrower Ah a physical Fire type, always a sight. Well, this is probably the best moveset for it, to be a speedy sun attacker. It might not be the best sun setter since it's so fragile, but it'll easily lay down the hurt when it's up. Since its SpAtk is good, but not great compared to its Atk, it won't be doing loads of damage, but it's the best you can really do. For physical options you have Body Slam and Iron Tail, so ain't that fun? Fire types have been plentiful in this game, so to have an unimpressive one this late is... meh.   Magcargo, 75 catch rate (78%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rave/Heat Wave, Shadow Shed/Refresh, Earthquake, Flamethrower This happy snail that's around 500 times hotter than this volcano is not all that great, due to its bad typing, low stats, especially Speed (it's a snail doncha know) and mediocre attacking stats. Since its Atk is pretty bad, you can't use its Rock STAB in an upcoming Rock Slide, nor the free Earthquake it comes with. Also Heat Wave AND Flamethrower is a bit excessive, since you'll pick Fire Blast anyway. Otherwise, it doesn't learn any other special moves, so up against a Water type, you're pretty screwed. Hell, you're just screwed in general, Magcargo can work, but it's very hard to use.   Another five steps and the next trainer reveals themselves.    Hell yeah   Wait a minute... this is the way forward! Bah.   And we don't even need to fight this trainer to get to the item! This place is weird.    I love all these Fire weak Pokemon... here in a volcano. Why does Orre have two volcanoes anyway?   Well it's an alright view.   Alright, guess we'll fight a load of optional trainers, since I cannot ignore the allure of items.     As you can see, the enemy has very dangerous attacks.   There better be something good past here.   Oh hey that's quite nice. And there's another item over there? How big is this place, I thought that lift was the end.    Okay here's some Water types to keep the deadly lava air back. Seriously, being near lava is real bad news since the air kills you before you even touch the drat stuff.     Even having a scary spider won't be enough to stop me. I saw a really big spider today crawling over my desk. Well, big as in England big, so about the size of my palm, which is impressive for something that's not a Daddy Long Legs. Anyway, that's my spider story, please subscribe to my Youtube channel.   Now I've gotta know what's in that chest!     Just to show that this guy has 6 Pokemon. There are a lot of trainers in this game with full teams and it can wear you down a fair bit.   See, having Shed Skin activate once is much better than Intimidate activating every switch in. Right? Well the constant Intimidate animation would start to piss me off.  That... wasn't really worth it. Alright, back onto the main path.    Together, we bring... the power-double explosion attack!  Well he has some tough critters.    Hitmonchan, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rush/Mega Punch, Shadow Down/Helping Hand, Mind Reader, Sky Uppercut Oh hey it's the only time in the entire series you can just catch these two, cause you know who's coming next. Punch-chan ain't as good as Kick-lee since its unique moves are the elemental punches... which are still special. But hey, Sky Uppercut is a fine move and you can get Body Slam and Earthquake, then either Rock Tomb or Mach Punch to round out the postgame moveset. Priority is really nice. Otherwise, it's a hard hitting Fighting type that's alright, but not particularly interesting, so hey, give it a shot if you want.     Another team of strong mons, including the expected Shadow Pokemon.   It packs a real punch, er, kick, one-shotting Hotdog. Poor Hotdog.   Hitmonlee, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rush/Hi Jump Kick, Shadow Down/Refresh, Shadow Half/Mind Reader, Mega Kick Now for the final hitmon, since top was in the last game. Hi Jump Kick is exactly the same as Sky Uppercut, except it kills you if you miss, so that's fun. Lee's unique moves are a bunch of kicking moves that are like Hi Jump Kick, but worse, so don't use them, even if Rolling Kick's 30% flinch chance is weirdly good. Anyway, since it has higher Atk and Spd than Punch-chan, it's better to use, but there's so little differentiating them it doesn't really matter, whichever one you think looks the best. The final moves end up being similar, but the loss of Mach Punch is a shame. Still, if you want a weaker Gen 1 Medicham, then here you go.   Next floor has these hovering blocks in this room and this room only. I don't get it either. If we head to the right first, we reach an empty space.  OR DO WE? If we wait a little bit, then another platform rises up to meet us. There's no actual platforming though, Michael just walks onto the middle of the platform no problem.   Ooh, hidden treasure. You need to get back onto the platform quick, or it'll leave without you and you'll be waiting for a while.   Now we continue on the regular path and immediately run into a trainer. Of course.     Bite is the better of the two, since it has the flinch chance, which comes up a lot more often than the perfect accuracy of Faint Attack.    Battle of the Body Slam.  That's really nice! Seems a bit too easy though.     Figures. You getting bored of Cipher battles yet?   He has a Wailord, so it's a pretty great time no matter what happens.   Alright, we're now above the starting area! That... seems like not much of an accomplishment. How big is this place???   But after a couple more platforms, have we reached the end?   No. No we have not.   Remember this mechanic? It's back for some reason!   But of course, it's not going to just be linear and boring, oh no, it needs to have a twist along with being linear and boring!   Oh look at that a battle against Cipher woah.   Magneton could just one shot Kakyoin with an Electric move.   But I guess it didn't feel like it.   Oh wow a Shadow Panic miss. About time that started happening to the enemy.   Lickitung, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rush/Double-Edge, Shadow Panic/Helping Hand, Defense Curl, Rollout Oh dear oh dear. We've had a fair few Normal types pop up throughout the game and this is probably the worst one. Its stats are just awful, so its extremely wide movepool goes completely to waste since it has low offenses in favour of high HP and mediocre defenses. So you can go for a mixed set I guess, but it's going to be painful, even if you can teach it basically any TM you want. A free Double-Edge is fine, but the Defense Curl Rollout combo is pretty garbo and due to its stats it's better suited to a defensive role. That's perfectly fine in this instance, since having a Shadow Pokemon that can take hits is pretty nice for later on, so it has that going for it. Otherwise, it can sub up, Toxic, Seismic Toss and Knock Off. Pretty bad for single player, but it's the end of the game, might as well use it for something.   Alright, guess I'll die.   Seriously it's such a comically long drop, I don't get how Michael just brushes that poo poo off.   Anyway, the gimmick is falling down into the areas we couldn't reach earlier. But it's really difficult to gauge, since the floors don't feel like they match up 1 to 1, so it just feels like random guessing.    And you have to ride the drat hooks each and every time. At least the light turns off on holes you've already fallen through, but I don't exactly love this puzzle.   Now fighting Cipher, that's something I never tire of.   Oh yeah, Exploud learns that when it evolves. You still got your safari gear on?   Ooh, lucky.     Scyther, 45 catch rate (78%, low health, paralyzed, Net Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rush/Razor Wind, Shadow Mist/Morning Sun, Silver Wind, Slash Quite a potent attacker as we just saw. Since trading won't be a thing until postgame, Scyther is what you'll be using and, honestly, Scyther is all you'll need. It gets STAB, which is more than Pinsir can say and it even gets... Morning Sun. Cause it's a Bug, I guess? You can even tutor Flying STAB in Wing Attack onto it, as well as Swords Dance! What the hell is this sorcery? This makes Scyther very deadly, if kinda fragile and very weak to a lot of types. Still, it's very strong and fast, so if you fancy using a Bug/Flying type that actually gets Bug AND Flying moves, then this is one hell of a pickup. Chansey, 30 catch rate (31%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rave/Thunderbolt, Shadow Hold/Sweet Kiss, Softboiled, Skill Swap At least it doesn't have a chance to run away. Chansey has basically zero offensive presence and will fall to basically any physical move that looks at it, but as a special sponge, it really can't be beat, aside from its evolution. If you needed to, say, resist some pretty strong special Shadow moves coming up, then this Pokemon might be your best friend. Aside from that, its SpAtk is too low to actually consider using, it's a very effective tank against the right Pokemon. It can even be a good catcher with Sing and Seismic Toss, though Wish is something only very few people got in a Gen 3 event and then everyone "obtained" in Gen 5. With screens and status spreading, this can be quite the useful mon, but it does have really good utility walling special Shadow Pokemon.  Alright, we are finally at the top. There's a very scary figure on the bridge there, but maybe we could find a healing machine or something around here, maybe? Cipher Admin Theme   My plan was perfect. The only problems were the utterly useless LOVRINA and GORIGAN, and... you. You spoiled the brilliant plan I had devised for PHENAC CITY. And thanks to that terrible, hard-nosed woman, I suffered the humiliation of having my worst moment broadcast all over ORRE... To gain MASTER GREEVIL's forgiveness, and for me to assume my rightful position as the GOVERNOR of ORRE, I must defeat you. This time, I won't be shy about revealing to you the full extent of my power. Cipher Admin Battle       Hey remember when we faced Lovrina at the end of the last update? It took a while to find another Cipher Admin, but it does mean we're getting towards the end where we'll have a hell of a time getting through these fights unscathed.   And of course some new Shadow Pokemon. Ain't that just peachy? How many have we encountered in this update alone? Seems like a lot.    Of course there's Shadow Sky. There's always Shadow Sky.   I'm too lazy to use Rain Dance to boost my one Water move, so it's mainly to get rid of weather strategies that can really turn a battle around. Aside from rain, obviously, which is annoying, since Kakyoin is my best Water resist as Portobello dies to the Ice Beam they always carry.   Since this is the second appearance of Castform with Shadow Sky, they were definitely trying to show it off, but making it Water makes it easy pickings for Pineapple.   Aww maaaaaaaaan     What a thrill. We're actually getting pretty hammered since Starmie hurts a lot and Solrock REFUSES TO BE CAUGHT.   Solrock, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rave/Psychic, Shadow Panic/Baton Pass, Shadow Sky/Sunny Day, Cosmic Power After the moon so long ago, it's the sun's turn now. We're at the point of the endgame where you don't have long to purify any Pokemon you want to use, so I'll make the cutoff after this battle for Pokemon you'll be using for the postgame. In any case, despite the moveset, Solrock has awful SpAtk and works much better with Rock Slide from the reminder and Explosion through level up. Then you've got Earthquake and Shadow Ball, but since it's so ridiculously late into the game, you won't really have those TMs unless you set your sights on this Pokemon. It's perfectly fine, its typing isn't amazing, but it gets good coverage, a Ground immunity and it can even go boom. But it's had a lot of competition so far and there are of course a fair chunk of Shadow Pokemon left to go.   Starmie, 60 catch rate (99%, low health, paralyzed, Net Ball), starting moves: Shadow Storm/Waterfall, Shadow Break/Refresh, Shadow Mist/Ice Beam, Recover Just add Psychic and this Pokemon is 100% ready to do anything you need it to. That's it, it's a goddamn Starmie, what were you expecting? I guess you could also give it Thunderbolt. Again, it's Starmie, an absolute special monster. Citadark Isle  Well he's going where we just came from, but where does that other lift go? We're a bit beat up here.   Oh. Oh that's pretty mean game. Uh, who do we have left?   We'll be just fine.    M-Mostly.   Alright, we've got the shortcut to the start unlocked, so now we've got to face one of Verich's, uh, Greevil's bodyguards. Ardos   ...there's no need for thanks. I was merely punishing a fool that used a SHADOW POKEMON in public. At that time, we didn't want the world to know what we, CIPHER, were planning. Back then, I thought you were just an ordinary child... little did I suspect that you would become CIPHER's biggest and damaging threat. That's enough talk. You have the skills and wherewithal to reach CITADARK ISLE. Let me see your abilities in full glory!    Oh good, let's start off with some fun.   Ardos is a bit tricky, since he has THREE Shadow Pokemon and the ones that aren't are real bitches to put down.     Kingdra should be put down immediately, since we have no Dragon moves this time around.   While I've been dealing with the various threats, Swellow has been happily OHKOing or 2HKOing our team.   We need to start catching some stuff, they're hitting pretty drat hard now, especially with a full range of Shadow moves to use, which means, indeed, these rare 4 Shadow move Pokemon will regain no moves during gauge lowering. Nasty.   Swellow, 45 catch rate (30%, low health, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Break/Sky Attack, Shadow Sky/Baton Pass, Shadow Half/Agility, Shadow Mist/Facade There's only a few Pokemon that could be helpful as a Shadow Pokemon at the endgame, usually ones that can take resisted hits of mostly special attacks. Anything else is basically postgame. Swellow is another fast hard hitting bird and has some interesting tech in Guts and Facade, but it's not very consistent. XD's postgame is pretty brutal, so something fragile doesn't really work that well, but things that are fast and hit really hard are also golden, so it's a 50/50. Hopefully it takes something out before it goes down, but Double-Edge and Aerial Ace are the best its gonna get and it can't touch Rock types until we eventually get Steel Wing. Gonna be rough.  Ardos, where's my Poke Flute? It's for the greater good!     Well that's made things a bit easier.    Snorlax is a pretty tough catch, since it has Leftovers and also Shadow End, a physical 120BP, 60% accuracy move that has recoil damage. Before you start hyperventilating, it's only half of your current HP, so while it's pretty risky at the start of the battle, if you've taken enough damage, this becomes a very easy attack to spam if you can stay alive. Might be difficult with its awful accuracy, but hey Hypnosis never misses, so why should this?  Electabuzz, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Break/Cross Chop, Shadow Mist/Follow Me, Shadow Half/Thunder Wave, Shadow Storm/Thunderbolt So if you didn't fancy the Elekid we got, maybe this is more your fancy, with a little bit less coverage. To say there's not a huge reason of trading Togepi away would've spoiled this, so I suggested it was a good idea, but now we know some more, maybe keeping Togepi around to become a Tri Attack Togekiss ain't a bad idea. In any case, even without Ice Punch, you still get Cross Chop and Psychic so it's not all bad, this is a very potent attacker and it's fast, a real plus in the postgame. But the Elekid you decided to take for a spin would be doing very well by this point, so this mon wouldn't apply to you at all, since you have the better version. Still, so long as you avoid Earthquake, this speedy angry gremlin thing will do you just fine.   While we are getting completely obliterated, I think the third and final of Ardos's Shadow Pokemon is ready to be caught.  Snorlax, 25 catch rate (30%, low health, paralyzed, Timer Ball 15+ turns), starting moves: Shadow End/Fissure, Shadow Shed/Refresh, Curse, Body Slam Hopefully you caught this mon before it ended you. Snorlax is pretty drat tough, hitting hard and laughing off special hits. This makes it a fantastic Shadow Pokemon to use very soon, since it'll easily wall even the strongest Shadow moves. Past that, since it can take a hit and respond in kind, it'll work out alright, since you can Curse up with enough team support, or even Belly Drum, to really seal it. Being a large teddy bear, of course it can learn any move you really fancy, so give it all the physical moves. You can even go RestoChesto, or explode in everyone's face. It's definitely something to consider as everything gets harder and harder.    But, boy, don't think that this is over. I won't abandon my dreams!  Well that was a tough battle, but there's still plenty to go. Next time, it's the grand finale. And maybe even... more resets? Strap in everyone, this is where the game goes downhill and never recovers, oh baby.
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Sep 2, 2018 02:44
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Fun fact about Shadow Magcargo and Snorlax: In Generation 3 these two Pokemon had egg moves that (by all appearances) could not be legitimately obtained. Those unobtainable egg moves were Heat Wave for Magcargo and Fissure for Snorlax, and until Gale Of Darkness was released, no parent Pokemon in Gen 3 could pass these moves down. With the release of Gale of Darkness, you could now obtain a Heat Wave Magcargo or a Fissure/Curse Snorlax by snagging a male (this Gen 3, only male Pokemon pass down egg moves), purifying it, and trading it over to breed. I would love to know if this was coordinated between Gamefreak and Genius Sonority, or if we would have had another Head Smash Nosepass if Gale of Darkness had never been released. In the current gens, Heat Wave is available as a tutor move every time the games have tutor moves (seriously, why not make some of the regular tutor moves into TMs at this point), and Fissure can be chain-bred onto Snorlax via Stunfisk->Lapras->Snorlax. Saladin Rising fucked around with this message at 03:55 on Sep 2, 2018 |
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Sep 2, 2018 03:41
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I love how citadark goes on so long it has its own internal level curve that grows by like 12 levels just getting to this point. The selection of shadow pokemon here are pretty good from a collector's perspective. A ton of safari zone pokemon (chansey being the big get here)that are always a pain to get, some version exclusives, evolved otherwise rare pokemon (well starmie isnt rare in FRLG but whatever) and the hitmons are appreciated since you can only get one a game. No fossil pokemon's a bummer, though. quote:Even having a scary spider won't be enough to stop me. I saw a really big spider today crawling over my desk. Well, big as in England big, so about the size of my palm, which is impressive for something that's not a Daddy Long Legs. Anyway, that's my spider story, please subscribe to my Youtube channel.
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Sep 2, 2018 04:12
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rannum posted:Thanks, I hate it! I also hate it since it's reminded me there is one that size somewhere in my airing cupboard.
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Sep 2, 2018 07:59
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Fun fact, Sejun Park of VGC14's champion actually used a Magmar from Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness in 2013. It's hacked, along with his entire team, but it's the thought that counts, right? Source: https://imgur.com/a/vDjV8
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Sep 2, 2018 12:43
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rannum posted:Thanks, I hate it! I've honestly never seen a spider so big in my house before, it was pretty impressive! LightningKimba posted:Fun fact, Sejun Park of VGC14's champion actually used a Magmar from Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness in 2013. It's hacked, along with his entire team, but it's the thought that counts, right? lol that most of these are just "mmm, actually the RNG wouldn't allow such a combination", which I didn't even know what really a thing. Good on Gamefreak for making breeding tedious and boring AND have some things being mathematically impossible. Good job.
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Sep 2, 2018 20:51
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quote:...alright I'm out of things to do, so make sure you've got plenty of items and balls, because I won't be making any return trips That's quite impressive OP! Also I wanna say that the fake floor room is where my Pupitar evolved into a Tyranitar. As well, I swear by Shadow End.
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Sep 2, 2018 22:09
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I thought you were joking when you said this place was a fourth of the game.
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Sep 3, 2018 00:12
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Snattle onwards is basically Genius bringing back the "go gently caress yourself" tone of Colosseum's Realgam Elite Four+2 Champions.
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Sep 3, 2018 00:17
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:I thought you were joking when you said this place was a fourth of the game.  Although to be fair, Pokemon games in general had trouble with that until Gen 4.
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Sep 3, 2018 03:08
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:I thought you were joking when you said this place was a fourth of the game. ahaahahahahahaha. I beat the game twice, but I played it almost to the end something like five more times, and gave up here every one of those times. it's just too drat long. for anyone who wants to play XD, please don't do Citadark Island in one go. Also, a lot of online guides at the time suggested slotting some of the better Shadow Pokemon into your team for the final set of battles. Electabuzz in particular is invaluable due to Shadow Half. I'm still very sad there's never going to be another Orre game. I think Colosseum/XD just came out at the wrong time. an Orre game on the Switch would probably do pretty well.
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Sep 3, 2018 08:37
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I do like how these shadow 'mons have entire corrupted movesets now. It sells them pretty well as destructive powerhouses.
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Sep 3, 2018 22:11
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Saladin Rising posted:Fun fact about Shadow Magcargo and Snorlax: In Generation 3 these two Pokemon had egg moves that (by all appearances) could not be legitimately obtained. Those unobtainable egg moves were Heat Wave for Magcargo and Fissure for Snorlax, and until Gale Of Darkness was released, no parent Pokemon in Gen 3 could pass these moves down. The other XD Snorlax novelty is that it can get Selfdestruct from the Teacher Lady, which was otherwise inaccessible since gen 1. There's a lot more weirdness around that move, though - it seems to have become an egg move in gen 5, and they occasionally released event Munchlax with it. Glazius posted:I do like how these shadow 'mons have entire corrupted movesets now. It sells them pretty well as destructive powerhouses. I like this too, though it's a bit of a missed opportunity that a lot of them didn't appear earlier in the game. They created an interesting variety of shadow moves (which is a definite improvement over Colosseum) but the distribution definitely could've been better and too many of them skew lategame-only. At least these pokemon are at a high enough level that you could reasonably use them as team members without purifying, if you want to mess around with those moves (and there are actually good reasons you might want to, another definite improvement). Also, Shadow End is nasty and can really gently caress you over if you're trying to weaken something and don't know it's coming (this totally never happened to me, what are you talking about?). Of course, if you do know it's coming it's not hard to take advantage and let pokemon put themselves in capture range... Hobgoblin2099 posted:I thought you were joking when you said this place was a fourth of the game. That might actually be an underestimate, especially if you choose not to count the side content. Citadark Isle alone has nearly half of the game's Shadow Pokemon.
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Sep 4, 2018 01:45
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Side Course 9: Battle CD Selection 4 Battle SIM Reward: TM01 Focus Punch There's yet more Battle CDs to go over. Surely we're running out of them by now?      Do I like Focus Punch? Eh, kinda. Pulling them off unprotected is a lot of fun.    Clefable will use Follow Me every turn, because why wouldn't you.   I didn't need to use Spore on the first turn, but hey, if we have it, might as well use it.   Since we're faster than Mankey, we can easily take it down, but since Meowth is still faster, we still need Follow Me.   Well wasn't that fun. I still prefer the other Follow Me CD, since that actually felt tense since Aggron was so dangerous.  Reward: Rare Candy     This seems like a battle we can win. Hell yeah!     To begin with, we'll need a couple of these, thank you.   Alright, easy enough, since Banette is a physical attacking monster.   Then we need to deplete PP, limiting Zangoose's options.   Now we can lock it into Swords Dance.    We then need to use Agility to then keep it locked into Swords Dance and then whittle it down.  Charge isn't helpful since we'll do more damage with two Thundershocks instead of a charged one, depending on damage variation. The SpDef boost wasn't until next gen.  Reward: Lum Berry x5       We don't have much time in this battle, so we need to do something about Protect.     Since we have a dead turn, effectively, we need to switch in Ninetales and use Charge. Yes, due to these circumstances, Charge is a good idea. Amazing what weird and wonderful strategies are in these CDs.   Alright, we've dealt some major damage, but there's only three turns to go.   Let's stop them from doing that Protect thing and start bringing Muk down.   Hmm, that's annoying, but a Helping Hand Flamethrower will easily knock out a half health Mu-   What the Muk?  ...there we go, beat the CD first try!  Reward: Elixir       Taking out these Magikarp is going to be quite the challenge. You remember how OHKO moves work, right?    We need Poliwhirl out, since he's about to get a lesson in aiming.   Beautiful. Usually OHKO moves are Acc = ((user_level - target_level) + 30) * 100%, resulting in 30% if both Pokemon are the same level. Certain moves like Mind Reader or Lock-On make it so, until the end of the next turn, the user's attack will not miss. Regardless, OHKO moves will never work on Pokemon that are higher level.   So Poliwhirl can take out this Magikarp no problem, but how can Smeargle take out the other one?   With Baton Pass of course, since Mind Reader and such is passed on that way, along with other moves such as Mean Look and Ingrain. It refreshes the move, so Spheal's moves don't miss until the end of next turn.  Simple, really.  Reward: Full Restore, CD 43       Hey let's do some A and B sides. I know you want to!   Articuno's not much of a threat, we just need to hit our Hydro Pumps.   ...or it could just hit two 30% rolls in a row. That's cool too.   OH NOW YOU USE MIND READER.   At least Raikou is so good, it can solo the entire trio.  Reward: Full Restore       Now for the other side, where it's a little tricky since we're facing Raikou right from the start. You know, the one who can beat this team by itself?   Well thankfully, you can beat Raikou with Articuno, you just need to PP stall and also get a bit lucky. Raikou was a bit rude and used Double Team on my Protect turn. Bastard.   Much better.   You need to throw up an Agility so you can outspeed and put up Substitute, though a Thunder miss is very nice.   Well drat, time to sweep the whole team.   Aw man   Still, this is a 1v1 we can definitely win.   Uh, so long as you don't get flinched to death.   Oh well, we've saved the best bird til last.    Suicune is usually a bitch, but it just decided to set the rain up for a Thunder. It's just a shame we don't have Thunder, but oh well.  Reward: Max Revive, CD 48     We've got two behemoth birds, but with the Soul Dew, the Latis become incredibly terrifying.    We need to put the kibosh on these two immediately. Thankfully they both target Ho-oh, letting us get a free turn in lowering their Speed.   As you'd expect, Latios needs to faint NOW   Owwwwwwww. Thankfully we're bulky enough to survive one round. Barely.   With the 10/10 threat out of the way, we can now go for the 9/10 threat. You're not out of this yet.    Still, since it doesn't knock out Ho-oh, a 2v1 situation is very easy to win. It'd be pretty dumb if a game had an option to do something like that.  Reward: Max Revive     Taking away the Soul Dew is rude as heck. At least give us the Mega stones!   We need to stratergise again. Since Lugia has Aeroblast, it needs to be knocked out immediately.   Latios needs to Protect so it can still outspeed both birbs, as Lugia doesn't go for Icy Wind again.   Keeping Latias's health topped up with Recover is a good idea, since she gets targetted a lot.   Phew, now we're in this. Ho-oh isn't a big deal since it likes going for Aerial Ace.   It'll take a couple turns, but again, a 2v1 situation makes it super easy.   This can be a super frustrating CD if the opponent focuses on one Lati, since Lugia will do a lot of damage, but it only took me like three tries. I know everyone's not gonna be as good as me at these, hyuck hyuck.  Reward: TM11 Sunny Day     The last two CDs of the LP are- oh, there's more in the postgame? Ugh, fine, of the UPDATE, revolve around the Gen 3 mascots. Should be easy, right?   We've got a need for +1 Speed.   Shiftry is faster than Jumpluff since they both have Chlorophyll, but thankfully Groudon goes for Ninjask.   That's fine by me. Mental that Shifty's +2 Speed is beaten out by Ninjask's +1 Speed. Next step of the plan is for Jumpluff to hit Sleep Powder!   I can't believe you've done this.   I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU'VE DONE THIS   Ah it's not a big deal actually, since Jumpluff can easily solo a Groudon. I mean, obviously.  Reward: TM18 Rain Dance     You ready to make it rain?    This is one of the few CDs that actually make use of abilities, since you're not told of that info initially. Always comforting to check.   Quagsire gives zero shits about what anyone here does, so be prepared.   You can probably see where I'm going with this.   And since Lanturn also doesn't care what Kyogre does, it's a very easy fight. Not really deserving of the final CD, but I prefer it when they're quick and easy.  Now you know where Kakyoin's Rain Dance came from. Truly a wonderful origin story. Anyway, that's it for Battle CDs in side updates, since XD's postgame is short and bad and the remaining CDs are also short and bad, we can use the latter to pad out the former!
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Sep 6, 2018 01:22
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I had no idea that Lock-On and Mind Reader can be baton passed.
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Sep 6, 2018 15:14
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OgretailFood posted:I had no idea that Lock-On and Mind Reader can be baton passed. Neither did I. This LP sure is educational. I'll proceed to never use this information, but hey, at least I have it now.
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Sep 6, 2018 16:15
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OgretailFood posted:I had no idea that Lock-On and Mind Reader can be baton passed. Does this let you use Lock-On with one of the 30% accuracy instant-KO moves (Fissure, Guillotine, etc.)? I've often wondered if that would ever be possible.
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Sep 8, 2018 00:00
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Cockmaster posted:Does this let you use Lock-On with one of the 30% accuracy instant-KO moves (Fissure, Guillotine, etc.)? I've often wondered if that would ever be possible. Yeah, it's totally possible, and even the entire point of that Battle CD it appears in. It's even possible on a single Pokemon - Smeargle can do it, obviously, but Articuno can as well with Mind Reader/Sheer Cold. There might be other Pokemon that have the potential to do it, but I can't think of any at the moment.
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Sep 8, 2018 00:06
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Just finished the Crystal LP. Wanted to thank you for showing all the bonuses in HGSS and now I'm very confused as to how I remember nothing from my favorite mainline game and why I have someone else's SS rather than my HG. I must have used Amnesia at some point. Double Thanks for showing off the Battle stuff, its nice to see what little exists of these characters that 95% of players will never meet. Hope you keep it up, I'm saving Conquest for last so moving on to emerald and then this!
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Sep 8, 2018 14:46
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Epicmissingno posted:Yeah, it's totally possible, and even the entire point of that Battle CD it appears in. It's even possible on a single Pokemon - Smeargle can do it, obviously, but Articuno can as well with Mind Reader/Sheer Cold. There might be other Pokemon that have the potential to do it, but I can't think of any at the moment. Poliwrath can too, but it's got a bit of a hoop for it: Gen 1 Fissure TM, then transfer it to Gen 7 to plonk Mind Reader on it from levelup.
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Sep 8, 2018 19:41
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Epicmissingno posted:Yeah, it's totally possible, and even the entire point of that Battle CD it appears in. It's even possible on a single Pokemon - Smeargle can do it, obviously, but Articuno can as well with Mind Reader/Sheer Cold. There might be other Pokemon that have the potential to do it, but I can't think of any at the moment. Interesting... That raises another question: Would that ever be a practical strategy in competitive play?
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Sep 8, 2018 22:02
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Cockmaster posted:Interesting... That raises another question: Would that ever be a practical strategy in competitive play? Not really, it's not hard to punch out an Articuno in 2 turns if you include it losing half it's health because of Stealth Rock damage.
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Sep 8, 2018 22:21
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Plus if you don't use another turn to set up a trapping move first they can just switch out to cancel out Mind Reader, so unless they're down to their last mon it'd really take three turns to make it work.
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Sep 8, 2018 22:44
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Part 16: A Very Greevil Finale We're all healed and ready to go. Time to face the boss. Greevil   I must say that I haven't been this excited in a long time. I do have an appreciation for the strong, you see. However, I also cannot allow your interference. My SHADOW POKEMON plan is nearing completion. So, for the time being, I think I will have you securely out of the way right where you are now.  Darn! Not only am I unable to break this glass, I have nothing on my person that is able to break it! What am I to do??? Cipher Admin Theme   You know, it makes me kind of happy to see you since I've seen you so often! But the way you keep beating me, my cred's taking a beating! Aiyeeeh! So, MASTER GREEVIL gave me this one last chance to redeem myself. But this is it! If I lose this one, there's no tomorrow! Here goes! Cipher Admin Battle      It hasn't been too long since we last fought Gorigan, so his strategy remains the same. It's a very good strat though. Admittedly it does more when he attacks with his physical attackers instead of his special ones.   You might have noticed, however, that his team is very Fighting weak.   Really, so are a lot of things if you closely enough.    Aggron is easy enough to get out of the way, now there's just his two Shadow Pokemon. Gorigan can be a bitch, I just lucked out with who I led with, since I never check beforehand what the opponent will be using, unless I already remember it from before.   Shadow Pokemon are still big and scary, so we shouldn't underestimate them.   Even Shadow Storm is afraid! Uh, hurts. Also Shadow Sky, because of course.   Poliwrath, 45 catch rate (78%, low health, paralyzed, Net Ball), starting moves: Shadow Storm/Hydro Pump, Shadow Rush/Helping Hand, Shadow Sky/Rain Dance, Brick Break This tadpole is mad you gave it a stone. As a mixed attacker, this rain sweeper ain't a bad option, so long as it gets Swift Swim. While it doesn't get Surf, Hydro Pump is better and while it might not be the best mon to set up rain, it becomes super fast and can hit pretty hard with its great coverage, something that's very useful in the postgame. With Ice Beam, Earthquake and even Rock Tomb and a free Brick Break, it can do a lot of damage, but unless you're spamming your Water moves in the rain, you won't be hugely impressed with its damage output. If you're feeling lucky, you can remember Hypnosis, or go for Focus Punch. But that's all it does as, outside the rain, it just won't be able to keep up. Seriously, it's a harsh postgame out there, we'll see soon enough.   Mr. Mime, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Storm/Psychic, Shadow Shed/Follow Me, Encore, Thunderpunch Oh good, the mime got in. Mr. Mime is a pretty typical Psychic type, in that it really doesn't get much for coverage, since it can only get Magical Leaf in FRLG. Sure, there's Solarbeam, but that's only useful with a sun strat. Aside from that, while a free Thunderpunch is nice, it learns Thunderbolt, or even Thunder, so it's a bit pointless, unless you used the TM already (you can buy more). Otherwise, it just hits hard and kinda fast with Psychic attacks, which is never a bad thing. It'll be able to take a few special hits as well, a nice bonus, but otherwise it's not too interesting. It can remember a lot of interesting poo poo, like Trick, Role Play, screens and Substitute, but it has awful HP and Def, so it's a hard sell. Best load up on the hard hitting moves and hope for the best. It's on the teetering edge of being meh, but it can definitely work.     Well, see ya. Let's try and get around the impossible glass wall. Citadark Isle  Of course we're not going an update without facing a peon.   Seems we'll be around the mid 40s for the end of this game. Not bad at all.   Mushroom massacre.    Another Shadow mon that hits pretty hard (not that Kakyoin notices) and of course has Shadow Sky.   Dugtrio, 50 catch rate (33%, low health, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Break/Earthquake, Shadow Shed/Charm, Shadow Sky/Sandstorm, Tri Attack Finally, we can catch this outside of Diglett's Cave for the first time in the series. Dugtrio hits hard and fast, so that's pretty good, but the best thing it does is trapping opponents, which doesn't really matter much in story mode, and hitting hard with Earthquake, so getting a free one is nice. Otherwise, since its Atk ain't that high, it won't be dealing a lot of damage, since its coverage moves of Sludge Bomb, Rock Tomb and Aerial Ace are all postgame, so it won't do much else until you reach those specific points. The days of Slash critting are long gone, so it's alright, but the main draw is just spamming real fast Earthquakes, which is always a plus.   Haha, no glass to stop us this time!   Who allowed this child to penetrate our defenses so deeply?! What is the meaning of this?! The others can't be counted on at all. I am giving you the responsibility of dealing with this child.   But this isn't how I hoped to face you. If we battle, it will only be unfulfilling and without meaning. Will you challenge me knowing that? Hmm, fine. I understand. But once we begin, expect no mercy. That is my philosophy. Cipher Admin Battle     Alright, this is it, against Greevil's strongest subordinate, with four Shadow Pokemon and... Shadow Sky on the first turn. Grrrrrreat.   Eldes's remaining two Pokemon aren't much to consider, but that's because his Shadow Pokemon are very scary. Like this isn't the final boss, but here's a SALAMENCE. Of course!   We should neuter this thing before it wrecks our entire team.   Thankfully Kakyoin doesn't take tooooooooo much damage from Salamence, at least this thing doesn't have Shadow End.   Manectric, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow End/Thunder, Shadow Mist/Refresh, Shadow Sky/Rain Dance, Bite This lightning bolt of a good boy drops down the Thunder in the rain. Uh, that's all it does, aside from Bite. Manectric is a fast attacker, but since it really doesn't do much against Ground types and very easily gets taken out by Earthquake, it's... tricky. Up against those weak to Electric, Manectric has no problem, and being fast is very nice, but unless you're using a full rain strategy (I'm only using it to remove Shadow Sky, since Surf does meh damage even under the rain with Kakyoin's SpAtk), you'll just go for Thunderbolt and then you'll lose out on power somewhat. Still, with a SpAtk to match its high Spd, Manectric can easily get you out of some tough jams if it gets set up right. But it requires that set up to really shine and it doesn't do much else otherwise. It's a good option for the postgame, but there's some other mons to consider still.    Thankfully Salamence only has the two moves, definitely be design, or it would be doing more dangerous things. Still, even Kakyoin can survive a Dragonbreath! I know, that's something to be celebrated due to its SpDef.   Now there's just Shadow Pokemon remaining and this is the real danger. A Shadow Pokemon is bad enough, but how about one with Thick Club that also has SHADOW END. Little bit excessive there, since there's still the Salamence to worry about. And really, who knows how long it'll take to catch that Pokem-   Salamence, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rush/Dragon Claw, Shadow Hold/Refresh, Dragon Dance, Aerial Ace Oh right, the Gen 3 psuedos have higher catch rates. Neat! It's a Salamence, of course it'll be useful to you, it has fantastic stats, starts off with really good moves and really, really hates Ice moves. Standard, really. Physical, special, mixed, whatever really takes your fancy when you figure out its Nature, it learns all the moves it needs, especially since you get a free Aerial Ace. The postgame will end before you reach Crunch, but I guess you're also missing out with Hydro Pump as an Egg move, so you'll take what you can get. Even an uninvested attack can hurt and once you get rid of the various Ice moves around (a bit of a tall order sometimes, granted), this mon will wreck house for you. So long as you can catch it before it wrecks your house. Hell, at the level it's at, plug it on the team, see how it works out for you, though it'll be a little fragile to tank Shadow moves right now, so maybe do so in the postgame.   OWWWWWWWWWWW. Even though it's super slow, let's paralyze Marowak right the heck now so it's easier to catch, since if it can take apart Kakyoin with ease, the rest of our team doesn't stand a chance.    Marowak, 75 catch rate (50%, low health, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow End/Earthquake, Shadow Panic/Sing, Swords Dance, Rock Slide Oh look it's an absolute monster. Between the free Thick Club, Earthquake, Rock Slide, SWORDS DANCE, you can see how you can get absolutely loving bonkers with this boy if you wanted to. Sure, it's pretty drat slow, but with doubles team support, oh my word does it become the destroyer of all worlds forever. Its Atk wasn't too shabby to begin with, but it can reach 568 max Atk at level 100, which oh I dunno, is 60 points higher than DEOXYS-A. It's just silly that you get one like this, since it's only a 5% chance on the line in the rest of the series (minus BW's treasure hunter). So yeah, if you get Rock Head, then Double-Edge also becomes a fantastic move of choice. And then I guess give it Aerial Ace? Brick Break? Hyper Beam? You can make anything work with this monster. So long as it isn't targetted first turn with a bunch of special moves. Then it's in trouble. But man is it worth it. Lapras, 45 catch rate (78%, low health, paralyzed, Net Ball), starting moves: Shadow Storm/Hydro Pump, Shadow Shed/Heal Bell, Shadow Sky/Rain Dance, Blizzard No longer at the bottom of a cave, Lapras has a great movepool, but not so stellar Spd or typing, which holds it back a lot in the postgame. It starts off with some great moves, though Ice Beam is more reliable, and it can set up weather easily enough. But its various weaknesses means its a pretty easy target and its stats, aside from HP, aren't too amazing, so even when you hit for good damage, it might perform under par. Still, with Thunder in the rain and Psychic for more coverage, it can definitely do some damage. Maybe you could go for Perish Song or Sing shenanigans, as well as general team support. But you'll probably be blown back before you can really try it. It could probably do well with a high enough level, but it'll be entering pretty unfriendly territory. However, since it can take Shadow hits really well right now, it's a great candidate for an upcoming battle. You can pretty easily see where this is all leading to.    However, the GRAND MASTER's power is probably far greater than you can imagine. I doubt you will beat the man... Citadark Isle Ah good. We need to heal.    Oh yeah, a battle's happening on screen. Xatu uses some kind of Shadow move and then gets hit by Fire Blast. Cool. But, did you notice something?   There's two scientists that we need to defeat, as we need all the exp we can get!     There's some tricky Water types to fight, but we should be fine. We have the dream combo out after all.   Since Twister is special, it does a weird amount of damage.   FIBS coming through!   A bit close for our level gaining duo, but Milotic doesn't actually have a good level up movepool.   Just one more battle before the inevitable.   Every Nuzleaf or Shiftry starts every battle with Fake Out, for it is written.   Oh hey, everyone's at the same level before the final boss!   A special Slaking is weird and scary, but Sludge Bomb pulls it out for us.   And you just ruined it Pineapple! Maaaaaaan.   And here we are, the end. What a catch filled journey it's been. But of course, it is far from over. Greevil  I had no idea that a mere child like you would pursue me this long. PROF. KRANE, DATA ROMs, and the LAIR... you alone derailed every one of our well-laid plans. Well, perhaps not just you. The news broadcast by ONBS did not help CIPHER's cause at all. However, my SHADOW POKEMON plan in't finished yet. The final act is about to unfold. Having come this far, I think you've earned the right to know what I have planned. Next, I plan to create an army of SHADOW POKEMON that work independently on my order alone. When this second step is done, I will take over the world without having to rely on bothersome people. And now... Let me introduce you to my faithful servant. The one that shall become the central figure in my SHADOW POKEMON army. Come forth, XD001! XD001   Now, let us celebrate the completion of my SHADOW POKEMON plan in advance! Fall prey to SHADOW LUGIA! Shadow Lugia Battle     The strongest Shadow Pokemon. While it is incredibly tempting to just huck the Master Ball at it and end this (something you can very easily do), I won't do that and save it for just a little bit longer.   Despite being a Lugia with not the best offenses, it's decked out in a full Shadow moveset, including Shadow Blast, a physical move unique to Lugia, with 80BP, 100% accuracy and an increased crit ratio. It's quite a dangerous attack and something it'll go for pretty often, though it thankfully has 3 other moves it can also go for.   So after capturing all the Shadow Pokemon on Citadark Isle, these are the Pokeballs we have left. I definitely overdid it with the Net Balls, but I never checked how many Pokemon we'd encounter that they'd work on, so it's best to stock up on lots of Timer and Ultra Balls if you can, we're gonna need them.   After all, like the previous game, this isn't the final battle, you can probably guess what might come next. But no matter, like then, if I run low on Pokeballs, I'll need to restart, since I'll need all that I can use. Hey, remember that reset list I haven't updated since PHENAC? Well, the game isn't over yet!   Unfortunately, since we're just trying to catch a legendary Pokemon who just hurls endless supereffective moves at us, there, uh, isn't much to this fight. This is going to become a problem.   Ah, good old 3 catch rates, we have a 3% chance of capture using an Ultra Ball, or a 5% chance of capture after a 20+ turns with a Timer Ball. If you have enough healing items and Pokeballs to stall until 40+ turns, congrats, you've now got a 7% chance of capture. Aren't Timer Balls just great?   But now we've hit our limit, I'm not comfortable going under this amount of Pokeballs and so I'll be restarting. But how many tries will it take for me to finally catch this Shadow Lugia? Well, let's find out.  Let me peel back the curtain slightly and show you my footage of every attempt I had catching Lugia, starting from when I chucked balls at the second try. The end of this video is when it finally stayed in and I could end this drat section already. TWENTY FIVE MINUTES. As you'd expect, a 3 catch rate mon is not only an absolute bitch to catch, but I can't use too many Pokeballs up, nor can I use up too many healing items, since those are also relatively limited, so endlessly reviving my Pokemon to just be knocked out by a Shadow move is mostly out of the question. By the way this was absolutely miserable to do. I have my reasons for not using the Master Ball, but I think you should probably use it here. Compared to Colosseum's endgame, which was two hours of really fun fighting and nail biting finishes as I attempted to catch 6 Shadow Pokemon before they fainted from recoil was an absolute blast. I had a LOT of fun with that, since the fights were tough, but manageable, and using up my last few balls to catch Tyranitar was a real rush, since it was strong, but also on a soft time limit due to Shadow Rush.    Catching legendary Pokemon is one of my least favourite aspects of the franchise, there is practically zero strategy to it, it's just throwing Pokeballs at it over and over and over and man those twenty five minutes were super loving boring. Having to also micromanage my Pokemon's health since they fainted so easily to strong Shadow attacks was also pretty tedious and I might have had everyone faint because I was half paying attention to the battle and half reading the Dragon Quest III LP on my phone (real good time, give it a read). What an absolute contrast of finales we have, it's such a shame that the game ends on a note like this. Because there's more to come. As for resets? Shadow Pokemon Resets: Shadow Lugia, 3 catch rate (3%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball or 5%, low health, paralyzed, 20+ turn Timer Ball) The ultimate Shadow Pokemon. Can it even be purified? Well, it'll remain this way for quite some time if not, so how useful is it? Shadow Blast is a great move that can deal a lot of damage, but relies on Lugia having good Atk, which might not be the case due to the randomised nature of, well, natures and IVs. Its other moves aren't that interesting, Shadow Storm is a bit weak due to being a spread move and if Shadow Blast is strong, then Storm won't be, since they use different stats. Its main claim is being able to tank Shadow moves for DAYS, which is something that will be very very useful in just a moment, as I keep endlessly hinting. If you come in with 5 Pokemon and use the Master Ball, you can use Lugia right away and make the endgame a lot more manageable. However, you'll notice that you can't reduce its gauge in any way, hmm. Not being able to gain any exp or change its moveset makes it a little tricky to actually use in the postgame, since we'll soon be out of Shadow Pokemon to encounter. Still, while it won't be doing a lot of damage, it still has the stats of a legendary and a super effective crit Shadow Blast does a lot of damage. You'll just be at a level deficit and not being able to make use of your full moveset. We should probably find some way of purifying this drat thing, so it can become a lot more useful.  There's nothing left! But I will personally see to the total destruction of your POKEMON! Fall! Greevil Final Battle    Ahahahahahahahahahaha, welcome to the final battle of the game. So, remember when I said that I would be catching every Shadow Pokemon first encounter? A fair few of you probably had the final battle of the final game in mind, which is definitely something I had in mind too. Not only are there SIX Shadow Pokemon, but three of them are 3 catch rate legendaries. Remember when I had SIX RESETS catching one of those? This should be interesting.  Oh yeah, I forgot we don't get healed, so that can be a nasty surprise. However, if you just take the L then you won't have to fight Lugia again.   Oh yeah, oh yeah, now I'm using the Master Ball. While it makes Shadow Lugia much less of a headache, since we're catching 6 Shadow Pokemon in one go and they can double up on us, it's best to remove one as soon as possible. Either Moltres or Zapdos is the best option, since they have higher SpAtk than Articuno. Moltres, 3 catch rate (3%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Fire/Extrasensory, Shadow Shed/Morning Sun, Shadow Hold/Will-O-Wisp, Shadow Rush/Flamethrower Of course it's never that easy to finish an Orre game. The legendary birds have the highest Shadow Gauge in the game, but that makes them amazing choices in the postgame when you do purify them, as they've all got high stats and pretty good STAB options in the elementals. Right now they're not too useful, since they won't be encountering many Shadow Pokemon, even if you lose to Greevil and keep them. It has great overall stats and a Fire Blast from this chicken is gonna hurt. Extrasensory is a strange pickup, but it's mandatory, since it's the only other special move it can ever learn. Still, it has great Atk also, so it can use Aerial Ace alright and Morning Sun is a cool addition, since this birb is weak to a lot of types and is pretty frail overall. These are definitely Pokemon you can use in the postgame with their stats and attacks, so get cookin!   Aw man, I want them to hit me with Shadow End so they weaken themselves for capture.   See, like that! But of course out of the two abilities Rhydon can get, it's the one that stops Thunder Wave. Fine, I'll use Rednammok.   Hmm, why did I use Glare on Exeggutor first? Ah, it's not a big deal.   The same rules from the Lugia fight still apply, I have 5 Shadow Pokemon to catch after all, so if I run out of balls, it's all over.    And of course there's a load of super strong Shadow moves flying around, so I really don't want to run out of Revives.   Please stop breaking my balls.   Rhydon, 60 catch rate (40%, low health, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow End/Megahorn, Shadow Down/Helping Hand, Shadow Panic/Scary Face, Shadow Hold/Earthquake Getting some real Gen 1 OU vibes from this guy... Rhydon is pretty cool, but it's not a great Pokemon for the postgame. Ignoring it being COMPLETELY outclassed by Marowak, it's really slow and weak to too many types to be able to get a hit in in time. When it can hit something, oh man it really hurts, but it's just really hard to recommend. I guess Megahorn makes Grass types less scary, but you're on the lookout for big strong Water types that'll ruin your day. An Earthquake could ruin theirs, but who's more likely to go first, eh? Rock Blast or Rock Tomb, your other STAB has rubbish options, and you learn enough special moves that it's almost depressing. At least there's Brick Break and Double-Edge (if you have Rock Head). I guess Lightningrod can be cool, but only Marowak has the massive oomph behind it to be usable in the postgame despite being kinda slow. Ah well, it's still the heaven piercer in my heart.   Exeggutor, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball), starting moves: Shadow Storm/Psychic, Shadow Shed/Refresh, Shadow Hold/Hypnosis, Shadow End/Ancientpower You can probably guess what I'm going to say here, this eggy is just too slow and weak to too many things to really make a name for itself out there in the after-the-endgame postgame. It of course can hit pretty drat hard, but only with Psychic, since Grass STAB is pretty meh for another year or so. Even so, its Atk is nice enough that Sludge Bomb, Selfdestruct and even Ancientpower aren't bad options, it's just a shame that's all it has. It can definitely put things to sleep, or give other Grass types a hard time since a lot of them are part Poison, but it has way too many weaknesses to really think about and will definitely get KOed before it can even move. A shame too, since it can really do some damage and is always a cool mon to use cause of how weird it is. But with all these really big and fast scary guys around, it's a real hard sell.    Alright, we're halfway through. But of course the longer we go on, the more balls I use, the more healing items I use and the higher the chance of a reset. And just to top it off, there's Shadow Sky.   Thankfully Tauros decided not to murder my entire extended family and we even see a COOL new move. Sorry. Shadow Fire/Chill/Bolt are exclusive moves to the legendary birds, which is kinda bullshit, as that makes half of the special Shadow moves exclusive when a lot of other Pokemon would've appreciated the variety. Anyway, they have 75BP, 100% accuracy and a 10% chance of burning/freezing/paralyzing. So they can be annoying, the main issue is the birds' high SpAtk and super effective damage on everything. With all these strong Shadow moves being used, having a tanky Shadow Pokemon like Chansey, Marowak or Lugia can be very helpful indeed.   Since only Rhydon and Exeggutor have Shadow End, we'll have to weaken them ourselves, which is time we could be healing.    Ah this is kinda super dangerous. If Tauros attacks, this is absolutely a reset, only Kakyoin can survive that. But of course, Kakyoin can't survive any of the Shadow Birb moves, so you can see my conundrum. It's very difficult to catch these Pokemon when you're too busy healing every other turn.   Thankfully Tauros has other moves to go for, so we survive, for now. Getting into a 2v1 situation can become very nasty, which is why Revival Herbs are so good, letting the fresh Pokemon potentially take two hits.   Tauros, 45 catch rate (50%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball or 78%, low health, paralyzed, 20+ turn Timer Ball), starting moves: Shadow Rush/Earthquake, Shadow Hold/Refresh, Shadow Shed/Tail Whip, Shadow Sky/Body Slam The end is in sight... Tauros is of course pretty drat good, if a wee bit specially fragile. It doesn't have a lot of moves to work with, but Body Slam/Double-Edge and Earthquake will do just fine. I suppose you could use, ugh, Rock Tomb or Iron Tail to round things out. Or maybe go real old school with Hyper Beam. We've encountered plenty of Normal types so far and this is definitely one of the best, if not exactly notable. But hey, you need all the help you can get in the postgame, so load it up with hard hitting moves and a Choice Band and would you look at that, you have something very dangerous. Funny that.   Man this constant healing and ball throwing is exhausting. And also not very fun. Only two 3 catch rate legends between us and victory, what a way to end the game, huh?    Gahhhhhhh, I'm mostly ignoring Articuno since it's the weakest hitter out of the three birds, so Zapdos needs to be caught right the heck now.     But we might be at the end of our rope here. This poo poo is just draining, just throwing Pokeballs over and over again while healing off the massive Shadow damage. I really don't have many balls left.   Zapdos, 3 catch rate (3%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball or 5%, low health, paralyzed, 20+ turn Timer Ball), starting moves: Shadow Bolt/Extrasensory, Shadow Shed/Baton Pass, Shadow Sky/Metal Sound, Shadow Rush/Thunderbolt This is a real good endgame reward, Zapdos is the best birb for a reason. With an excellent typing, good STAB with Thunderbolt AND Drill Peck and then a bonus in Extrasensory? I think this is a mon that'll get you through the rest of the game quite happily. It'll slot on most teams no problem and really deals damage, especially with rain Thunders. Detect and Thunder Wave and even screens means this mon contributes even when it's up against Ground types and the such that it can't easily get past. With only two weaknesses, it can also wall surprising well with its balanced stats. It's just a good Pokemon all around, fast too, so definitely something to consider when the postgame kicks your rear end.   The final Shadow Pokemon of the main game. What are we working with?  This is my first attempt at this fight, but we're running out of options. The Net Balls are good for one thing, to burn turns while I get closer and closer to the 7% chance of 40+ turn Timer Balls. Failing that, we're restarting, but thankfully due to save states I won't be doing this battle again. Could you imagine actually getting to this point then running out of Pokeballs, or an unlucky crit means your last two Pokemon faint, or just quitting out of tedious exhaustion as you're just throwing Pokeball after Pokeball. Man, this ending kinda sucks. Still, on I soldier, we're not finished just yet!   ... ARE YOU KIDDING ME? THE FIRST NET BALL??? Okay sure, whatever, let's end this loving TWENTY TWO MINUTE battle already, christ. Articuno, (3%, low health, paralyzed, Ultra Ball or 5%, low health, paralyzed, 20+ turn Timer Ball), starting moves: Shadow Chill/Extrasensory, Shadow Shed/Heal Bell, Shadow Sky/Haze, Shadow Rush/Ice Beam Ah, finally, all according to cake. Or something. While Articuno isn't as good as either Moltres or especially Zapdos, it's still perfectly fine, STAB Ice attacks are pretty good. It even gets a near full special moveset with Extrasensory and Water Pulse, which is pretty crazy for a bird. But otherwise there's Aerial Ace and Steel Wing, which is fine, since your Atk is also fine, but it's not very exciting. Frozen birb is perfectly usable, even gimmicky with Mind Reader and Sheer Cold, but since that's level 85, you can't use it in this game. I suppose if you dodge the many various types you're weak to, it has great defenses to stall with. But compared to the other two, it's gonna be tricky, but far from impossible, to use it after the credits roll. Greevil Defeated     But... if I did that, our SHADOW POKEMON data and our subordinates would be lost as well... GRAND MASTER, such things can be replaced! We must ensure our own survival! I've readied a helicopter for our escape. We've got to leave now. Y-you're right...  Ashamed? Clinging to foolish pride will guarantee CIPHER's demise! CIPHER must survive. That is our first duty. The GRAND MASTER feels the same way. Y-yes... for CIPHER's sake, sacrifices must be endured... What are you saying? The SHADOW POKEMON factory has been destroyed! XD001 was defeated! Nothing remains of CIPHER! Silence! CIPHER will live forever! If only this child hadn't... GRAND MASTER! Please give the order to blow up CITADARK ISLE! ...yes. It can't be helped. Don't begrudge us, child. Stop! Let's put a stop to this. ...Father! Don't call him Father! Call him the GRAND MASTER!  This child's pure heart won out over XD001. We were in the wrong. Silence, silence, silence! Why aren't you showing some spine! We've come so far! CIPHER is finished. Father, you yourself should know that more than anyone. Greevil's Realisation  Now, please. Stand up. This is how it should be. The laws of the land will render judgment on what we have done.  Thank you. You'll have nothing to fear from us ever. You should return home to your family. Let us meet again, too. The next time we battle, it won't be as mortal enemies. I will look forward to it. Credits Oh boy, that's the main game over. You should definitely watch the full ending here. It's pretty celebratory.   Unlike the Colosseum credits, this time we are nearly at the end of the LP. This game was quite a blast, even if I don't think it's as good as Colosseum in the slightest. I think there's just a few too many negatives dragging it down that the first game manages to avoid fine enough.   However we can save that negativity for another time, thanks for reading! This LP of two games has gotten pretty long, almost as many updates as Emerald! There's still the postgame, which is my least favourite part of this game, but we'll see why soon enough. For now at least, this game was a lot of fun, the Pokemon variety is really nice, it's a much smoother experience compared to the last game and there's a lot more to it.   The various side modes I still haven't completely covered means the postgame has a bit more meat to it and this game is definitely worth your time after playing the first one. It's a real shame that no more Orre games have appeared since, or indeed any GS game that's actually good! A real shame that, but no matter, I'm sure now that they're basically finished with the F2P garbage that was Pokemon Shuffle they can move on to better things.   Thanks for another great sequel, Mr. Iwata. Thanks for reading the end of another story mode! While the ending is incredibly boring and draining, the game is a lot of fun overall and it's cool that a fair few of you haven't experienced either of these games. But now we move onto the last part of the LP. If you thought this game was a bit easy, then you're in for a real loving surprise.
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Sep 9, 2018 04:03
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Phew, that's the main thing I wasn't looking forward to out of the way. Now for the next main thing I wasn't looking forward to... Oh yeah, with how stubborn Lugia was being, Zack Ater, Regalingualius, Booky, MightyPretenders, loving love Fiona Apple and Thadius are all out of the running!
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Sep 9, 2018 04:06
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I know, Pokemon plots and all, but that was the most generic way possible to end it. "Greevil is actually this guy's father! Also he realized the error of his ways after a short talking-to. The end, no moral."
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Sep 9, 2018 04:30
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Wow, that was an intense final fight. I'm shocked that after 3 resets for shadow Lugia, you managed to catch all of Greevil's Pokemon without any more resets.
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Sep 9, 2018 04:44
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Despite the shortcomings (& level curve) I still vastly prefer XD to Colosseum. The legendary birds do kind of grind things to a halt, but the final battle is still pretty intense because of it. Against a solo legendary it's tedious (in Emerald, i had to scrap 2 attempts at groudon because it killed itself from Struggle. YEAH), but something about it being in the context of doubles and 6 pokemon to capture, it can get pretty exhilarating. Are we sure the final battle doesnt tweak the captures into your favor like the early colosseum captures? It's probably just confirmation bias but I feel like for the amount of balls you used and how other people talk about this fight, that it doesn't take as long to capture everyone as it seems it should.
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Sep 9, 2018 05:07
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Dammit, Greevil, why couldn't you have six Legendaries so I could win this guessing contest?! 
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Sep 9, 2018 06:40
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Yeah, that final battle was why I highballed my guess in the first place before deciding to lower it a bit. A full 6 mon team of Shadow Pokemon is certainly a way to cap things off. But uhh, yeah. Capturing is really not that interesting of a mechanic in the series. rannum posted:Despite the shortcomings (& level curve) I still vastly prefer XD to Colosseum. It could be possible. But unless someone decides to look into the code and tell us for sure, we don't know.
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Sep 9, 2018 10:51
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Ugh, this ending. Story-wise it's something of a cop-out and comes mostly out of nowhere, but then story in Pokemon games has always leaned in that direction. This final battle is really something, though. I think it could be argued this battle is literally unfair, with how much Greevil just doesn't play by normal Pokemon rules (if you include Lugia he's got 7 pokemon, and all of his pokemon have unlimited PP and are super-effective on everything). Of course, that's exactly what makes it interesting. I certainly wouldn't want the games to go any further in this direction, but it makes for a good fight here. Painful and frustrating as it is, I really enjoy this fight. I usually feel guilty using items in battle, especially reviving items; they just seem so cheap. Not here. This fight is hard even when you pull out all the stops and use Revival Herbs and Max Revives, which is honestly a nice change (it made me feel like those items were meaningful and actually worth collecting; I think this is the only game I've ever actually used them in). Strategically, this battle definitely wants you to use an unpurified shadow pokemon to tank (whether it's Lugia or one of the ones you just caught from the underlings); it's really an uphill struggle otherwise. Shadow Half could be helpful too. When to use the Master Ball is also an interesting decision, which I like - you have to trade off being weakened from fighting Lugia versus being able to instantly remove a bird that's giving you trouble (take it from me, you don't want to be up against Moltres and Zapdos simultaneously). Without Shadow pokemon, it doesn't matter if you use pokemon that normally work as walls, there's no such thing as a defencive typing here and even pokemon with good defencive stats tend to go down in 2 hits or 3 if you're lucky (admittedly, I never tried Chansey; if I play this again I might have to give that a go). I also find it really hard to use any kind of setup moves or X-items here, with how quickly any pokemon can be taken down it ends up just wasting turns. Some abilities don't work that seem like they should (the birds' moves sound like they should have types other than Shadow, but they don't - Volt Absorb, Flash Fire, Thick Fat etc won't help, which caught me by surprise here even if it really shouldn't have). I found this fight really shook up my understanding of how my team worked, and I liked that. I definitely think the catch formula is adjusted somewhere, the birds feel much more cooperative than a catch rate of 3 would indicate.
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Sep 9, 2018 15:05
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Honestly, I'm more surprised my guess (along with all the others for this bit) lasted until the 2nd to last story fight, I was really thinking it'd have gotten ko'd earlier. One thing that could mitigate this final part and how long it gets is to have a save and full heal in between Shadow Lugia and Greevil, but then that probably doesn't help with the ball issue??
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Sep 10, 2018 04:00
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In hindsight, it's kind of annoying they made a system that lets you catch six Pokemon in Gen III, but still won't let you catch Pokemon in double battles!
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Sep 10, 2018 04:23
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I have to give Crosspeice massive props for capturing Shadow Lugia without the Master Ball and showing you can complete the final battle without Shadow Pokemon on your team. I never bothered trying that, I went in with 5 party members and just chucked that Master Ball at Lugia on the first turn.Explopyro posted:I usually feel guilty using items in battle, especially reviving items; they just seem so cheap. Not here. This fight is hard even when you pull out all the stops and use Revival Herbs and Max Revives, which is honestly a nice change (it made me feel like those items were meaningful and actually worth collecting; I think this is the only game I've ever actually used them in). rannum posted:Are we sure the final battle doesnt tweak the captures into your favor like the early colosseum captures? It's probably just confirmation bias but I feel like for the amount of balls you used and how other people talk about this fight, that it doesn't take as long to capture everyone as it seems it should. Explopyro posted:I definitely think the catch formula is adjusted somewhere, the birds feel much more cooperative than a catch rate of 3 would indicate. There are 18 Pokeballs here, plus the Master Ball. I've watched Mewtwo and Articuno run out of PP and start using Struggle in Fire Red, which is at least 75 turns worth of time. They both have a 3 catch rate.
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Sep 11, 2018 03:24
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The catch rates themselves are still 3 in the game files. But they might just be run through a different formula entirely, or maybe a hidden boost is applied in some cases. I can't really say any more on that front without getting into disassembling the game, which is beyond my abilities. I do know for sure capturing is programmed differently in the GameCube games than the mainline series because...Hobgoblin2099 posted:In hindsight, it's kind of annoying they made a system that lets you catch six Pokemon in Gen III, but still won't let you catch Pokemon in double battles! Capturing in the mainline series was not really well programmed. You see, when you capture a Pokemon, the battle will instantly end. You can see this for yourself if you enable cheats that lets you capture a trainer's Pokemon. Didn't really matter in a normal playthrough for all the mainline games up to Gen III, but Gen IV was when they introduced battles where you can encounter multiple wild Pokemon at once. And that's why they don't let you capture Pokemon when there's still more than one Pokemon left. And yes, this is still the case in the Gen VII games.
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Sep 11, 2018 04:39
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It'd be nice if they tweaked it to remove that restriction and programmed it so that multiple Pokedex entries would pop up in order of capture at the end of battle.
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Sep 11, 2018 19:06
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Hobgoblin2099 posted:It'd be nice if they tweaked it to remove that restriction and programmed it so that multiple Pokedex entries would pop up in order of capture at the end of battle. pokedex entries probably aren't the issue, the game already handles that pretty weell if you have, for example, a ton of evolutions alongside the capture.
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Sep 11, 2018 19:29
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Saladin Rising posted:I have to give Crosspeice massive props for capturing Shadow Lugia without the Master Ball and showing you can complete the final battle without Shadow Pokemon on your team. I never bothered trying that, I went in with 5 party members and just chucked that Master Ball at Lugia on the first turn. I can't take credit for this strategy, really; when I played it I did pretty much what Crosspeice did, and went in with my usual team because I'm stubborn and I wanted to see if I could make it work. It did, eventually, though I had to use quite a lot of healing items and came very close to losing (and wasted a lot of turns trying to use setup moves before I realised how futile that was). It's certainly much harder that way, though. I used the Master Ball on Lugia but sent it to the PC; in retrospect, I think it's probably better saved to eliminate Zapdos/Moltres, if you can keep your team in decent shape when catching Lugia. Dr. Fetus posted:The catch rates themselves are still 3 in the game files. But they might just be run through a different formula entirely, or maybe a hidden boost is applied in some cases. I can't really say any more on that front without getting into disassembling the game, which is beyond my abilities. I do know for sure capturing is programmed differently in the GameCube games than the mainline series Yeah, I think we've talked about this before in this very thread. I don't know how to go about looking into it either; that said, I've seen this fight often enough (both playing it myself and seeing others' comments) to feel certain that at least something is different, though not what. If you've tried to catch birds both here and in FR/LG, the difference is palpable. You have a good point about how wonky the mainline games' capture implementation is; I hadn't realised that was why they stop you from using balls when there are multiple pokemon on the field, but that makes perfect sense. What a kludge. I love these games, but seriously, "what on earth were Gamefreak thinking" may as well be a catchphrase by this point.
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Sep 11, 2018 19:54
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rannum posted:pokedex entries probably aren't the issue, the game already handles that pretty weell if you have, for example, a ton of evolutions alongside the capture. I'm pretty sure Pokedex entries don't show up for evolutions. They definitely don't in the older games, anyway.
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Sep 11, 2018 20:41
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Solumin posted:I'm pretty sure Pokedex entries don't show up for evolutions. They definitely don't in the older games, anyway. They do in Gen 7, provided they're in the Alola Dex.
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Sep 11, 2018 21:03
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