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 What’s Pokemon? Don’t you play this game with me.  please drone on about this pokemon in particular Pokemon White and Black spearheaded the Fifth Generation of Pokemon games, and were released for the the Nintendo DS in 2010. Much of the game’s marketing emphasized the new graphics, using the DS’ 3D capabilities to highlight the urban setting of Unova, themed after New York. There was also a lot of emphasis placed on the game’s plot, which seemed to promise something more intricate than the series’ traditional fare. The games would also introduce 156 new Pokemon, a new record, to fill the wild encounters with new surprises for series fans. No more caves full of Zubat! Instead there’s a Pokemon called “Woobat.” Do people like Black and White? Kinda? The games definitely have their charm, but they often don’t get the love other entries in the series do. I wouldn’t say it’s on the level of something like Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon or Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, but frequent criticisms of the game often center on the plot trying a little too hard, or… Is this the one with the garbage bag? ..the fact that many of the new designs did not...go over well. Yes, this is the game you have heard of, with the Literal Garbage Pokemon and the Ice Cream Pokemon. What kind of LP is this? Pretty darn casual. I won’t be catching them all, but we will be traveling through Unova and defeating the Pokemon League. I’m also going with a special rule for this playthrough. THIS IS A TRUBBISH/VANILLUXE APPRECIATION ZONE Moreso than perhaps any other Pokemon, I have seen the designs of these two lovely creations criticized as “terrible”. No longer. I will be taking thread suggestions on team members, but I have one stipulation for our endgame lineup. Trubbish* and Vanniluxe MUST be present when we defeat the champion. *maybe the evolved form if y’all really want but that one is truly terrible In fact, in the spirit of this, I encourage everyone to suggest their favorite doofy-looking B/W Pokemon, and I will strive to create a team of clowns to stomp through all obstacles. Thread participation/rules? Since this is a Pokemon game, nicknames are more than welcome for any potential teammates, and big decisions like my starter will be left to a vote. Nicknames can be submitted at any time, just let me know in the thread. Since this game aims a little higher than Pokemon typically does with its story, please tag spoilers. The usual “don’t be gross/a jerk” applies. Is the Pokewalker even in this game? I had one joke. Table Of Contents Update 1: Back In Black Update 2: Jagen Embarks Update 3: Jagen Attends A Protest Event Update 4: Jagen Tours The Public School System Update 5: Jagen Meets The Awful Monkeys Update 6: Jagen Takes Hallucinogens Update 7: Jagen Unleashes The Tapir Update 8: Jagen Appreciates Art Update 9: Jagen Gets Stumped By A Library Update 10: Jagen Catches A Pansage Update 11: Jagen Experiences Revolutionary New Camera Angles Update 12: Jagen Does Urban Exploration Update 13: Jagen Commits Arson Update 14: Jagen's Last Resort Update 15: Jagen's Archaeology Aside LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Aug 6, 2019 |
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Apr 10, 2019 07:16
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Update 1: Back In Black It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to make a joke like “Nintendo, never heard of ‘em!” In the intervening time I’ve realized it was never very funny.   Right out of the gate, we’ve got some plot in the opener, so let’s sit back and enjoy.    I’ve never been to the UK, but I’m pretty sure I speak for all Americans when I say I think this is how your government works?  midground guy is envious of foreground guy’s sweet beard   Mysterious Crownbearer tries to start the wave, but the room’s really not feeling it.  I’m fairly sure that’s a robe meant to be sweeping off this figure, but his arms could also just be on fire.    Alright, calm down, Rafiki.  Pictured: the readerbase’s response to my jokes so far    All hail the PokePope?  Not to be outdone, Eyeball Cape Man and the Baby Bottle Hat Squad get their time in the frame. We’re gonna have a lot to talk about RE: Unova Fashion in this LP.  SUDDENLY HOPES!  DREAMS! (I swear this is as jaunting a transition as I’m making it look)  This is a multiplayer feature so we actually won’t be discovering it at all.   Whether you want to put funny hats on a jellyfish or make your dragon shoot purple orbs…  Pokemon Black Version is a game for you!  Right, normally I run down the Main Menu in the first update of an LP, but there’s really not much here worth exploring. Mystery Gift was Nintendo’s way of distributing special Event Pokemon, either through the internet or local wireless if you wanted to trek to the local GameStop. Nintendo WFC is dead, long live Nintendo WFC. The Mic Test is actually sorta interesting, in that these games featured very rudimentary voice chat with friends! I have never tried it, and cannot now that the online features are dead, but I imagine it was terrible, considering it used the DS microphone. If anyone has a firsthand account about this I’d love to hear it. Let’s just hit up the New Game.    This opening is pretty much identical to any other Pokemon opening.  Right down to one of the cuter new Pokemon coming out of the ball! Hey, it’s Mincinno! it’s no fuckin’ trubbish  : That's right! This world is widely inhabited by mysterious creatures called Pokémon! Pokémon have mysterious powers. Worth noting is that Mincinno hops around and waves a bit during this intro. The Pokemon get a little more animated in this game. : We humans live happily with Pokémon! Living and working together, we complement each other. We help each other to accomplish difficult tasks. Having Pokémon battle one another is particularly popular, and it deepens the bonds between people and Pokémon. And that is why I research Pokémon. I thought you’d never ask.  Like in most of the Pokemon games, we’re asked to select a gender for our character, which determines our sprite and...not much else. There’s a side-quest that changes very slightly. This is one of three things I’ll need your votes on! But more on that later.  For now, we’ll go with the boy just for test update purposes.  Next up, our character’s name. This is the peak of character customization in this game. Don’t go asking for cool hats and poo poo until X and Y come out.  Again, for test purposes, we’ll just go with my name.  ...Or, y’know, as close as I can get.  More or less.  It’s not! And that’s why I’ll need you to come up with a name for our intrepid adventurer! : Well then. I’m going to introduce you to your two best friends!Your social life is over now. Embrace your Pokefriends.  : He can be a little difficult, but he's a very honest person.Have you ever heard someone use that description for anyone you actually want to hang out with? Cheren’s not really that bad, I promise.  : She's a little flighty, but she works very hard. : a very, very important Pokémon. Calm down! : The moment you choose the Pokémon that will accompany you on your journey, your story will truly begin. During your journey, you will meet many Pokémon and people with different personalities and points of view!We will certainly chat with lots of random NPCs, yes.  : That's right! Befriend new people and Pokémon and grow as a person! That is the most important goal for your journey! Wait, were we not already there? Where is this white void?  Don’t worry about it. It’s winter now. This game does have a seasonal system along with its day/night cycle, but the former doesn’t exactly sync up with real life. Y’know, since I’m posting this in April. We’ll get more into that later.  A quaint and quiet town.  Roughly four buildings.  Sounds like the perfect place to start a JRPG adventure!  Why do they all yell at me     : What’s keeping Bianca?  : I’ve known for ten years that you have no sense of time, but...seriously…It took her like three seconds to walk onscreen. I take back what I said before, Cheren is terrible. : Today’s the day we can get a Pokemon from Professor Juniper!  Hopefully not the garbage can. Unless it’s Trubbish.  : They were delivered to Hippomn’s house, so Hippomn gets first pick.: Naturally. Juniper bothered to make a gift box. Usually the professors just leave the Pokeballs out in the middle of nowhere, or in a lovely basket or something. Clearly we’ve got the cool professor in this region.   As do I, let’s go!  Hang on gotta check the obligatory advertising cameo  Okay, now let’s go!  We do get first dibs, so I guess Cheren and Bianca will have to scrap it out over the others.   Oh boy, time for starter choice! Let’s meet the candidates!  Snivy is our potential Grass type starter. It’s fast and decently bulky. Most importantly it constantly looks like  . All the time. In every evolution. Snivy won’t ever pick up a second typing, that’s for lesser starters. Snivy will eventually evolve into a snake that looks like it’s judging you for your choices.  Tepig is a Fire type, and he’s a lovable chunk of Attack. It’s my personal favorite of the starters, but don’t let that influence your votes, I’ll go with any of them. Tepig eventually picks up Fighting typing, continuing a string of Fire/Fighting final starter evolutions that stretched on for way too long. Tepig will eventually evolve into a really loving chunky pig with a beard made of fire. I’m not naming it Bacon, that’s the one rule.  Oshawott is our final potential starter, taking the Water slot. Whereas Tepig shone in Attack, Oshawott’s better with Special Attack. Oshawott also appears to be wearing a shirt, which is weird and he creeps me out. Much like Snivy, Oshawott will never pick up a second typing, staying pure water. Oshawott will eventually evolve into a seal with abs and a stupid helmet. So we’ve got some choices to make! What is our protagonist’s gender? What is their name? Which starter will we choose? As usual, please bold your votes, and I’ll decide on our starter through a purely democratic process (and then probably just pick the name that makes me laugh the most). LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 08:20 on Apr 11, 2019 |
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Apr 10, 2019 07:17
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BlackPersona posted:Oh boy a LordHippoman LP! It's been too long! I've missed it! Scrap Dragon posted:Snivy is a better choice for the sequel if Hippo decides he's gonna LP that one too. It is definitely possible. Black Robe posted:We don't want good and cool. Hippoman should use all three monkeys and suffer. Hey, now, I know I encouraged this in the OP but the monkeys? That seems a bit far. I'm going to close up votes tomorrow so I can get to work on starting the game in earnest, but until then feel free to submit them! Snivy is dominating at the moment, but Oshawott could still catch up, and it looks like a Male Jagen or a Female Liberty are both potentially in the running too.
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Apr 10, 2019 20:36
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Livewire42 posted:And can we suggest nicknames in advance or should we wait till you've caught the mon? In advance is fine!
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Apr 11, 2019 05:29
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Commander Keene posted:Are you thinking of Awkward Zombie instead? The one where Marth has a chart of who is allowed to speak with him? I don't remember Marth being like that in BitF, although I don't think that he did much in that comic. Ironically canon Marth post-Shadow Dragon is a lot closer to Oshawott, in that he's not entirely sure of himself most of the time, but fanon Marth, like in Awkward Zombie, leans Snivy. Hell, you could make an argument that Shadow Dragon Marth is pretty Tepig.  and allAlso yes, Gurrdurr is in this game.  The Votes Are In And holy poo poo was it close. I did a recount to make sure, but it looks like our hero will be a Male Jagen. And, by a single vote, a Snivy named Marth will be by his side. Next time we ride.
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Apr 11, 2019 16:28
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Update 2: Jagen Embarks The votes are in, and it looks like an old friend has been called up for this adventure.  Is this an origin story? A reincarnation story? A dream? One thing’s for sure, you voted for it, so you can’t call me self-indulgent for doing it!  And, in an extremely close race, it looks like our starter, by a single vote, is Snivy!  I can already tell we’re going to go far together.    Tepig got three votes, Cheren. Don’t try to fool me.   Well...why not, I guess? Honestly, Bianca...Even though they’re still weak Pokemon, you shouldn’t have Pokemon battles inside a house.I don’t recall that ever being a problem in the four previous generations.   Get ready for a Pokemon battle! Important battles in this game get a nice little splash screen like this before they begin!  And the enemy trainer sprites are quite animated! Bianca here kinda stumbles around before pulling her Pokeball out. I’ll try to get a better shot of it later, because I’ve got a feeling this won’t be the last time we take her on.   It’s time for our first battle! I’m going to assume that most of the people reading this have a passing familiarity with the way Pokemon functions, but just in case, I’ll provide a brief primer. A Pokemon can learn up to four moves. It’s a turn based battle system, where the Pokemon with the highest Speed stat moves first. Let’s take a closer look at these moves by holding down the L Button and tapping them.  Tackle is the most bog standard Pokemon move of all time. It’s Normal type, has a Power ranking of 50, and an Accuracy ranking of 100. The Physical typing means that this scales off your Pokemon’s Attack stat, and is reduced by the opposing Pokemon’s Defense stat. If it were a Special type move, it would be affected by the Special Attack and Special Defense stats instead. PP (Power Points) indicate how many times we can use this move before needing to recharge at a Pokemon Center. In the case of Tackle, it’s a hefty 35, so we can pretty much just ignore it.  Our other move, Leer, drops the Defense of all opposing Pokemon. There’s no Power ranking because this move does not deal damage.   Both of our Pokemon literally have only one offensive move in Tackle, but Snivy’s quicker. Off to a good start in this war of attrition!  Bianca shifts tactics.   Leer and Tail Whip are...pretty much the same move. She didn’t try doing damage that turn, which means her fate is now all but sealed.  Oshawott Tail Whips again on the next turn, bringing Snivy’s Defense very low…  But it doesn’t matter because I just tackled it four times in a row. Look at the face on that Oshawott. It knows it hosed up.  Whoo!  You can see a Pokemon’s progress towards the next level in the blue bar under the HP.   Apparently we were playing for stakes in this casual bedroom brawl. I mean, I’ll take it, but that seems extreme.    ...All they did was Tackle and Tail Whip. Jagen, you’re going to be an awesome trainer someday, I can tell! No doubt! how did claw marks get on THE WALLS?  Clearly at one point, Snivy must have wedged that table up on the computer desk to perform a diving Tackle on Oshawott. I must have missed that screenshot, sorry. Wow! Pokemon are amaaaaazing!! So little, but so strong! I’m so glad that I get to have a Pokemon! ...Oh. Um, sorry about your room, Jagen. I’ll restore your Pokemon for you. Jagen’s Pokemon needs to be fixed up, too. Cheren here somehow manages to function as a Pokemon Center healing machine, or a bed. In an interesting tidbit, there is actually a line programmed for Cheren here if you take no damage in the battle! It’s amazing that you won without your Pokemon losing any energy, which is called HP. But you used some of the moves’ Power Points, or PP, though.To get this, you’d either have to have Bianca decide to Tail Whip/Leer on all of her turns or miss all her Tackles. I’m not sure exactly what those odds are, but they aren’t high. If I didn’t have the game script I wouldn’t know this existed.  With all you know, I’m sure you can battle without turning the room into a disaster area like I did! I believe you’re right! It’ll be no problem for me to keep the room from getting any messier. Besides, it’s not fair if you two are the only ones who get to have fun battling!  Two rival fights for the price of one!  Let’s see if we can go 2-0.  Cheren just kinda points in his intro. It’s not very interesting.  Speaking of not very interesting, I do think it’s a little silly that you have to do two rival fights here, since...well...at the start of the game it’s just  shut up cheren  Tackle. It’s really just a lot of Tackling.  I have skipped much of the tackling for your viewing pleasure.  One thing that I definitely don’t want to skip, though, is leveling up!  The actual mechanics of leveling up in Pokemon are kinda obtuse and far beyond what this LP is going to delve into, but rest assured it’s fairly simple and you’ll get more stats in stuff your Pokemon is good at. There’s no real risk of RNG screwing you out of a stat. Unlike in...some other games.  You aren’t welcome here.  Sorry, I got a bit distracted there. Anyhow, Cheren gives us 500 Pokedollars too. You’ll get a money reward from any Trainer you defeat.  this feeling I have… ...I’m finally a Trainer. But first, we’d better go apologize to your mother about this messed-up room. Such rampant destruction. Is anything spared?   Wow! Thanks for your quality products, Nintendo! And to think it’s only $250 at the time this game was made! I sure am impressed!     Cleaning up? No worries. I’ll take care of it later. Shouldn’t you be on your way to meet Professor Juniper?Jagen’s mom is remarkably chill about this whole thing. Then again, she hasn’t actually seen it yet… Yes, thank you! Please excuse us. Come on. Let’s go thank Professor Juniper. Oh! Wait! I’ve gotta go home first. Thanks for having us over!Sounds like we’ve got a pretty clear next objective.  mom my hat is clipping into your face Pokemon battles are so lively, aren’t they? I could hear the Pokemon’s cries clear down here!That...doesn’t sound good at all. Hm. That sure reminded me of my first Pokemon battle! Oh, and you know? After a battle, you need to rest your Pokemon!A lot of these games have implied your mom has some Pokemon battle experience, and yet there’s never been an optional Mom Boss. Come on, Nintendo, that one’s free.  There’s a fade in/out here to signify your Pokemon getting healed.   This is our requisite PokeGadget for the game.   Better get going, honey! With the addition of the Xtranceiver, our bottom screen is looking a lot more populated. Not much we can do with it now, though.  Except this. I like turning the text speed up. The only option in here that really effects gameplay is “Battle Style”. By default, you get opportunities to swap your active Pokemon after fainting an opposing trainer’s Pokemon, but you can turn that to Set for a little more difficulty.  As we leave our house for the first time, a bevy of Pidoves flutter away from the door. It’s a nice touch!  Welcome to Nuvema Town. Much like most starting towns in a Pokemon game, there’s not a lot to do, but let’s take the tour.  ...Does Jagen’s mom not have a name?   This is a continuation of a running joke in Pokemon games, where a guy in the starter town talks about how cool some new tech the game uses is. In the first game it was about the Game Boy Link Cable. We’ve come a long way, and I for one am happy not to have to carry one of those around anymore.  Let’s check out what’s going on in one of the only other homes in time.  Uh. I can go. But, I’m...I’m a good Trainer who got a Pokemon and everything! This feels like kind of a non-sequitur but alright.    Honestly this seems like a reasonable response.    Though I guess culture is different in PokeWorld.  Unfortunately Bianca hasn’t thrown away any money or free items. Worth a shot, though.  Let’s go    Please, plebeian. Snivy isn’t cute. It’s regal.   Oh poo poo, get ready for some words of wisdom.  Never forget it.   A big nerd.  And he doesn’t even have stuff to steal.  We’ve collected two of the sacred Adventure Rules. Who knows what other eldritch knowledge they may impart?  drat. Outsmarted again.  Oh, and, by the way, there’s no Potion in your PC in this game. There’s nothing really there at all.  Before making progress, I just wanted to show off that there’s a little saving animation! We’re on our way.   Let me introduce myself again. My name is... Cheren is determined to harsh Ms. Frizzle’s buzz here.  Today is a day to remember always, so it’s best to behave with some formality. That being so, once again, my name is Professor Juniper, and I am researching when and how the creatures called Pokemon came into existence. So maybe that’s why...It feels as though your Pokemon have already begun to trust you!Suddenly, a name creeps into our hero’s mind. As if from another place, another time, another life...  A name fit for a respected partner, through thick and thin.  Yeah, that’s what I was implying, Juniper, thanks.  As for why I gave all of you Pokemon... It’s for the Pokedex, right?  Read as much sarcasm into that “astonished” as you feel befits Juniper’s character.  you encounter! So, I want you three to visit many places and meet all of the Pokemon in the Unova region! This is my request.  You know, everybody, I liked doing LP, but I’ve got a new shift coming up and I don’t know if I can really keep this going, thanks for joining, but I’ve gotta turn it down.  juniper please What I want to hear are the courageous words of people who will blaze new paths around the world!   Let me out.  Alright, fine, LP uncancelled.  I mean...Yes, professor! Because of you, I can become a Pokemon Trainer, exactly as I’ve always wished. All of you, thanks!   Looks like we can really get started.  Please meet me at Route 1, OK? I can explore and maybe find out what I want to do in life. I think I’d like that. We can travel however we want while we complete the Pokedex.The hotel industry has got to be booming in PokeWorld. Before we head out to meet the Professor again, let’s look around the lab.  There’s surprisingly little of interest in the lab! Just a mysterious photograph...and the same two Adventure Rules.   She asked you to complete the Pokedex?! I can’t believe it! Jagen’s mom is pretty great.   Look, we’re getting a lot of Key Items today. Here you are, Cheren. I’ll take good care of it. And one for you, too, Bianca. Th-thank you so much! As for your room, Jagen--or what’s left of it… No need for any of you to worry. I’ll take care of tidying up. OK, Jagen?She is still remarkably okay with all this. Ah, Pokemon. They are so cute, but they have enough power to destroy a bedroom! They really are something. With Pokemon like that at your side, you’ll be safe wherever you go! I’ll let your parents know! I hope that, in addition to Pokemon, you’ll find lots and lots of places you like in the Unova Region--and become wonderful adults! Have a great trip! I don’t think that’s really how a paper map works, but okay. Shall we head to Route 1? The Professor’s waiting. Let’s go, let’s go! Jagen, hurry and come too, OK? The only exit to Nuvema Town is up here in the northeast corner.  Bianca says if we’re starting a journey together, she wants us all to take our first step at the same time. Hey, Jagen! Let’s all take our first step on Route 1 together! OK, here we go!  ACTION HOP  It sure is! C’mon, the professor’s waiting. The professor was literally right there. You could see her in the last shot. C’mon, Cheren.  The Pokedex’s pages update automatically whenever you meet a Pokemon! Moreover, it’s set up so that you obtain even more information when you catch a Pokemon! To make this clear, I’m going to demonstrate how to catch a Pokemon! Juniper calmly walks into the grass.  The camera, much less calmly, goes for the zoom.  Another new Pokemon! It’s Patrat! It’s totally not Ratatta!   The computer controls all actions during this segment, so we’re just watching Juniper do her work.   One Pound from Mincinno has decimated that poor Patrat, and I don’t think all the Leers in the world will help it now.  She’s also packing 30 Poke Balls!  How many will she need?  Just one. It’s a Level 2 Patrat, come on.   Here’s how it goes, step by step. First, reduce the Pokemon’s HP! Pokemon that still have all their energy are difficult to catch. If you can, use your Pokemon’s moves to make the Pokemon you want to catch fall asleep. Or paralyze it! And to wrap this up in the best way, I have a gift for you--some Poke Balls!  Now that’s worth celebrating. Juniper covered it pretty well, so for everyone who doesn’t know, I’ll just add that some Pokemon, typically rarer ones, have a lower potential catch rate, and that higher leveled Pokemon are harder to catch. There’s a formula for it. Don’t worry about it. Poke Balls are used for catching the Pokemon you catch! And she walks away.  I’m heading to Accumula Town, too. I think I’ll go too. I’m looking forward to the next town so I can go shopping for Poke Balls! Wait a minute! Hey, listen! Cheren, I thought of something fun! But we need to get going! I’d imagine the Professor’s waiting, too. Would you just listen a sec? Seriously! Wow, Bianca went off. Why don’t we see who can catch the most Pokemon? The person carrying the most Pokemon, including the one received from Professor Juniper, is the winner! Huh. Actually, that sounds interesting. It will fill up Pokedex pages, so I’m sure it will please the professor, too. OK then. Until we reach Accumula Town, take care of healing your Pokemon at your own house.  Well, I guess we’re in a contest. Naturally, we will crush them.  There was a lot of preamble there, but it looks like we’re finally just about to get the adventure really started. Next time, we’ll be catching Pokemon on Route 1, exploring, and generally actually playing the game! I hope you’ll join me.
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Apr 12, 2019 15:48
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Nihilarian posted:Jagen is the family name It's entirely possible. BlackPersona posted:It's a Reborn story. A Pokemon Reborn, if you will Please conserve the puns, I need them to write the updates. Darth TNT posted:Press X to be important? Press X to Menu Screen. Also, I realize I didn't go over Marth's status screen yet, but the update was already dragging. I'm planning on doing it next time, once we have another Pokemon to compare to.
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Apr 12, 2019 21:09
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Carbon dioxide posted:So, in the first rival battles you can lose without a game over right? Is there also different dialogue when you lose to Bianca while her pokemon still has full HP vs. when it does not? You can lose, yes. I didn't see any alternate dialogue for losing at to Bianca at full HP. If you lose to Cheren, it just cuts off the part where he says he made a mistake.
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Apr 13, 2019 15:08
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Booky posted:A new Hippoman LP!! Welcome back, glad to have you! Platinum is actually my favorite Pokemon, so I understand the feeling. To be honest, I don't feel super comfortable using music links. I don't like linking to random YouTube channels, since I don't want to like, leech off of them. I also don't have much experience recording the music files directly for Tindeck or something like that, so it's not something I'm planning on doing anytime soon. Sorry, I realize this is probably mostly just me being overly cautious, but that's just the way I am, I guess!
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Apr 15, 2019 08:37
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Simply Simon posted:You can of course continue doing what you want, but your logic seems pretty backwards to me. If you're hotlinking images from some random small website, sure that's bad because that costs them traffic but gives them no ad clicks. But someone uploading a video to Youtube wants it to be linked pretty much everywhere so it can gather more clicks. Nobody is uploading videogame music just so a select circle of friends can listen to it and hates when it get a hundred more clicks from an SA LP. I really think you don't need to stress out about that. That's honestly a far better argument than mine. I think I'm just stuck in that scenario of "this is using someone else's content", but that's the whole reason they've uploaded it in the first place. It's something I'll certainly take into consideration going forward. (I'd also need to start playing with the sound on, I usually listen to podcasts or something while I'm recording.) Most of the Gen V dislike I remember seeing wasn't here, but on other forums around when the game came out, or among my friends. I remember being the only one of my friends back in like, high school/college that didn't hate Black/White. I'm not sure why that is, but it's something I hope to dive into a little more as the game goes on. The OP might have been worded a little too negatively, I really do enjoy B/W, but I'm a fan of all the Pokemon generations. Personally, I think the sequels are also some of the best games in the franchise and it's a travesty that they haven't brought back the Pokemon World Tournament as postgame content since.
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Apr 15, 2019 18:15
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theshim posted:Also an excellent new avatar, man I have no idea who bought it for me but I'm thrilled. There's a poster in the sandcastle talking about making a narrative FE12 LP thread, and they had some edited portraits. I mentioned I loved this one, of course, and then I woke up and a mysterious wizard benefactor had blessed me with a SmugJagen. Nihilarian posted:Gen 5 mons evolve too drat late. Like mienshao's a fairly standard two stage fighting type that for some reason evolves at level 50? It sucks Like Clockwork posted:B/W are my second favorite Pokémon games; they're only really held back by the ridiculous evolution levels for a lot of Unova 'mons imo. I had forgotten about this issue, honestly, but it sure Is A Thing. It reminds me of the issue with Crabrawler in original Sun/Moon, where you cannot evolve them until you've reached the final area of the game, right before the E4. Platinum might not have aged as well as I remember it, to be frank. Next update is pretty well on its way, there's some more tutorializing, which I apologize for, but I just want to cover my bases. Plot also starts, though.
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Apr 15, 2019 20:32
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Update 3: Jagen Attends A Protest Event Welcome back to Pokemon Black. Jagen just assured his friends he’d beat them in a Pokemon catching contest, so let’s see if we can manage that.  Although I guess we have to avoid Casual Friday Slenderman first? (These zooms were not meant for still shots.)  It’s a dog! Lillipup is one Gen 5 design I don’t think I’ve heard anyone complain about, because it’s adorable.  Let’s get one on our team, shall we?  While Marth slams in with some truly regal and elegant Tackles, the Lillipup is all about that Leer life.  Once its HP is in the red, we mimic Juniper.    I’d ask you to cross your fingers, but this is post-commentary.  Hooray! First catch of the LP.  This one must be pretty dumb, then, because Marth was pounding it.  Unfortunately, both Marth and our new Lillipup are pretty weak from that fight, so Jagen does the sensible thing and goes to ask his mom for help. Phew! I’m taking a little break from cleaning up. You and your Pokemon should take a break, too. Mom, I just started.   Our Pokemon are fully healed, but Jagen is easily distracted and goes to watch TV.   : If you were born in May, your sign is Bouffalant!We haven’t seen Bouffalant yet, and showing the sprite feels like a spoiler. But I understand the desire for the people born in May to get their horoscopes from this LP so I figured I’d compromise.  There it is, that’s Bouffalant. : You are a very calm and relaxed person! Everyone feels at peace when they’re around you. Try to be a little more assertive, and all will be well!: What’s the lucky item for a Bouffalant sign?: Weeell… Carry a X Attack. I’d like to note that I do not endorse this horoscope. : Thank you very much! See you next time!While we’re at home, let’s take a closer look at both of our new Pokemon.  Here’s the status screen for Marth. The most interesting bits here are the Nature at the top and the “Capable of taking hits” text at the bottom of the top screen. That text on the bottom provides a hint as to the Pokemon’s Individual Values, unique to that Pokemon and providing minor stat differences at max level. You don’t have to worry about this at all unless you intend on, like, competitive multiplayer battling. As for Nature, a Pokemon’s nature will provide some slightly more impactful changes to their stats. Normally you’d have to like, look up a chart for that, but:  Pokemon Black and White have this lovely mechanic where they just highlight the affected stats for you on this screen! The blue stat is being lowered, and the red stat is being raised. So Marth, being Jolly, will have a slightly higher Speed than normal, and a slightly lowered Special Attack. I know I sound like a broken record now, but you do not have to worry about this in the base game. (With the possible exception of the Battle Subway, but we’ll get to that...much much later.) We can also see Marth’s ability here! Overgrow will give Grass type moves a 50% boost in power if the user is under ½ HP. Not bad at all! Most species of Pokemon have two or three different possible abilities, but the Snivy you get at the start will always have Overgrow.  Lillipup, on the other hand, is rocking Vital Spirit, giving it immunity to Sleep. Not terrible, but not really useful either. Let’s head back to Route 1 and see if we can round up a third teammate.  And, of course, read a sign.    More importantly, sometimes they’ll give you stuff. This lady rambled about how having high HP was good but I’m cutting it just to spite that sign.  It did take Marth defeating another Lillipup to level up, because catching a wild Pokemon doesn’t actually get you any experience. Don’t worry, they fix it in Generation 6.  And we get a pretty drat useful move for our starter!  Vine Whip, while having the same Power as Tackle, outdoes it because Vine Whip shares a typing with Marth. Same Type Attack Bonus (STAB) gives you a 1.5x multiplier on attacks. Good stuff!  The Potion was used in lieu of having to walk all the way back to Mom again, because I’m fantastically lazy.  Now, there’s Cheren (and the end of the Route, it’s extremely short and just a straight line), but there’s something else I want here.  It’s not you.  Not this one either.  At least they’re giving our own Lillipup experience. I’m sure a lot of you are already aware of this trick, but all Pokemon that take part in a battle split the experience, so making Lillipup my lead and switching to Marth on the first turn was an easy way to get our pup some extra punch.  Odor Sleuth might be the most useless move in Pokemon. It allows Normal type moves to hit Ghost type Pokemon. If this ever comes up, congratulations, I guess? It also negates evasion boosts, but that’s not likely to come up either. You’re better off having something that impacts the battle more in this slot. Not that we have much of a choice right now.   Six Lillipups later, we finally hit a Patrat! The split is allegedly 50/50 Lillipup/Patrat on this route, but I don’t believe it.  One tackle from Lillipup got it this low, so we’re just going to have to hope for the best without the red zone of HP.  Oh, hey, look! The best.  Patrat’s eyes terrify me and I don’t like it, but lots of people seem to!  He even got a name suggestion! Thanks, Darth TNT! All glory to our new pal, Hypnotoad.  I took out a little frustration on another Lillipup. I might be turning into a bad person, and it’s only Update 3.  Patrat, of course, has KEEN EYE because holy poo poo look at him.  In general, I hear constantly comparing yourself to others is a bad way to live your life, Cheren  Oh, well, I’ve got that crushed. Never mind.   Read ‘em and weep.  Are you excited to have that many Pokemon with you? Incidentally, if you check your Pokedex, you’ll see how many Pokemon you’ve found and how many you’ve caught. I’m off to Accumula Town! The professor is waiting.Incidentally, you don’t have to win this competition. You can fully just trudge through Route 1 with one Pokemon, Bianca will ask if you’re lonely, and then everything proceeds as normal, except that you just got dunked on by a girl wearing an apple on her head.  Oh. Hey, a phone call!         Cheren walks off and we’re all left to wallow in the awkwardness of a four person group chat where only two of the participants said anything. I’m sure that’s a relatable feeling.  Merely a short jaunt from Nuvema Town, we hit our second town, Accumula! I have no idea why they even bothered building two towns this close together, but this isn’t Civilization V and I can’t critique their tile choices. By the way, due to request, music link!  Did they erect that sign as soon as they founded it? Were they that confident? I’m sure you can see Juniper right over there, but in true LP fashion, I’m going to bullshit around and chat with the locals before progressing the plot.   The tall grass isn’t the only place we’ll find Wild Pokemon, but this advice is sound.   Jagen’s honored but I’m sure Marth hates it. Maybe he’s referring to Lillipup?  Don’t rush me.  Cheren greatly disapproves of my LP pacing.  ...There isn’t much to do in Accumula Town, is there?      Not after that.   This town is terrible.   This guy’s hyping up the rest of the LP for me. I appreciate that.   What a nice guy!  I try to keep several Pokeballs on me at all times. You never know when you’ll run across an interesting Pokemon, especially if a shiny comes your way.   Naturally, we go Grass to rep our pal Prince Marth.    Don’t worry, kid, I have extensive experience in playing rock-paper-scissors minigames. No matter how much I try to forget Rune Factory 2, it never leaves me alone!  Trying to exit town through this tunnel results in these mysterious hooded figures blocking our path. That’s clearly something we’ll need The Plot to take care of, so let’s stop messing with Juniper and check in.    Don’t you feel better as soon as you walk through the door?This jingle actually does cheer me up.  OK, let’s start your tour! Bianca, you were already here. Do you know what waiting is? A Pokemon Center is a truly incredible place! Do you know why? Because your Pokemon can be healed! And what’s more, it’s absolutely free! A Pokemon Center is a Trainer’s best friend! Here, give it a try. Juniper will not allow us to squirrel our way out of this tutorial. Not that we’d really want to, this is pretty essential knowledge.     The nurse places the Poke Balls on the...uh...healing machine? It works its magic in one short animation.   I don’t think this little speech has ever been changed, and it doesn’t need to be. My nostalgia strings are getting tugged on really hard in this part of the update.  You can store Pokemon in your PC Boxes or select Pokemon stored in your PC Boxes to take along with you. In addition, if you catch a new Pokemon while you have six Pokemon traveling with you, the Pokemon you just caught is sent automatically to the PC network! Surprising, isn’t it? Amazing, even. Here’s something else that’s cool. If you select my PC, I’ll evaluate the progress you’ve made on your Pokedex! Professor... That’s some existential poo poo right there. Very good, Bianca. That’s a great observation! Good question, and I’d like to say more, but for now, just ignore that and go ahead and use the PC. “Someone” is the person who made the Pokemon Storage System. ...Someone I’m sure you’ll meet someday! OK, let’s move on!The storage system has been reinvented like five times at this point. It does keep getting better, though! We’ll be able to store hundreds of Pokemon in there.  This is the place to buy useful items and sell the ones you don’t need anymore! That gentleman over there will help you with a smile!from here it doesn’t look like he has a mouth, but alright. New to Black and White, the Poke Mart is now part of the Poke Center. That saves some time, so it’s a welcome feature. So, let’s wrap this up. I’ve given you the basics of being a Trainer! I’m going to head back to Nuvema Town. One final thing... She’s a friend of mine from long ago, and I’m sure she’ll help you on your way! Best of luck! I hope that your journeys prove to be the adventure of a lifetime!That’s cool, but I’m distracted by potential shopping now.  Potions and Poke Balls are definitely important. Umm...thinking... Lucky for Bianca, that’s literally all they’re selling at this counter right now. I pick up five of each.  The other counter has Mail! Mail doesn’t do anything, but you can write messages with preapproved words on it and give it to a Pokemon, and then trade it to a friend or over the internet. This was of course mostly just used to try and find ways to make rude jokes so Nintendo doesn’t include it anymore.  Speaking of multiplayer features, that’s what the whole upper floor is dedicated to! Sadly, as I mentioned before, they are no longer functional since Nintendo WFC was taken down. No global trading in this LP, I’m afraid. That’s the Pokecenter toured. They all have the same layout, and there’s one in each major town.  Outside, a commotion! Maybe they all finally looked into Patrat’s terrifying visage.  This guy’s pretty chill about it.  Identical people with goofy costumes and ostentatious flags? I’m sure this is on the level.    There’s like, one school per region in Pokemon, you can’t be tossing around four syllable words like that.  I’m sure most of you believe that we humans and Pokemon are partners that have come to live together because we want and need each other. However...Is that really the truth? Have you ever considered that perhaps humans only assume that this is the truth? Pokemon are subject to the selfish commands of Trainers...They get pushed around when they are our “partners” at work… This crowd is pretty easily swayed. Now, ladies and gentlemen, Pokemon are different from humans. They are living beings that contain unknown potential.I think he means Unown potential. They are living beings from whom we humans have much to learn.  But I just got these! Then, and only then, will humans and Pokemon truly be equals. Everyone, I end my words here today by imploring you to consider the relationship between people and Pokemon...and the correct way to proceed. We sincerely appreciate your attention. They wander off, but something about Ghetsis’ coat looks familiar…   Everyone kinda wanders off here as well, except for…    Oh, don’t worry, he says that a lot. Slow down. You talk too fast. And what’s this about Pokemon...talking? That’s an odd thing to say. : Yes, they’re talking. Oh. Then, you two can’t hear it, either… How sad.   We were asked to complete the Pokedex, and we just left on our journey. My main goal is to become the Champion, though.: The Pokedex, eh? So… You’re going to confine many, many Pokemon in Poke Balls for that, then. I’m a Trainer, too, but I can’t help wondering...Are Pokemon really happy that way? Surprise miniboss!  N’s coming at us with only one Pokemon. If you did any leveling on Route 1 at all, you’ll be fine.  His Purrloin is a Dark type, so we don’t have anything supereffective against it. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, each Pokemon has one or two types, and each type is weak to or strong against different other types. Some types of attacks can’t damage certain Pokemon with other types at all! I’ll post a link to the type chart so new folks can get that info, but for now, just know that this thing is far, far beefier than Hypnotoad at his measly Level 4.  Thankfully, Leer isn’t affected by level at all, so we can use Hypnotoad to soften this thing up.  It responds by...lowering Hypnotoad’s attack. Great tactic, N.  I managed to get about three Leers in, which should let Marth do some work.    One Vine Whip’s already got N’s Purrloin on the ropes.  It wasn’t exactly a complicated battle.   Trainer battles do give double the experience of their wild counterparts, though, so we get a nice boost from taking N down.  Yow indeed.    : I have to change the world for Pokemon, because they’re my friends. ...Well we’re going to want to keep an eye out for that guy.  But I’m not going to worry about it. Trainers and Pokemon help each other out! Listen, I’m going on ahead. I want to battle the Gym Leader in the next town--Striaton City. Aim to battle Gym Leader after Gym Leader. The best way for a Trainer to become stronger is to challenge the Gym Leaders in each area. And, after giving us some additional prodding as to our next destination, Cheren dips out as well. Heading for Striation will have to wait until next time, though. Bonus (?) Content (?):  Have a transparent version of Patrat’s Horrifying Eyeballs. Do what you will with them.  It’s too late for Cheren. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 15:57 on Apr 16, 2019 |
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Apr 16, 2019 15:16
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Leraika posted:quick note: Jolly lowers special attack and raises speed (and that's extremely unintuitive with the way they label them in the games, imho). Whoops, thank you. Crosspeice posted:Lillipup is a good dog and it seems like it's a permanent team member? Well, it doesn't matter what you use, they're all good dogs. I wouldn't mind using Lillipup at all, I love it's evos.
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Apr 16, 2019 15:59
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hopeandjoy posted:Fun fact: N really does speak quickly. His text scrolling is always one level faster than your setting, even on fast. Dybael posted:Extremely minor yet adorable point: telling the pianist or drummer to play adds their instrument into the background music! Here - it's nothing dramatic, but I quite enjoy it. These are both really cool things I failed to notice! New Wave Jose posted:We should commit to the gimmick and give a Fire Emblem name to every pokemon we catch. please, we aren't smash bros. Canonically what's under Steve's hair.
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Apr 16, 2019 19:45
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If I had any prizes to give I'd make this a thread contest. Darth TNT posted:Sometimes pokemon come with such great names that it feels like a waste to rename them. Lilly pup is pretty close to that sentiment. I named mine Scruffy. I'll make sure to put it on the list for when we hit the Name Rater. Which thankfully isn't super far away in this game. Solumin posted:Also I refuse to believe any actually likes Patrat.  I had to check with an unbiased third party.
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Apr 16, 2019 21:54
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 It seems like we've got a lot of Joltik support, which I'll remember. Even if a Pokemon doesn't make it on the endgame team, I'll try to show off all the suggestions I can, at least a little bit. I don't mind grinding new members up offscreen a bit. On a related note, I'm curious, do you like seeing screenshots of each level up? I think Fire Emblem has sorta hard-wired me to include them, but they're less interesting in Pokemon, and they do take up some screenshot real estate. I'm interested in opinions on presentation elements like that, I'm still sorta trying to feel out a style for this LP.
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Apr 18, 2019 17:48
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Update 4: Jagen Tours The Public School System Welcome back! Now that we’re finished with touring the Pokemon Center, watching a speech in the park, and fending off some weird guy with green hair, I think it’s about time to leave Accumula Town behind.  These tunnels often connect cities to major routes, and the scrolling text on the billboards inside is probably the most interesting part.  They’ll tell you the weather of nearby areas, show advertisements for local points of interest, and give general tips. Sadly, they scroll extremely slowly and in a way that is not very screenshot LP friendly.   Sometimes it’s the simple things in life. I still like watching raindrops race down car windows. I’m not gonna shame this NPC.  Route 2 is a pretty simple place, much like Route 1 before it.  But before we go exploring, Jagen’s got a call!     I thought I left the blink animation dead and buried but it’s crawled its way out of the grave for revenge  Uh, surprise, she’s right there. I’d ask how she knew where to find us, but we pretty much just walked in a straight line from home and went left once. Couldn’t be too tough to puzzle out.  : Professor Juniper said that you were probably headed for Striaton City by now. I have another present for you. Try these on! Hello, one of the most useful items in the series. Lovely to see you here. These just let you move faster, and everyone loves that. : When you’re wearing the Running Shoes, you can go anywhere in a flash! Let me read you the instructions…I know every Pokemon LP ever made has made this joke, but how are there instructions for a pair of shoes? : “Hold the B Button to run faster than normal. Put on the Running Shoes and tear around to your heart’s content!” That’s what it says. I bought these a long time ago and stashed them away somewhere.  See, Jagen’s totally helpful! : Jagen, you understand that you’re never really alone, right? You’re with Pokemon, you have friends, and you’re always in my thoughts. That’s all right, then. Enjoy your trip! Jagen’s mom is super cool, folks. Happy Mother’s Day, and know that if you’re reading this on Mother’s Day I totally planned that.  This Route will give us our introduction to generic trainer battles. But not quite yet.  Don’t worry, I saw that item in the other screenshot. This is almost impossible to miss, it’s right in the middle of your only path forward.  Just like Route 1, you’ll be swarmed by Patrats and Lillipups here.  They’re higher level on average, at least, so that’s more experience for us.  Ooh. That could come in handy.  As soon as you walk into a Trainer’s sightline…  Yeah, what he said. It’s trainer battle time!   There are entirely too many Eyes on this screen, and his are one level bigger than mine. Let’s reach into our new bag of tricks.  Bite is interesting. It’s got the same Power as Tackle, better accuracy, and the ability to potentially make your target flinch, which basically just skips their turn. That said, Tackle is Normal, so STAB means it’s better for damage on Hypnotoad. I went for Tackles in this fight, but you could make an argument for the accuracy and flinching on Bite too.  (It doesn’t really matter it’s the first trainer battle but I’m trying to make this interesting :shh:)  Good luck with that, Youngster Jimmy. I hope you get more Patrats.  Good point. Let’s go do that, especially because I forgot to do so after battling N in the last update.   What kind of monster would say NO to this?  HE HOPPED HOLY poo poo A Guy Too Cool To Get A Portrait: Wooo! Hey! Were you watching? You can take a shortcut by jumping off ledges! Amazing, eh? These ledges are one-way shortcuts. Very handy  I just healed up and returned to Route 2, I’m sparing you those screenshots.   Not these, though. Second battle!   Blink Animation was not kind to poor Purrloin. Neither was the Attack stat. Only four damage per Scratch?  Not nearly as cute as Patr-no, no, you’re right.  This route looks a little more complicated than it is. We can’t actually take that other path, since ledges are one-way. We’ll just have to trudge through the bushes.  After another level up, Hypnotoad gets a Bad Move.  I guess you could make Bide work with the right Pokemon/Ability, but right now it’s just really slow and locks you up for two turns. I don’t think I’ve ever used it and been pleased with the results.  Our final encounter! I wonder what Pokemon he’ll use?  Oh.   Well, time to try out the move.  Behold the power of Hypnotoad’s BIDE!  Oh. It didn’t even attack twice.  thanks for showing up, Bide  Whose Lillipup is tougher now?  This isn’t a bad pickup either.  Even this guy can’t believe I used Bide.  This tree seems...oddly out of place, but there’s nothing we can do about it for now.  There’s a semi-hidden area at the top right corner of this route. You can see these items from Accumula Town, actually, which serves as a nice hint.   Nothing gamebreaking, but it’s not like we expended much effort to find it either.  We’ve got a capstone to this Route, though…  : The Pokemon I caught have become a little stronger! Ready or not, here I come! This game sure likes rival fights.  The only new addition to Bianca’s team is a Level 6 Lillipup. Honestly, it doesn’t help her much.  It will take me three Vine Whips to down it, though.  It went for the Odor Sleuth. This does literally nothing.   Some trainers will use items against you, typically only “bosses”, though. This is Bianca’s only Potion, though, so she’s basically just stalling out the battle.  Farewell, five Vine Whip PP.  This is the first time we’ve seen a Trainer with more than one Pokemon, by the by. Since I’m still on the default mode, I get the option to swap after fainting an opponent’s Pokemon.  Marth’s already got the advantage in this fight by far, though.   Forgive me for what I am about to do, Oshawott.  Since Grass is effective against Water, we get double damage from that Vine Whip!    And it only does half damage with its Water Gun. This is the Rock-Paper-Scissors system of Pokemon in a nutshell.  Just use another Potion!  Oh, wait. I took all of them. Off of the ground.   : You are a tough cookie, Jagen. I’m gonna work hard on training my Pokemon so we won’t lose anymore! With Bianca defeated again, we can walk on into Striaton City!  Before the traditional mucking about town can begin, I need to heal my team and take care of one other little issue on Route 2. There’s a 20% chance of encountering one other creature in the tall grass...  Here we go. We’ve seen so many Purrloin, let’s get one of our own!  Purrloin is Dark Type, so I went with a Dark move to get Not Very Effective and whittle it down slowly.  Too slow.  OKAY TOO FAST  Whew.  Purrloin is...pretty bad, to be honest. Its offensive stats are just kinda irredeemable, and of all the early game Pokemon, I think you’re better off with Lillpup, or even Patrat. There will be more Dark types.  Limber is a pretty uninteresting ability, but hey, there it is. Alright, sidebar over, let’s get to the wandering.    Wow. It paid off immediately. Great Balls have a better catch rate than Poke Balls, and we can’t buy them yet, so this is quite a find!  ...I don’t think that’s how relationships work.  I dunno, I’m still afraid of Hypnotoad and I think Marth hates us.  This kid gives a handy tip, since the game never really explicitly tutorializes about STAB.  And the Gym’s right here, but it looks like their Leader is either the avant garde trainer, ---, or they aren’t listed.  The clues for --- continue to mount.     Well, looks like we’ve got a little puzzle to solve before we can fight for our first badge!  Well I’m stumped.  Hey! HEY! That’s my thing! Stop that.  Okay, maybe there’s more garbage in here.  You know what’s not garbage? (perfect segue)  From this generation onwards, TMs can be used an unlimited amount of times, where they used to be single use. This is great and allows for a lot more Pokemon to be built up without needing to grind out Battle Points for more Earthquakes or whatever.  Why not?  You could honestly probably answer this one even without knowledge of Pokemon.    Again, not exactly a brain buster.    Here’s another item that’s currently not buyable!  Pretty good stuff!  The chalkboard has a list of all the status conditions and what they do, but there have been a lot of tutorials in these first few parts, so I’ll just explain them as they come along.  Or, y’know, Cheren could get me started. : Hey, Jagen. : He was here talking about Pokemon types until just a few moments ago… Maybe you walked right past him? Jagen, will you have a battle with me? I mean, I see no reason not to!  This game sure likes rival fights: Part Two.  Unlike Bianca, Cheren leads with his starter.  Just like Bianca’s Oshawott, it’s picked up its first STAB move, Ember! Pretty standard Fire type attack, with no real catches to note.  Oh. Except for this one, the one where it rarely inflicts...Burn.  It does 1/8th of a Pokemon’s Max HP per turn, and, more cripplingly right now, cuts the damage dealt by physical attacks in half.   That’s not important right now, Cheren.  With its damage effectively halved, poor Hypnotoad is pretty much out of this. Time to bring in the slightly bigger guns.  Cheren’s got a trick too. His Tepig’s holding an Oran Berry, which restores 10 HP when the holder drops under half HP. Still, it’s no match for endless repeated Tackles.  Cheren’s also picked up a new Pokemon in the form of a Purrloin. It’s not much to worry about.  Especially because it does this.  Assist randomly selects a move from the moves known by other Pokemon in the trainer’s party and uses that. If this...randomly hits Ember, I guess it’s kinda scary? Otherwise it doesn’t do much. I’m really only pointing this out because Wild Purrloins can also do it, in which case it does roughly nothing. N can also do it with his lone Purrloin for a similar effect.  And we get another Very Bad Move. Hooray.    : Oh, here. Jagen, I’ll give you these Berries. : If you give a Pokemon this kind of Berry to hold, it will eat it to heal up when its HP goes down in battle. But if you give Pokemon man-made items like Potions to hold, they can’t use them. Well, good luck, then.That’s about all I wanted to do in this update, but I do want to point out one more thing in Striaton City.  There’s a nice shrub and water garden here.  There’s also a Great Ball in it!  That’s all for now. Next time, maybe we’ll dig into some more garbage to find the Gym Leader. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Apr 21, 2019 |
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Apr 20, 2019 18:15
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Commander Keene posted:Uh, this seems like a typo? I'm not that familiar with 5th Gen Pokemon, but the image says Purrloin. Yup, that's my bad. I had the evolution on the mind. Solumin posted:Another nice thing about Gen V that this update shows: Mom is actually a character! She leaves the house! She's more than just a heal bot who tells us it's ok to go on an adventure. The Moms definitely start to be more characterized with this game. The X/Y Mom actually has some backstory, and the Sun/Moon Mom is pretty entertaining.
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Apr 21, 2019 01:11
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If they don't have Champion Mom in Sword/Shield I'm going to make even more subpar jokes about Patrat's eyes, and Game Freak will regret their decision. Just as a heads-up, an update may be later than expected this week. I'm taking on an extra shift at work, so I've got a lot less free time to spend making subpar jokes about Patrat's eyes. I'm also pretty close to finishing Return Of The Obra Dinn.
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Apr 23, 2019 19:07
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Update 5: Jagen Meets The Awful Monkeys Welcome back. Last time, we tried to get into Striaton City’s Gym, but there was a guy in the way. This time, we’ll try to get into Striaton City’s gym.  But there’s a guy in the way.  Oh, hey, that’s progress.  : You are…? Right. you want to challenge the Gym. In that case...What was the first Pokemon you chose? Among other things, but yes! : I think you need to prepare to face that type. For example, try training your Pokemon in the Dreamyard. Please excuse me now. The door to the gym is open now, but it’s best we heed that green haired fellow’s advice.   okay game i get it  i still get it  So, this is the Dreamyard. It’s a rather...whimsical place for what looks like an industrial waste dump.  Also it’s got a few trainers.  By “trainers”, I do naturally mean “more of the same pokemon you’ve already seen, but they give more experience now”.  All glory to the Hypnotoad, able to slam down two Purrloins his level. (barely)  All I did was Tackle. Not that this is a Black/White only issue, but the start of this game is fairly dull. We’re almost through the first gym, and we’ve only seen three Pokemon used by trainers that aren’t our Rivals. We’ll hit four by the end of the update.   The man. The myth. The legend. It’s Youngster Joey!  That’s not a Ratatta at all! What the gently caress, Youngster Joey!  Get out of my sight, you imposter. (His Pokemon were both Level 7 Patrats.)  This NPC is actually not a Trainer, but they have a more...interesting function.    OH BOY TIME FOR THE ELEMENTAL MONKEYS.  … I do need to show off the content.  Fine.  But I’m not happy about it.   okay let’s talk about the monkeys  So, Pokemon Black/White kinda sorta have a second starter cycle. This NPC will give you a Pokemon of the type that’s weak against your starter, so you can cover the gap created by the Pokemon strong against your starter. So, since we took Grass Type Snivy, we get Water Type Panpour.  They are all three these weird monkey things, they all look the same, they creep me out and I don’t like them. Still, you get your chosen monkey at Level 10, which is really hefty for this stage of the game, so they can be quite useful for a while. Gluttony is a weird ability that makes it so your Pokemon eats held berries that are triggered at 25% HP at 50% HP instead. I see almost no practical use for this, to be honest.  Anyway, here’s an X Defend. Using this in battle will raise a Pokemon’s defense by one stage, like if you’d used a stat altering move like Harden. They’re very situational and I usually forget about them, to be honest with you. And that’s all we can do in the Dreamyard for now! We’ll be back, but I guess for now, they just really wanted you to get a Free Monkey.  Let’s proceed to the main event.  And get immediately accosted by this guy, of course.    Fresh Water is a pretty solid HP restoring item. Not a bad gift at all! You’re alright, Clyde.   One of the gimmicks for this gym is that it’s restaurant themed. The other is a little more interesting, and you can probably guess what it is if you look hard in this screenshot.    : If you choose Pokemon with effective types and effective moves, victory is just a step away! In this Gym, you proceed by stepping on the switch with the type that is effective against the Pokemon type shown on the curtain.The puzzle here is just testing your knowledge of Type effectiveness, but only with the three starter types. This feels like a good time to link to Bulbapedia’s type chart, which is a great resource for new players.  As you probably already know, Fire is weak to Water.  But puzzles aren’t the only obstacles in Striaton Gym.   We’ll be accosted by the wait staff!  I had this same thing happen to me at an Olive Garden one time.  Let’s prove our Pup’s power and puissance.  Perfect.  Pardon, pal, leave the P word alliteration to me.  Next up, the Water curtain. Grass will remove it.  I don’t think there’s a space in “deluxe”.    I hope you sure like Patrat I am not a fan of this Patrat in particular!  Time to beat a hasty retreat.  Let’s give the newbie some time to shine.  I think the only new move here is Lick, which is a very weak Ghost type attack with a minimal chance to cause Paralysis. However, since Patrat is a Normal type, Ghost won’t even effect it. We’ll stick to Water Gun.  Her second Pokemon is just another Purrloin. I promise there will be new Pokemon next time.  What’s annoying about this Purrloin in particular is that it knows the ever annoying Sand-Attack, a move that decreases your accuracy. It leads to a lot of stuff like this and I hate it.  No  But that was the last Gym Trainer, and here’s the last curtain. You can get this one off process of elimination alone. Or, you know, paying attention to the game mechanics, whatever floats your boat.  But before we advance to the Gym Leader, let’s heal up and examine our team.  Hypnotoad still does decent damage, but he’s super frail and can’t stick around in a fight for long.  Marth’s speed is his best asset, and he should be able to make the first move on just about anything that gets thrown at us for now.  Lillipup is more than pulling its weight with solid bulk and a hefty Attack stat. Lillipup is just a great Pokemon.  oh yeah we have this  Panpour hasn’t changed at all, but here it is for posterity. It’ll serve a very key role in the upcoming battle…  Speaking of the upcoming battle.    The pun is that they’re all spices. Chili, Cress, and Cilan(tro).  Of note, but hard to capture in a screenshot LP, they like to do synchronized spins, but Cilan is always a little off. : Um, you see...As for why the three of us, um, are all here is, well, er… : Oh, enough! Listen up! The three of us will decide whom you’ll battle! It’ll be based on the type of the first Pokemon you chose!  This is a first of its kind (and still only of its kind, AFAIK) gym for the series that adapts to your starter choice for the Leader battle! Had we picked Tepig, we’d be up against Cress, and Oshawott would give us Cilan. We’d also have the corresponding monkey, though.  Bold words for a man at type disadvantage.   Aww. Maybe in the sequel.    Time for our first Gym Battle!  No matter which of the brothers you face, they have two Pokemon, and their first is always the same.  This Level 12 Lillipup is a step above anything we’ve faced so far. Not only because of level, but…   It’s gettin’ PISSED   Work Up is a pretty cool move that raises both the Attack and Special Attack of a Pokemon. Great for mixed attackers. This Lillipup only knows physical moves, but it’s a nice touch?  The bigger issue is that it’s hefty, and it’ll keep stacking those Work Up buffs…  You’ll have to slowly chip away while it rocks you with buffed up Tackles.  Or, y’know, you could do that.  You know, I can’t even complain about this.  Thankfully, the Potion’s cap of 20 HP restored is starting to become an issue.  You gave your all, buddy.  Another punk’s pup gets pounded.  And now WE have the Level 12 Lillipup. It can learn Helping Hand! Helping Hand only does anything in battles with multiple Pokemon out at once, and can boost the damage of an ally’s move by 50%.  Multi-Battles really aren’t common enough for me to want to spend a move slot on this, and even if I did, I’d probably rather just have Lillipup making attacks of its own.  The leader’s second and final Pokemon is different for each brother. It’s their corresponding elemental monkey.  Let’s fight Fire with Water. (i do not like these things)  So, you basically get handed a victory in this Gym Battle with your elemental monkey.  It gets Worked Up.  That won’t help it for long. I could see not using your monkey in this battle as a way to do a sort of “challenge” run of the gym, but it’d really just involve more Route 2 grinding, and also I’ve never claimed to be good at any of the games I play!  We actually ended up with the most interesting of the monkeys to battle, by the way. While Cilan’s Pansage and Cress’ Panpour have the bog standard Vine Whip and Water Gun, Chili’s Pansear has a new move, Incinerate!   The gimmick with Incinerate is that it burns up any held Berries. Joke’s on Chili, I didn’t prepare at all!  A few more Water Guns and he’s down for the count. Farewell, monkey menace.   : Well, it’s the Pokemon League’s rule. Take this Gym Badge! Our first shiny new badge!   Thankfully Jagen brought his handy Badge Wallet.  The Trio Badge serves to remind Jagen of his adventures so far with basic typings. As well as siblings with primary colored hair who specialize in a certain gimmick, with the blue one being the calm and collected type and hey wait a minute  : If you have one Badge, Pokemon, including traded Pokemon up to Lv. 20 will obey you without question. We also want you to have this.The “obedience” gimmick is just so your friends can’t trade you a Level 100 monster at the start of the game and let you rampage with it. If they’re too high level, Pokemon will sometimes just ignore your commands and take a nap or whatever.  And we get a pretty useful move as a parting gift! : In the Unova region, we are still novice Gym Leaders. Which means the other Gym Leaders are much stronger than we are. We’ll need to work hard and improve.  For now…  Finally, the recognition we deserve. They chisel quick on this plaque.   I’m documenting it in screenshots and putting it on the internet, buddy.  But there’s no rest for the Jagens, even after a hard-fought victory.   : Professor Juniper asked me to give you something. Please, follow me! We can trust her, she’s got a lab coat on. Plus, if she tries to rob us I’m sure Lillipup could take her down.  I’m gonna do what I can for the LP. We’re only five parts in, don’t rush me! : Oh, the stairs are right here!  : In fact, the subject I’m researching is Trainers! Professor Juniper is my friend from college. She asked me to help you guys.  Ooh, this’ll come in handy!  : With this Hidden Machine, you can teach your Pokemon a move called Cut. It can cut down a small tree. And you can use the Hidden Machine as many times as you want, like a ™. Isn’t that great? But it’s difficult to make a Pokemon forget a hidden move once it learns it.HMs can affect obstacles on the overworld! Remember all those shrubs we kept seeing? gently caress ‘em. Unfortunately, to prevent the possibility of a softlock, you can’t make a Pokemon forget HM moves naturally, a special NPC has to do it for you. Also, most HM moves are pretty bad in combat. Cut’s okay for now, but it’ll quickly be outclassed. So you’ll have to either saddle your party with some bad moves, or carry around throwaway Pokemon just for HM purposes. They’ll find an elegant solution to this in two generations, but for now we’ve just gotta live with it.  : There is a place called the Dreamyard on the outskirts of Striaton City. I’d like some of the Dream Mist that a Pokemon there called Munna gives off. With that, I’ll be able to use Game Sync to collect save files of various Trainers!Flagrant fourth wall obliteration aside, this is a pretty clear hint as to our next required plot location. We couldn’t get anywhere in the Dreamyard before, but with Cut, I like our prospects much better.    Oh, hey, that was fast.   : If there’s a Pokemon you often use in your battles, you can register it in the Battle Box!The Battle Box is basically just a way to make a preset team for multiplayer battling. Nothing of consequence for this LP, but a nice touch!  dang it  And “Someone’s PC” has officially been renamed! Next time we’ll venture into the Dreamyard proper. Bonus(?) Content: We didn’t see the last monkey.  Here’s Pansage. There it is. Now forget about it. …What do you mean there are evolutions?
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Apr 27, 2019 14:09
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Darth TNT posted:It may be the best route 1 mon ever and yes I know Talonflame exists. But without his Hidden Ability, he's only average. Talonflame is named TALONFLAME and that's an ability in and of itself. Black Robe posted:I still maintain you should use all three of the monkeys. I'll do what I can to ensure Proper Monkey Screentime. Toyotasomi no Miko posted:I... Think you used the wrong TM here. So I write updates in Google Drive, and I could not get it to stop doing that. I'll have to figure out how to disable the auto formatting, good catch. DoubleNegative posted:Work Up is interesting. It's a decent buff move, but (at least in Essentials fangames) it fails if there's no opponent in front of you. No other stat boost fails if the opponent KOs themself. That's interesting. I don't think I've ever seen that happen in an official game, but it's a fairly rare case. It could be just an Essentials thing, but I'm not sure either way. dotchan posted:Elemental Monkeys plus Aipom. the detective Pikachu aipom is a hellspawn. biosterous posted:
I mean, it makes ME feel better.
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Apr 28, 2019 05:47
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Regalingualius posted:What about Patrat eyes combined with Kamina’s shades? I apologize, the only anime references I understand are Yugioh and Jojo's. Dybael posted:Yup, Pansear's evo was #720 out of 720, and the other elemental monkeys were all way at the bottom of the list too... except for Pansage, which made it to the rarefied heights of #397? No, I don't get it either. It's because Pansage is clearly a nickname for weed. I should mention that this video is required viewing for the rest of the LP (and the full panel is worth it too if you have half an hour)
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Apr 29, 2019 18:17
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Update 6: Jagen Takes Hallucinogens On Fennel’s request, we’re headed to the Dreamyard to look for some Dream Mist from Munna, the Dream Eater Pokemon. Dream.  We couldn’t do much earlier in this area, thanks to this shrub blocking the way. But now we’ve got some new tools.  Well, one new tool. Cut is a rather terrible move, being worse than Tackle, but it’s got some handy utility. As an HM, it can interact with the environment!  It also beats the heck out of Bide. Goodbye, Bide.  You can activate HM moves by choosing them from the Party screen...if you want. You can also just press A next to the object you’re trying to use them on in most cases.   Timber, Patrat!  Well, that worked out pretty well!  And this quickly triggers another Bianca appearance.    Not much exploring is necessary for Bianca to get a lead. : Did you hear a sound coming from the other side of that wall? Come on! Let’s go see! Ah. A...balloon?    Oh, hey, it’s these guys.    : Mu!: Huh? Who are you?! What are you doing?Bianca wasn’t around for their speech in Accumula Town, if you remember. She was too busy trying to decide if she wanted to buy Potions or Poke Balls.   : We battle day and night to liberate Pokemon from foolish humans!  : The Pokemon Munna and Musharna emit a mysterious vapor called Dream Mist, which shows people’s dreams. We’re going to use that to make people want to release their Pokemon...We’ll show them dreams to manipulate their hearts.But...wouldn’t they already have to be having those dreams in the first place for that to work? All this plan is going to do is make it everyone’s first day of work and they’re naked, forever.  Regardless, the grunt on the left rams into Munna.   Use Munna responsibly, kids. : That’s mean! Why? You’re Trainers too, right?: That’s right. We’re Pokemon Trainers too, but we’re fighting for a different reason. Unlike you two, we’re fighting for the freedom of Pokemon!Jagen left his house like, a day ago, I don’t think he’s fighting for much of anything yet. : And setting Pokemon free means that we win Pokemon battles and take Pokemon by force!   P-?  Oh! Plasma. (This is a great battle theme, by the by)  And so, our dastardly villainous team makes their official battling debut! What new challenges will they throw at us?  oh come the gently caress on  One shot. All Glory To The Hypnotoad.   : Well, whatever, I’m next! Lillipup?  Not even. C’mon.  It even tried to Assist itself.  Really I’m just embarrassed for these guys.   Detect is an interesting move. It has Priority, so it will always go first. It can be used to dodge a hit from a charged move like Solar Beam or Fly, to stall out battles for poision strategies, and a myriad of other tricky uses. Sadly it’s not great in the main game, so I pass on this one.   : But we have to obtain the Dream Mist! Come on! Make with the Dream Mist!: Knock it off! Huh. He wasn’t there before.    Uh oh. Two of him.  : from foolish people! Three Ghetsis? And only one has the true Falchion! : And if you cannot fulfill your duties…: T-this isn’t...Ghetsis when he is gathering followers...Or Ghetsis when he is trying to control people by tricking them with speeches!: Yeah...This is Ghetsis when a plan has failed, and he is about to issue punishment…: At any rate, let’s hurry and say we’re sorry so he forgives us! The grunts flee, having casually dropped the information that their boss is purposefully tricking people with his speeches. Y’know, as low level video game goons do. Still more competent than the Lift Key guy.  And Ghetsis disappears.  To be replaced by...uh...whatever that is.  : ...What was that just now? That person called Ghetsis appeared all over the place, and it wasn’t real, right?! Could it have been a dream?   : Is that Musharna? : Munii! And they drift off. : Did something happen?: Oh, Fennel. Well, you see, Munna was here… But Team Plasma and Munna… And Musharna came… And it showed us something like a dream? And then, Team Plasma…I’m not sure if the ellipsis are meant to indicate abridged dialogue or that Bianca just can’t string together a coherent story about the flying pink pig that makes you hallucinate.  Glad someone did. : See, Musharna evolves from Munna. So, seeing Munna in trouble, it used its power--making dreams into reality--to save Munna! Which means...wait a second! : Is this Dream Mist? With this, I can complete my research! You two come to my house later, OK?  Bianca, stop lampooning the narrative, if you keep doing that all I’ll have left is puns. : Why don’t you go to Fennel’s house? Me? Well, I’m going to look for the Pokemon we saw just now.Bianca’s trying to dissuade us from looting the area. Not happening.  There are goodies to find!  A Repel will stop wild encounters with Pokemon at a level lower than the one in our party’s lead slot for fifty steps. Can be handy. More importantly, though, it looks like there’s more to the Dreamyard, but we can’t access it quite yet. We may need another HM for that.  Plus, since we couldn’t enter the grass before, now we can search for new Pokemon! There’s one!  The sneakiest item here is hidden at an angle so that you can only see it approaching from a specific side. Jagen is one tile to the right of it.  It’s...not really worth hiding. Now, onto hunting for Pokemon!  Oh hey, there’s one. It’s a Munna! Now that we have a better look, I can tell...I still don’t know what it’s supposed to be.  But it knows Marth is a savage Tackling warrior.  Couldn’t foresee the ball, though. Yoink.  Munna’s out here putting poor Drowzee out of a job.  Munna’s also a weird little Pokemon. It specializes in bulk, having lots of HP at the expense of being very slow. It also only knows one damaging move right now, Psybeam. Defense Curl is a defensive boost, Yawn puts the target to sleep one round after it’s used, and Lucky Chant prevents your opponents from landing crits on you for five turns. Its ability, Forewarn, will tell you the name of a move the opposing Pokemon controls with the highest Power. It’s quite interesting, but not exactly practical in most cases. That’s all we’ve got to do in the Dreamyard for quite a while (until after the credits roll, in fact!), so let’s head back into town.  I mean, I believe her, she’s wearing a lab coat. They don’t just give those things away.  : Thanks to you, I got some Dream Mist, and now I can collect save files of various Trainers! Thank you very much! As a token of my appreciation, I will give you this C-Gear to use! The C-Gear is a device related to communications, such as Infared Connection or Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. Hooray, we got one of the game’s most advertised features!  Oh no, it is entirely useless for the purposes of this LP due to the removal of Nintendo WFC and the lack of any local hot scene for a 2011 era game in my area!  (It does change the bottom screen and add a clock, though, so I guess that’s something.) : the screen. Then, after turning on the power, if you touch the “?” icon at the bottom right of the screen, you can read about the C-Gear. About Game Sync...I’d like to explain a little more about the system to collect Trainers’ save files. Fennel, please, we need to move on with the LP.  Okay, this is now a run for archival purposes, I suppose. : Because, thanks to you, we can do a great thing! Now Game Sync can retrieve memories of sleeping Pokemon using Dream Mist! That’s right! We can collect save files of Trainers from all over the world!Game Sync was a feature that allowed you to unlock the “Dream World” on the Pokemon website. You could plant berries, play minigames, and even catch some Pokemon with abilities that aren’t normally available. For example, all Snivys you get at the start of the game have Overgrow, like Marth, but Snivys obtained through the Dream World could have Contrary. : What’s more, we learned that if you use Game Sync to make a Pokemon sleep, it will have dreams. Then, when you wake up that Pokemon, its dream becomes the reality in a space called Entralink in the middle of the Unova region. Sadly, none of this is possible anymore.  But maybe Amanita knows something more pertinent!  : This is from me. Please take it. Don’t be shy.   Oh, it’s a PDA. Yay? : After you register, you can link with those friends over Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection to do all kinds of fun things! You can trade Pokemon, challenge your friends to a battle, and so on. Let me give you a quick how-to on registering your friends. You can either input your friend’s code directly by using your Pal Pad...Or you can use the IR Connection feature of the C-Gear. Then, you can register your friend!Also all obsolete now!  I hope we’ve all learned something about the tragic vulnerability of digital-only media and the impermanence of our creations in general. now let’s play some more pokemon  We’re all done w-  ...With Striaton City. For now. We can’t do anything about this shadow in the water right now, but it’s nice to look at.  This guy will stop you from leaving the city before you’ve finished your business with the Gym and Fennel. We’re all clear on plot points now, though!  Onwards to a new route!  And a classic beloved feature of Pokemon games returns here! Not that we need it at the moment.    Interestingly, the Pokemon Day Care is right next to a Human Being Day Care. Let’s check out the latter first.  This caretaker will heal your Pokemon, but mine are all freshened up right now.  Shh. I’m gonna get to it!  Look, I need to do something in this LP, and there haven’t been many opportunities to do stupid stuff with the portraits yet. Let me have this.     I think this kid is woke as gently caress.   An army of children and monsters is a stalwart ally.   Munna’s Forewarn does some work here, alerting me that this Lillipup has Bite. Bite’s Dark Type, so it’ll do double damage to Munna and that’s not what I’m about.  I swapped out, but it used Odor Sleuth instead. This is a dumb Lillipup.  It does not take my insults lightly, nailing a ridiculously powerful critackle for that joke.  Autumn’s other Pokemon is a Munna. Chomp chomp.  And so we crushed the smiles of children and Pokemon alike. Oops.  This NPC is great, because she drastically cuts down on time spent running back to the Pokecenter.  Jagen walks up the slide backwards, because he has no respect for authority.  oh poo poo it’s kindergarden cop  OH poo poo INDEED   ...Get it outta here.  Munna isn’t exactly a great fighter. We’ll talk about why in a bit.  return to the earth, cursed beast   This kid rules. Naturally, Jagen must now prove he is king of the playground by defeating all of the children frequenting it.   no  Don’t you do it.  aaaaHHHHH  Okay. Let’s all calm down and talk about why Munna’s having trouble. Psywave is...weird. Unlike most moves, which have a pretty stable power setting, I’m just going to copy/paste Bulbapedia’s definition here: Psywave inflicts damage equal to (user's level) * (r + 50) / 100, where r is a random number from 0 to 100. The damage is always rounded down; however, Psywave will always deal at least 1 HP of damage. This can lead to some absolutely awful rolls that do almost zero damage despite our Munna’s respectable Special Attack, as you can see with Panpour’s HP bar there. It’s just totally unreliable, and Munna won’t get another damaging move until it hits level 11. That one’s pretty solid and can make Munna hold up, but for now it’s sorta dead weight. If you’d like me to keep it on the team, let me know, but we’ll have a lot more options soon.  One last fun thing about the playground, you can leave footprints in this sandbox. We’re all done here for now, although we’ll certainly be returning to check out the Pokemon Day Care. But for now, we’ve got another problem.   The problem is, indeed, math.  This is our first Double Battle!  In a Double Battle, each team has an additional Pokemon on the field, and you fight 2 on 2. You can select the targets of your moves, like I’m doing here, and even hit your partner if you want. This can be an effective strategy with certain move or ability combos!   Some attacks, like Growl, will hit both enemies. Others might even affect your ally! Keep this in mind. I really enjoy Double Battles, personally, I think the extra level of added strategy makes them feel pretty fresh.  Especially against NPCs, it’s generally a good idea to focus down one trainer’s Pokemon, as when they’re out of reinforcements, their partner is stranded alone.  That was a lot of text to describe beating two Level 10 Purrloins, but hey, double battles are cool like that! Now to continue down the route!  Really?  : We both have a Trio Badge, so let’s see which of us is stronger! I Sure Hope You Like Rival Battles, Act III  Cheren leads with his usual Tepig, buffed to level 14 now. It’s a bit stronger than the Pansage Chili used, because The Monkeys Are Bad.  cheren that was “tackle”.  The Pig’s pretty beefy (Porky?), and an Oran Berry certainly doesn’t lessen that. It’s just been Leering at HYPNOTOAD...menacingly. But for quite a while. At this point, a good physical move could easily wreck our boy.   Never stop being you, Pokemon AI.  His second Pokemon is another Purrloin. I promise, we are mere steps away from more of the Pokemon in the Unova region, they made more!    cheren you never even attacked   I’d think you’d have a pretty good idea of it by now, buddy.     I’m sure it was nothing.  This line predates the meme, don’t worry, Cheren’s not becoming a hip youth just yet.  : That way, but… Why are you running now?: Oh, seriously! They run so fast! : It’ll be OK. It’ll be OK. Don’t cry.: Bianca, really, why were you running?I can just hear that clip on repeat in my head now. : You have to hear this! Those people stole this girl’s Pokemon!: You should have spoken up sooner! Of course. Jagen would never hesitate to pick up his  But first he’s going to make a quick detour to grab that item.  And, evidently, meet a new Pokemon! This one’s quite a find!  Audino has a ton of HP and defenses, making it a tough nut to crack. Perhaps most importantly, it gives a ludicrous amount of EXP upon fainting. It’s basically just Chansey for a new generation.  It also seems to enjoy DoubleSlapping the crap out of Hypnotoad.  Thankfully, a series of lucky Bite flinches puts an end to that.  As much as I’d love the experience, Audino are fairly rare, so I’m going to snag one while I can.   Audino functions mostly as a beefy wall or support Pokemon, learning very few damaging moves, although the ones it does learn (eventually) tend to be quite powerful.  Anyway, there’s a Super Potion here. Now, to chase those grunts!  Or, y’know, meet another new Pokemon.  Blitzle is our first Electric type! It’s notable for being extremely fast, but fragile. It also doesn’t know any actual electric type moves right now, but that’ll change at Level 11. So, with that all in mind, let me know if you’d like to see any of the Pokemon we caught in this update used, at least for a while. Next time we’ll chase down those Pokemon kidnappers and presumably watch Team Plasma get even more comically incompetent. See you soon.
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May 2, 2019 09:36
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Simply Simon posted:Psywave can be fiendishly powerful out of nowhere, it's not something you can rely on (or should against randos), but when I played the earlier generations and when I was younger, random-damage moves like this would save my rear end against opponents I had no business beating yet more often than not. The thing is that the damage they do is random, but fixed; so it's unaffected by pesky things like "Defense", and that can help a lot. Yeah, the Psybeam was me projecting, I suppose. We're almost there, though. I didn't see the rustling grass, so I figured Audino perhaps had a rare chance of appearing in standard encounters, but I'm realizing I probably just didn't see the patch rustling as I walked into it. I remember that being a big issue with D/P/Pt shiny hunting. Solumin posted:I actually would like to see a bit of Munna, if it won't cause you too much suffering. I've never used one. Oh, poo poo, it is a tapir and not just a weirdly shaped pig! I'll make sure both Munna and Blitzle get some spotlight time soon. I may just rotate team members throughout the game, I don't mind doing a bit of EXP grinding offscreen for the LP.
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May 2, 2019 17:58
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Funky Valentine posted:Team Plasma are those dipshits who go "you know pokemon battling is sorta like cock fighting *smug grin*". Ghetsis huddled over his computer, watching his third flash animation of the night called "VIOLENT POKEMON" on Newgrounds and shaking his head. Radio Free Kobold posted:all the handholding and tutorial and slowstart always turns me off of pokemon B/W before i can really get into the meat of the game I personally think so. If it really puts you off, though, I wouldn't blame you in skipping right to B2/W2. Those games even have a built-in Hard Mode if that's more your speed.
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May 4, 2019 23:05
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Just as a heads up, an unfortunate family emergency just landed with me. Updates might be sparse for a bit while things are worked out here. While I get things figured out, I'm not likely to have a consistent schedule or great access to the PC I use to prepare updates, but I'm not cancelling the LP or anything. Honestly, it makes for great stress relief in tough times. Just wanted to let y'all know that I'm alright, even if I'm not as active as usual online for a while. Thanks again for reading so far! LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 23:26 on May 6, 2019 |
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May 6, 2019 23:23
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(Hey y'all, I got some time and managed to pull together a quick update. Things are still a little hectic around here, but stabilizing. Thanks for the well wishes, they're much appreciated, and I think the worst of this is over. I may still be scarce for a bit, but I'll drop in when I can!) Update 7: Jagen Unleashes The Tapir  No time to waste, I say, at the top of the most delayed update so far!  And now we’re going to waste time.  Look, Cheren, I saw an item, okay? I need this.  And Munna absolutely needed this. Hitting Level 11 gives our spherical pal an actually reliable Psychic type attack that not only takes advantage of his great Sp. Atk, but comes packing a chance to inflict Confusion. Lovely stuff.    And here’s a chance to test it out!  This trainer encounter is nothing too special.  You’ve already seen these foes several times. (Here’s the Psybeam animation, by the by.)  Unfortunately Pidove’s pretty quick, so I don’t think Munna can fully flex on these early game scrubs with a sweep.  Lillipup’s no slouch, though.   That Breeder is a rare trainer who gives you something after their battle. An Oran Berry is only 10 HP, so it’s not going to be useful much longer, but it’s far better than nothing!  the game just does not want me to reach that item, huh  Well, whatever, it at least lets me fill up my Pokedex with a Pidove! Pidove is a fairly bog-standard Pidgey clone. It’s reliable enough through the endgame, but nothing special. It’s final evolution has a great pun name, at least.  This wasn’t worth it in the slightest. Let’s go sulk back in town.  I went ahead and subbed some of our new catches onto the team, to give them a little time to shine. I took out Lillipup for now, since it’s already pretty high level, and the monkey, because I hate it.  Our Pidove has the most  nature possible, with zero stat variation. Pretty apt for Pidove. Super Luck just boosts your chances of getting a Critical Hit, but the amount is some arcane value I cannot seem to divine. Take this fun fact instead. This generation of games is the last one where Critical Hits do double damage, a standard that’s been in place since Gold and Silver! They get nerfed down to 1.5x damage once we hit the 3DS.  Audino has some legit stats, although no evolution hurts it a bit. The ability, Regenerator, is more than “a little”, really, being 1/3rd of the Pokemon’s health. Audino is a great tank.  Unlike Audino, Blitzle’s got all the constitution of a twig. The ability is also a lot worse, since Electric types are not only fairly rare, they’ll probably just pick different moves to use on Blitzle. Something cool about Motor Drive that the ability description doesn’t mention is that Electric type moves not only raise speed, they have zero effect on Blitzle otherwise at all! You can do some silly bullshit with this in Double Battles.  By the by, the season’s changed! The seasons in B/W operate on a monthly rotation. When I started the LP, it was April, and that was tagged as Winter. Now that it’s May, we’re in Spring. The seasons do effect some mechanics and random encounters, but for now, it’s all just cosmetic.  Speaking of, look how nice it looks outside!  And the flowers on these hedges are blooming! Now that’s some DS Ambiance.  An entire season has changed between the last time we saw poor Cheren. I hope he’s been eating.   : This bothersome bunch doesn’t usually listen to reason. : Doesn’t that make the Pokemon sad? It’s the same thing for all your Pokemon, so hand them over to us now! Better yet...We’ll just take them!Time for another Plasma battle!  Shaking in my boots over here.  Look at how much more effective Munna is now.  Weep before my levitating tapir.   You were running Bide, my dude. : Not bad, Jagen. OK, go return the Pokemon to that girl.  The two identical Team Plasma sprites slide over to make room for the new two identical Team Plasma sprites.  : Not only do you fail to understand, but you actually got in our way, to boot.  : We’ll show you our combined power and teach you that we are right!: So, there were more of them...Still, why are Pokemon robbers acting so self-righteous? We’ve been friends our whole lives.  It’s a good thing we got that quick crash course in double battles against toddlers earlier.  Now it’s time for the real thing!  can you not  I focused one Patrat down, and then the other Patrat. It’s riveting content, I know.    : we will take their Pokemon!: Whatever….What a waste of time. Come on, what reason could possibly justify stealing Pokemon from people?: Pokemon Trainers like you are making Pokemon suffer…: What do you mean, Trainers are making Pokemon suffer? I don’t get that at all!Cheren is already having trouble understanding the plot and we’ve barely begun. : We’ll give you back the Pokemon...But be aware of how this Pokemon suffers from being used by people.: Someday, open your eyes to your own complicity.Satisfied with busting out a five dollar word like “complicity” in a Pokemon game, the grunts all abscond (see I can do it too) from the cave.  : Pokemon believe in their Trainers and respond to that. I don’t understand what about that makes Pokemon suffer! OK, Jagen, I’ll return the Pokemon. While Cheren finishes up this little side-quest for us, we might as well explore Wellspring Cave. There’s not much in here, at least that we can access without a way to cross the water.  That said, it’s our first wild TM!  Thief is kind of a niche move that interacts with held items. It’s not of much use in the main game unless you’re REALLY hurting for a Dark Type attack. But there are some other things in this cave. I know you’re expecting a Zubat attack, and I don’t blame you, but allow me to introduce you...  To Woobat.  It’s totally different and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Also, note that poor Blitzle here doesn’t have any sort of move that uses Special Attack. That’s rough.  Quick Attack doesn’t do much of anything, but thankfully the Woobat Is A Fool.  I just let Hypnotoad whittle it down instead.  Psychic/Flying is totally different from Poison/Flying.  Seriously, I don’t know why you keep making this comparison. Woobat is a speedy Special Attacker.  This cave is also home to Roggenrola, who can be pretty aptly compared to Geodude. They share a Rock typing, similar stats, and a similar evolutionary line.  This thing is built like a...rock. That was a 2x effective Vine Whip.  Still, slow and steady eventually means we win the race. Ignore the misleading Pokedex entry, this guy never gains a Steel type.  While I was doing a bit of grinding here, Munna got the chance to learn Imprison. This move is...cute, I guess? But it’s almost never practical, I didn’t bother. That’s all we can accomplish in Wellspring Cave for now, so let’s go meet up with Bianca.   : I’m lucky to have friends like you two!  Heal Balls are a pretty strange and niche Pokeball type, they : Ooh! Those are Heal Balls!hey : They completely heal the captured Pokemon on the spot!ma’am this is an informative lp : How sweet of you! I’m going to see this girl on her way, see you later, Jagen. Bye-bye! With that done, we’ve got the rest of the route opened to us.  See, here it is! There’s a little quandary here. We could go for the Trainer Battle, or we could skirt around him in the tall grass, risking a wild Pokemon encounter.  I’m going to do both, naturally.  Oh, wow, we’re pretty outmatched. Time to swap.  Is that a glimmer of promise? Might our Blitzle get a move that makes it Not Trash soon?  Still can’t stand up to Munna, though.  Underwhelming reward, but I guess it didn’t require much effort to find.  Cheren, please, we just battled.  Cheren. : That dark tall grass over there...Every now and again, two Pokemon will pop out at the same time. In other words, you have to be careful in the darker grass. I’m heading on to Nacrene City. Oh, he just wanted to chat. That’s much less time-consuming.   Wait, why didn’t you challenge Cheren?  This Woobat has a move we’ve not seen yet, Assurance. It’s a Dark type move that deals double damage if the target has already taken damage this turn. So it’s at its best on slow Pokemon in double battles. I’ve always found the name of this one to be a little weird. I guess the idea is that they’re “assuring” the target goes down after being hit once?  Sand-Attack lowers Accuracy. Sand-Attack is for jerks. Hypnotoad is a fine upstanding Patrat, and not a jerk.  I decided to head back to the Pokemon Center after that encounter and swap out Pidove, since I...just don’t really like Pidove. Instead we have Zoobat the Woobat, whose ability makes her too stupid to notice any stat changes inflicted in battle. This is another ability that kinda hits that “niche but nice when it comes up” territory, but it’s more wide than most of them in that category.  You may have noticed that trainer Pokemon are starting to outlevel our own a bit. That’s because I’ve been spreading EXP around all willy-nilly for the sake of showing off Pokemon. Thankfully, since this game has all the EXP you could ever want in it, unlike some titles, I can easily remedy that with some grinding. Let’s get to training in the Double Battle grass!  Hey, this isn’t a Double Battle at all! They only occur sometimes, even in dark grass.  Marth gets Growth at Level 13, which is a pretty handy move, especially for a mixed attacker. I drop Wrap for it.  There we go, here’s a double battle!  Behold the might of our two mental titans, a stupid bat and a pig balloon!  Before crossing this bridge, you can dip down through the grass to grab a free Great Ball.  I made sure to catch this trainer’s eyeline at the bottom of the bridge, so you could see the sprites reflecting in the water. That’s the kind of quality you can expect from an LP where I constantly forget the difference between Psywave and Psybeam.  The battle is not close at all.  Everything is fine, don’t worry. (Those 2 extra HP came from a level up.)  The trainers will start using more Pokemon after this. I apologize for speeding through these encounters, but I figure you’re all pretty sick of seeing Patrats Odor Sleuth my whole team.  Revel in the 3D powers of the DS system!  Another item is “hidden” right in the open here. Not an incredible find, but I’d rather have one on hand than not.  This guy’s got some pretty good vision.  It’s not really any different from the battle strategies we’ve seen so far.  Watch as I try to remember which of the two “Psy” moves is the good one!  Okay, Blitzle just had its Munna moment. Now maybe we can get some use out of our zebra companion.  But not in this route. Because it’s finished now.  Our long, winding, Patrat covered road to Nacrene City has come to a long-awaited close.  You should always have a ton of Poke Balls! You never know when you’ll encounter a shiny! Give into paranoia, like I have!  Our victory over the last gym battle is on the news! I can’t believe Jagen’s already a celebrity.  And he’s already getting interviewed!  Jagen’s always struck me as an outdoorsy type. Not in the woods, though, his horse has trouble with those.   Jagen is, canonically, a seeker of ancient secrets.  Good to know...pal?  There’s a fair bit to do in Nacrene City.  We’ll be doing it later, though. For now, Jagen’s going to take a break and just peruse this sign. See you next time.
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May 23, 2019 19:09
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Black Robe posted:You missed an encounter in Wellspring Cave. The one thing everyone actually wants from that cave is in fact available this early if you don't mind running in circles for a very long time getting dust clouds to spawn. Much easier to catch it later if you're not going to use it, but it's there now if you want it. I actually did totally forget about that. I think we have enough choices for now that I'm willing to wait to catch it, but it's interesting that it's available this early, thanks for the tip. Darth TNT posted:Take it easy Hippoman, I enjoy your updates enough to wait forever for them. Solumin posted:Glad to see you active, Hippoman! Much appreciated! 
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May 24, 2019 16:34
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Dybael posted:Glad things are getting better for you, LordHippoman, and I hope they continue to improve! Thanks! Not to turn this into a Hippoman Diary Thread, but hey, y'all, self care is important in difficult times. Getting out to spend time with friends, playing some chill video games (GW2) and rereading one of my favorite stories of all time (The House In Fata Morgana) has been really helping my mood. If you're also in a difficult place right now, I'd like to recommend that. (self care, not necessarily exactly the stuff I'm doing. Although I would highly rec both of those mentioned titles, they're great.) Regalingualius posted:Makes me kind of wonder if Gen 8 will do a sweep through ‘mons from this gen. Ideally, that’d mean revising the minimum levels to evolve, movepools, etc. for a ton of them, though I wouldn’t necessarily mind them giving some lines another evolution. I actually really liked the evolutions of old Pokemon that Gen 4 added. I'm still forever in the salty camp that Alomomola isn't a Luvdisc evo. Dusknoir's also one of my favorite ghost types. I'll make note of the Woobat appreciation in the thread. I'll be totally honest, I've always just kinda goofed on it for being a very obvious Zubat replacement for the game where they were just not allowed to use Zubat, but the typing is fun, the design is pretty adorable, and that picture of the bats Dybael posted is cute as gently caress so Zoobat will probably hang out on the team, at least until it evolves.
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May 26, 2019 10:36
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Darth TNT posted:Friends don't care when their friends evolve. This means I'm a bad friend because I'm almost certainly not going to evolve, like, a Hydregion in this LP.
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May 28, 2019 23:36
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Update 8: Jagen Appreciates Art Fresh out of another confrontation with Team  And now we’re gonna go with Cheren a sec.   Thanks for teaching me how to walk to the left, Cheren, you’re a pal. : And...Use these if you want. : Give your Pokemon a Chesto Berry to hold. Then, if it ever falls asleep, it will wake up immediately. Oh, and another piece of advice--Nacrene City’s Gym Leader uses Normal types. If you have a Fighting-type Pokemon, it might give you a big advantage.That’s some pretty handy advice. We’ll also even have the chance to pick up a Fighting type or two before taking on the Gym! The Chesto Berries aren’t super useful, but can be handy if you know you’re headed into an encounter where you know the opponent’s Pokemon run Hypnosis.  It is a little odd that the Gym Leader of the haute couture town is running Normal types, of all things.  Please read my essay on Snorlax as the death of the avant-garde, validate my degree. (this is only half a joke)  Great Balls are now being sold in stores. This is an early unlock for them, and that’s quite handy. We’ve got a lot of new Pokemon to catch.  There’s also a new (and pricey) type of Pokeball, the Net Ball. It does what it says in the description box, making it the best ball to use against these two types, roughly 1.5x as effective as Ultra Balls.    This NPC drops a pretty great leveling tip. We’ve already run into Audino (by accident), but I caught it. The real money is in KOing it for EXP.    There’s some interesting gossip to hear in Nacrene, so most of this update is going to be exploring the city.  I’m sorry your name is Loblolly.  I’m also sorry that, due to the cancellation of the Nintendo WiFi network, you no longer have a purpose in the game and we can’t help you.  Loblolly used to provide you with “Decor” for your Dream World account. Basically JPGs to put in your fake internet house. But really, isn’t that all LP is?   This guy gets it. Not sure what it is, but he gets it.  Thanks.   Here’s our first in-game trade opportunity! We’ve not yet seen either of the Pokemon mentioned, but they’re both Grass types. Cottonee is only catchable in Black Version, if we were playing White this trade would be reversed. There’s nothing we can do here for now, but keep it in mind!  (She also apparently doesn’t notice the Cottonee literally right downstairs. That’s the same NPC in the top left there.)   This character will check your Pokemon’s Friendship value towards you. For some Pokemon, this is important, because it’s a requirement for evolution! Woobat is one of those Pokemon. Since we just got this Woobat it doesn’t much care for us. Shame.    This guy’s here to remind you to not try breaking the game with your friend’s Level 90 Charizard in the second town.  [insert joke about drugs]  oh my god they really are drugs  These can be used to raise the associated stats by one “level”, like a move like Work Up. Guard Spec decreases the chance of getting crit, Dire Hit increases the chance of landing a crit. Honestly, I don’t like using these items much, so I pass on the shady Warehouse Market.  I don’t get this joke, sorry. EDIT: AweStriker thankfully could explain the joke to my non-Japanese speaking personage. Apparently, Dire Hit was called "Criticutter" in Japan until this game, where it was changed to "Criticut", one kana shorter, to make room for the name in one of the multiplayer features.   Big fan of these two buff men intensely staring eachother down on the top floor of this building, screaming about how they love DS Wireless Communications.   The secret fourth starter, Quit.   Ooh. This is a handy pickup.  It’s a hold item that boosts the power of all Grass type moves by 20%. It’s a safe pick for any Pokemon specializing in that type. She’ll give you the equivalent items for Fire/Water if you chose Tepig/Oshawott.  This’ll be good for Marth, at least for now.   We may not know who Burgh is yet, but now I’m excited to learn!  well there we go  Oh hey, it was Wednesday when I recorded this! Was that on purpose? Totally.  After talking to this NPC, accordion begins playing in the backing track, like with the drummer earlier. It’s a nice touch!   Soda Pop restores 60 HP, so it’s extremely useful this early in the game. Also great for bribing guards, but this is a classy game and we don’t do that sort of thing.     I can’t help but feel like Chili’s not really pulling his weight here.  The building that looks slightly more ostentatious than the others is, surprise, the Gym.  The gym leader is into puns, so she’s already cooler than the waiters in my book.  However...we won’t be getting in that easily.   Great to see you again, N? : The ideals of Pokemon inside Poke Balls. The ideals of how Trainers should be. And a future where Pokemon have become perfect... I think better vision would be great for Jagen in his old age.  It’s a second Ncounter!  N’s got a pretty cool gimmick that I like a lot.  He didn’t have this Pokemon last time! N’s team is entirely new each time you challenge him.  Unfortunately he still thinks Growl is good. Zoobat’s rocking a Special Attack stat, sorry pal.  There’s really not much to N’s Pidove. It’s just sort of a lump of HP with Gust.  Hey, nice! Dark type coverage.  N’s second team member is a Tympole. It’s Water type, which I know because I’ve played this game before.  So I can just sorta Vine Whip this poor thing, but it’s gonna look at me sadly while I do it and I’m not totally comfortable.  Supersonic causes Confusion!  Unless that happens!  See ya later, Tympole.  For his final Pokemon, N has...this...vein monster? It’s Fighting type, although I’d excuse you if you thought the name/log implied Grass.  It’s also got Low Kick, a pretty unique Fighting type move that does damage based on the opposing Pokemon’s weight. It’s not great early on, since most of our Pokemon are still really scrawny and/or Balloon Tapirs.  He also juggles his log! What a cool little dude!  oh  I’m sorry.  N, we really need to talk about your movepool choices, buddy.   Well, this went from 0 to 60 pretty quick.   : The legendary Pokemon that, along with the hero, created the Unova region. It’s my turn to become that hero--and you and I will be friends!Wait, Jagen or Zekrom? Oh, he’s gone. Oh well.  I’m sure nothing will come of that ominous declaration.   This building is dual-purpose! That’s economical. Plus, they don’t charge you to enter, unlike those Pewter City hacks.   Here’s a pretty traditional character, the Fossil Reviver! But she’s not going to be useful to us right now, so let’s leave her be and enter the museum proper.    : Welcome! I’m Hawes, the assistant director. SInce you were kind enough to visit, I’ll give you a tour of the museum. It looks like a Dragonite with a horn. : There’s a theory that it had an accident while it was flying around the world, and it became a Fossil.I think that just means it died, my dude.  : It contains some kind of energy from space.That’s cool, but are we just going to ignore that Armaldo stuck in the bottom left corner? Someone help it.  : It was found near the desert, but other than the fact that it’s old, it doesn’t seem to have any value… This is a professional establishment.  : At the end of the Gym, a very strong and kind Gym Leader is waiting. By the way, the Gym Leader Lenora happens to be my wife! Not too kind, because she doesn’t leave anything cool in the garbage. Speaking of garbage, the tour skipped like, half of the museum, so let’s cover that.  A couple items in the museum are references to Pokemon. One of them is this set of plates, which are references to the ones that Arceus could hold introduced in Generation 4.   That must have been one bigass Cubone.  FREE HIM  So, we’re not quite ready to take Lenora’s gym on yet. So I headed out west of Nacrene, since there’s a nice area to level there. We actually aren’t quite in Pinwheel Forest yet, this is sort of an odd buffer area that doesn’t technically count as a route.    Plus, we can immediately get this.   Rock Smash isn’t a bad pickup. It’s not the most powerful move, but it is Fighting Type, so it’ll do work against Lenora’s Normal Type Gym. This used to be an HM, but it’s been downgraded in this generation.  ...Challenge Rock?   Credit where credit’s due, Nurse Shery is clearly ready for any sort of medical emergency that might occur in the 20 feet between Nacrene City and this forest.  Oh no, it’s the Psychic type mirror!  Thankfully, I’ve got some Assurance that we can pull out ahead.  Although, the Munna still hits decently hard, even through a Not Very Effective and Woobat’s respectable Special Defense.  Thankfully, luck is on the side of the Zoobat.  Fly, my pretty. Become ever faster.    Shery will start serving as a healing station after you beat her, which is really handy. This is a great grinding location, and I’m going to be making use of it before the next Gym battle. Offscreen for the most part, naturally.  If your eagle eyes detected the entrance to this side route in the last screenshot, congratulations! You too could have earned this Ether, a consumable that restores PP. Not often necessary, but when it is, it REALLY is.  South of Shery, more children dare to oppose Sir Jagen and his motley crew.  Mercy is not an option.  I take the opportunity to level Blitzle, or at least I’d like to. Cottonee is a Grass type, so we won’t make much headway with Electric Blitzle. I swap out to Zoobat and let Gust carry me to victory.  I repeat the process against her second Pokemon, a Petlil. How on-theme.  Notably, they both have the move Leech Seed, which leeches HP from the opposing Pokemon at the end of the turn. That, combined with Mega Drain, another HP absorb, makes this take a little longer than it should. That said, still pretty simple stuff.  The second trainer ambushes us on the way to a free item.   Oh lord, this looks quite unwinnable.  Let’s bring in the Super Effective guns.  Unfortunately, it misses, and then Roggenrola uses Rock Blast. Rock Blast is a multiple-hit move that can strike the foe 2-5 times. It’s all RNG, so it’s not too reliable.  I lied it’s extremely reliable, you fools, have you never played a Fire Emblem?  Another tactical swap is in order here.   Thankfully, Roggenrola’s got little in the way of Special Defense, and a Psybeam even serves to confuse the poor thing.  Sadly, the EXP being chopped up 3 ways makes sort of a mediocre haul for poor Blitzle. Whoops.  Even though we can buy these now, I’m always happy to receive them. I wonder what wild Pokemon live in this area, I say, to segue into a Wild Encounter:  Hey, it’s a Fighting Type...uh...Muppet?  And it’s using Focus Energy! That raises Crit Rate! It’s not very useful!  However, it displays this text, which immediately makes it a top tier move.  I get a little too ambitious and try to catch it from this HP range. Blitzle’s expression mirrors my own.  Hubris aside, a more conventional approach takes it down.  The intimidation factor of an Angry Eyebrows Puppet with a natural mastery in punching is only slightly diminished by the fact that it’s the size of a child.  South of the preschoolers, there’s even more to this little area!  This trainer, not only Brave, but Bold, will be a challenge. Our Pokemon only get one nature, how is he cheating with two?   Thankfully, his first Pokemon is a Tympole, aka: One of the few things Blitzle can smack down.  Zap. Also, every expression Tympole makes is gold.  He follows up with...Tympole.  Oh, Keita, why would you do this?  His third Pokemon is...Tympole.  I took no pleasure in that.   Keita’s got some hot rock tips for us! I’m starting to think we should seek out this challenge rock.  In the nearby grass, Blitzle continues its stampede. None can be spared in my hopes to have a Powerful Zebra Friend.  ...But this Tympole survives the Shock Wave.  He is chosen.  A true champion of his kind...this guy.  So, this is difficult to see in a screenshot, but the second bush on the bottom row here is shaking! The game plays an audio cue when this happens as well, so it’s pretty easy to spot.  As advertised, it’s an Audino. Another fun thing about Audino, they rarely use damaging moves in battle, instead just constantly trying to use assist moves on your Pokemon. They’re a truly generous species. How generous, you ask?    And so Blitzle, standing atop a mound of fainted Tympole, ascended to our highest level Pokemon. She also got Thunder Wave, a nice move that inflicts Paralysis! That should definitely come in handy. There’s one last wild Pokemon I want to catch before we go, though.  Not you, Blink Animation Pidove.  Ah, yes, this monstrosity.  The first Gust doesn’t quite faint it, but if I go for a second…  Ah, gently caress, it was a crit.   Much better.  And now, we must come to a decision.  We have on our hands two Fighting Types.  Both have valid uses, but I’m relying on THE THREAD to choose which of these masters of combat will join the main party during this next update. Sawk will never evolve, but it’s got much better stats right now. Timburr should evolve twice...but one of them is a Trade exclusive evolution, which I am tragically unable to perform (unless someone knows if I can like, force that with an Action Replay code?). HEY IGNORE ALL THAT, FOUND A WAY TO DO IT! So we’re in a bit of an Efficiency V.S. Clown Parade pickle here. Your vote can help!  Please bold either Sawk or Timburr in your response! See you next time.
LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Jun 2, 2019 |
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Jun 1, 2019 23:25
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BlackPersona posted:Pair up Hey, they renamed it in the new game, get with the times. LiefKatano posted:Hey, Focus Energy raises your critical rate to 25%! Jagen should respect that. Yeah, the buffs to stat items in Gen VII are interesting. Heck, a lot of items got a lot better in Gen VII, if I remember right. Also, thanks for the tips, the evolution problem has been solved. I think. I did it with a live save file, which can apparently be a little rocky, but hey, what's the worst that could happen? (nobody invoke the name of rf2 in this thread) AweStriker posted:Sawk, please. I had figured it was some sort of joke that had to do with the JP version, but that's not what I expected. Thanks for informing me, I'll add it to the update! Also, just to reiterate, I hacked out Trade Evolutions, so everything's fair game now!
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Jun 2, 2019 05:51
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Nondevor posted:RIP RF2 LP, I’ll never see the ending to that game due to how regressive the mechanics feel to play. But at least RF5 is slated to come out on the Switch It's okay, neither will I I can safely say that of all the announcements we got, RF5 was not on my list of guesses. Can't say I'm not excited, though. I've never actually played one of the "good ones". It's looking like things are leaning towards Timburr, but I'll keep votes running for another day or so. Thanks for your input on our newest punchman.
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Jun 2, 2019 15:42
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Alright, votes are tallied, and it looks like Timburr has pulled out ahead! I sure hope I did that hack right or I'm going to look incompetent. More incompetent, I mean.
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Jun 3, 2019 22:54
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Kheldarn posted:I didn't see Timburr anywhere on that list, so don't be surprised if it doesn't work. And if it doesn't, you can always just get a save state editor, and evolve Timburr that way at the appropriate level. It's listed under the evolution, Gurrdurr, IIRC?
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Jun 3, 2019 23:09
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Kemix posted:I don't know how to respond to that extremely bad pun... Regalingualius posted:Steel yourself, it only gets worse from here. That's basically the thesis of the whole LP. Next update may be slightly delayed, I'm planning on playing the new Path Of Exile league a bit. Also I finished Fata Morgana again so I need like a week of emotional recovery. LordHippoman fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Jun 5, 2019 |
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Jun 4, 2019 23:20
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Update 9: Jagen Gets Stumped By A Library Before we get this update started in earnest, I want to mention that I did a little grinding offscreen, just to keep things going smoothly. Everyone is up to around Level 16, if not slightly higher, and some of them got some new moves!  Munna grabbed Moonlight, which is a pretty solid HP restore, most of the time. It’ll heal for 50% of the Pokemon’s max HP with no weather conditions active, 66% in harsh sunlight, and 25% in other conditions. It’s still Normal type in this game, because Fairy doesn’t exist yet.  Snivy got Leaf Tornado, which is a Special Attack move with a lot more power than Vine Whip, and an upside. Definitely handy.  Woobat’s got Heart Stamp now, which doesn’t take advantage of her better Sp. Atk stat, but does carry a chance to make the enemy flinch. Flinching means you lose your turn. Flinch is real nice.  And here’s a stat sheet for our newest friend, Timburr. First of all, wow, that Attack. And it’s only up from there. Sheer Force, her ability, raises the base power of any moves that inflict an additional effect, in addition to raw damage, by 30%. This means Rock Smash won’t lower the enemy’s defense, ever, but it doesn’t need to when it hits like a freight train.  We’re still out here looking for a mystery rock, in case you forgot. Don’t worry, I understand, I know you’ve probably got a lot of rocks on your mind at any given time, I do.  I thought for a moment that this was a very cleverly hidden Super Potion, since you can only sneak in to get it from the bottom left here!  Then I realized I am A Fool. There’s nothing else back there anyway, unless we want to fish for Double Battles, so let’s move on with our lives.  Those stairs look promising, but they’re guarded.    Ooh, I don’t think we’ve seen Venipede before. It’s Bug/Poison, so this is probably a job for Zoobat.  OH NO BAMBOOZLED  Well. Not bamboozled too hard. Rollout does increase in power each turn, though, so I’ll need to end this quickly.  Thanks, my extremely buff Zoobat, I don’t know what I’d do without you.  pictured: Lillipup getting Rock Smashed.  pictured: Aftermath  At least he’s got a good attitude about it!  There’s a big rock over there. Could it be?  I’m not a martial arts expert by any means, but that seems like a really bad idea.   This is the smuggest Timburr has ever appeared.  I love it.  I love this even more. Good ol’ Flinch, you’re not technically a status ailment, but you certainly put in work sometimes.   We do happen to have a Fighting type Pokemon...and if we didn’t, thankfully Sawk and Timburr are both easy to find on this route. There’s another, rarer Fighting type, but it  Here’s a bonus shot of a Wild Sawk’s ability activating. It stops it from being knocked out in one hit. It’s still asleep, though, so this didn’t end well for it.  You actually have to talk to this guy to battle him, just standing in his line of sight won’t work. What a madman.  Kentaro has a Level 16 Timburr, same as Lee earlier.  His knows Rock Throw, but thankfully our Zoobat is pretty beefy. It still goes down in two hits.  oh boy it’s the fuckin’ ROCK  You don’t need Rock Smash to do this, just a Fighting type Pokemon. The Rock Smash is kind of a cute coincidence, though.   Behold her power and tremble, rocks.  You can punch the rock once a day to get a Star Piece. These sell for 4900 Pokedollars (that’s really what they’re called, yes), so they’re just nice moneymakers. You can also trade them to an NPC later for PP Up, which raises the PP of one of your Pokemon’s moves! (stop laughing)  There’s a free Net Ball on the descent from the Challenge Rock, and that’s all we have to do here for now. I’ll try to find that missing Pokemon later, but for now, let’s get on with the meat of the update.  Which is, of course, beating up random wild Timburr. Why am I doing this?  Marth is now Level 17. It’s the fated hour.  Oh geez, he broke apart! Now we’re going to have to start the chapter over!  Oh, never mind, he was just promoting. Huh. I’m glad he finally learned how to do that.  Perhaps more importantly, Hypnotoad learned Hypnosis.  Okay, the real meat of the update this time. Let’s go get our second badge.   So… I will give this to you!  This is just between you and me...Normal-type Pokemon are weak against Fighting-type Pokemon. Around here, Fighting-type Pokemon show up around Pinwheel Forest. Now, I will explain about the Gym itself! In this Pokemon Gym, if you answer questions hidden in books, you can move forward.This gym, despite being in a museum, is more library themed. The puzzle is still pretty simplistic, but I like the way this one plays out.  If you don’t know where the book is, please ask anyone!Sounds like a plan!  I’ll bet he knows.    This isn’t helpful at all!  I’m going to be entirely honest with you, this gym is going to be almost entirely screenshots of me loving around with bookshelves, because every Trainer battle can be summed up via Rock Smash.  See above.  I hate this child.   The Gym Guy already told us, but thanks. This trainer is actually pretty important, you’ll see why in a moment.    : It’s a fairy tale about a little boy who met a Pokemon for the first time in his life. He is with a small brown Pokemon.   : Can you solve the questions and come find me? Now, this is the first qestion! : The hint is...on a bookshelf in the middle row! Now, try to find it!So here’s the gym gimmick pretty simply laid out for you. You have to match the questions to book titles, and reading the right books allows you to advance. You can’t go out of order, even though, yes, logistically, it’s not like memos can just appear and disappear as they please. But there’s a psychic heart bat in a ball in our character’s pocket right now, don’t try to make sense of it, this is Pokemon, you fool.  This isn’t what we’re looking for. It’s also not in the middle row. I was just being thorough.  This doesn’t sound like what we’re looking for either. Honestly, this puzzle is meant for literal children and I, for one, would never make mistakes while solving it. (look i was really tired recording this)  Thankfully, in case you are a literal child, or myself, the NPCs in the gym will point you in the right direction.      I’m super good at video games.   : There is a memo on the back cover… “As I thought, that question was easy. Well, this is the second question! Q: Flame burns inside its body, and it gives off smoke from its head while it runs… What is this book? The hint is...Somebody may be reading it. Smoke and flame? Sounds like Tepig to me!    This loving library.   Nostrils are 100% part of the head, gently caress you, my answer counts. This gym is a SHAM.  Well, there’s only one other character reading a book here. Process of elimination, hooray!     I feel like The Riddler just slapped me in the face.    Okay, a battle. This I can do!  Here’s Herdier! It’s the evolved form of Lillipup!  Satomi also uses her first turn on an X Defend. Herdier’s got a really hefty HP total, so this can be tricky.  Unless your Timburr is as swole as ours. Then it just means you waste another PP of Rock Smash.  (seriously a loving train????)  Now the game is trying to make me self-conscious because my desk is absolutely loaded with books. There’s even a Kindle here. Oh poo poo, I found my Kindle writing this update!   Flame burns inside its body, and it gives off smoke from its head while it runs by using steam power!There is a memo on the back cover… “It’s impressive you found this place! That’s what I’d expect from a challenger like you! Well, this is the third question!  The hint is on a bookshelf closer to the entrance than here! That hint effectively only rules out the bookshelf directly to the right of the Locomotive one, but thankfully we’ve already seen the title of this one. : There are sweets called “Poffins” made from Berries in the faraway Sinnoh region, and Pokemon love them!If you’re interested in that, check out Crosspeice’s Platinum LP! There is a memo on the cover… “Did you manage to get here without being tricked by the questions? Now, this is the last question! move two forward, move one to the right, and move one backward...Now, where is it? I mean, that’s fair, giving a hint would give it away. But there’s only one trainer left in the gym, and it’d be weird if she wasn’t guarding anything... So you can pretty much just skip the directional navigation. : I’m wondering, did you see the last memo and come to me? OK. I’ll give you the last question!   And so we must battle our only ally in this literary hellscape. Aside from the Gym Guy, I guess.  She has three Level 15 Lillipups. Please, scroll over the preceding image three times to simulate this exciting battle. Thank you.  Now we may proceed.    You seem to have wisdom as well as strength! I look forward to our battle! Gym Leader Lenora.”    Wow, this local library gets way more funding than mine.   Before heading into the final room of the gym, I healed up the team, and by that I mean I restored the PP of Rock Smash at the Pokecenter. Onwards!   : The director of the Nacrene Museum and the Nacrene Gym’s Leader is me! Lenora! Well then, challenger, I’m going to research how you battle with the Pokemon you’ve so lovingly raised!  Oh boy, second Gym Leader battle time!  Lenora is a pretty major difficulty spike from her gym. She only has two Pokemon, but they’re both formidable. Like most Normal type Gym Leaders, she can cause an unprepared player a surprising amount of trouble.  Her Herdier, for example, comes out with Intimidate, a nasty ability that hits every enemy Pokemon on the field with a drop to their Attack.  It also has Take Down, which packs a whopping 90 power!  Although it does deal 25% of its damage back to you.  Even the almighty Rock Smash can’t topple this Herdier right off the bat.  I decide I value Timburr a lot, and try to heal it up so I can strike back if Take Down whiffs.  That doesn’t happen, unfortunately, but it is getting pretty low on HP!  Well, not anymore. Lenora only has one Super Potion, but she’ll make it count.  I chose to swing for a Low Kick, hoping Herdier was heavier than I remembered.  It was not and I hosed up. There goes Timburr.  Newly Evolved Marth, please avenge me.  He missed on the second Leaf Tornado. Things are going great.  Thankfully the Herdier was running on fumes, so a nice Heart Stamp to the head downs it.  OH GOD IT’S EVOLVED PATRAT. Lenora’s Watchog is somewhat infamous for being a bit of an early game wall too, I’m not sure how we’ll deal with it without Timburr. Well, guess I’ll restart and- Hypnotoad, no, I’m sorry, you’re still too weak for this.  Hypnotoad?  What are you… Oh. I see.  Bring it the heck on.  Guess who secretly prepared THEIR OWN WATCHOG  There’s really only one way this can go down, isn’t there?  We’re quicker on the draw.  And it’s a hit!  Sleep, for those who don’t know, isn’t broken by damage in Pokemon. It’s been nerfed to only last for 1-3 turns, but it still completely shuts down the enemy Pokemon. So I’m cutting away while I can.  By the time it wakes up, it’s nearly down. Time to clinch this!  uh oh  Don’t worry, I came prepared!   Ouch. This was a big hit. Thankfully it’s still one hit away from fainting.  hypnotoad are you loving kidding me  Not like this.  His big moment. Ruined.  Oh, by the by, Lenora’s Watchog has Crunch, which is just better Bite. Think you can cheese her out with a Psychic type Special Attacker?  Oh, it’s Munna?  You totally can.   It’s worth noting that another good way to deal with Lenora’s Watchog is to train up a Roggenrola. It can’t do much to something with such hefty defense and a natural strength against Retaliate.     Our collection is 1/4th complete now!  That sounds like a bit of an insult, but Jagen will accept it.  : Here, I also want you to have this TM.   : Some problems you can’t solve even if you think about them your whole life. Some problems have different answers depending on the person. Still, the reason I can’t keep my curiosity down is this: I want to figure out the truth, but I also have a desire for adventure!   Hello, fantastic out of context screenshot, I needed one of you. : What? What’s going on?!I dunno, I think he was pretty clear re: Bone Stealing. : You come, too!  Thanks, Gym Guy, glad your priorities are straight.   What does Bone Stealing have to do with Pokemon liberation again?   : We, Team Plasma, claim this museum’s Dragon Skull in the name of Pokemon liberation!please explain the motives of your Bone Stealing    Part of me was hoping they’d all just start yelling “Plasmaaaa!” so the text boxes would cover the screen in sort of a meta joke.  Actually there’s just a literal smokescreen. Not as fun.  B O N E S T E A L I N G  Well, Lenora seems cool to me, so let’s go help her out!   : Jagen! This is Burgh. He may not look like it, but he’s Castelia City’s Gym Leader! : ...Eh? Just looking for a change of pace. Seems hectic or something around here. What’s up?: What’s up?! Someone just walked away with an exhibit, that’s what’s up!  I’m glad you guys were slightly to the right for this whole ordeal. : And these two are…? Your friends? Bianca and Cheren...Oh, I see. They’re Trainers. OK, then. Let’s split up and search. I’ll head this way. Everyone! Cheren and Bianca, I want you to stay here at the museum. : Got it? Burgh, you show the way! I’m counting on you, everyone! : Are you raring to round up our robbers? He just kinda heads off, but it’s okay, we already know where Pinwheel Forest is.    Nice! This is the renamed Itemfinder. : Now, what did she tell me? Um...You can use the Dowsing Machine to find places where items are hidden. So you can find stuff you can’t even see!: For now, all we need to do is protect the museum, right?: Hey, wait for me! Next time we venture into Pinwheel Forest to chase down Bone Stealers. See you then.
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Jun 9, 2019 05:28
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:Anyone who says "I hate this child" is a-ok by me I'm glad I haven't let the readers down. BlackPersona posted:Hah! Great Pokemon gym battle, the surprise Watchog duel was a fun turnaround and I appreciated the effort you put into his eyes. I should have my license to Paint.net taken away. I should have had it taken away like two or three LPs ago, but somehow I continue to do this. Regalingualius posted:Yeah, her biggest gimmick is that her Watchog will Retaliate the first turn it swaps in, which is probably guaranteed to one-shot whoever's in it's way if you don't have any preparations in place. I was really hoping Hypnosis would hit for this. It's a nasty move, though, you're right, I'm not really sure how you're meant to mitigate it this early otherwise. I don't think anything learns Protect yet? You may just be expected to eat a KO.
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Jun 9, 2019 07:59
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LiefKatano posted:Also I can't believe you didn't restart when Marth went down. What is this, Fates Casual mode or something? I'm playing on Phoenix (Ho-Oh) Mode. I'm excited to get into Pinwheel Forest, lots of potential party members there. I may bench Hypnotoad because it's kinda had its moment now, but who knows, stranger things have happened and I never plan ahead adequately.
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Jun 11, 2019 06:13
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Darth TNT posted:I'm not sure how I feel about that. Oh, Hypnotoad is still very useful, I just want to make sure I show off a decent variety of Pokemon as the game goes on. That said, if anyone really likes members of the current party, let me know and I'll try to stick with them a bit longer. I'm definitely at least getting Timburr to its final evolution because holy poo poo.
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Jun 11, 2019 09:10
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