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(title may not be true, I've only played a little. Nobody's died or been sacrificed to Darkrai yet though) Howdy! I'm Draxion, and I have been possessed with the twin bugs of wanting to finally do a SSLP and wanting to play Pokemon romhacks, so I'm doing both together. Pokemon Vega is a romhack of Pokemon FireRed, originally created in Japanese. It's, as far as I can tell, a pretty highly regarded hack. Vega is set in a new region called Tohoak (based on the Tohoku region of Japan, the furthest north area of the main island), and the primary reason I'm picking it to LP rather than the other romhacks I've been playing recently like Gaia and Glazed is because it's got fakemon and I love me some fakemon. It's also the sequel to a pair of hacks of Emerald, Altair and Sirius, neither of which I have played (they're like Red and Blue, in that the main difference is just some Pokemon availability). I haven't played through more than the first two gyms of Vega either, so I'm going in fairly blind to this. There's a pair of sequels, Procyon and Deneb, in development which haven't been translated yet. Last I checked they were up to about the 6th gym. I should also say that technically, I'm not going to be showing the true Pokemon Vega experience. While it seems like people do like it quite a bit, it's also got a reputation for being pretty punishingly hard as it progresses, with both incredibly challenging boss fights and kinda unfair puzzles. I'm not very good at Pokemon and I am also bad at figuring out puzzles, so instead I'm playing a difficulty hack called Vega Minus. On top of flattening the level curve down (the champion goes from 80 to 63, for example), it also adds Revives back to shops and fixes or adds hints to some puzzles. Perhaps even more importantly for the purposes of this LP, it adds some more Pokemon variety to earlier areas. There's a ton of newly created Pokemon in this game (almost 200) but a lot of them are only in lategame or postgame areas, and that's not very fun. Hopefully you will forgive my act of video games weakness here. Other stuff! Try not to spoil stuff if you've played this! Maybe there's cool plot stuff, I don't know, I haven't finished the game. This is a pretty loose guideline though, I've looked through the Pokedex etc. Use your judgement, just don't talk about what all the gym leaders or legendaries or whatever are like. You know how this works. I'm posting the full summary of the previous games in the next post, so if you've also played those feel free to talk about them. I doubt I'll actually play them and people giving some more context for recurring characters or stuff like that would be good. If you think the LP could be improved by me doing some stuff differently I'd be happy to hear suggestions. I've never done one of these before, so if I'm missing something you think would be good there's a good chance I straight up do not know how to do it. Lastly, I'm going to be trying to use entirely new Pokemon for this, or at least as much as I can without completely tanking my team. A lot of them seem somewhat suboptimal at first glance, but we're just going to make that sacrifice. What's the point of playing a game with a bunch of new pokemon in it and not giving them the spotlight? Anyways! May as well just get into it. UPDATES UPDATE 1: My dad took my Pokemon UPDATE 2: The plot might start happening here? Draxion fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Jul 21, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 01:28
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| # ? May 20, 2024 01:54 |
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  ALTAIR AND SIRIUS PLOT SYNOPSIS This is taken from the PokeCommunity thread for Vega, which is also where you can download the patch for this game if you want to play it too! You'll have to get a FireRed rom on your own, though. quote:Three years ago, shortly after the crowning and subsequent retirement of Champion Brendan, Hoenn was battered by an enormous number of meteors. This disaster, known as the Hoenn Catastrophe, greatly transformed Hoenn's landscape, turning much of the southern end into a barren wasteland and destroying the Battle Frontier, among other things. This also had a profound change on the wildlife, driving many species to extinction. More strangely, new species of Pokémon, known as Meteoric Pokémon, began appearing everywhere. At the forefront were three very powerful and evil Pokémon...
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Jul 20, 2020 01:29
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UPDATE 1: My dad took my Pokemon We start off with the Game Freak logo, nothing unusual there. From there, the normal FireRed/LeafGreen starting video of a Gengar and- wait what the gently caress is that lets just leave that dude alone After being confronted with Keisuke Itagaki's Pikachu, we get the title screen. I have to assume that's the central legendary for this game, though I don't actually know what it is. The stars there are also not the constellation Vega is in - Vega is in Lyra, the one here is Leo. Welcome to the world of Pokemon! My name is Holly. People refer to me as the Pokemon Professor. This world... For some people, Pokemon are pets. Others use them for battling. And others use their power to help people in danger. As for myself...I study Pokemon as a profession. I mentioned earlier that Vega is in the constellation Lyra, so... If you just press start and skip picking a name, I think the default is April. He's studying to become a Pokemon Ranger. ...Erm, what was his name now? The ones it suggests are Nathan (this is the default), Morton, Max, and Fred. We're not using any of those. The star Deneb is in the Cygnus constellation, so that's his name. I normally just name the player and their rival whatever their names in the Pokemon Adventures manga are, but for obvious reasons that doesn't work here. Your very own Pokemon Legend is about to unfold! A world of dreams and adventures with Pokemon awaits! Let's go! Pretty standard Pokemon introduction. It's kind of weird that it makes no mention of the fact that the player character is Professor Holly's kid, though. Looks like Lyra's got a NES AND a SNES. Fancy. I've never really understood why Pokemon protags stick their TV right in the middle of their room. Something is written on the back of the cartridge... "Hey, it's me, the Mos! From the summary of Altair and Deneb, I assume this is Mosmero, one of Hoenn's Elite Four. Why he's vandalizing Lyra's Super Mario RPG cart I have no idea. There's a Potion in the PC, which I grab, but none of the other stuff in the room is particularly interesting. Work on these snowy roads, so take these! We get new running shoes right away, and a town map as well. I forgot to grab a screenshot of the region map, so take this somewhat blurrier one from the wiki  We start in Porcelia Town, which is the one in the middle on the west coast. You should probably go see him. She doesn't give us any more information than that, but it's fine - he'll find us. Let's just go.  Outside we see that it is in fact really snowy here. I really like the snow-covered trees here. It kind of looks like there's a path into the woods below our house, but it doesn't actually go anywhere. Walking slightly to the left, we get stopped. my lab! He takes us up to the lab in the center of town, where two other people are also waiting. In that case, I'd like to ask the two of you to- Lyra, it's been so long since I last thaw you! Oops, did I say "thaw"? Well, you better have Ice Heal! Oh, I'm gonna HATE this guy, huh Remember it well, because it'll be on the next test while? Mosmero is my old friend. Lyra, you're familiar with him too, right? I actually called him over here because I needed to ask him a favor as well. Well, I think we've gotten a bit off track. I called the two of you out here because I have a favor to ask of each of you. Recently, Pokemon species first thought to appear due to the meteors in Hoenn have started to appear here in the Tohoak region. The reason why they started to appear is an interesting research topic in itself. As a stepping stone to that, I'd like to ask you to take an ecological survey of the current Pokemon in the Tohoak region. Here, take this. new way, I'll be taking care of the Pokemon that you used in Hoenn here at the lab.  are you sure it does?This is also a part from the previous games that it doesn't mention right away, but Lyra's the current Hoenn champion. She's not a new trainer at all, her dad is just making this harder to build character. I've heard that you're studying to be a Pokemon Ranger. I want you to deliver this Secure Styler to Jackie in Nephrite City. He can make the final adjustments to get it working. Trying to capture Pokemon on your own would be dangerous, wouldn't it? I'll give you your own Pokemon. Oh, and you too of course, Lyra. I guess I'm outta here. Mosmero Mission Start! I guess despite being extremely annoying,Ho he is still an Elite Four member. No clue what he's being entrusted with here, but I'm sure it'll come up later. There are three Pokemon sitting on this desk. I'll let you each have one of them. Now choose! Cygnus goes to take one, but gets a call from Ranger HQ and tells Lyra to go first instead. So, here's the three starter options! Three new Pokemon! Nimbleaf the Grass-type Sprout Pokemon, Liquiput the Water-type Liquid Pokemon, and Peyero the Fire-type Gunpowder Pokemon. I'm choosing Liquiput for now, because it looks like Chaos from Sonic Adventure. I also reloaded a save state there a few times to get its hidden ability, as well as a nature I liked. Neither of those is really necessary to do, but if I can get the hidden ability pretty easily there's no reason not to. However, this update is only like 45 minutes in (much less when I'm not recording, because OBS seems like it messes with VBA-M's turbo function and I can use that when I'm not making an update.). If you think we should have a different starter, say which one! If you want it to have a nickname throw that out there too, because otherwise I don't really nickname any of my Pokemon. That goes for anything we find, the Name Rater isn't right away but he is in like the second city. We just got our Pokemon, so how about a little battle? Cygnus picks the starter yours is weak to. We do not have particularly interesting moves, so I just use Pound until I win. nice Holly congratulates us on winning, and Cygnus marches off to deliver the Secure Styler. One of the aides in the lab mentions that the lab was recently attacked by some people trying to get their hands on Professor Holly's research data. Holly doesn't have any more to say besides checking our Pokedex progress, so after that we head back out into town. I only needed two blankets last night. It's been 90 in Ohio for weeks, so a snowy cold town seems particularly nice to me at the moment. Anyways, we're off! ...or I guess not. Let's go the other way. dammit No, neither of these are the correct way to go just yet. We've got to go east out of town, to Route 501. I'll talk to the other people in town to see if they've got anything to say. Then why are you standing outside, on top of a hill? Go home! I don't know what a Glachild is! How exciting. Pokemon Rangers are really important here. I haven't seen the rest of the region yet, but if it is all snowy that makes sense. Makes me feel like Cygnus might be more civic-minded than I am, too. As far as I can tell, Lyra's just here to gently caress off from being Champion. Anyways, we go off in the right direction now.  Route 501 is not very big and there aren't many Pokemon here, but there is something vitally important that we've got to do here. You came out of Porcelia Town with a single Pokemon. You must be a rookie Trainer, right? Here, you can have these if you want. Yes, we do get sent out with no Pokeballs. I have to just assume Holly thought we'd bring ours with us from Hoenn, but apparently we didn't. I'll accept being called a rookie Trainer if it gets me some free stuff. No need to thank me. Good luck on your journey! There's three kinds of Pokemon on this route, and I'm going to get them before moving on. This is the first one, and it's new! Glachild's an Ice/Fairy type (pure Ice in base Vega - my Vega Minus patch is one that adds the Fairy type in. Glachild and its evolutions are Fairy in the in-development sequels too), and evolves at 20 and 30. It's kind of a weird short shrine maiden ice gremlin right now, which is fun. This one's got the ability I want, so I catch it. It can also have Inner Focus, but enemies in this game so far have LOVED spamming stat reduction moves so Clear Body's the choice that prevents a lot of annoying drawn-out battles. I'll also show the Pokedex entry for the Pokemon new to this series we find. I forgot to get a shot of the one for Liquiput, but I will for whatever starter we decide on before next update. Taillow is Taillow. It's alright for right now, but I won't be using it long term under any circumstances. The last pokemon on this route is Pineco. It's a pain in the rear end due to learning Protect at level 1, so every fight with them takes way longer than it should. Forretress is a pretty good defensive wall, but as it's not new, I also don't expect to use it. I'm probably not going to show most of the trainer battles, because they aren't particularly interesting (if they start becoming interesting I'll show more), but I will at least say what pokemon the trainers are using on each route. Or if they say anything weird, like this guy who runs up yelling about balls. (they're frozen shut, apparently) The trainers on this route are using Taillow, Glachild, Pineco, and Togepi. Where could these Togepi be coming from, I wonder? (Next route. They come from Route 502.) Speaking of Route 502, let's move on there!  It's directly connected to 501 and also contains something incredibly important and also totally not signposted. Up in the top corner is this guy. night or entering a dark cave. You must be the same way. Here, take this! When you use Flash, you'll be fine even in the dark. It can brighten up anything! Yes, if you miss this top corner that's not on the path you don't get Flash. Flash is kind of interesting in this game (Or at least Vega Minus, one of the notes for it said it made Flash not useless and I don't know what it was in Vega) in that instead of just reducing accuracy, it's also an Electric-type move with 35 power! I don't put it on anyone yet. I mostly just sped through this route. The trainers here use the same pokemon as last route, but add on Nidoran M, Nidoran F, and a Houndour. Those are all available next route for us. There's an exit north to Route 514, but it's blocked by Cut trees. There's also a hidden Rare Candy! I expect that given VBA has a turbo mode I can use while grinding I won't really need this, but it's nice to find. From here we go east into the gatehouse. battle Upstairs are three named trainers: Vivian, Violet, and Vincent. I recognize this name scheme from somewhere... They all say something to this effect. After checking in on them, we can keep going through to the first large town, Junopsis City! I LOVE the snow-covered Pokecenter. It's really cute. After stopping in there, I may as well go check out the gym. Hmm, you seem pretty weak, though... HEY Oh, I know! If you defeat the three Winstrate siblings on Route 502, I'll get out of the way. Well, I guess I'll go do that then instead. "Pretty weak..." I'll show you pretty weak. Jerk. Also, I knew I recognized those names! If you're reading this and didn't play Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald for whatever reason, the Winstrates are a family of trainers who all have Vi- names However, I think I'm gonna do that next update, this one feels kinda long already. I'd also like to get some feedback on formatting/image size/whatever before continuing, if anyone's got any. Taking screenshots directly from my video player saved them all as .jpgs, so I'd like to get a different method for that sorted too so that they're a little less fuzzy. See you in a day or two, when we go catch a Togepi, look around Junopsis more, and fight the Winstrates and the first Gym! Draxion fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Jul 20, 2020 |
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Jul 20, 2020 01:29
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Oh, I haven't even heard of this hack or its predecessors. I hope this is good, since Pokemon fangames tend to...not be good. So far at least I do like the new designs even if I'm not wowed by them, the spritework's pretty decent. My main issue with it is how boring the maps look, but maybe that'll get better once you aren't so early in the game.
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Jul 20, 2020 02:50
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I'd like to vote that we change our starter to a Peyero named Ares and that we name our Glachild Reimu. Also, from what I'm seeing, it sounds like Vega Minus is the definitive Vega experience, between giving the Fakemons their new typings and bringing the difficulty more in line with the canon games. gently caress any romhack/fan game that puts their champion above Cynthia's Garchomp. Bigger numbers doesn't make things more difficlt, just more tedious.
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Jul 20, 2020 02:51
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Blaze Dragon posted:My main issue with it is how boring the maps look, but maybe that'll get better once you aren't so early in the game. They're definitely a little samey right now. I do think I'll start putting in the full images of the maps from the wiki, because that does give a better impression of what places are actually supposed to look like than I'm giving. serefin99 posted:gently caress any romhack/fan game that puts their champion above Cynthia's Garchomp. Bigger numbers doesn't make things more difficlt, just more tedious. Yeah, I agree. I get the impulse - there's 100 levels, why not use them, but without rebalancing every Pokemon's move list, experience values, and significantly changing pacing and stuff it ends up just being a drag almost 100% of the time.
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Jul 20, 2020 04:25
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I've never played Vega Minus, but OG Vega is probably the best Pokemon Fan Project I've ever played that isn't Touhou related. The level curve is brutal, though; The Vega Experience is just hacking in Rare Candies to match the curve. What I appreciate about Vega's difficulty, though, is that everything you see is legal, meaning you can eventually get your hands on any bullshit this game pulls, and you get a lot of options. That said, the mean design starts immediately. If you pick Nimbleaf, you need to fight Peyero as your rival, and it's...basically an unwinnable fight. Peyero is a steel-type, and you're stuck with Pound. Have fun with that. It doesn't help that I consider Nimbleaf the weakest of the starters anyways.
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Jul 20, 2020 05:32
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Seems interesting enough so far, this could be either a half decent game or a total car crash. I look forward to seeing which way it jumps. 
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Jul 20, 2020 05:35
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Draxion posted:Yeah, I agree. I get the impulse - there's 100 levels, why not use them, but without rebalancing every Pokemon's move list, experience values, and significantly changing pacing and stuff it ends up just being a drag almost 100% of the time. I'd say, of all of those, the move lists are the most important. A lot of fan games fix the EXP problem by just throwing Audino and Blissey trainers at you; it's not an ELEGANT solution by any means, but it works. But, to use an example from my own Omega Ruby playthrough I'm doing: once your Gardevoir has Moon Blast and Psychic, you really stop caring about its levels, because any other move you want to give it is gonna come from TMs anyway.
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Jul 20, 2020 08:02
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That fire starter looks real cool and imo you should switch to it.
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Jul 20, 2020 08:37
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I vote for the fire starter, too, except name it Capsaicin. 'cause it's spicy. Also... 
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Jul 20, 2020 11:16
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Oh boy, Vega. My memories with this hack go way back, especially since I was involved a little bit in the process of translating the game. Most of my hand didn't actually come in until the postgame, though. I can quite safely recommend Vega Minus over the Original Vega, since it can... go places sometimes. I might actually go over some of the key differences in the curve just so people can get an idea of how wild the grinding got. Not like, major posts or anything, but more of some dips into what the full experience is like (mainly loads of grinding). Whateverth'ing Peyero, the fire starter. I'm going to suggest Fryclops for it.
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Jul 20, 2020 13:20
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I know I've played this game, because I also picked that Water starter iirc. I know I played the original and not apparently Vega Minus, because Ice friend was pure Ice when I played. And I don't remember any overly edgy stuff or portions of pure disdain for this game, so I guess that's a good thing. Oh, and the Pikachu thing. I remember that too. Other than those though, man am I drawing a massive blank on this game though. Oh well, looking forward to rediscovering it. Also in support of the Fire starter, no real input on nickname.
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Jul 20, 2020 14:43
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I'm troubled by Pikachu's flagrant steroid abuse.
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Jul 20, 2020 14:49
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Toyotasomi no Miko posted:Oh boy, Vega. My memories with this hack go way back, especially since I was involved a little bit in the process of translating the game. Most of my hand didn't actually come in until the postgame, though. I can quite safely recommend Vega Minus over the Original Vega, since it can... go places sometimes. I might actually go over some of the key differences in the curve just so people can get an idea of how wild the grinding got. Not like, major posts or anything, but more of some dips into what the full experience is like (mainly loads of grinding). Oh, sick! Yeah by all means, since I'm not going to be able to touch on much of the original difficulty outside of saying what gym leaders would have normally had. It sounds like everyone is on board with Peyero, so I'll swap to that and level back up. There's three names proposed, so....  Looks like Capsaicin is it! I'll get started on switching over.
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Jul 20, 2020 18:50
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Blueberry Pancakes posted:I'm troubled by Pikachu's flagrant steroid abuse. This is the ideal Pokemon body. You may not like it, but this is peak(achu) performance.
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Jul 20, 2020 21:19
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"Not every Pokemon fangame is edgy" followed by the haymaker of "the prequel had a little girl tortured into being a quasi-Pokemon" is making me not so optimistic that the title is telling the truth, to be honest.
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Jul 20, 2020 22:18
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MarquiseMindfang posted:"Not every Pokemon fangame is edgy" followed by the haymaker of "the prequel had a little girl tortured into being a quasi-Pokemon" is making me not so optimistic that the title is telling the truth, to be honest. I can only speak for this one! Maybe they didn't lean in. Everyone always leans in
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Jul 20, 2020 22:22
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quote:Rayquaza awakens and disperses the battling Legendaries. At the same time, a change comes over Wallace and Steven. Apparently, their minds were being controlled by a Pokémon called Nemea, and Rayquaza's descent reversed the effects. The two of them shamefully make their way to Mt. Pyre to return the Orb Mind control is bullshit. Lean into Wallace/Steven going full heel
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Jul 21, 2020 00:43
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Nissin Cup Nudist posted:Mind control is bullshit. Lean into Wallace/Steven going full heel Going Full Heal, you mean? 
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Jul 21, 2020 01:37
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I'd only call Aldina's backstory edgy if you consider Resident Evil or Silent Hill edgy; it's played for horror rather than any sort of "cool factor."
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Jul 21, 2020 05:00
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hopefully this fangame is as expansive as insurgence. i love some new designs, as long as they're decent. so far they seem to be for this one.
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Jul 21, 2020 07:06
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I may have missed the vote on our starter, but it’s clear our shrine maiden should be named Yukina
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Jul 21, 2020 08:18
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Throwing another vote on naming the Glachild Reimu. Too late for the starter vote, but this actually looks like a competent fangame, so that's nice.
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Jul 21, 2020 08:39
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I love me some fakemon, so I'm hyped as gently caress!
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Jul 21, 2020 09:25
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This one's kind of long, due to badly pacing where I cut off the last update and how long it was until the next interesting post-Gym thing/more fakemon to catch happened. Next one should be better. Update 2: The plot might start happening here? Before getting into anything else, people voted to switch to Peyero as our starter, so here he is! Capsaicin won a randomly selected name choice.   I really do like this design, it feels like a Mega Man enemy. There were also a couple requests to nickname our Glachild Reimu, so I got that done too. After that, it's time to start back up in Junopsis City.  "A small town with the scent of tenderness." Junopsis is a former name for the Iris genus of flowers. It's called Ayame City in Japanese, which also means iris flowers. Last time all Lyra really did here was get called weak-looking by someone standing outside the gym and then get sent off to fight some kids in a security checkpoint. I'll get to that in a minute, but first I want to see if anyone around town has anything interesting to say.  Thanks to your cooperation I gathered a lot of them. I'll give one back to you!  That represents a nugget of wisdom. Use it well! Alto Mare is the city from the Pokemon Heroes movie, the one with Latios and Latias in it. It's basically Pokemon Venice. I think it was a postgame region in Altair and Sirius, so presumably Lyra helped this guy out in the prequel. As far as I'm concerned I've never seen him before in my life, but I'm happy to get what is a pretty significant cash gift this early on.  I was surprised when he and Prof. Hastings developed the Capture Styler. I want to be a researcher as good as him someday. Stylers appear to be Holly's specialty as a Pokemon Professor. Prof. Hastings is the Chief of Technology from the Pokemon Ranger series.  Pikachu wants to play on its own sometimes, though...  if I can keep this up, he'll be an incredible Machu!  So we have a name for the terrifying figure in the opening video, Machu. If this kid needs this particular Pikachu to like him, though, I think he's probably got a long way to go...  It seems that knowing the details is dangerous, but that just makes me tempted to find out... From some further details about Altair and Sirius that didn't make it into the plot summary: quote:In Verdanturf Town and elsewhere, people have started randomly adding the non-word "po" to their sentences. This is never explained.  Wanna trade one for my Hoothoot? I don't have a Togepi yet, and can get Hoothoot on my own pretty easily later, but I'll be back to do this trade at some point. I don't get to it this update though.  "Hey, it's me, the Mos"? That doesn't even make sense! You're telling me, kid. I think the less I see of this guy the better, but I have a feeling the devs like him. That's everyone who has anything interesting to say in town, so I go sell that Nugget, stock back up on Pokeballs, and head back out to fight the Winstrates.  On the way there I spent a few minutes looking for this guy. I should have caught two so I could trade for that Hoothoot, but I'll get to that next time.  We just got told about you on our Pokenavs. So... Um... You're the challenger... I'm the first one, the younger sister! All right, it's a battle! The Winstrates are where we left them, hanging out in the windowless upstairs of the gatehouse. They have some Pokemon we haven't seen yet, including one of the starters each. Maybe they came to Tohoak to get those? Anyways, you fight all of them in a row, but they're not much of a challenge.   Vivian has a Pichu and a Peyero. I don't have anything strong against either of those, but I'm twice their level at this point so Capsaicin just takes care of it.    Vincent has Diglett, which just goes down to Tackle, and Liquiput, who I switch to Reimu for. Also nothing much going on here.  Fufufu, let's go! You aren't, but sure, let's get to it.     And that's Violet done for too. All my stuff is at the same level as the Gym Leader, which is to say significantly higher level than these three. It did make me notice that I've got some big gaps in my type coverage, but that's to be expected when only about five Pokemon have been available so far and two of them are Togepi and Pineco.  We'll give you something good later. I think by later she might mean right now, because she handed me a Big Mushroom right away when I talked to her, along with encouraging us to go fight Annette, the Gym Leader. There's nothing else to so, so...  I'm surprised you managed to win against the Winstrate siblings. Well, as promised, I'll get out of the way. Then she heads inside the gym. Do we really look like that much of a pushover? This is also where I started noticing a trend in the game's writing where people never just say they got a call, they also nearly always specify that it's on their Pokenav. Maybe they're trying to bully Lyra for not having one yet, maybe the devs just really liked the Pokenav, who can say.   Do you dare to dream of becoming the Pokemon champ? I heard from my cousin that you're Hoenn's Champion already! Do you want to become Tohoak's Champion as well? There's a Yes/No option here. I just say yes.  The Gym Leader, Annette, uses Bug types. Using Flying- or Fire-type moves will give you the advantage! Also, if you're stuck, check out the windows. Well then, go for it! He's not actually giving very good advice here. Two of Annette's Pokemon are Rock/Bug, which are only weak to Rock, Steel, and Water. We don't have any of those things - starting with Liquiput is the only reasonable way to get any of them outside of absurdly overleveling. The line about the windows is, I believe, one added by Vega Minus because the puzzle in this gym would be infuriating otherwise. I'll get to why in a second. First, though:  Well then, let's have an ordinary battle? You don't want like, a cool battle? A fun battle? Well, okay.  She's just got a Pineco, which goes down basically as soon as it stops spamming Protect.  You might be able to win against Annette! After that I'm just going to go up and check the windows.   Pressing this button makes the gym actually completable. See, the gimmick here is that Annette is entire sealed in, but stepping on one of the flowers teleports you to another one. The goal is to teleport to the one in front of her. However, until you press this button, none of the other flowers go to that one. In the base game, there's no suggestion that fiddling around with the windows might help you solve this, so the Vega Minus patch added a line telling you to check them out. We can get to the leader now.  Um, well... Uh... My name's Annette! I'm Junopsis City's Gym Leader! I love Bug Pokemon... and is that really that strange? I always hear from people, "That's weird!", or "That's gross!" But underestimate the Bug type, and you'll suffer the consequences! Well then, let's begin! You won't stand a chance in battle against the bug-catching expert, Annette!    She also starts off with Pineco. Its job is to set up Spikes, which don't really do a whole lot at this level but are still damage you don't want to take. If I'd been smart about this I would have had Capsaicin or Taillow in front, because this is the one Pokemon on Annette's team that has weaknesses I can hit. Instead, it beats Reimu up pretty bad with a Double Spin crit before I beat it.   Annette's next Pokemon is Rollder, a Rock/Bug type that you find in caves. It Tackles Reimu's last couple HP off, but wastes a few turns on buffing its defense while Capsaicin burns it down.   Annette's last is this Shuckle which, if you can't kill fast, basically spirals out of control. It's a bad matchup for my team in general, as it can absorb a few hits and knows Rock Tomb and Rollout, which all of my Pokemon besides Togepi are weak to. It ends up wiping my team this attempt. On the next try, the Rollder also gets a Rollout streak going and smashes through my team again. On the one after that, Shuckle shows off its other trick: chain-using Curse, bringing its attack and defense up incredibly high. Then it Rock Tombs me again. However, I do get a lucky break:  It takes out Cap again, but after that I only had to swap in Pineco and use Protect while the burn took care of the last bit of HP.  Sorry. I just honestly didn't even consider the thought that you could be that strong... Since I lost, here you go... I'll give the the official Pokemon League Elnath Badge!  If you have the Elnath Badge, your Pokemon get just a little stronger. And, you can use the move Flash outside of battle. Elnath, also known as Beta Tauri, is the second brightest star in the Taurus constellation. All of this League's badges are named after stars, as far as I can tell. I'd normally be mad that yet another person thought Lyra didn't look strong, but in reality she DID kick my rear end three times in a row. This is a pretty tricky first gym, even in Vega Minus. Normally, the Shuckle has a Sitrus Berry, as well as a move called Deep Yawn that's just a 100% accuracy Hypnosis. Seems rough. Annette also gives us TM15, Signal Beam. Signal Beam's a very good Bug move, but unfortunately TMs in this game are single use again (I think there's a postgame area where you can just buy them all, though). We also don't have any Pokemon really looking for a strong Bug move, so we'll sit on it. As we leave the gym...  I heard that there was a big sale on turnips at the nearby grocery store, so I ran here. Hey, it's me, the Mos! what the gently caress are you talking about dude  You've already earned the Elnath Badge? How quickly! How skillfully! How easily! You could win it! You have won it! If I beat that gym, maybe my marriage would-   The Mosmero Show will be right back after these messages.  :...Hey :Ah, hello.:Hey, man! How have you been?:You know, the standard emotional fatigue that plagues us all.:I have no idea what that's supposed to mean! Then again, I never understand you.:Because you're gone, they've brought me in as a substitute Elite Four member. I think it's good for me.:Well hey, it's me, the original Mos of the Elite Four!:...:...Well.:Well, bye then! Oh, right, and come home soon!Sorry about the white backgrounds on those icons, the transparent ones from the wiki didn't play nicely with any image uploader. The guy Mos is talking to here, Romero, is his brother and was the Petalburg Gym Leader in Altair and Sirius following Norman's promotion to the Elite Four.  Or at least a prankster call. It's got me all pumped up! Before I forget to in my excitement, I ought to leave. Hey, it was me, the Mos! Thankfully, he does. Am I missing something here or is he just really really annoying? We're done in town, so it's time to head south to Route 503.  503 looks much the same as the previous two routes, though it does end in a cave. Before going much further I grab the new pokemon for this route:    Nidoran F, Nidoran M, and Houndour are all found here. We already have a Fire-type, but I'll be bringing Nidoran F around with us for a bit because of her access to Double Kick. As we keep going down the route, Lyra runs into this guy and a short scene plays.  Hm...leave it to you. ...mea... yet? ...... ...do it.... Bye then...  He shoves past Lyra on his way out. I don't know what New Island is, but that guy is for sure a villain, right?  Afterwards this trainer challenges us, and then after losing blames Lyra for making her drop her sandwich. That's on you, sorry.  This trainer battle is our first introduction to another new Fakemon, Mintch. It's a mint colored finch, see. Spoiler for next time, but I'll be replacing Taillow with one (and then very quickly its evolution).  Naturally, clothes and Pokemon require money to be great. Gonna kick your rear end, lady.  I do, though this fight's notable for someone using a Full Restore in a level 9 fight.  This is the last thing of note here is the Spikes TM. Like Signal Beam, it'll probably be a while before I use this if I ever do. After that though, there's not much else to do besides beat the last couple of trainers and head on into Wiseman's Cave.   They called themselves Team DH, but that's got to stand for something, right? Team...Dark Hole? No, that can't be it... The groups from the last games were Team BH and WH, which stood for Black Hole and White Hole respectively. This hiker's probably not particularly far off. Also, I think my OBS was slightly misconfigured for this recording, leading to that black bar at the top of the next screenshots. The recording after this is fine, though.  Wiseman's Cave is not particularly big, though there's a substantially larger second level that's accessible in the postgame. Right away we run into a new Pokemon.   Rynos is kind of weird. It's good for right now, as it learns Dig at level 10 and that's a very strong Ground move this early. However, it doesn't evolve until 40, and in this game you'd want to push that even further to 49 so it could learn Earthquake without using the TM. That, at least, is fixed in the in-development sequels, but for now means that Rynos is good now but probably not very good again until much later. After that, we run into our first encounter with Team DH.    He's got a Nidoran M and a Cupricorn, which is a Steel-type goat. I like Cupricorn quite a lot, and will be getting one not quite as soon as possible but as soon as it's not a 2% encounter chance. Team DH has good music, both the encounter music and the battle theme are pretty fun (warning for possible spoilers from the related videos on those). Honestly most of the music in this game is pretty good so far, maybe I should link to it more regularly? Anyways, I beat this guy.  We're the intimidating Team DH! Amazing, right? I think he may be overestimating how intimidating losing is. There's another DH grunt to the south.  Holly Research Lab!  She doesn't have anything we haven't seen before, but if we're going to be fighting a bunch of Team DH people in this game I wanted to get full body shots of them. Team DH grunts also show a little more strategy in battle than we've seen so far - they like to use X Stat buffs, and sometimes swap their team around to cover for or take advantage of weaknesses.  I have no idea! So, Team DH are the people who attacked the Lab the other day, apparently unsuccessfully. Cygnus has the Secure Styler now, but these grunts haven't really given me any reason to be concerned for him. Running around some more, I find two more of the Pokemon for this area:    Rollder is not particularly impressive. Like I mentioned earlier, it's Rock/Bug, and can do some alright things with Rollout I guess, but it's not effective against much that my current team isn't. It evolves at 25.  Anyways the puzzle for this cave, such as it is, starts here. If you step on this pit-looking thing, you teleport to one of the two others in the area. I could not for the life of me tell if it was random or not which one you got sent to. If you go to the top one, there's a path that leads to the exit but it's blocked. I think the way the puzzle works is that you just have to go to both other platforms and the block is moved, but it took a few minutes to actually get to the second one for that to open. This is not a particularly good way to do this kind of puzzle, imo. After getting that opened up, I fight the other few grunts standing around. Neither has anything new, though one mentions he wanted to join the Ranger Force once. It's here where I start noticing that this game talks about Rangers a LOT.  While picking up this Escape Rope off the second platform, we can see that Cygnus appears to be facing off with two Team DH grunts. I'm certain he can handle them on his own, but we should probably head over there anyways. While on the way...    Cap evolves into Infiris! This is a somewhat less fun design than Peyero, but frankly as far as Fire starters in this series go I'm happy to see a weird mechanical-looking one in really any form. With that, it's time to go help Cygnus out.  What was it again?    I'm not about to give it up without a fight!  Hey, kid! You may think you're strong, but can you take both of us on at once?  Maybe I can capture some of the nearby Pokemon? That's a bit risky, but I don't have any other- It's at this moment that Lyra arrives, of course.  Help me defeat Team DH! There's another Yes/No prompt here. I pick No, but he just tells you that when you're ready you can talk to him. Might as well get into it. This fight is also not particularly notable now that the two grunts have split up. This guy does have a new Pokemon, though.  Willisp is a pure Fire type, despite looking like a ghost. Our starter is Fire, so I don't know that we'll ever use one, but the chance to catch it will come up soon.   After beating them, the grunts sprint off in opposite directions.  the Secure Styler... Lyra, thanks a lot. Well, I better get going to Nephrite City. See ya!  Diglett! Lend me your power! Use Dig to get us out of here! On his way out he does some Ranger stuff to leave. I don't know what Rangers actually do with Pokemon, do they just ask them for favors? After all that there's still one more Pokemon to get here, so...  There it is. After catching Tyrogue, we can head out.  You must be pretty clever. Here, you can have this. This old guy hands Lyra a Root Fossil and tells us that someone called Professor Larch has an assistant researching fossils. I assume we'll run into them later. Gonna cut it there for this update. Longer than I'd like, but I wanted to get Wiseman's Cave in this one. Next time we'll be moving on to Seafin City and the Spirit Mansion. I've already recorded that, but I would like to stop typing for today.
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Jul 21, 2020 20:49
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It seems that the difficulty's pretty high from the get-go if that's the first Gym, though nowhere near usual fangame bullshit so I guess it's fine. Rangers don't have permanent Pokemon beyond one partner, instead they temporarily capture wild Pokemon, use them to clear obstacles in their way and release them immediately afterwards. That's what Cygnus was doing here, capturing a Diglett to Dig out of the cave, said Diglett would be released afterwards.
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Jul 21, 2020 21:18
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...I might be jumping the gun a bit here, but it seems like not being edgy doesn't mean the game isn't bad. Like Blaze Dragon said, it's not the worst I've seen (it's very hard to top Pokemon Reborn), but a 100% accurate sleep move (can you even buy Awakenings at this point?) with a Curse stacking Shuckle is still way tougher than I would expect, especially at those levels. I'd also knock them for throwing a pair of Bug/Rock types at you, but I remember the canon games have a nasty habit of making the first gym Rock but not giving you any Grass or Water types until after you beat it, so...
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Jul 21, 2020 21:51
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It's definitely pretty rough as is, so I imagine without the Minus changes the recommended strategy there is to either extremely outlevel her, or start with Liquiput. The first time I played through this gym I couldn't tell it was a challenge at all, having a water type changes it a lot.
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Jul 21, 2020 23:17
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The 1st Gym is a bit mean, but reasonable if you think through your options. Curse has 10 PP, so you can stall it out with Togepi or Glachild's Charm, and then the Shuckle can barely hurt you even if it nails you with Deep Yawn. The Hoothoot has Insomnia and Growl, as well, meaning Shuckle is almost completely harmless. If you started with Liquiput, it also can just rampage through the fight with a little bit of luck. You can also pick up Flash if you're that concerned. In the original Vega, Shuckle had Bulldoze instead of Rollout, which...is arguably less dangerous, but it makes Peyero in particular less safe. Pineco can also come in and Protect to kill Rollder (in the original) or Shuckle's (in Minus) Rollout. Levels are also a tad higher, but that's unfortunately what you can expect out of Vega, and it's the biggest black mark it has; for all the ways around the moveset-based difficulty, the level curve is still very stupid. Within the context of the original, I really would just suggest hacking in like 300 Rare Candies and using them as-needed, but we'll see if Minus changes that...
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Jul 21, 2020 23:29
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I was wondering about that Hoothoot, that makes sense. Didn't need it here because that Shuckle doesn't have Deep Yawn in this version, but stuff like that's good to keep in mind.
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Jul 22, 2020 03:23
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the hoothoot trade definitely seemed kinda weird, so i guess that explains it
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Jul 22, 2020 03:41
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I approve of our kirby enemy type starter.
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Jul 22, 2020 03:45
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Faillen Angel posted:The 1st Gym is a bit mean, but reasonable if you think through your options. Anyway, why is everyone so rude in this game and what's Mosmero's deal
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Jul 24, 2020 20:02
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APOSTOL posted:Are Pokemon fan games normally just "gently caress you" levels of hard? I get that the non-Minus version of this was, but that's a pretty high level of strategy required for just the first gym. I guess the implication of playing a fan game is that you're good enough at Pokemon to want more and a bit of a challenge. Pokemon fangames tend to be made by people who are annoyed at how easy the main games are and want a harder challenge, but are also not good at balance and go way overboard on the challenge aspect and make them incredibly annoying and unfair to actually play.
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Jul 24, 2020 20:08
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FoolyCharged posted:I approve of our kirby enemy type starter. APOSTOL posted:Anyway, why is everyone so rude in this game and what's Mosmero's deal god I wish I knew
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Jul 24, 2020 20:24
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They also tend to fall into the trap of thinking of a solution and structuring the "puzzle" around it such that it becomes more of a game of "divine the way the creator envisioned you beat this" than a game of Pokemon. Sort of like adventure game moon logic puzzles, but you have to grind your inventory objects up to level before attempting rubbing them on the problem.
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Jul 24, 2020 20:25
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Encounter puzzles in this game are one thing--a bit like Reborn, there are a lot more solutions once you actually have team options--but the actual puzzle puzzles, like in the gyms, are... something else.
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Jul 24, 2020 20:38
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APOSTOL posted:Are Pokemon fan games normally just "gently caress you" levels of hard? I get that the non-Minus version of this was, but that's a pretty high level of strategy required for just the first gym. I guess the implication of playing a fan game is that you're good enough at Pokemon to want more and a bit of a challenge. Of all the fan games I have seen or played for myself, the only one with anything resembling an appreciable level of difficulty was Insurgence, and even there it isn't that the game isn't excessively hard, it's that for all the bullshit it throws at you, it practically DROWNS you in options for how to take it on, up to and including Audino trainers to easily raise up any new team members you decide to add and even the ability to create your own 'custom move' (re: a physical, 70 BP move that has the type and name of your choosing). Granted, I would still hesitate to recommend Insurgence without a bevy of caveats, both because of its gameplay and its story, but the developers at least seemed aware not everyone would want to struggle through their 'uber tough no nonsense Pokemon fan game for hardcore elites no casuals allowed'. Compare and contrast directly with Reborn, where beating a boss in a way the devs didn't intend would often lead to them removing whatever Pokemon allowed such a strategy in the next update...
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Jul 24, 2020 21:07
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| # ? May 20, 2024 01:54 |
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Did someone say Pokémon fangame? Glad I'm here early; hopefully the game picks up after this underwhelming start.
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Jul 30, 2020 05:27
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