Not much to say in the intro. Despite some of my misgiving with Uranium, overall it's been a pretty pleasant playthrough!
Insert your own epic soundtrack vibe here, because we've quite literally reached the top of the tallest mountain in the Tandor region, where they built this elaborate Pokemon League!
-MUSIC INTENSIFIES-
We've got a ninja, one of the many who has left Tsukinami Village. Apparently they compete in the Pokemon league. Meanwhile, this other dude came from Kalos. He beat Diantha, apparently, which... is honestly not particularly impressive, because Diantha is kind of one of the weaker champions. Beat Cynthia or Alder, then we'll talk.
Huh, so it is a tournament! In practice, your character will still fight five trainers in total, just like the Elite-Four-and-Champion set of the official games, but I really do like how it is presented to us here, where it's meant to represent our main character fighting through an elimination tournament.
As I later find out, this means that the "Elite Four" is genuinely randomized out of a pool of possible challengers, something that, hilariously enough, Pokemon would implement with the champions of the Generation VII games being drawn from a pool of available challengers.
This is a bit weird, but definitely a facet of the game that I really do appreciate. You can't spam full restores and hyper potions in the championship, which prevents both the player from being frustrated at the enemies resorting to items to negate your struggle, but also to avoid the player from cheese-ing their way through the final championship with revives and potions.
Definitely something that I really do hope that Pokemon would implement in the games, because I really do feel like most championships are pretty neutered with the availability of items.
Oh yeah, Maria. She's the lady with the asshole yawning cats that had to shoo away a stalker or something. Apparently she was the previous winner, and everyone loves her.
Oh my gosh she's a fan! She doesn't really do anything, though.
Oh hey it's Gabby and Ty, the annoying reporters from the Hoenn games! It's... actually a sensible cameo for once, because reporters coming in to report on a championship is a far, far more logical way to insert a cameo than "Fennel happened to be having a holiday".
Apparently Ura is a national hero.
Also who wants to bet that the nuclear attacks haven't quite stopped yet? After all, our bad guy's escaped and we haven't caught the mascot legendary!
...and then we get interrupted by freaking Kellyn.
How the hell did he make his way through Victory Road? He doesn't even have a Pokemon! His dumb monkey went back to the forest!
Hell, how did all the audience make their way to the championship grounds? Did Ura just completely miss the bus to the league grounds?
Understatement of the century.
Now that your son is a celebrity and the hero of the land, you suddenly want to be a part of his life, Kellyn? I didn't think you could sink to a new low, but, y'know.
I dunno. You seem pretty damn content at "financial abandonment", "emotional abandonment" and "entitlement". Remember when you basically told your son who you haven't seen for years and basically told him to go deliver a letter? Or the fact that you let Aunt May essentially raise Ura because you're too busy moping and being sad and refusing to accept death?
Oh hey these red haired guys show up too. Man, this scene was kind of long and I'm not even showing every line. Kinda stalker-y, there, Theo, but okay, I kind of get the gist of what you mean.
Also, Theo and Cameron really don't have any real interesting dialogue. I really don't know what to put here as commentary. Like, these are genuinely generic lines of a generic anime rival and a generic supporting character.
Not that official Pokemon games don't have these, but at least the dialogue is either shorter or a lot more fun to read.
Obligatory pre-Elite-Four party screenshots! I could've raised everyone up to level 70 on Victory Road, but fuck that, I really just want to go in, all guns blazing, and wipe out my foes!
Blight the Nucleon, my literal living walking weapon of mass destruction. He's got four moves, but most of the time I just use Hyper Voice to make use of the combined effects of his ability, his typing, his massive special attack and his Choice Scarf to unleash a fuck-ton of damage upon anything that's not Nuclear or Steel type. The Hyper Beam is there for emergencies.
Cerebella the Brainoar! The one that I picked because I really liked her look, and probably one of the only two defensive members of my party. She's there with Choice Specs to boost her special attack, and is basically just there for type coverage. Her Ice Beam is the only non-Blight way for me to take care of dragons reliably, while Surf and Psychic are powerful and reliable STAB's. Focus Blast is there, uh... I guess because she really doesn't have much else to learn.
The Queen of all Insects in the World, The God-Mother of the Brood, The Heart of the Swarm, our Seikamater. The Queen is a legendary bug, and is able to make use of Life Orb and legendary stats, as well as her insane ability, to essentially have near-perfect coverage. She and Blight are basically the two red buttons of the group. In case of emergency, unleash Godzilla. Or, well, Mothra, in this case. Mothra's far, far more violent cousin that's prone to consume humans every other year or so.
Charlie the Archilles, our faithful starter, one of the two highest-leveled members of our party, and one of our two mega-evolutions. A very good boy. He's going to mostly be unleashing mass devastation with a mega evolution and either a Flamethrower or Earth Power, but also has the priority Flame Impact for emergencies. At this point, Dragon Claw's sort of useless.
LV-426, the S-51A, the invader from outer space. She spins around in his UFO abducting cows and shit. Our other mega-evolution, and, if we're being honest, the only real member of my team that's sort of a liability. LV-426 isn't bad -- his special attack stat is powerful enough to make great use of Psychic, Flash Cannon and Dark Pulse, and while the psychic coverage sort of overlaps with Cerebella, the fact that LV-426 can mega evolve does really help out. It's just such a shame that Laser Pulse is kind of unreliable because it switches types, and Dark Pulse doesn't get STAB. He's like a weird combination of Metagross and Mega Blastoise.
And last but certainly not least, Eschericia coli, the Gellin. The mightiest single-celled organism in the world, the Hokage, and the master of thunder. Working off of a mighty special attack stat, E. coli dishes out the pain with Energy Ball, Shadow Ball and especially Thunderbolt. He's fragile, but not fragile enough to get one-shotted with anything that isn't super-effective, allowing him to abuse Giga Drain to get back up. Also, like, you're not supposed to have favourites, but E. coli is probably my favourite child.
Okay, you sort of established this before.
The championship are NPCs are really repetitive.
I have no idea who that is! We will crush her.
Oh hey, it's the boring miner gym leader man from Burole town, and also Maria.
MORE IMPORTANTLY GENTLEMAN SIR GOLDKORN MADE IT HERE. Yes, mm-hmm, jolly good yes, our sophisticated strategy will overcome those positively dreadful peasants, wot wot.
So you're telling me all those crowd members got their way up this volcano through the Victory Road? Really? Even the preschoolers?
It's a neat detail the first time you read through the MC's dialogue, but trust me, he talks a LOT and basically repeats what's essentially the same thing before every fight.
We get it, it's a tournament. Citizens of Cyrodiil, welcome to the Arena, and all that.
Okay, hello, nice to meet you, Angelica. She's the obligatory Fairy trainer. Okay, then? I think she's the weird girl that was looking off into the distance in Victory Road talking about how she's qualified for the championship, but I'm too lazy to go back and check.
Yeah, Fairies are pretty badass. I mean, except for Mr. Mime. Fuck that thing, that thing's creepy.
And, again, the referee repeats this same two lines before every battle. Which is certainly a fucking annoyance.
Ready? Fight! Angelica just uses the Lady generic trainer sprite from the Diamond/Pearl games, which is honestly slightly lazy. Could've at least recoloured her dress or something.
Oh, hey, it's a Nimflora! You ain't got nothing on Taxonomaly.
Also, you're a dual-type Pokemon, and therefore, 4x weak to Nuclear. ATOMIC BLAST MURDER KILL THAT BUG, BLIGHT.
"He is the top of a primordial ecosystem. A god, for all intents and purposes."
Seriously, though, Lady Angelica, this is embarrassing. Blight's been murdering the ice-skating bunnies and the weird drunken-winged bunnies every second trainer through the Victory Road. And these are critters that have five levels on Blight!
Blight's sole weakness of sorts is a mono-typed Pokemon, like his pure-Fairy cousin.
Fortunately, fairies are weak to steel. Especially alien steel. Especially alien Flash Cannons made out of steel. Like, I just imagine the botton of LV-426 opens and a gigantic fuck-off Looney Tunes style bazooka just pops out and blasts this poor ribbon fox to smithereens.
The Sylveon was faster and managed to hurt LV-426, but not particularly significant.
Another official mono-typed Fairy Pokemon. Aromatisse also falls very quickly to LV-426.
The power of alien technology, against the magical powers of the moon! Space battle let's go!
...the moon wins, because I am an idiot and I forgot Water resists Steel. I'm not sure what the logic is behind that, although I guess stabbing the sea with a sword isn't effective.
Break them with your alien telepathy, LV-426! Use your space Jedi mind tricks to crush her into a pulp!
She's very polite about losing.
SHUT UP REFEREE OR I TELL LV-426 TO PROBE EVERY SINGLE ORIFICE YOU HAVE WITH HIS FLASH CANNON
Oh hell yes. It's Sir Goldkorn! I am so happy we get to face him for this.
Also, all my Pokemon get instantly restored in-between battles, which is great and helps play into the "let's not make things inconvenient when you go through the Elite Four", which is a great sentiment...
...a sentiment that's completely annulled by the fact that they do this pan across the crowd and have the goddamn referee repeat what's basically the same lines before every battle.
I do appreciate that little TV screen. That has to be annoying to program.
I say, I say, how could you have forgotten me, you kind daft sir? I was the one who left your raccoon with nuclear burn wounds, wot?
He's a posh sort, innit? What a true gentleman he is, I'm chuffed to bits! He's truly a pleasant bloke. I'll enjoy this lovely sport!
Sir Goldkorn has genuinely been such a pleasant recurring character. Easily my favourite recurring character, and, yes, that includes everyone else in the game.
Gentleman Sir Goldkorn still leads with the same two early-route Pokemon. I admire his commitment to his pets, but a trash panda and a hunchbacked bird who needs a haircut is not going to last a single turn against a creature born to be a weapon.
The Whimsicott died so fast I didn't even get to screenshot its death.
The Mega Evolution + Drought + STAB + super effective flamethrower was probably overkill.
Cerebella versus Herolune! I forgot what Herolune's other type is, but this weird bone-based werewolf superhero is part-Fighting, and that's all that matters for Cerebella to one-shot the thing.
I was so sure that Gentleman Sir Goldkorn would use a mega evolution or something, but the Ampharos goes down in one shot to Earth Power.
And the Baariette dies in one shot to a Hyper Beam. Blight essentially makes anything with a dual-type kind of a joke.
Jolly good, sir!
That's bloody brilliant, I would certainly fancy a cuppa tea and biscuits, but I've got a competition to win. Ta for the offer, though!
Okay, I guess the people in the waiting room show your subsequent opponents, which is a lot less interesting than just having them be a surprise.
Also that referee really needs to shut up.
I honestly don't remember if Davern had a personality. But he calls Ura a naive child fumbling around in the dark, which means that he's a dick and I'm going to take great pleasure in humiliating this miner boy.
Ura was never afraid. Maybe you were thinking of Theo?
Come on, you second-rate knockoff Roark!
FUCK I forgot Tofurang is mono-type. He survived the goddamn Hyper Voice. FUCK FUCK FUCK
FUCKKKK NOOO BLIGHT
Okay Davern, I respect you a little. You took out my fastest and strongest weapon, the living nuclear wasteland. Unfortunately for you, I've got five more super-powerful weapons in my employ.
Like this alien from space, able to do Jedi telekinesis that's super effective against ugly poison hippo bats. What is Tofurang all about, anyway?
Sableye is annoying since Blight would've been the ideal thing to one-shot this thing without weakness, but I'll use The God-Queen of Insects, all shall cower before her.
Sableye is a dickish little gremlin child and slaps away her majesty's royal life orb.
For this, the gremlin is sentenced to BE DROWNED TO DEATH
But Davern pussies out and withdraws Sableye. Which means...
This poor two-headed land dragon ends up being drowned to death by The Queen's attack. Presumably The Queen uses a massive wave of bee honey to kill her royal enemies.
It's a two-hit KO for the Terlard. She's a Killer Queen, dynamite with a laser beam, guaranteed to blow your mind. Anytime.
Oh, hey, look, it's a frog. Electrocute that thing, E. coli, you've murdered a lot of these and.... and Blubelrog is a lot more defensive than I give the dumb thing credit for. Okay!
The Sludge Bomb takes out a good chunk of E. coli's health, but not enough to kill E. coli. The subsequent Thunderbolt is faster, and Blubelrog is turned into nasty-looking fried frog. Okay, Davern's giving me more problems than I expected.
Oh hey it's Gliscor. I think it does an X-scissor on Cerebella, which is super effective on her, but she's super tanky. And also Gliscor is 4x allergic to Ice Beams.
The surviving Sableye pops up only to be frozen and shattered.
The final Pokemon is a stupid Drilgann... but unlike the plebians before him, Davern can actually mega evolve. Okay, respectable! Very respectable.
OH SHIT MOTHAFUCKAAAA
Yeah, Drilgann's got powerful physical attack and Cerebells doesn't have the best physical defense even discounting the super-effective attack. Cerebella falls. Okay, Davern took out two of my Pokemon. Two very avoidable losses.
The Mega Drilgann outspeeds The Queen. She's already injured by the Terlard, and... and honestly I'm not sure why I threw The Queen out. I guess I was trying to use Surf to drown him.
...not my brightest moment, sending a Fire-type out against a Ground/Dark type. I was banking on the sheer overwhelming power of Mega Charlie to take out the Drilgann... but it appears I have severely underestimated the dumb-looking Heartless motherfucker.
Charlie barely even reaches half of Mega Drilgann's health, while the Drilgann's earthquake one-shots Charlie. FUCK!
I was like, "okay, LV-426 has Levitate, he can avoid Earthquake", completely forgetting that the stupid ugly thing also has Crunch and we're working off of Gen-VII rules where Steel no longer resists Dark types.
Not like this! I refuse to be beaten by a thing as stupid-looking as Mega Drilgann!
FIVE OF MY POKEMON ARE OUT.
The only thing left is E. coli, my one final bastion of hope, my electric amoeba, who's already injured by a perverted frog....
And because E. coli is the most awesome of all the things, outspeeds Mega Drilgann (that's because of his ability, I think) and one-shots the dumb thing with Giga Drain. Yes, E. coli! Feed upon the stupid mole! Turn the damn thing into your nourishment, and avenge your brethren!
Oh, man, that was indeed well fought, Davern. You wiped out five of my six Pokemon! I take back everything bad I say about you. You're pretty badass, even if your Mega Drilgann looks dumb.
Maria, you've seen me for the past like half hour in the waiting room.
I totally remember you, too. You had yawning cats. They were dicks.
Also, shit, you better have gone easy on me back in Firsttown Gym, if you brought a level 20 Feleng into a championship battle after that whole mess with Mega Drilgann, I'd be sorely disappointed.
Maria's expression in her VS sprite still looks like she's about to stab someone with a kitchen knife.
Her Eshouten outspeeds The Queen and manages to land Air Slash a couple of times, flinching her poor majesty.
Never has The Queen seen such boorish behaviour, and she is just stunned. Stunned, I tell you, at how horrifyingly uncouth this cat-bird abomination is being!
Enoguh flinching out of you, dumb bird. I'm breaking out the big guns. MEGA EVOLUTOIN FLAMETHROWER.
Aw come on, a goddamn focus sash? Did any of the other trainers' Pokemon have held items?
Anyway, Focus Sash makes you survive with 1 HP if you get reduced from full to zero, allowing you to get one last shot to do something. Against an enemy with priority moves like Charlie here, it doesn't matter and the Eshouten gets turned into chicken wings.
-incoming takedown montage-
I'M GONNA TAKE YOU DOWN OH DOWN DOWN DOWN SO DON'T YOU FOOL AROUND
I'M GONNA PULL IT PULL IT PULL THE TRIGGER
SHOOT TO KILL PLAY TO KILL
TOO MANY WOMEN WITH TOO MANY PILLS (YEAH)
SHOOT TO KILL PLAY TO KILL
I GOT MY GUN AT THE READY GONNA FIRE AT WILL (YEAH)
Oh hey, it's the return of the fat sleepy cat. Feliger's weird. It enters the battlefield asleep, but every turn you have a chance to wake up, so you have to take a risk on using one of the moves that only can be activated when you're asleep, to offset this sleeping status.
Which is exactly what happens here. Slack Off can only be used when you're asleep, but the dumb cat wakes up in the first turn he enters the battlefield, which means it fails to do a damn thing.
And this is why Cerebella has Focus Blast! Keep focusing with your brain, my baby fish, and shoot that thing!
Unfortunately Focus Blast has the accuracy of a drunken man trying to piss, so Cerebella misses like two or three shots while the Feliger goes to sleep, wakes up, and uses Cruch Claw.
You have a fat cat, I have a burning dinosaur. This is, like, that cliffhanger at the end of the second Jurassic World movie, only the T-rex is on fire and also able to summon harsh sunlight, while instead of a lion you get a narcoleptic fat cat.
Invader Zim versus My Little Pony.
Oh shit, the Kiricorn just evolved into a strongkt pony! If I knew anything about My Little Pony, I could be making a joke here, but I don't. So I'm just panicking.
The mega pony has Flamethrower, what the fuck! It's a fire-breathing pony doll!
Blight shows up and one-shots the mega-evolved unicorn with a single hyper beam.
Didn't even need the legendary or my own mega evolution that time. Ha!
Go away and take your ~'s with you.
For the final battle, it's, of course, against Theo. And apparently we had to move to a different stadium on the heart of the volcano. Safety hazards aside, that must be mighty uncomfortable for the audience.
I mean, "rule of drama", Theo. If you were taken out offscreen it'd be dumb.
Also, is the floor glass? Above a sea of lava? That can't be safe, can it?
No, shut up with the destiny for a bit, Theo. Glass floors. On top of a mother fucking lake of magma.
Comet cave? You ran out like a god damn pussy because you were afraid of some falling rocks and a Terlard. A TERLARD!
You talk a lot, Theo.
At least this actually sort of acts as a conclusion to Theo's character arc, where he, uh, accepts that he's second best or something? And also matures and controls his emotion.
Unfortunately, it's undercut by the unfortunate implication that the major catalyst of him maturing is his dad faking his own death and making Theo think he's an orphan. For no damn good reason. Cameron's just lucky Theo didn't do anything drastic like dress like a Zubat and run around fighting crime at night.
You're one of the strongest trainers in Tandor, and also giver of long monologues. Like, seriously, man, your speech is great and all, but it'd have more impact if it was half the length.
Also presumably the entire audience is just listening to Theo ramble on and on. Imagine watching like the world championship football game, and the two main team leaders spend five minutes monologuing at each other before the match about destiny and Comet Caves and controlling emotions.
Suddenly the volcano shakes, and Theo goes "whoah" and the useless MC hides behind Ura.
Ura resists the urge to arrange and accident and toss the damn announcer into the goddamn caldera, but resists the urge. The cameras are, after all, rolling.
Stop lampshading the logic holes in this fan-made game, Theo, that's rude. The official games have as much logic holes, Theo.
WHAT.
WHAT?!?!
Okay, it's, uh... a nuclear version of what happened if Dialga and a Xenomorph had a baby? And it flew out of the lava? Okay, what the shit. I guess this is the finale, then, fighting a giant nuclear legendary Pokemon or something. The next part of this long-ass finale will take place... in a separate part, because we took a while beating the Elite Four!
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