Part 2 of my playthrough of the Pokemon fan-made game, Pokemon Uranium! Not really much to say here in the intro, since it's mostly just a stopgap and most of the playthrough will be done after the break. If you missed my first part, it's a let's play done in the form of screenshots I took while doing the game. I actually did a huge chunk of this one alongside Part 1, but a bit of a problem with image hosting and screenshot taking (it's my first time, sorry!) did mean that I ended up mis-managing some of the pictures and losing some amount of the screenshots. I'll try to be better next time.Also, while Uranium is a fan-made Pokemon game, you too can support the official Pokemon merchandise by going and watching the live-action Pokemon: Detective Pikachu movie, which should be out some time this week depending on your region! My review will come up sometime soon this week, but spoiler alert: I loved it!
So last time we left off, Ura the trainer with a totally-dead-trust-us mom and some daddy issues has left off his town of... of something town, and has entered the pretty Route 1. Ura's party currently consists of Charlie, the fire armadillo raptor; Chippette the street-cleaning chipmunk and Happy Birb the happy babby birb.
As I've mentioned before, I'm going to try and catch most of the Pokemon available in the game, but definitely not going to 100% it unless I really fall in love with the game.
It's a good thing that most of the screenshots lost during copying the files was the screenshots for random battles with youngsters and lasses in Route 1. TL;DR -- they all become Charlie fodder.
I also sort of sped through Route 1 to reach Kevlar Town. As far as I know, the only meaning of Kevlar refers to the bulletproof fiber, and it's probably one of the most... hmm-inducing town names in Pokemon.
Also, is it really something to be proud of, to call yourself "the tiniest town?" Like, I don't dispute that title, for the simple reason that Starter Town Moki Town has a bunch of redundant houses with generic dialogue, but IRL there really isn't any reason for a town to proudly proclaim itself the teenie-weeniest town ever.
Also, to buy Pokeballs, so I can catch 'em all. Catch 'em most. Always buy balls in multiples of ten (the x11 is a mistake) because you get a free premier ball, and I'm all about that buy-10-get-1-free life. It's not the first gym yet, but I like to min-max in things like this that don't realistically matter too much.
??? Random crying person outside the Pokemart? I can't console him (her?). Presumably part of a sidequest for later or some such.
HA. HA. HA. You know, maybe Kevlar Town has such a small population because of your horrid jokes, old man.
OOH A BIKE SHOP I WANT A BIKE
Oh, I get it. It's a bike repair shop. Not quite exactly a bicycle shop, but it's functionally identical. And like the original bike shop, you need to return with a plot coupon (Bike Voucher; Bike Wheel) for this NPC to give you the bicycle. Slightly different, but sort of the same.
There is also this Berry Master's shop. I generally never bother with re-planting berries, because I always forget about them, and factory mass-produced medicine is almost always strictly better than berries anyway. But they're neat to have. (Other lost screenshots include me talking to the people in this not-actually-a-shop).
Poor Berry Master's going to go out of his house to find his entire orchard of berry trees plucked dry to the bone by Ura, though, the bastard. I've ran Kevlar Town's primary source of economy out of business. Thus satisfied, Ura backtracks a bit to Route 1.
It's mostly trainer battles and I did lose a bunch of those screenshots, but I did manage to capture my encounter with this little bug. Cubbug is this region's Caterpie/Weedle equivalent, and he's... he's a weird-ass caterpillar with a bear face. I tend to love bugs, which bodes well for Cubbug staying in my party, but I really just find that face to be pretty off.
I like bugs, and I like mammals, but combine the two together and "a calming effect" is the last thing I feel when I look at it. Considering Cubbug's eventual evolution (I have been spoiled on the entire Uranium Pokedex) I understand why it looks like this, but it's still a fucking weird caterpillar.
A Bug-Mammal monster is a taxonomy anomaly, so I'm calling her Taxonomaly.
...I like the pun enough to probably use her a fair bit, at least until I run into stronger bug boys.
A river runs through Route 1, and the only house in the river houses a Fisherman who refuses to give me his old, ratty fishing rod until Ura proves that he is strong.
Unfortunately, he can't bench-press worth a shit.
Well fine, your Old Rod probably won't catch me anything but Magikarps.
Random montage of Route 1 battles! Basically it's all that's left, and we can see a pair of Pokemon we won't meet until a bit later. Owlten is a cute kitty-owl, while Fortog is a fat frog. Not the most original designs, but early-route Pokemon tend to be a lot simpler.
With Charlie leveled up a bit, Ura returns to Kevlar Town, and finally take the northern exit into Route 2! Which doesn't have a river running through it, but leads to a rocky mountain.
There are also trainers here, mostly bug catchers and hikers, but this is the only one I took the screencap of the name of because... what fucking kind of name is "Flood" anyway? Did his parents want to call him Floyd but got auto-corrected?
Oh, Mankey's another one of the official Pokemon that also exists in this game, too. Neat.
Also, the Pokepod has the same "register random trainers to challenge them for rematches" feature as the Pokegear, Pokenav and a bunch of other communication devices that is sort of phased out. While it's neat that we get this feature back, I really do miss the V.S. Seeker.
As I go through Route 2, I meet the first cave, which tells me that it's the "old entrance to Nowtoch City". I have no idea what kind of name "Nowtoch" is, and can't figure out a pun. Wait, if this cave is the old entrance, what's the new one?
...it's a road blocked with Rock Smash boulders? Huh. Well, no choice, then, gotta take the low road.
I'd complain about this obvious railroading, but it's not a fault of the fangame programmers and more of a tendency of the official games as well.
"Passage Cave"... well, at least they're straightforward about the fact that this is just the early-game cave, which will be-
-filled by-
-annoying poisonous-
-bats every five steps-
Anyway, holy shit, these little fucking shits are everywhere, and it's not hyperbole that the encounter rate is basically every five steps. And yeah, Zubats do the same shit in the official games, but Zubats are weak fragile little shit that just waste your PP's and maybe casts supersonic once or twice.
These little fucks are speedy and only know Poison Gas. Which, to those less Pokemon-inclined, is a move that has pretty decent accuracy and always poisons your Pokemon, i.e. a status effect that damages poor, poor Charlie every turn.
And poison works like the old generations where you take damage with every step... only "surviving" once you reach 1 HP which is hardly any sort of relief.
The Tonemy I capture is from the last screenshot. While I really wanted to enter some sort of profanity, I'll settle for calling this dude "Tony".
Despite being annoying little shits, Tony's a cute little Digimon-looking blob bat.
Anyway, as you can tell from the "Charlie is poisoned" screenshot, I returned to Kevlar Town for a top-me-up at the Pokemon Center and to invest some money in some anti-Tonemy Spray.
Oh, hey, something else! A Grozard, who is this weird little dragon-thing that pops out of the ground! After 20+ Tonemies, it's the first non-Tonemy thing that shows up and Charlie accidentally kills it with a critical hit. This is where the screenshot-as-I-play method fails, because I didn't get a good shot of what a Grozard looks like. (We'll catch one later, don't worry)
Oh, there are also a couple of hikers in this cave. They use a variety of Pokemon captured in the cave. This dude, Manny, talked up about how he wants to have a CONTEST OF MANLINESS with Ura, who is a spindly small boy. I wonder if his dialogue is the same if I play with the female or androgynous character.
Sorry to burst your bubble, man...
Tony's actually pretty worthless in this fight, by the way, as I find out, because all Tonemies have is Poison Gas and Tackle.
Baashaun here (I can't decide if I hate or love the name) is a black sheep version of Mareep, and is Dark/Fighting for some reason, despite being a sheep. At least it's not another Tonemy.
STAY IN THIS CAVE FOREVER, BLACK BELT FOOL!
Actually, how does his dumb monkey and sheep even survive 98 victories without running out of PP?
One thing that made me appreciate the otherwise-worthless Chippette? The ability Pickup, which allows her to randomly find an item every now and then. This pool of items she can recover depends on her level, and at this point, that pool thankfully includes Repels. It's such a useless ability basically after the first couple of gyms, but I do appreciate it.
Also, presumably, in-universe the people in Tandor probably really like to litter. Or Chippette's just sneaking away and mugging random youngsters. So far it's just random potions, antidotes and the odd great ball, but that's neat. You're not completely worthless, Chippette.
At some point, I put down repel long enough to meet the dumb-looking Barewl, who is Rock/Steel and the equivalent to Geodude and Roggenrola. Except a lot more sillier-looking. I don't hate the design, but even more than anything else in the game, it really doesn't look like it fits the Pokemon aesthetic.
How do you even pronounce that name? Bar-ehwl? Bare-wel? Bah-reh-ul? Again, I fail to see the pun.
I name him Ahoge, after the Japanese term for idiot hair. Because that's what this dumb thing has. At least we have a Steel-type in our party, which is a godsend because he is just flat-out immune to Tonemy's Poison Gas. The typing's neat, but this thing is so stupid that I refuse to let him stay in my party after I leave this cave.
This is a Grozard, who's this cute rat-looking ground worm that peeks out of the ground, sorta like a Diglett. I already have a Ground-type Pokemon kicking ass in my party, so I don't need him... but I need Happy Birb and Ahoge less, so.
"Pitfalls for the unwary traveler?" Is that going to be a mechanic in the game?
I named him Tremors. Other potential nicknames include Graboid, Dune, Dreadscale, Shai-Hulud, Olgoi, Exogorth, D'Hole and Jeff. Giant subterranean worms are a bit of a trope in works of fiction, is what I'm trying to say.
Ultimately, all that name-thinking doesn't matter as Tremors gets sent to Twitch's PC. Interesting that we apparently just know that the PC manager is called Twitch? Presumably it's named after the game creator and not the streaming service.
Oh shit, an official Pokemon! Ran into this quite literally by accident as repel went down.
As Dunsparce is our first official Nintendo Pokemon, I will call him "Official". I won't be using any actual official Pokemon in this playthrough, dragon-angel fanmade evolution notwithstanding.
You, sir, are a dick. Also, holy shit, Ura's like, eleven and you are a big fat burly man. I should bring in my buddy Hiker Lanny or whoever the fuck he's called in front of the cave, except he'd probably die from the Tonemy swarms suffocating him with cuteness.
Thankfully, Charlie murders the shit out of his Grozard and nearly kills his Dunsparce.
Dunsparce got burned (halved attack, and damage per turn) by Charlie's ability, Flame Body, so I swap him out for Taxonomaly for him to get some free experience points. Note that a tackle even with the Burn takes out a decent chunk of Taxo's health.
Yeah fuck you too, you dang bully. I hope you die and become Tonemy food.
HOOO FINALLY. I actually took a fair amount of time through Passage Cave, because it is that slow with all the Tonemy.
We enter Nowtoch City, and apparently I am greeted by a "Town Greeter", who completely lampshades what a dumbass job he has and how silly it is that the town pay him.
Hooray this city has a gym! Finally, some Pokemon showdown! First up, though, exploration!
Maybe-kinda pronunciation guides? I still don't get the pun behind "Chyinmunk" and it's still one hell of an awkward-looking name every time I type it. Whether it's Chin-monk or Chai-yin-monk (like how I pronounce it in my head) it still doesn't make sense.
Is Barewl a pun on "barrel" and a dumb way to spell "rewl"? That's kind silly.
The Name Rater is in this town, and I can try and have him "rate" the nicknames of my Pokemon. Including Taxonomaly, a punny name I'm especially proud of.
Like official Name Raters, though, he just compliments any name from Taxonomaly to Tony with the same "fine name!" and also offering to change the name under the same breath.
One of the funky looking building is a Pokemon Ranger HQ, and I'm not arsed to look up if it's the same design as the Ranger HQ's in the actual Ranger games.
They aren't accepting help from civilians at this time becausethe Rangers are elitist doodooheads we're probably not going to have a "draw a circle around a Pokemon" touchscreen minigame. I actually like the Pokemon Ranger games. A bit too on-the-nose on using the DS's main gimmick, but I did enjoy the ones I played through.
Presumably we'll get Ranger missions down the line? I'm not sure how much of this game's dialogue is genuine foreshadowing and how much I should take on-the-face.
WELL HE CAN GO BACK TO ALMIA, MIGHT AS WELL AS HAVE RETURNED AND STAYED THERE FOR HOW MUCH HE'S BEEN IN URA'S LIFE.
Okay, this is most likely foreshadowing for the future. Something to keep in mind!
Haha, little lampshade about trading Pokemon over different versions of games for Nintendo's sneaky, sneaky decision to make a collectible game that makes completionists buy two games for the development resources of making a single game.
I am genuinely amazed that we haven't revolted and boycotted the split games yet and have just taken it at face value as "yep, that's a Pokemon thing all right".
Free shit wooo! Attract's kinda worthless, though. Annoying when inflicted upon you, but never a move you want to waste a slot for.
I ain't got one. :(
Actually reminds me that I should probably should go back to that one route with the fisherman on the hut... but I don't wanna go through that dumb bat cave. Don't really care all that much for Baashawn either, so I doubt I'd bother.
GYM TIME! Some dude is standing in front of the gym. Excuse me, mr. mcdude.
Okay, self-proclaimed biggest fan, calm down. I just want to fight her and get her gym badge, sheesh.
You can't go to her home because of "reasons"? Hmm. Suspicious. That's not how you spell "restraining order", if this is going where I think it's going.
What? What the fuck?
Okay, first... this creepy creep is clearly not allowed near Maria's home. Probably because of overexcited fan creep factor. Sure, okay. But he just... he's just happy to let me, a complete stranger, get... get Maria's Key, a key to Maria's house, who he just happens to have. And he clearly has multiples of, since he's handing these things over to random people.
So what the fuck? What kind of fucked-up stalker would basically hand over the keys to his object of obsession over to genuinely random people in the street? That's a whole other level of creepiness right there. Shit, McCreep, I'm calling the cops, this ain't right.
YOU MADE COPIES. You sick fuck, what are you planning to do once you distributed the keys to all the other "fans" out there?
I tried reporting the fat creep to the rangers, but just like their leader, they are completely and utterly useless and nothing but a gigantic dollop of disappointment in Ura's life. Why can't Ura's parent be one of the cool Rangers? I bet Lunick or Summer wouldn't be such a disappointment.
I'm so sorry lady please just let me explain I didn't mean to barge in there is some creep handing out keys and I thought that was weird but the rangers are useless and I'm afraid he's going to do something strange please don't pepper spray me oh god lady please calm down
Honestly, I'm surprised that she doesn't sic her attack cats at Ura. But hey, she is absolutely livid at the thought of someone having a copy of her house key for no reason. Rightfully so!
...especially since she apparently recognizes McCreep. Is this something that happens often, miss Maria? You probably should call the police. Or change some locks. Or, y'know, Ura knows a guy that knows a guy that knows someone who sells untraceable guns if you know what I mean.
That is a surprisingly level-headed reply, but I suppose Maria is used to dealing with Fatty McCreep.
PLEASE LIVE YOUR LIFE TO MY WHIM
You know, at least this dude isn't trying to make Maria like his girlfriend or some shit. But I'm not sure if that's worse than literally making a lot of copies of her house keys and spreading them to random strangers.
Oh shit, she used to be Champion? Oh fuck Ura might've made a mistake challenging her gym, she probably has like a full team of level 75+ monsters! Charlie just barely hit double digits and the rest of Ura's party is just (cute-looking) trash!
See, McCreep, you piece of shit, this is why she quit in the first place! Because of creeps like you, piece of shit!
I would've used stronger language than "it's not OK". I'm pretty sure we're past sparing this creep's feelings.
Also, I'd be more impressed about her threatening to call the cops if the Rangers would, y'know, actually do anything.
Yeah, git lost, scrub!
Really should've threatened him with like your angry murder-cat, Miss Maria. McCreep buggers off, and as far as I know, he's nowhere in the city unless he hid in like the subway opening crowd or some shit.
Apparently, she's not normally an angry person, but, hey, it's understandable. Also apparently when she's not flustered she ends her sentences with~. Presumably to be kawaiii~ like some people do in instant messaging, but done after every sentence it just looks ridiculous~
Tried to train a bit on the part of Route 2 on the Southern side of Nowtoch City, and we meet this adorable little dude! It's an Owten, and it's a cat-owl Fuzor! It's actually one of the cuter things in this game, and I'm not normally a cat person!
I named mine "Bubo" after the genus of horned owls. He is a precious little kitty owlbird. He basically replaces Happy Birb.
With that, though, the six-man team of Charlie, Bubo, Taxonomaly, Chippette, Ahoge and Tremors finally enters the Nowtoch City gym! Aaaand since I've basically not trained anyone but Charlie, it's going to be a one-man show, mostly.
Oh hey it's the Gym Guy. You ain't Clyde, but thanks for the information.
The gym's a very basic one, essentially set up like Brock's gym from the original Kanto games... but without any of the decorations. Probably because Maria spent all of her budget on changing locks to her house.
The first trainer has two Chyinmunks and an Owten. Charlie burns through all three with minimal effort. Charlie learns Mud-Slap, his first Ground-type move, but it's mostly a worthless one since it deals half as much damage as Ember, and neither type has any sort of advantage against these Normal-types.
Oh no, more hyping up of how powerful Maria is!
Also, hee hee, the light-years joke is also from the original Brock gym. It's either a joke that gave you a chuckle or an eyeball roll. I eat these sort of Easter Eggs, though. I love them.
She's got a weird, asymmetric orange, white and brown cat with two sausage tails! Let's see what Tremors can do against this thing. Ground-types resist Normal-type moves, right?
As it turns out, it's Rock that resists Normal-type moves. Sorry, Tremors.
Charlie turns the cat into cinders, and Lass Myla says the same thing that the Brock gym grunt says... light-years measure distance, not time!
(Her other Pokemon is a Birbie)
Two things to take from this conversation... hooray, we're not going to face off against a level 75+ team of varied superpowerful end-game monsters, and is likely to face like a Geodude and Nosepass or some shit like that.
And... and apparently Maria joins the likes of Lance and Falkner in having a Pokemon that evolves throughGameshark cheat codes apparently being so dang good. You'd think that this might be some sort of game mechanic, maybe allowing your Pokemon to evolve early, or maybe just Feleng... but I've been told that, no, this is just a handwave.
Dunnnn dunn-dah-dahhhh dunn-dah-dahhh dahh DAHHHHH!
Hi~ are you sure you're not the tilde specialist~
Some of the other lost screenshots are supposedly just Ura discovering the Pokemon Center for the first time, but if y'all managed to find my blog and are spending time reading a screenshot let's play of a fan game, y'all know how pokemon centers work.
Kevlar Town's Pokemon Center has this random rich boy dude with a couple of Chyinmunk, and you can repeatedly battle him since he's apparently (a) a moron and (b) hangs out next to an instant-heal machine. I grind against him for money, before going back to Route 1 to clean up the trainers I zipped through.
Also, to buy Pokeballs, so I can catch 'em all. Catch 'em most. Always buy balls in multiples of ten (the x11 is a mistake) because you get a free premier ball, and I'm all about that buy-10-get-1-free life. It's not the first gym yet, but I like to min-max in things like this that don't realistically matter too much.
??? Random crying person outside the Pokemart? I can't console him (her?). Presumably part of a sidequest for later or some such.
HA. HA. HA. You know, maybe Kevlar Town has such a small population because of your horrid jokes, old man.
OOH A BIKE SHOP I WANT A BIKE
Oh, I get it. It's a bike repair shop. Not quite exactly a bicycle shop, but it's functionally identical. And like the original bike shop, you need to return with a plot coupon (Bike Voucher; Bike Wheel) for this NPC to give you the bicycle. Slightly different, but sort of the same.
There is also this Berry Master's shop. I generally never bother with re-planting berries, because I always forget about them, and factory mass-produced medicine is almost always strictly better than berries anyway. But they're neat to have. (Other lost screenshots include me talking to the people in this not-actually-a-shop).
Poor Berry Master's going to go out of his house to find his entire orchard of berry trees plucked dry to the bone by Ura, though, the bastard. I've ran Kevlar Town's primary source of economy out of business. Thus satisfied, Ura backtracks a bit to Route 1.
It's mostly trainer battles and I did lose a bunch of those screenshots, but I did manage to capture my encounter with this little bug. Cubbug is this region's Caterpie/Weedle equivalent, and he's... he's a weird-ass caterpillar with a bear face. I tend to love bugs, which bodes well for Cubbug staying in my party, but I really just find that face to be pretty off.
I like bugs, and I like mammals, but combine the two together and "a calming effect" is the last thing I feel when I look at it. Considering Cubbug's eventual evolution (I have been spoiled on the entire Uranium Pokedex) I understand why it looks like this, but it's still a fucking weird caterpillar.
A Bug-Mammal monster is a taxonomy anomaly, so I'm calling her Taxonomaly.
...I like the pun enough to probably use her a fair bit, at least until I run into stronger bug boys.
A river runs through Route 1, and the only house in the river houses a Fisherman who refuses to give me his old, ratty fishing rod until Ura proves that he is strong.
Unfortunately, he can't bench-press worth a shit.
Well fine, your Old Rod probably won't catch me anything but Magikarps.
Random montage of Route 1 battles! Basically it's all that's left, and we can see a pair of Pokemon we won't meet until a bit later. Owlten is a cute kitty-owl, while Fortog is a fat frog. Not the most original designs, but early-route Pokemon tend to be a lot simpler.
With Charlie leveled up a bit, Ura returns to Kevlar Town, and finally take the northern exit into Route 2! Which doesn't have a river running through it, but leads to a rocky mountain.
There are also trainers here, mostly bug catchers and hikers, but this is the only one I took the screencap of the name of because... what fucking kind of name is "Flood" anyway? Did his parents want to call him Floyd but got auto-corrected?
Oh, Mankey's another one of the official Pokemon that also exists in this game, too. Neat.
Also, the Pokepod has the same "register random trainers to challenge them for rematches" feature as the Pokegear, Pokenav and a bunch of other communication devices that is sort of phased out. While it's neat that we get this feature back, I really do miss the V.S. Seeker.
As I go through Route 2, I meet the first cave, which tells me that it's the "old entrance to Nowtoch City". I have no idea what kind of name "Nowtoch" is, and can't figure out a pun. Wait, if this cave is the old entrance, what's the new one?
...it's a road blocked with Rock Smash boulders? Huh. Well, no choice, then, gotta take the low road.
I'd complain about this obvious railroading, but it's not a fault of the fangame programmers and more of a tendency of the official games as well.
"Passage Cave"... well, at least they're straightforward about the fact that this is just the early-game cave, which will be-
-filled by-
-annoying poisonous-
-bats every five steps-
Anyway, holy shit, these little fucking shits are everywhere, and it's not hyperbole that the encounter rate is basically every five steps. And yeah, Zubats do the same shit in the official games, but Zubats are weak fragile little shit that just waste your PP's and maybe casts supersonic once or twice.
These little fucks are speedy and only know Poison Gas. Which, to those less Pokemon-inclined, is a move that has pretty decent accuracy and always poisons your Pokemon, i.e. a status effect that damages poor, poor Charlie every turn.
And poison works like the old generations where you take damage with every step... only "surviving" once you reach 1 HP which is hardly any sort of relief.
The Tonemy I capture is from the last screenshot. While I really wanted to enter some sort of profanity, I'll settle for calling this dude "Tony".
Despite being annoying little shits, Tony's a cute little Digimon-looking blob bat.
Anyway, as you can tell from the "Charlie is poisoned" screenshot, I returned to Kevlar Town for a top-me-up at the Pokemon Center and to invest some money in some anti-Tonemy Spray.
Oh, hey, something else! A Grozard, who is this weird little dragon-thing that pops out of the ground! After 20+ Tonemies, it's the first non-Tonemy thing that shows up and Charlie accidentally kills it with a critical hit. This is where the screenshot-as-I-play method fails, because I didn't get a good shot of what a Grozard looks like. (We'll catch one later, don't worry)
Oh, there are also a couple of hikers in this cave. They use a variety of Pokemon captured in the cave. This dude, Manny, talked up about how he wants to have a CONTEST OF MANLINESS with Ura, who is a spindly small boy. I wonder if his dialogue is the same if I play with the female or androgynous character.
Sorry to burst your bubble, man...
Tony's actually pretty worthless in this fight, by the way, as I find out, because all Tonemies have is Poison Gas and Tackle.
Baashaun here (I can't decide if I hate or love the name) is a black sheep version of Mareep, and is Dark/Fighting for some reason, despite being a sheep. At least it's not another Tonemy.
STAY IN THIS CAVE FOREVER, BLACK BELT FOOL!
Actually, how does his dumb monkey and sheep even survive 98 victories without running out of PP?
One thing that made me appreciate the otherwise-worthless Chippette? The ability Pickup, which allows her to randomly find an item every now and then. This pool of items she can recover depends on her level, and at this point, that pool thankfully includes Repels. It's such a useless ability basically after the first couple of gyms, but I do appreciate it.
Also, presumably, in-universe the people in Tandor probably really like to litter. Or Chippette's just sneaking away and mugging random youngsters. So far it's just random potions, antidotes and the odd great ball, but that's neat. You're not completely worthless, Chippette.
At some point, I put down repel long enough to meet the dumb-looking Barewl, who is Rock/Steel and the equivalent to Geodude and Roggenrola. Except a lot more sillier-looking. I don't hate the design, but even more than anything else in the game, it really doesn't look like it fits the Pokemon aesthetic.
How do you even pronounce that name? Bar-ehwl? Bare-wel? Bah-reh-ul? Again, I fail to see the pun.
I name him Ahoge, after the Japanese term for idiot hair. Because that's what this dumb thing has. At least we have a Steel-type in our party, which is a godsend because he is just flat-out immune to Tonemy's Poison Gas. The typing's neat, but this thing is so stupid that I refuse to let him stay in my party after I leave this cave.
This is a Grozard, who's this cute rat-looking ground worm that peeks out of the ground, sorta like a Diglett. I already have a Ground-type Pokemon kicking ass in my party, so I don't need him... but I need Happy Birb and Ahoge less, so.
"Pitfalls for the unwary traveler?" Is that going to be a mechanic in the game?
I named him Tremors. Other potential nicknames include Graboid, Dune, Dreadscale, Shai-Hulud, Olgoi, Exogorth, D'Hole and Jeff. Giant subterranean worms are a bit of a trope in works of fiction, is what I'm trying to say.
Ultimately, all that name-thinking doesn't matter as Tremors gets sent to Twitch's PC. Interesting that we apparently just know that the PC manager is called Twitch? Presumably it's named after the game creator and not the streaming service.
Oh shit, an official Pokemon! Ran into this quite literally by accident as repel went down.
As Dunsparce is our first official Nintendo Pokemon, I will call him "Official". I won't be using any actual official Pokemon in this playthrough, dragon-angel fanmade evolution notwithstanding.
You, sir, are a dick. Also, holy shit, Ura's like, eleven and you are a big fat burly man. I should bring in my buddy Hiker Lanny or whoever the fuck he's called in front of the cave, except he'd probably die from the Tonemy swarms suffocating him with cuteness.
Thankfully, Charlie murders the shit out of his Grozard and nearly kills his Dunsparce.
Dunsparce got burned (halved attack, and damage per turn) by Charlie's ability, Flame Body, so I swap him out for Taxonomaly for him to get some free experience points. Note that a tackle even with the Burn takes out a decent chunk of Taxo's health.
Yeah fuck you too, you dang bully. I hope you die and become Tonemy food.
HOOO FINALLY. I actually took a fair amount of time through Passage Cave, because it is that slow with all the Tonemy.
We enter Nowtoch City, and apparently I am greeted by a "Town Greeter", who completely lampshades what a dumbass job he has and how silly it is that the town pay him.
Hooray this city has a gym! Finally, some Pokemon showdown! First up, though, exploration!
Maybe-kinda pronunciation guides? I still don't get the pun behind "Chyinmunk" and it's still one hell of an awkward-looking name every time I type it. Whether it's Chin-monk or Chai-yin-monk (like how I pronounce it in my head) it still doesn't make sense.
Is Barewl a pun on "barrel" and a dumb way to spell "rewl"? That's kind silly.
The Name Rater is in this town, and I can try and have him "rate" the nicknames of my Pokemon. Including Taxonomaly, a punny name I'm especially proud of.
Like official Name Raters, though, he just compliments any name from Taxonomaly to Tony with the same "fine name!" and also offering to change the name under the same breath.
One of the funky looking building is a Pokemon Ranger HQ, and I'm not arsed to look up if it's the same design as the Ranger HQ's in the actual Ranger games.
They aren't accepting help from civilians at this time because
Presumably we'll get Ranger missions down the line? I'm not sure how much of this game's dialogue is genuine foreshadowing and how much I should take on-the-face.
WELL HE CAN GO BACK TO ALMIA, MIGHT AS WELL AS HAVE RETURNED AND STAYED THERE FOR HOW MUCH HE'S BEEN IN URA'S LIFE.
Okay, this is most likely foreshadowing for the future. Something to keep in mind!
Haha, little lampshade about trading Pokemon over different versions of games for Nintendo's sneaky, sneaky decision to make a collectible game that makes completionists buy two games for the development resources of making a single game.
I am genuinely amazed that we haven't revolted and boycotted the split games yet and have just taken it at face value as "yep, that's a Pokemon thing all right".
Free shit wooo! Attract's kinda worthless, though. Annoying when inflicted upon you, but never a move you want to waste a slot for.
I ain't got one. :(
Actually reminds me that I should probably should go back to that one route with the fisherman on the hut... but I don't wanna go through that dumb bat cave. Don't really care all that much for Baashawn either, so I doubt I'd bother.
GYM TIME! Some dude is standing in front of the gym. Excuse me, mr. mcdude.
Okay, self-proclaimed biggest fan, calm down. I just want to fight her and get her gym badge, sheesh.
You can't go to her home because of "reasons"? Hmm. Suspicious. That's not how you spell "restraining order", if this is going where I think it's going.
What? What the fuck?
Okay, first... this creepy creep is clearly not allowed near Maria's home. Probably because of overexcited fan creep factor. Sure, okay. But he just... he's just happy to let me, a complete stranger, get... get Maria's Key, a key to Maria's house, who he just happens to have. And he clearly has multiples of, since he's handing these things over to random people.
So what the fuck? What kind of fucked-up stalker would basically hand over the keys to his object of obsession over to genuinely random people in the street? That's a whole other level of creepiness right there. Shit, McCreep, I'm calling the cops, this ain't right.
YOU MADE COPIES. You sick fuck, what are you planning to do once you distributed the keys to all the other "fans" out there?
I tried reporting the fat creep to the rangers, but just like their leader, they are completely and utterly useless and nothing but a gigantic dollop of disappointment in Ura's life. Why can't Ura's parent be one of the cool Rangers? I bet Lunick or Summer wouldn't be such a disappointment.
I'm so sorry lady please just let me explain I didn't mean to barge in there is some creep handing out keys and I thought that was weird but the rangers are useless and I'm afraid he's going to do something strange please don't pepper spray me oh god lady please calm down
Honestly, I'm surprised that she doesn't sic her attack cats at Ura. But hey, she is absolutely livid at the thought of someone having a copy of her house key for no reason. Rightfully so!
...especially since she apparently recognizes McCreep. Is this something that happens often, miss Maria? You probably should call the police. Or change some locks. Or, y'know, Ura knows a guy that knows a guy that knows someone who sells untraceable guns if you know what I mean.
That is a surprisingly level-headed reply, but I suppose Maria is used to dealing with Fatty McCreep.
PLEASE LIVE YOUR LIFE TO MY WHIM
You know, at least this dude isn't trying to make Maria like his girlfriend or some shit. But I'm not sure if that's worse than literally making a lot of copies of her house keys and spreading them to random strangers.
Oh shit, she used to be Champion? Oh fuck Ura might've made a mistake challenging her gym, she probably has like a full team of level 75+ monsters! Charlie just barely hit double digits and the rest of Ura's party is just (cute-looking) trash!
See, McCreep, you piece of shit, this is why she quit in the first place! Because of creeps like you, piece of shit!
I would've used stronger language than "it's not OK". I'm pretty sure we're past sparing this creep's feelings.
Also, I'd be more impressed about her threatening to call the cops if the Rangers would, y'know, actually do anything.
Yeah, git lost, scrub!
Really should've threatened him with like your angry murder-cat, Miss Maria. McCreep buggers off, and as far as I know, he's nowhere in the city unless he hid in like the subway opening crowd or some shit.
Apparently, she's not normally an angry person, but, hey, it's understandable. Also apparently when she's not flustered she ends her sentences with~. Presumably to be kawaiii~ like some people do in instant messaging, but done after every sentence it just looks ridiculous~
Tried to train a bit on the part of Route 2 on the Southern side of Nowtoch City, and we meet this adorable little dude! It's an Owten, and it's a cat-owl Fuzor! It's actually one of the cuter things in this game, and I'm not normally a cat person!
I named mine "Bubo" after the genus of horned owls. He is a precious little kitty owlbird. He basically replaces Happy Birb.
With that, though, the six-man team of Charlie, Bubo, Taxonomaly, Chippette, Ahoge and Tremors finally enters the Nowtoch City gym! Aaaand since I've basically not trained anyone but Charlie, it's going to be a one-man show, mostly.
Oh hey it's the Gym Guy. You ain't Clyde, but thanks for the information.
The gym's a very basic one, essentially set up like Brock's gym from the original Kanto games... but without any of the decorations. Probably because Maria spent all of her budget on changing locks to her house.
The first trainer has two Chyinmunks and an Owten. Charlie burns through all three with minimal effort. Charlie learns Mud-Slap, his first Ground-type move, but it's mostly a worthless one since it deals half as much damage as Ember, and neither type has any sort of advantage against these Normal-types.
Oh no, more hyping up of how powerful Maria is!
Also, hee hee, the light-years joke is also from the original Brock gym. It's either a joke that gave you a chuckle or an eyeball roll. I eat these sort of Easter Eggs, though. I love them.
She's got a weird, asymmetric orange, white and brown cat with two sausage tails! Let's see what Tremors can do against this thing. Ground-types resist Normal-type moves, right?
As it turns out, it's Rock that resists Normal-type moves. Sorry, Tremors.
Charlie turns the cat into cinders, and Lass Myla says the same thing that the Brock gym grunt says... light-years measure distance, not time!
(Her other Pokemon is a Birbie)
Two things to take from this conversation... hooray, we're not going to face off against a level 75+ team of varied superpowerful end-game monsters, and is likely to face like a Geodude and Nosepass or some shit like that.
And... and apparently Maria joins the likes of Lance and Falkner in having a Pokemon that evolves through
Dunnnn dunn-dah-dahhhh dunn-dah-dahhh dahh DAHHHHH!
Hi~ are you sure you're not the tilde specialist~
Tilde is this thing by the way~
Not me, at least not until everyone and their mother shoehorned that information in to my head.
Now she supervises young trainers and chases off fat creeps.
Oh god, why does she give such an angry-looking, evil side-glance?
Her design is pretty much just a lady in a shirt and jeans. She's pretty normal, eh?
First Pokemon's an Owlten! Burn that cute son of a bitch, Charlie! Owten manages to get a tackle or something off, but it's not enough to inconvenience Charlie.
Maria's second Pokemon is a Feleng, who isn't super dangerous, but knows Yawn, a move that causes your Pokemon to get drowsy and fall asleep at the end of turn. It's guaranteed to cause one of the more annoying status effects with 100% accuracy (other sleep-inducing moves are very inaccurate) while having the drawback of the effect happening at the end of the second turn.
If Charlie knocks this Feleng out with a single hit, I can swap him out before the effect of Yawn hits.
Unfortunately, it took Charlie two turns to char-boil Feleng, causing him to fall asleep at the end of the second turn. Annoying, but I have a plan!
Go, Chippette! Be the shield that takes a hit while I use a full heal on the actual Pokemon that I care about!
Maria probably thinks she's mocking me, but that mockery is directed towards Chippette.
Spoiler alert: Chippette has no future.
She actually survives the Felunge's attack, which actually surprised me. Is this it? Is this where Chippette finally proves that she's actually worth my time, that she's going to surprise me by pulling out a victory of the ages, endearing herself in my heart as she faces off against an angry man-bear-cat creature that outclasses her at every possible avenue?
HAHA NOPE I just take the time to potion up Charlie while Chippette gets mauled to death by the feral bipedal cat.
RIP Chippette, she's dead. Well, fainted, but since I'm dumping her in the box after this, might as well be. She was a decent item-collector and a body shield while she was alive.
Oh come on, you stupid cat, stop yawning. Why is the thing that this angry, rabid-looking cat do is yawn, anyway? Charlie manages to get an ember out, but I refuse to let him sleep, so I withdraw him.
Get out there, stupid potato hair rock thing!
Since I don't have to heal up Charlie, Barewl just spams tackle a couple of times, which chips away Felunge's health a fair bit before the far stronger cat with rabies murders Barewl. Again, no big loss.
Finish it, Charlie! Burn this sleepy cat!
What, you using Yawn with your stupid cat while I ruthlessly shove my chipmunk and rock-hair thing without any care of their feelings and showing clear favouritism for my armadillo dinosaur? Sure. Fighting spirit.
Also, hooray money! And a good TM, too -- Return's essentially one of the strongest physical Normal-type moves out there provided that your Pokemon love you. Chippette probably doesn't love me anymore.
Wait, aren't you a Normal-type expert, Maria? So why the shit does your Felunge use Scratch instead of Return?
I guess her team is all-cat. I didn't really notice it, but Owten does count as a cat, huh? An all-cat gym isn't probably particularly too hard to make, even if you'd probably fail to see the difference other than the conspicuous lack of Birbies and Chyinmunks.
Actually, that'd be an interesting concept for gym leaders in a game. Instead of focusing on type (bugs and fishes probably still count as the same type, too), maybe a gym leader has all rodent Pokemon, or all spherical Pokemon, or all dog Pokemon, or maybe Pokemon from a certain habitat, or of a certain size... the only thing that's closest to this in Pokemon canon is Battle Pike Lucy with her serpentine Pokemon.
Anyway, a lot of exploration and a gym fight! I'll try to cut down on the amount of pictures and pace things a bit faster, but I do think it's important to take things slow in these early episodes to set up the tone and show off the game.
Not me, at least not until everyone and their mother shoehorned that information in to my head.
Now she supervises young trainers and chases off fat creeps.
Oh god, why does she give such an angry-looking, evil side-glance?
Her design is pretty much just a lady in a shirt and jeans. She's pretty normal, eh?
First Pokemon's an Owlten! Burn that cute son of a bitch, Charlie! Owten manages to get a tackle or something off, but it's not enough to inconvenience Charlie.
Maria's second Pokemon is a Feleng, who isn't super dangerous, but knows Yawn, a move that causes your Pokemon to get drowsy and fall asleep at the end of turn. It's guaranteed to cause one of the more annoying status effects with 100% accuracy (other sleep-inducing moves are very inaccurate) while having the drawback of the effect happening at the end of the second turn.
If Charlie knocks this Feleng out with a single hit, I can swap him out before the effect of Yawn hits.
Unfortunately, it took Charlie two turns to char-boil Feleng, causing him to fall asleep at the end of the second turn. Annoying, but I have a plan!
Go, Chippette! Be the shield that takes a hit while I use a full heal on the actual Pokemon that I care about!
Maria probably thinks she's mocking me, but that mockery is directed towards Chippette.
Spoiler alert: Chippette has no future.
She actually survives the Felunge's attack, which actually surprised me. Is this it? Is this where Chippette finally proves that she's actually worth my time, that she's going to surprise me by pulling out a victory of the ages, endearing herself in my heart as she faces off against an angry man-bear-cat creature that outclasses her at every possible avenue?
HAHA NOPE I just take the time to potion up Charlie while Chippette gets mauled to death by the feral bipedal cat.
RIP Chippette, she's dead. Well, fainted, but since I'm dumping her in the box after this, might as well be. She was a decent item-collector and a body shield while she was alive.
Oh come on, you stupid cat, stop yawning. Why is the thing that this angry, rabid-looking cat do is yawn, anyway? Charlie manages to get an ember out, but I refuse to let him sleep, so I withdraw him.
Get out there, stupid potato hair rock thing!
Since I don't have to heal up Charlie, Barewl just spams tackle a couple of times, which chips away Felunge's health a fair bit before the far stronger cat with rabies murders Barewl. Again, no big loss.
Finish it, Charlie! Burn this sleepy cat!
What, you using Yawn with your stupid cat while I ruthlessly shove my chipmunk and rock-hair thing without any care of their feelings and showing clear favouritism for my armadillo dinosaur? Sure. Fighting spirit.
Also, hooray money! And a good TM, too -- Return's essentially one of the strongest physical Normal-type moves out there provided that your Pokemon love you. Chippette probably doesn't love me anymore.
Wait, aren't you a Normal-type expert, Maria? So why the shit does your Felunge use Scratch instead of Return?
I guess her team is all-cat. I didn't really notice it, but Owten does count as a cat, huh? An all-cat gym isn't probably particularly too hard to make, even if you'd probably fail to see the difference other than the conspicuous lack of Birbies and Chyinmunks.
Actually, that'd be an interesting concept for gym leaders in a game. Instead of focusing on type (bugs and fishes probably still count as the same type, too), maybe a gym leader has all rodent Pokemon, or all spherical Pokemon, or all dog Pokemon, or maybe Pokemon from a certain habitat, or of a certain size... the only thing that's closest to this in Pokemon canon is Battle Pike Lucy with her serpentine Pokemon.
Anyway, a lot of exploration and a gym fight! I'll try to cut down on the amount of pictures and pace things a bit faster, but I do think it's important to take things slow in these early episodes to set up the tone and show off the game.
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