Last time we left off, we entered Vinoville Town, after witnessing that local jerkface Sheldon is apparently terrorizing some local farmers out of "boredom", so after nearly falling asleep at some huge religious sermon, Ura heads off to kick gym leader Sheldon in the dick! In this part, behold the mighty showdown of Ura's faithful companion, the fire-breathing dromaerosaurid Charlie, as he holds a one-man crusade against Sheldon's troop of mechanical monstrosities!Also, something something about nuclear meltdowns and a crisis in the region, too. That's also sort of important.
GYM TIME! Let's kick Sheldon in the dick!
Steel-types, eh? A straight-up type themed gym, and not an area-themed one like previous ones?
The puzzle for this gym is that to progress, you click this pillar, and the path onwards is illuminated space by space. While the first one is just a straight line, subsequent ones are far, far more bent and harder to go through. It's at least a puzzle, but I'm so pumped to beat up Sheldon that I just don't care and save-scum my way through the puzzle.
LET THE BODIES HIT THE FLOOR!
Charlie just basically solo's almost the entire gym's worth of trainers, not helped by the fact that Darewls, S51's and Harlyects are basically fodder that are one-shotted by Flame Wheel. Burn them to ashes, my faithful fire dinosaur!
Dude, are you dumb? Aliens come from space, not another dimension. One or two trainers had Brailips that Wigglefoot drains the life out of with her dancing.
Oh, haha, Guitarist Slash, I get the joke. I understood that reference. Oh, ha ha, he has a rock type Pokemon, because Slash is a rock star, get it?
Latching on with Exp Share, Cerebella learns an actually useful Psychic move in Psybeam! And Psybeam still isn't the best move, but it's way better than shitty ol' Confusion.
...huh.
I really have nothing for this "joke", I really don't. Moving on.
Oh. Sweet. Hell. Yes.
Ha. HAHAHAHAAHA! To those who need a refresher, Flamethrower is unironically the best fire type move. Some others are more powerful damage-wise but comes with a drawback, like decreased accuracy or a subsequent debuff. Flamethrower's drawback?
THE ONLY DRAWBACK IS THAT IT LEAVES A MESS FROM THE MELTED BODIES OF THE CORPSES OF CHARLIE'S VICTIMS
BURN IT ALL CHARLIE
Blah blah blah you're a dick you terrorize the countryside and use boredom as an excuse. Antisocial twats like you are the reason geeks have a bad name. I will kick you in the dick!
Oh god what's wrong with your eyes why are they like that
NOTHING WILL REMAIN BUT THE ASHES OF THE DEAD!
Or in this case, the melted remains of S51's saucer.
Oh god, Barewl got ugly. It's like that nasty chimera from Full Metal Alchemist, but with random half-assed armour stuck on with super-glue, and a long strand of beard-hair for no good reason.
KILL IT WITH FIRE, REDUCE IT TO CINDERS! YOU ARE NAUGHT BUT TINDER FOR CHARLIE'S FLAMES!
YOU MUST BURN- Oh, right. Cometeor, Comite's cool evolution, is a rock dude. Flamethrower isn't super effective. Fortunately, Charlie is no one-trick pony, and he knows Magnitude. See how beautifully Charlie tanks that Ancient Power, by the way. Magnitude 8 kills Cometeor.
When you try and fuck with earth, you damn rock alien... the earth itself will fuck. You. Up!
His ace is a Tracton, a ground backhoe robot dragon. It's ridiculous but also kinda cool, but being associated with Sheldon makes it exactly 300% more lame.
Also, someone worth battling? Bitch, I one-shotted half of your team, two-hit-killed your Cometeor (who couldn't even deal half damage to charlie even with a super-effective move), and one-shot-killed the pokemon you stated was "too strong" to be used in a gym battle. You ain't worth jack shit, Sheldon. I'd make a Godzilla v Mecha-Godzilla joke, but you ain't even worth it.
I find out the hard way that Tracton is a Steel/Dragon, because he resists Flamethrower. It still crits, though, and deals enough damage to almost put it in the red, though. Instead of actually, y'know, attacking, Tracton sets up and uses Shift Gear.
And instead of capitalizing on the Shift Gear boost to take out Charlie (which I honestly doubt it's able to do, unless it knows Earthquake or some shit), Sheldon tries to use a super potion.
Finish it, Charlie! SEND THE UNNATURAL ABOMINATION BACK TO THE GROUND WHERE IT BELONG! Scoring a second beautiful Magnitude 8, Charlie takes down what's left of Tracton's health, and beautifully ends the one-mon solo run of this pathetic excuse of a gym.
Yeah, you're shit. Your gym is shit. I had more trouble with the first gym than yours. Shit, even Davern and Cali managed to force me to switch my Pokemon out. Not you. You should be ashamed of yourself.
All you do every day is train? Piss off, as evidenced, all you do is fool around and use your dumb UFO thing to scare poor farmers multiple nights in a row. Honestly, I could've called the police on your stupid hair-dyed ass, but humiliating you without even breaking a sweat is even more delicious.
Not pictured due to the graphic nature of the content: Coconut using Crabhammer to punch Sheldon in the dick.
Then Ura robs him of his Pixel Badge, as well as the Gyro Ball TM. Because clearly Sheldon doesn't have any balls, even before the crabhammer incident. Coconut learns it, because while it's not the best move (on basically everything other than Ferrothorn and Forretress), Steel-type coverage is probably going to be useful against Fairy-types.
Okay mister ranger man I would listen to you but the blinding lights from the gym is distracting me
Hooo that looks better. An upset little boy looking for me? Yeah, okay, I guess I'm sort of responsible for him now that Cameron's, um, well, y'know... yeah, I can't be too hard on him. I'll talk to him.
Ah, yes, crazy hair. It limits the amount of people it could've been.
Ranger man tells me to heal up, which implies that we'll be thrust into a battle of some sort, but, uh... nothing of the sort actually happens, and the storyline that happens next allows me to make pit-stops in Pokemon Centers, so I dunno.
(Also... it's not like my Pokemon was actually hurt by Sheldon's team. So ha!)
Yeah, I kinda did. Hey, listen, you're clearly having a bad day. Tell you what, Charlie's still very excited and Sheldon's probably writhing in a corner somewhere, I'll lend you Charlie and you can-
I mean, sure, I win because I'm awesome, but-
If you act like a kid and you whine, people will call you a whiny kid.
I mean, um, yeah those jerk adults, kid power, you can't trust the system, all that jazz.
And it's at this point that I really feel kinda sorry for Theo. Bluster as a trainer aside, he's just a kid who is confused about the fate of his possibly-dead dad.
And apparently he's not picking up his PokePod. Again, rule of narrative progression means that Cameron's probably still alive, but being a fan game, you never know. I want to pat Theo in the head and tell him everything's all right.
Big kaboom! Huge green cloud! Oh no!
Did Epsilon blow up again? Or is it another plant? Or, ooh, ooh, hopefully it's Sheldon's stupid gym and its stupid invisible railings and his stupid mutant metal horseblob thing.
O shit an actually competent Pokemon Ranger! And she's not from the town where Kellyn is operating from. Coincidence? I think not!
Official Pokemon cameo! Staraptor is not actually one of the official Pokemon to appear in this game. Also, for those who never played the Pokemon Ranger DS games, while Rangers don't carry around Pokemon traditionally in Pokeballs, they still own a single specific Pokemon that hang around them for every single mission.
Anyway, Ura and Theo clamber up on top of the poor bird.
More dramatic shots!
It's a nice little 'cheat' that Theo's silhouette is the prominent one while the player character is ambiguously drawn.
What blew up, though? The game didn't make it clear at this point. Was it a city? Epsilon again? Did the cruise ship sink?
Suddenly we're in "Legen Town"! Presumably Staraptor flies back because it forgot its master/partner in the middle of the nuclear wasteland. Silly Emobird!
There is a reason why swearing by the legendary Pokemon's names is something that is almost exclusive to Pokemon fanworks. Because phrases like "thank Arceus" or "by Palkia" or whatever honestly never sounded anything other than ridiculously silly. When it's in a light-hearted fan comic or a jokey comment (like that "holy Shinx" bit from that nuclear Gyarados fight) or whatever, it's fine, but when it's this supposedly dire and serious situation, it just feels off, y'know?
Ah, the Staraptor Ranger lady survived! Maybe. They all look the same to me. Anyway, Tandor's in a crisis, everything's going straight to hell, all that jazz.
I'm 99% sure we've never heard of Nuclear Plant Zeta before. I later checked out the map and it sure is on the map, so presumably we'll only visit it after it's been royally fucked up by... by the explosion or whatever. We don't have a clear antagonist, although I'm assuming it's whoever is using "092" or whatever mysterious superwepon that was developed in Epsilon.
Anyway, cloud of radioactive fallout has befallen Vinoville and the surrounding area, so... uh... are those areas off-limits now? Or is it just the encounters that got changed?
Language! As jarring as it is in a mostly PG game, "what the hell" still sounds a lot more natural than "by Arceus" or "thank Mutios" or whatever.
...wait, you irresponsible fuckers didn't, like, recall your Pokemon into your Pokeballs? The name of the fucking race of Pokemon refers to the fact that they are portable and you can carry them around anywhere. God these people are actually horrible. Those poor Mareep!
The Pokemon Rangers are actually handling things well. I notice that Staraptor Ranger Lady is doing this independent of Kellyn, whose track record for doing shit has been pawning off all responsibility to Cameron and Ura and doing some monumentally irresponsible nonsense. Relocating the (human) population to a town protected by a mountain range? Giving them free subway passes? Good show, Staraptor Ranger Lady. You should be Ranger Leader or whatevre.
Also fast travel finally. God, all I wanted to do is to get the free shit from Bambo'o for completing part of the pokedex
Generic "stick together team" speech! Which is probably something that's needed in this situation, granted.
"We Rangers admit that we fucked up with this whole Capture Styler thing, and really regret not actually having a team to fight feral Pokemon. Oops."
Yeah, Ura's going to have to fix everything for the Rangers, huh? At least this lady's asking nicely and politely, unlike "hey deliver this letter just 'cause" Kellyn.
The fact that, y'know, we actually have to battle Nuclear Pokemon is actually interesting.
Steel-types aren't actually more effective towards Nuclear -- any more than other types, anyway. They are just able to resist.
Piss off, Sheldon. Playing pranks and being bored and acting tsundere is one thing, but what you did is just flat-out terrorism and disturbing the peace. You're just oh-so-happy to prove that you care because you're standing next to me and my fire-breathing velociraptor.
Theo tries to volunteer, but gets immediately shot down by both Ranger-Man and Sheldon. It's actually pretty fucking hilarious.
In the kid's defense, though, Theo has a freaking metal cat and a sandcastle slug, he probably could help out in beating down like the low-tier radioactive Tancoon or whatever.
And he freaks out! Like, it actually makes a whole lot of sense since he's been feeling useless and weak and like a piece of shit, he's missing his dad, and just being told flat-out that he can't help's going to really break him... but part of me just finds him wigging out like this is actually hilarious.
Awww, Ripley. Wait, does that make Theo a shitty version of Newt, then? Hm.
This cutscene's over, while Sheldon claims that he didn't mean all the nasty shit he said in the past. Piss off, you're just saying this because my Cocancer is cracking his coconut-shell knuckles.
"He's in shock"... I'm pretty sure it's more of a combination of depression, a hero complex and just being a nine-year-old or whatever, but thank you, Ripley, for being the team mom and taking care of Theo.
I was wondering what building this is, and apparently it's the relatively minimalist Legen (not Legend) Town Ranger Station-cum-Safehouse. A lot more practical than the Ranger HQ that Kellyn resides in, for sure!
Oh hey the pastor survived! Huzzah! He says a different long sermon this time around, but it's honestly pretty bland and it's just more Aotius/Mutios stuff. Considering neither were actually implemented into the game, all I can do is shrug.
I actually want to stop and appreciate just how neat Legen Town is. Sure, typing it is always going to make me cringe a little since I instinctively type "Legend Town" all the time, but the rustic stonework style of the buildings (even that Pokemon Center) and how some doors are built into the huge wall-like structures, and how parts of the town are depressed into a lower level... a lot of the cities in these fan-games basically reuse a lot of assets from the official games, and while Legen Town has some similarities to some Unovan towns (maybe thinking of Lacunosa and one of the Opelucids) it's still has its own identity and far, far more memorable than anything else in this game.
It is really jarring to go from the doom-and-gloom, all business talk of the post-evacuation rangers and refugees, and this random lady is just being all peppy and happy about how Victory Road and the championship is going to open
I'm more worried about the destruction of the ecosystem, the property damage, the missing and dead humans and Pokemon, and the mutation of the wildlife into monstrous radioactive glowing feral beasts, but sure. Books. I get it, those are important, but still.
Random free shit laying around in the city. Roar's useless. Charcoal's going straight to Charlie and never leaving him, and he's going to abuse the fuck out of that held item to empower his Flamethrowers.
And then there's this dude... he speaks weird! Oh joy of joys, this is wonderful news, also yes? My mind gives him this bizarre bad parody Borat accent, but he is very cheerful and I'm curious to see what he's all about. He's apparently the Tinkerer, this is a yes, and he is a happy, also yes.
Yeah, I kind of know about HM's. I've got Rock Smash, but I've got my dumb Barewl in the PC and haven't actually needed Rock Smash for a while. Presumably I'll need Strength and Surf in the future, although I don't see any indication of Cut, Flash, Waterfall, Dive or-
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh man the sudden huge text is just hilarious.
Seriously, though, I feel like the fandom at large is bent out of shape about HM's for no real reason. Sure, they're mildly irritating, and I absolutely love the HM-minimalist Generation VI and the NO-HM Generation VII, and I am ecstatic at the direction that we're going in a HM-free zone for the foreseeable future, but come on. HM's aren't that terrible. I've seen far, far worse intrusive and fun-sapping mechanics in video games before.
They're mostly useless. Surf and Waterfall are actually pretty great, and Fly's not bad. The others are pretty much shit, though.
He gives me the "Boxing Gloves", but I didn't take a screen capture of it.
It basically does the job of Rock Smash for me without needing a HM slave for Rock Smash in my party. This is very useful, because I don't like lugging Barewl around, and Rock Smash is one of the aforementioned useless HM moves in battle. I'm curious if Tinkerer Man will have replacements for all HM's, and what the checkpoints the game will have for this. I guess he'll coincidentally finish his tinkering whenever I obtain the next HM?
I haven't explored all of the houses on the Eastern part of Legen Town, but suddenly Ura gets dragged into a cutscene and is unable to say no until he finishes this entire side-quest. And it is honestly pretty dang annoying from a game design perspective. (Moreso than HM's, in my opinion) At least give some indication when you're going to do this!
Also, Kellyn's here I guess. The Epsilon explosion didn't consume him. Pity.
Hello, Kellyn.
No need to apologize. Ura's completely used to you being a complete and utter disappointment in every facet of life.
Yeah, I'll shove you in front of the nuclear Owtens or some shit, that'll buy the people of Legen and Vinoville some time. Maybe I'll shove Sheldon in after you, if he bothers to show up.
The idea of natural terrain stopping the fallout clouds from spreading too far is a neat one!
Read: Pokemon Rangers SUCK and can't do jack shit. Also, Pokeball brainwashing overrides nuclear brainwashing. Or something.
Honestly, in a game where the Rangers are pretty prominent... they're portrayed as pretty much useless, huh? Like, I joke about it being part of Kellyn's general incompetence, but from a writing standpoint the only time the Rangers are shown to be competent was Staraptor Lady and the evacuation.
Yeah we have to lampshade the fact that despite Ura, Kellyn and all of these people running into the nuclear wasteland, none of them are affected by it. Sure, the whole Pokeball thing might be an excuse for the Pokemon, but the humans? Nah.
Ura is not ready and would really like to buy some Super Potions but like everything else in life Kellyn refuses to listen to Ura. And his sycophantic flunkies refuse to let me pass. Come on.
Oh well, at least there's a nurse. Also Sheldon's just wandering around like a dumbass.
The fuck is an "Empirilla"? That sounds like a shitty Empoleon knockoff. Basically, beat up the nuclear Pokemon, and then rescue random NPC's.
That was a screenshot of Nuclear Gligar using "Half-Life", an attack that... halves your current health, like Super Fang. An actually hilarious usage of a pretty important term in nuclear science. I name Nuclear Gligar Flerovium.
And the Nuclear Baashaun and Nuclear Ekans are Tantalum and Tritium respectively.
Yes, I know the screenshot says "Tantulum", which is a typo. Tantulum is a genus of freshwater slug... which would've made this an awesome pun if it was a Nuclear Cassnail, but now I just look like a dumbo.
Do I have to? I'm pertty sure I can do this by myself. Fine dad, but only because that Owten's in danger from the two radioactive Ekans, and none of you Ranger fools can do anything.
...wait, those aren't Ekans at all! The overworld sprites lie!
Also, huh, that's an Empirilla. The fan-made evolved form of Primeape. I don't like to just straight-up call a design "dumb", because I tend to find a lot of the more goofy-looking designs to be charming, but Empirilla is one of the Uranium designs that I just flat-out hate. Which makes the fact that he's Kellyn's only Pokemon a lot more coincidentally hilarious.
Unfortunately, Wigglefoot's unable to murder the stupid ape.
Yeah, your Rangers are useless, and honestly the only one that's able to do anything here is Ura and Kellyn. Where the fuck is Sheldon and his S51A and Tracton and whatever else the fuck he has? I'd rather team up with him.
Oh yeah, here's Kellyn's avatar, with his oh-so-cool Dragon Ball Z Scouter.
At least one of the overworld Ekans is actually an Ekans in this one.
Hey, Kellyn, guess what, your stupid fat monkey creature sucks. My Ludicolo is still dancing it away despite beating up on nuclear Pokemon on both this route and power plant Epsilon. Guess if you actually did your job and investigated power plant Epsilon, and not just wangsting about how you lost your wife-
Oh, hey, boss fight.
You can't let your dumb fat monkey be exposed to radiation, but your flesh-and-blood son and his Pokemon is all right? Yeah, as usual, Kellyn, your incompetence is pretty damn amazing.
Honestly, if not for the random civilians being menaced by these two nuclear Arboks, I'd abandon Kellyn and his dumb fat monkey to their fates. Send me to an abandoned nuclear plant just to "get closure", will you, piece of shit deadbeat dad?
Holy shit Nuclear Arbok is awesome. I have a nuclear Ekans, though, so regrettably I command my Coconut and baby E. coli* to kill it, and then capture nuclear Barand. I was tired and didn't really think it through, but Seaborgium would've worked better on a water-type nuclear critter. Oh well.
*Despite being the 'baby' of the team thanks to being recently hatched, E. coli somehow levels up pretty quickly and has overtaken almost the entire party other than Charlie and Taxo.
Apparently beating the
Of course. Ura's going to pull through and not disappoint the people around him when it matters. Not like a certain "parental" figure.
Piss off, between the abandonment and Epsilon, we're way past apologies.
Go do something useful and actually try and at least coordinate the Rangers properly, you sad man trapped in the past.
Bribes are not going to change Ura's opinion of Kellyn, but he will take the bribes anyway.
Mostly because HMs are actually needed to progress.
Get away from this site? Bitch, the line would've been breached and the giant radioactive snakes would've entered the city if not for me. You clearly are too much of a pussy to do what counts. But I will get as far from you as I can, Kellyn.
-insert "you don't know much about anything" snide remark-
Apparently, the next town that Ura has to go through is in the Baykal Rainforest. I don't think we've actually had a proper rainforest in a Pokemon game? The closest I can think of are the long-grass segments of Hoenn and Mallow's trial grounds from Alola, but those are actually pleasant.
...and now the route north is blocked, so if you weren't like me and obsessively chucking quick balls at anything I've never seen before, tough luck if you wanted a Nuclear Ekans or something. Also I guess the actual Vinoville Town is fucked for good.
Also, hee hee, you Rangers suck. Go buy some Pokeballs and catch some nearby Pokemon, man. I know you have your pride and whatnot, but protecting the people should really be main priority. I'll even lend you Chippette.
Oh hey someone did their research. Thank you, scientist man, for giving me medicine!
I return to Legen Town to do a little bit of organizing. Specifically, I put all of my Nuclear Pokemon in their own box, while I release the two enslaved Owtens from the Garlikid quest.
Nuclear Baashaun's sprite has a noticeably different shade of black compared to the others and it bothers me.
...no HM replacement for Strength? Huh. So I guess I'll need someone to be a Strength slave, then. I guess we get the replacement item when we reach the checkpoint for the next HM? That's a bizarre way, you'd think a game that's shown considerable disdain about HM's in general would get rid of latching them onto Pokemon in a more permanent fashion.
This was the funky Japanese-looking building I didn't get a chance to enter because the game script railroaded me.
Also I find one of the better TM's nearby. Dark Pulse is a great special dark-type move, but none of my party can learn it. Not even Cerebella! Normally, Psychic-types are able to learn Dark Pulse, but I guess Cerebella is just too nice with that happy grin, and doesn't have an evil bone in her body. It definitely is a shame, since having a Dark-type attack would be neat.
Kenichi, the Strongest Disciple? He is a NINJA, so make your own Naruto/Sasuke joke here. I'm not going to. Apparently he's a stat trainer?
So I can EV train specifically the defense stat by having Cerebella here headbutt a punching bag while I press the enter button in a "how close can you get to green" minigame. It's a lot more painless than the 3DS EV minigames, for sure.
I don't actually care enough for IV/EV stuff in this playthrough to bother too much with this, at least not until I find the dudes that can boost Attack, Special Attack and Speed.
There's a Victory Road, but, as you'd expect, I can't enter yet because I'm a four-badge scrub.
Okay, let's go Eastward, then, and apparently this takes me onto Rochfale Town. I'm not sure why I can't access this route before, although I guess there's a roadblock or some such. Random dude in the route-transition building tells me about the mountains blocking radiation.
I hold off exploring Route 9, though, because with the Rangers giving us free TUR tickets (that sounds like some sort of prostate operation) I take the first train to Nowtoch City, because we have some really overdue business.
Yep yep, the train is instant, and takes me form Legen to Nowtoch...
...because Nowtoch City has the Name Rater. Finally, "Cerebros" can be known by her real, preferred name of Cerebella! Huzzah! And this is where we'll stop for now.
Current party: An angry crab with a beach for a shell; a reptilian flamethrower; a four-eyed six-armed bug-wolf freak of nature; a grinning psychic brain-fish; a dancing sombrero-wearing lilypad duck poncho thing; and an electricity-generating giant amoeba baby.
Anyway, that was a fun sequence of events. I sort of play up how much of a dick Sheldon and Kellyn are, but you really must admit that the game doesn't really make them too likable. I'm a huge fan of the writing on Theo and while it's not super-consistent in deconstructing kid pokemon trainers, the writing is still pretty neat. Between Charlie making Sheldon's gym trivial and the Nuclear Pokemon still dying to one shot from anything my party does, though, the game's really feeling a bit easy. And, granted, I did have type advantage and grinded a fair bit in Power Plant Epsilon, but the only Pokemon I'd call over-leveled is Charlie (and even then not by much), and my team's still kicking ass. I have been warned that there's a slight difficulty spike in the rainforest areas, so we'll see if I will start to struggle a little.
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