Last time we left off, we explored the entirety of Tsukinami village, the village of ninjas and anime ninja tropes. Not really much to say here -- this sequence was initially intended to be part of the previous part, but I ended up splitting things up due to the sheer amount of pictures.Not much to say here -- it's the gym battle, and the next part of the main nuclear-pokemon plot.
Last we left off, there's only the Tsukinami gym left to explore in this village that's equal parts cringey and charming in homaging ninja tropes. It's a pretty gym, from the outside, anyway.
Oh yeah, in addition to being gym leaders, Hinata (not to be confused with the Naruto character) and Kaito (not to be confused with the Hunter x Hunter or Detective Conan characters) are also walking fan-made characters with ridiculous backstories, being simultaneously ninja royalty and also the avatars of the totally-more-awesome-than-official-legendaries.
Oh yeah, there's some puzzle thing that's supposed to be done in order to fit in with the theme of balance. Unlike Sheldon's gym, this one actually works into the yin/yang theme of Autios and Mutious. Thanos would approve of this gym puzzle.
Basically, the colour of the tiles change when I walk on them. Instead of making the puzzle genuinely challenging and me needing to stop in front of the room's door with everything balanced, though (think the Sootopolis gym from the Hoenn games), as long as I get the white and black tiles equal, the door just opens and the puzzle is disabled.
Also, due to the sheer amount of moving parts, the game lags like a bitch in this gym.
We've seen the Nami clan in the surfing ninjas, but the Tsuki clan make their first proper appearance in this game as battle-able enemies. Volchik here is presumably the baby form of Yatagaryu, so I guess that's why Master Yoshi didn't consider me a member of the ninja clan despite Ura (well, E. coli) being the goddamn Hokage. They still wear black ninja garb, though, so... I dunno.
Regardless, Blight is a walking cannon that murders anything with dual-type.
And Charlie earthquakes anything with a singular type. Since we're in a ninja gym... Doton: Ganban Kyu no Jutsu!
Oh holy shit that's one big angry sloth monster. Theriamp is one of the fossil Pokemon in this game. I'm not sure where the fossils are at.
I get that Megatherium and other prehistoric sloths are a great candidate as fossil Pokemon, but associating giant ground sloths with electricity is just sort of a wacky association, huh? Regardless, still dies very quickly to earthquakes.
The ninjas, I think, are meant to speak in haiku, but it's not rendered particularly well. Instead of surfing, though, the Nami ninjas just reuse a minimal-edited version of one of Janine's poses from HeartGold/SoulSilver.
They don't have the surfboards, but they still use the Daikatuna line.
E. coli is here to remind them who their real Hokage is. It is not Kaito. BOW TO THE AMOEBA!
CHIDORI
So are you the Hayato with weird sword abilities, the mixed-race Hayato that joins the mafia, or the Hayato that's kinda-but-not-really-the-son of a deranged psychotic killer with a kitty-cat power named after a Queen song?
The Tsuki Ninjas, meanwhile, are edited versions of Koga's sprite.
The Tsuki ninjas really like Coatlith, even though the museum establishes them as Yatagaryu's eternal nemesis. Whatever the case, they're still dual-typed so even though they outspeed Blight, they still die in one shot.
Screw your dragons, I've got a three-eyed nuclear fox.
Voltasu is the middle evolution of the Yatagaryu line. He looks sort of awkward... those wings don't look like they can fly.
Also, he's now a radioactive fried chicken. Blight is awesome, and is my favourite child.
BOOM POW does not make for a proper haiku line, jackass.
Also, I keep forgetting that these cannon-shrimps know Flamethrower, much to E. coli's distress. E. coli is an amazing sweeper, but he is hella fragile. Have we seen a Krilvolver before? Well, we have now.
If you exit the gym and return, the completed rooms have their tiles rearranged into perfect yin/yang taoist symbols.
MASSACRE ALL THE PURPLE AND PINK THINGS
I'm not sure what these fairies and ghosts have anything to do with the Tsuki/Nami aesthetic or theme, but I appreciate any gym that throws me random shit like this.
Also, I did a bunch of item switching. While the Expert Belt's pretty great on Blight, I figured speed was far, far more important for the fragile sweeper, and he's only ever going to spam Hyper Voice anyway, so Choice Scarf it is.
Again, these puzzles would be more challenging if they didn't consider themselves ended after I balanced out the room's tiles randomly at a different spot in the room.
Hello, "gods".
Can you feel the vitriol and sarcasm I have in my voice? Because I really don't have much in lieu of respect for these two and their ridiculous backstories.
Blah blah blah we are the ones who ended the chaos of the ninja wars, because the gods for whatever reason chose us because of some love or whatever
also we're like totally awesome ninja messiah or some shit and they are the best leaders of the ninja people and the ninja land
Oh, so they aren't a double battle like I've been expecting, but I basically have to fight them back-to-back without healing? That's significantly more difficult, I think, because in double battles I can just have Charlie spam Earthquake. Well, we'll see. Vaeryn is honestly kind of a pushover, so I'm curious if these two will be tougher.
Ladies' first! I'm going to enjoy kicking these false gods to the curb. There can only be one Hokage, and that Hokage is my electricity generating amoeba!
Also, from her dialogue, I guess her theme is supposed to be a Sunny Day team?
Her VS sprite looks so off, and I'm not sure what it is. Is it the bizarre head ornament that's not affixed on anything? It is the weird eyes? The strange choice of colours? It bugs me that I cannot actually point out what part of her design I dislike, because honestly her visual design isn't that weird, but there's just something that bugs me about that VS sprite and I for the life of me can't articulate why.
EEVEELUTION FIGHT LET'S GO Let's hope Hyper voice kills in one shot!
Fuck, it didn't. Flareon's Flare Blitz, however, did...
And fortunately for me, the recoil from Flare Blitz was enough to kill Flareon, making it a mutual kill between Eeveelutions.
Not knowing what Pokemon Hinata's going to throw out next, I picked Cerebella... and end up facing off against the false Hokage, a false Gellin who is nowhere as awesome as my Gellin.
The Gellin thunderbolts, but I swap Cerebela out for Charlie, who is unaffected by Thunderbolt.
And Charlie proceeds to lay waste to the pretender Hokage with a single Earthquake.
In retrospect, Flamethrower would've actually worked better in this situation since Archilles has higher special stats. Oops!
Flamethrower doesn't actually hurt Coatlith that much, giving the damn grass serpent time to Nasty Plot the shit up and increase its special attack. I forgot this damn flying serpent is part-dragon now, and thus resists fire.
I really should've swapped to Cerebella and spammed Ice Beam, but instead I sort of dicked around with Charlie's Dragon Claw, something I should not have done. I didn't make the best decisions in this fight.
The result is a really jacked-up-on-nasty-plot Coatlith. Oh, also, the Coatlith also knows Roost, which also allows it to heal.
Maybe Taxonomaly can do something? She's more than ten levels lower than the damn thing, but it's Grass/Dragon, and Taxonomaly is Bug/Fairy, so advantage on both counts...
Dazzling Gleam doesn't do as much as I wanted because Taxonomaly's got shit special attack, but the Coatlith just... spams Roost? Okay, then.
...time to revive both Charlie and Blight.
Why, yes, I am a pussy.
Taxonomaly continues to take pot-shots with Dazzling Gleam, which isn't enough to deal any real significant damage, but deals enough to get the Coatlith to keep spamming Roost.
...which gives me time to heal up both Charlie and Blight.
What? If the AI's going to be dumb, I'm going to take advantage of it.
At one point, I realize that Dragon doesn't resist Bug, and I realize that X-Scissor actually does more damage than Dazzling Gleam. Also, insert more and more turns of the damn thing roosting.
Oh shit. A max-Nasty-Plotted Solarbeam will kill Taxonomaly, resistance or no resistance.
My only chance is to kill the damn snake-bird with X-Scissor...
Aw fudge. It didn't work, and the Coatlith survives with a sliver of health, before one-shotting Taxonomaly with Solar Beam.
I wanted Charlie to finish off the damn Coatlith with Flame Impact, a priority move, but apparently Hinata plays my game and heals Coatlith up with a max potion.
+3 Nasty Plot Dragon Pulse hurts like a bitch.
The fastest Pokemon I have is my choice-scarfed Blight, which, thankfully, finally murders the damn Coatlith. Respect to you, Coatlith, I didn't realize you were this annoyingly powerful if you're allowed to set up.
Aw fuck, she's got a mega evolution. Mega Whimsicott looks sort of ridiculous in a way that honestly actually fits with the ridiculousness of some official Pokemon mega evolutions.
Fortunately, Whimsicott is still dual-typed, so even with a 12-level difference, Blight should be able to-
COME ON ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME
The damn Mega Whimsicott survives with a sliver of health, before murdering Blight again with Hurricane.
Well, you've got a Mega, and I've got a Mega.
LV-426's steel-type and immense special defence means that the Mega Whimsicott's hurricane tickles his spaceship, while anything from LV-426 will murder the Whimsicott. I'm... I'm not sure what Mega Whimsicott's supposed to do. Is Regenerator even that good of an ability on Whimsicott? I'm genuinely curious, but also don't care enough to do the research.
More importantly, I have defeated a god. Supposedly. So despite most of the Tsuki clan using like, Yatagaryus and shit, Hinata uses... a lightning bacterium, a fire fox, a grass snake-bird couatl, and a little sakura forest gremlin. Other than Coatlith using Solar Beam one time, none of them really have anything to do with the sun.
Come on, God #2. The game doesn't give me time to heal any of my party, by the way, so we're going to fight Kaito with Blight, Charlie and Taxonomaly down. And I really don't want to lose to these putzes.
Apparently Kaito fights with "Mutios's cleverness" and the very essence of ninja and ambushes and whatnot, which is hard to do on a turn-based game. Also, I forgot to screenshot the VS sprite. Trust me, it's not that interesting.
Umbreon's always a gigantic piss-off asshat in competitive battle due to his bulkiness.
E. coli, however, is determined to maintain his true position as the god-damned Hokage, and no moon fox's going to stand in his way. One of the best thing about E. coli? He knows Giga Drain, so I can heal while I fight annoying wall-y tanks like Umbreon. This Umbreon is an asshat, who relies on Toxic and Confuse Ray, while also using Moonlight to heal up.
Anyway, Umbreon dies. Somewhere in the fight, I get the chance to sneak in a revive on Charlie.
I forgot Vilucard is part-dark, and my attempt to use Psychic on Vilucard is 100% neutralized, and it proceeded to use Drain Life that cuts out half of poor Cerebella's health.
Damn it, this battle would've gone a lot smoother if I had used my brain a little and memorized these fan-made Pokemon a little better.
I swapped Cerebella for Charlie, and Charlie tanks two Drain Life attacks... and while Flamethrower isn't enough to kill, it burns Vilucard. Which means that in addition to taking damage every turn, the damn bat-lady is going to have its physical attack stat halved.
We're both pussies and we heal our Pokemon back to full health, but Kaito clearly only has hyper potions, so Vilucard will remain burned until the end of the battle.
...which means I do what I did when fighting Coatlith earlier, but in a far, far safer fashion since Vilucard's not setting up buffs.
Anyway, after I heal up my team, I finally end Vilucard's suffering with a flame impact. The thing only has Drain Life to hurt Charlie, but because the AI is dumb sometimes it does dumb things like poison sting and leech life, neither of which hurts Charlie that bad.
...okay, I buy that Umbreon and Vilucard are pretty creepy night-themed evil ninja Pokemon. Luchabra, though? Definitely not.
HAHAHA, oh man, this was funny. Luchabra strikes first with the priority move Mach Punch, only to get his stupid poorly-drawn ass burnt on Charlie's Flame Body ability. Man, what a dumb thing. All that, and it honestly didn't even damage Charlie too much.
Earthquake is super-effective to poison-types, but Kaito's Luchabra outlevel mine. That said, the burn takes him out. Ha!
Your last Pokemon is an Arbok? I mean, all respect to Arbok, but after the gauntlet of nonsense you've put me through, an Arbok is kind of an anticlimax.
Oh shit-
OH SHIT
I forgot Arbok could do that. It's an interesting combination of Arbok's basic Intimidate ability (cuts down the enemy's physical attack) combined with that chimera fakemon's ability, Petrify, which cuts down speed. The one-two punch of an Arbok mega-evolving into Mega Arbok will cut both physical attack and speed, since abilities and mega evolution both trigger before any attacks, which would be disastrous.
...unfortunately, Mega Arbok has the same move-set as regular Arbok, which means it's not really good. I hyper potioned Charlie up in this first battle's turn, and the gunk shot took out barely one-third of his health.
Earthquakes, on the other hand, take out about half of Mega Arbok's health.
Oh come on, a critical hit? Although I'm frankly more surprised that even with the critical hit and the mega evolved stats, Charlie somehow manages to hang on with 12 health.
Charlie is pretty awesome is what I'm saying.
Also, I've got hyper potions. I mean, LV-426 could mega-evolve and that'd be the perfect counter to Mega Arbok (who's Poison/Dark IIRC), but I sort of want Charlie to get this win, considering how much work he did throughout both fights.
And, yep, Earthquake killed Orochimaru.
Oh, here's Kaito's sprite. Shut up, discount-bin Ichimaru Gin.
Blah blah blah more Aotius and Mutios nonsense.
Of course their badge is called the Zen Badge. These twits are probably first on my list alongside Danny Rand to mis-use the word "zen" but also drop it into every second sentence they say.
Hinata gives me the TM for Solar Beam, which is pretty thematic to her. Kaito, proving to be the shittier of this superholy matrimony, gives me Taunt. Which doesn't really have anything to do with him or his team other than I really do want to punch him in his face.
Professor Bamb'oo calls me immediately after exiting the gym, as he basically does every time. Oh, and this is the eighth gym! I completely forgot about that.
The Pokemon Association doesn't really care about the nuclear Pokemon. Insert your own "we do not negotiate with terrorists" joke here, but the nuclear Pokemon are, like more of a natural disaster more than anything, so I dunno about that.
Also, Bamb'oo is trying and failing to find a cure for Nuclear Pokemon. Judging by how this game is written, it's a surefire bet that Bamb'oo will prove useless and it's going to be up to Ura to find said cure.
Bamb'oo apparently thinks that Ura is important enough of a call to hang up on a random number... until he realizes it's the Ranger HQ in Bealbeach. Oh god, it's dad.
Suddenly, the Mt. Pyre ambient music gets replaced with fucking air raid sirens. The villagers immediately blame those damn uncouth Kirigakure bastards.
Staraptor Ranger Chick from earlier in the game shows up, accompanied by some schmuck, trying to do their job and calm the citizens down because there's an imminent threat and they have to be evacuated.
Unfortunately, these ninja civilians don't give a shit about all of these gaijin scum that give them orders. Or maybe they just don't trust Pokemon Rangers in general, and from what I see in my journey through this game, they've been pretty dang useless. So.
On the other hand, demanding the Rangers to tell them who their sources are in excruciating detail is just a dumb move on the villagers. For his part, Ura just really wants to make a mad dash to the evacuation boats.
Oh shit you fool shopmongers, your gods have shown up! Your gods are telling you to follow the police!
Also, these so-called god wannabes also admit that freaking nuclear mutants and nuclear explosions are out of their jurisdiction. Gee, for being supposed ninja gods, Kaito and Hinata sure suck, huh?
Ah, right, Power Plant Omicron, the only power plant in this game we haven't visited yet, and one located right next door to Tsukinami Village on the map. How convenient!
"Nuclear energy is not the will of the gods." God, the dialogue for these supposed god-avatar-beings are just so inane.
Random super-excited ninja! THIS IS OUR OATH O GREAT LEADERS
God, the ninja village being minimal-effort Naruto pastiches have grown old, like, a hundred screencaps ago.
Part of me wants to be angry that she's racist to these oriental people just dealing with their culture... but you know what? The writing for Tsukinami Village is most accurately described with the word 'kooky'. So yeah, Staraptor Ranger Girl, I gotta agree with you here.
Oh god, Kellyn.
At least the game is kind enough to inform me that this is going to be one of those parts of Uranium where the game will lock me in for a long period of time, and... yeah, I've got places to be, things to do.
A surfing trip to Venesi City, and a ferry to Ballbeach, and a train ride to Legend Town later, accompanied by tons of muttering about how shit the fact that I'm eight badges in and still don't know Fly yet is.
Also caught one of these little cute dudes while diving back to Venisi City. Shrimputy's neat. Water/Fire is an interesting typing, and having a gun-shrimp certainly makes a fair bit of sense, even if I'm pretty sure Nintendo's never going to have outright gun imagery like this.
Anyway, Legend Town means that I can replace a bunch of HM's with random items. Including this Surfboard that the Tinkerer swears up and down isn't just a regular surfboard he bought from a beach shop.
Really would love Fly at this point.
He also insists that he invents scuba-diving gear. Oh, you silly cad. I don't mind keeping Surf on Cerebella, but getting rid of Dive is going to be a god-send.
I also talked to the ninja trainer in Legen Town, who, despite Master Yoshi insisting that they'll want Ura to prove himself against them, is super-duper chill about returning to Tsukinami Village. Not even a battle or anything!
He also gives me the Power Belt, so presumably the other stat trainer ninjas will give me the stat-training held items as well.
Also, Sheldon is still moping in the Legen Town Ranger basement. What a punk. Didn't even help out in cleaning the nuclear Pokemon. I really should bring Coconut the Cocancer out of retirement to clobber him in the nuts again.
I also caught the Electric/Ground Pikachu clone of this fan-game, Jerbolta, in... Route 4 or something? I definitely missed him the first time. He's neat, and while Electric/Ground isn't the best typing ever, he looks neat-o!
Also, I make a brief pit-stop to Anthell to catch a female baby ant. The ratio is skewed very wildly towards males being a lot more, despite how in nature, all soldier and worker ants are exclusively female. I get that they want to make females more rare thanks to the gimmick that the ant-babies have, but hey.
I eventually got one female Sponee, and I've gone on record on saying that Sponee is my favourite of the three baby ants.
It's going to take some work, but The Queen here is going to be part of a project of Taxonomaly's proper replacement. Chykka's neat, but she's not performing as well as I wanted her to, and I have a specific replacement in mind. It'll take a lot of work to achieve The Queen's mighty, dreadful, final form. Taxonomaly did a lot of work in this last gym, but it's time for her to properly retire now.
Also, with a bit of time manipulation, I move time around so that I can purchase an Archillesite, and allow Charlie to assume his true super saiyan form.
Mega Archilles looks pretty cool, even if that shell looks like something he should share with Bowser. In addition to a massive special attack boost, Charlie also gets Drought as an ability, which anyone who dabbles in competitive will tell you is pretty dang broken, setting up harsh sunlight for five turns automatically without costing a move.
Mega Electruxo gets Drizzle, the water-type counterpart to drought, and gets a bonus utility because Mega Electruxo's likely to run Thunder. Mega Metalynx gets the honestly kind of pointless Heatproof.
This are what the surfboard and scuba gear looks like. Neat-o beans!
...apparently Professor Fennel is completely useless in curing the poor girl's dreams. As I googled, this is apparently the end of this particular side-quest, which makes it kind of pointless. Presumably, it's something that wasn't implemented yet?
Also, the PST or whatever would've gone wonders at talking to Musharna here.
Cerebella forgets Dive! Thank god. I'm not sure what move I replaced it with - Water Pulse or Psybeam or something -- frankly, any move in Cerebella's repertoire that she can learn through the relearner is superior to Dive.
Anyway, with that little meandering side-quest done (getting The Queen was a bit harder than I thought it would be), I stock up on Quick Balls, Hyper Potions and Great Balls, before heading back to Tsukinami...
Current team:
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