In this part of my let's play of the fan-game Pokemon Uranium, we go full-on into story mode as we explore the master plan of the main villain Curie, as well as welcome the final permanent member of our party.Not much to say here, this is the first part of the game's pretty dang long climax.
Last time where we left off, we're going off to the final dungeon, Power Plant Zeta, to hunt down and defeat Curie and Urayne once and for all. We're going by boat!
A new poke ball for Nuclear Pokemon! It's probably nowhere as great as the Beast Balls, considering I've been using regular Great Balls and Ultra Balls to capture Nuclear Pokemon out there, but it's neat to have options.
Like, one criticism about this game is basically like how it handles the Fly TM. There are a lot of fun little conveniences this game has, like Nuclear Balls or training areas or whatever, but they appear so late in the game when the middle part of the game is such a nasty, long slog.
I'm not sure what the timing of Pokemon Uranium's release was, and I'm too lazy to check it out, but I'm not sure if they were developing this part of the game and decided to throw in the little nod to the environmental suit in the official Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire games, or if they were directly inspired by ORAS.
In either case, we're getting this super-duper-totally-awesome hazard suit, but it's easily one of my least favourite parts of this game for a couple of reasons. Concept's neat, though, don't get me wrong!
Sci-fi features! Blah blah blah, this is awesome, and it comes with its own features and your personal, very own JARVIS program.
"Protagonist, you are the best in this world, and you have to rescue everyone!"
No, really. I don't have much to say here... it's just that both Theo and Kellyn have been pretty incompetent throughout this game, so my protagonist dude is unironically the only sane choice in this situation.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it...
Also, I have problems with calling Urayne a "Legendary" Pokemon like a couple of hours after you learned of its existence. Sure, Mewtwo and Genesect are man-made Pokemon that are considered Legendary, but I don't think they call them that in-universe.
Not all of the humour in Pokemon Uranium lands well, but this joke about muffled radio speech did get a chuckle out of me.
HAZARD: ON! OH NO!
So basically we get the Hazard Suit on. It's a neat little new sprite, and one that actually makes sense in-universe since we're dealing with nuclear fallout and Ura would like to have kids someday... but something that isn't well-illustrated in screenshots?
This damn thing moves very slowly. In a game where you're used to having running shoes on all the time, or even riding around in a bike, the fact that you're forced to wear this suit that makes your moving speed slow to a crawl is just pretty damn shit. And we have to wear this Hazard Suit for a long, long time.
Blah blah more mission statement. Like, jeez, just tell us once, and then have an NPC stand around to remind your players if they forget. Stop shoving it down our throat so much, jeez.
This game: "Pokemon Rangers will be useful, they are like, your allies!"
Also this game: "The Pokemon Rangers are completely useless."
Like, seriously, it baffles me what tone they want to have with the Rangers.
Oh, hey, a Nuclear Arbok! I always loved the fact that they swapped the hood sign on Arbok in its Nuclear Form. Also, that's what the Nuclear Ball looks like. It's basically extra-effective for radioactive dudes. I mean, I probably should be saving it for like Urayne or something if/when I capture it, but whatever.
I apparently never caught an Arbok before, so we get a Pokedex entry. As with all of my nuclear-corrupted Pokemon, this one is named Berkelium after a radioactive element.
Oh, apparently this one Ranger isn't completely useless! He's just mostly useless!
Also, I do like that this is a route we've gone through before. It's the farmland with loads of Mareeps and Baashauns, and where we had that whole S-51 alien abduction sub-plot. I'm always a sucker for games that alter the face of their overworld after an event in the narrative.
Also, it's a great place for training, since as usual it features a lot of nuclear Pokemon that die to one shot from anything my party has against them. Which means there's a lot of evolution cancelling because my baby spider keeps trying to evolve. Not yet, The Queen.
Theo finds something cool...
AAAA IT'S A GOOD BOY LOOK AT IT. It's adorable! It's a Chabosaurus!
Theo wants to catch the good boy, but it escapes.
And we get attacked by a "Nuclear Horde". Is this the first time we meet one of these? I can't remember, but it's essentially a trainer battle, where they will send out pokemon two at a time to fight you. Despite the game emphasizing that it's strange that the Nuclear Pokemon are Wild but obey someone's commands a couple of cutscenes in the past, these are essentially trainer battles.
The Hazmat suit gets its own sprite, which is neat. Also, Theo likes that dumb Splendifowl a lot, huh?
Honestly, I don't think we ever had the element of surprise. It's like, foreshadowed that Urayne and Curie are like commanding all the nuclear Pokemon, right? So they probably told them the moment t boat full of Rangers arrived on the island.
OH THANK GOD. Yeah, Queenie's been leeching off of Experience Share to reach a very specific level, level 45.
...and at this point, I swap out her held item from Exp. Share to Royal Jelly. Which, once upon a time, was an item that dropped from the bug queen that tried to consume poor Tico.
One Rare Candy later, and The Queen evolves!
See, when female Sponees, or the other ants, evolve at level 45 holding a Royal Jelly...
They transform into the mighty Queen of all Insects, Seikamater. It's a bit of a fun little 'hidden' Pokemon because nowhere in the game tells you that this is how you obtain one of the legendaries, by taking what's otherwise an unremarkable bug Pokemon of a rare gender and evolving it while holding a specific item. It's a neat, fun way, but could've been incorporated a bit better.
Bow to the queen, you damn peasants, all shall love her and despair!
The Queen is a Bug/Normal monster, which isn't the best, but at least she doesn't have any 4x weaknesses like a Bug/Flying type would have given her. Her ability is the original "Elementalist" ability, which means The Queen essentially gains STAB from Fire, Water and Electric moves, which are the elemental types of her 'subjects' Harlyect, Firoke and Sponaree.
In addition to that, Seikamater also gets Quiver Dance naturally, has a pretty decent defensive stat spread, and can get a bunch of other super-powerful, non-STAB moves like Ice Beam, Focus Blast and Sludge Bomb. Uranium's got a lot of overpowered shit, is what I'm saying.
A couple of TM's later, and The Queen is outfitted with said types, with Brine, Overheat, Thunderbolt and Silver Wind all receiving STAB and coming off from The Queen's legendary-level special attack stats. Throw the Life Orb to boost her attacks even more, and The Queen will truly reign over these peasants.
It's a bit cheating since I sort of didn't want to use legendaries in most of my regular runs, but I can't not use the legendary bug-type that evolves from a humble worker ant, right? Plus, I'm pretty sure Chykka and Taxonomaly won't be sad that their replacement is the God-Queen Of All Insects. She's basically one-shotting everything in her path, with the only damage she's taking from the Life Orb.
Also, I caught a nuclear Baariette, a third-stage evolution just casually popping up in the wild. I forgot about the whole "nuclear element" thing when I caught this one and called it Baastion. Not as good of a sheep pun name as Baaphomet.
Yes, that is exactly the sort of dialogue you need to translate with that plot device. Honestly, the PST is such wasted potential.
More Hazma! And it leads Theo and Ura into a grove where the trees are green, and apparently there aren't any nuclear radiation!
Theo, like a dumbass, takes off the goddamn radiation mask. Like, sure, just because the Geiger Counter says there's no radiation, doesn't mean the first thing you do is to take big gulps of air. Theo's a moron.
We quickly figure out that it's these good boys that are absorbing or purging the radiation. They're little hazmat suit dinosaurs, and they are adorable.
I caught three and accidentally killed one. Theo does not get to catch any of them.
Mine are called Chabo (after the LINE mascot Chabosaurus), Lead (it blocks radiation) and Timothy (he looks like a Timothy).
Oh, look more dialogue with Kellyn. Theo 'hazards' a guess on how the Hazmas clear out the radiation. Eh? EH? It's interesting, actually, that the anti-nuclear Pokemon is also a Nuclear type itself.
Kellyn quickly calls out Theo's stupidity for taking of that mask. Especially since I just captured all of the Hazmas, so by that logic, the nuclear fallout will soon consume this grove.
Ah, yes, Kellyn has got a one-track mind. Oh, Theo, the stories Ura could tell you about Kellyn and his one-track mind... it's either "wife wife wife" or "Curie Curie Curie".
Oh good, Theo joins me for the remainder of this area, so I can grind out experience points without constantly going back to the healing Ranger.
Double battle montage! I'm basically taking this chance to get everyone up to level 55 or 60. This area has the unique courtesy of giving me a lot of evolved Pokemon and making them Nuclear-type, making them simultaneously easy to kill and gives me a lot of experience points.
(That Splendifowl is kind of a redshirt, and keeps dying like a bitch. )
LV-426 tries to learn Reflect and Light Screen, a bunch of defensive moves. They aren't bad, but almost never worth it to waste a move slot for them.
Murder them all, my children!
Fast forward a couple of episodes of Kamen Rider later while I mindlessly auto-play this game, and that's how my party looks. E. coli, Charlie and The Queen are level 60 and slightly more, while the other three are almost at 60. It's really interesting to note just how little experience E. coli needs to level up compared to LV-426.
Blight, meanwhile, can't really reliably one-shot-kill fellow Nuclear types since they resist each other, and Blight doesn't know any non-Nuclear moves, so he's going to have to sit this dungeon out.
Yeah really shouldn't have brought Theo along, huh? I mean, he's just wearing a goddamn face mask. I'm not an expert in radiation, but it's, y'know, going to damage all parts of your body, right? So while Theo's lungs might be spared, the rest of him are still subject to radioactive fallout. Let's just say Cameron's probably not going to be a grandfather.
Big WHAAAT.
Because of course Kellyn has to be a control freak. Although, to be fair, Theo's like, half-dead at this point.
Theo is angry that in the face of nuclear Armageddon, his best-buddies-save-the-world fantasy is not going to come to fruition.
I mean, true, Theo, you have done a wonderful job being a portable Pokemon Center. But, y'know, portable hazard suit and everything.
Low blow, Kellyn. Bringing up his comatose dad is a low, low blow.
Also, man, what a dick. Theo's been a ranger for all of 30 minutes because you roped him into this, and you're basically throwing your rank around? Like, I know that it's a stupid idea to let Theo continue any further, but that really should have been something you considered within five minutes of recruiting Theo for such a dangerous mission.
None of these characters are smart people, is what I'm saying.
Angeree Theo!
Oh shit my jacket is talking to me
Oh no wait it's just Jarvis.
HORRIII SHITTOO
It is really still weird to see characters in a Pokemon game curse, although Uranium does keep it in moderation.
Suddenly it's dark, and then Jarvis wakes Ura up in the middle of the nuclear plant facility thing.
Urayne has apparently kidnapped Ura and dropped him off in... the foot of some random bed? Urayne's not very good at this doomsday villain thing, is he?
Jarvis talks a lot.
Jarvis talks a lot of technical terms.
Ura knows his priorities is to make sure Theo doesn't do something dumb. Or die. Mostly the latter.
Jarvis tells Ura to get a plot coupon.
Jarvis does not like independent thought. Obey the mission or perish.
It would be cool (if cliched) if the game asks me to make a hard choice of deviating from the mission to rescue Theo or something, but that's not actually going to happen, making this "deviating" dialogue completely pointless.
This room has a Pokemon Center machine, but I can't use it. Yet.
Also there are Nuclear Pokemon infesting this entire facility. And by infesting, I do mean "three steps and a nuclear hippo pops out". It's worse than Zubats, I tell you. Thankfully, after a couple of Tofurangs, I get sick and just spray max repel until I am sure I can get the healing machine up and running.
Also, I caught one of the Tofurangs. Man, what a weird creature, huh? The fact that it evolves from Tonemy really makes this thing pretty dang bizarre.
Also, while a lot of the music in this game are remixes of existing Pokemon tracks, the Nuclear Plant soundtrack is actually pretty atmospheric.
Obvious clue for a next room's puzzle is obvious.
Also apparently that one coffee cup survived the nuclear meltdown. Not the radio, though, apparently.
E. coli's radioactive nephew! I can't lie, I really do feel like the neon green and bluish-black works a lot better for Nupin and Gellin. Slap some yellow on the head-magnet, and you get a pretty awesome alternate colouration!
Some of the rooms have nuclear hordes! They are lambs to the slaughter.
Umm okay? I'm not sure. This feels like it's a reference to something.
I got the power active via the coloured switches, so I can heal my Pokemon. Also, hiss-clik, I unlock the next area.
Yeah, I got it, Jarvis. The rad shielding actually doesn't matter, and Jarvis actually repeats a lot of the dialogue from before.
...wait, didn't Kellyn and his Rangers develop the Nuclear Balls right before the mission to this area? And Ura's the first person that has entered this area? If so, why is there a random Nuclear Ball lying around this facility? What?
Also, these things are wandering the exterior of the plant. I do like Geigeroach, it's a neat little nod to the often-repeated 'fact' that cockroaches can survive almost any disaster, even nuclear ones. She's a neat cockroach enemy.
Obvious name is going to be obvious.
LOOK AT NUCLEAR E. COLI. It's actually a pretty neat colour scheme, and I take it back -- it doesn't need the yellow to look cool.
I catch a couple of nuclear variants of critters I already own. Americium is a real thing, by the way, and so is Dubnium. It's named after the town of Dubna, not dubstep, although it works with Paraudio's weird headphones.
There are two extra buildings to the side, and I enter the one on the right first. There is a BABBY FACEHUGGER SCORPION! I want to befriend it!
Oh shit, I made a bad call.
ALIEN AMBUSH! In space, no one can hear you scream!
In addition to the Xenomites, there are also their evolved forms, the Xenogens. Which are what the Xenomorphs from Alien would look like if they're more eel or octopus based instead of skeletal.
I catch one and name her Ellen Ripley.
There are switches to press, as well as this weird little "don't let the enemies catch you" copy-paste mechanic from Zelda games.
The thing is, though, I want to fight the Trawpints. They're level 75, holy shit, that's a load of experience, and Cerebella can still one-shot the fools!
That's completely pointless, by the way. I have a Power Glove in my inventory. But I guess if you're stuck at this point in the game without Strength or the item, this would allow you to progress?
OH SHIT FLASH CANNON!
LV-426 really, really wants a special-type Steel move, and Flash Cannon is, like, the best one.
Building on the left here we go!
There are random strength puzzles and a mega stone! For no real reason.
More strength puzzles, and also a switch. Lots of random wild encounters, too. And... and it's honestly taking a lot of time due to the fact that this hazard suit is a pain in the ass to walk in.
More strength puzzles!
-yawn-
Hiss clik. Okay.
Unlike the previous times that Jarvis gave me a warning about however many percent of energy the suit has, this one is actually going to apply -- I am going to have five minutes to navigate the next bit of gameplay. Which is honestly kind of silly and inconsistent.
Translation: "SAVE YOUR GAME, DORK, SHIT IS ABOUT TO GET REAL."
Yep, a timer shows up. It'd be really bad if I die because of the timer running out, and the goddamn place is a bit of a maze, and I don't want to repeat any of this not-especially-riveting gameplay of walking around while trapped in a slow suit...
So Super Repel time! Yes, the timer moves even if you go into battle, so I'm going to have to use bug spray to get rid of the encroaching armies of nuclear hippos and amoebas.
There are also asshole places in this maze where you have to try and figure out which forked road to go, and sometimes the wrong choice leads you to a long detour.
Which isn't bad for me because I am using a repel, but players who reach this area without stocking up on repels are probably going to have a bad time.
Showdown time! Hello, evil villain with a generic doomsday speech!
Urayne blows up the bridge behind me with swirling neon lights.
Of course, the villain's got to monologue. I'm not complaining, I like a good villain monologue.
What are you, the Penguin? That's your grand plan? You have a nuclear superweapon or whatever, and your plan isn't to just nuke the Ranger base, but kidnap your children?
Also, generic "suffer like I have suffered" speech.
Ah, apparently Urayne brought Theo and shoved him inside this little cell, and he's in permanent stasis, with his thoughts trapped at the moment of entry.
Hopefully Theo's thinking of something that's not dumb. Hopefully he's thinking of hot supermodels, instead of, say "which is more gross, chocolate-flavoured shit or shit-flavoured chocolate?"
Ah, a typical 'sympathetic' villain motivation, where you have a backstory you feel sorry for (in this case, torture while they are placed in stasis) and actions that are inequivocably evil (trying to shove children into the same fate).
Also, in case you haven't figured it out yet, Curie is Ura's mom.
ULTIMATE POWER! God, this is a long speech.
"Huhuhuhu" is not something that sounds good when written. Also not something that sounds good is "behold the power of nuclear energy and despair".
Her trainer class is "Apocalypse". Not "Bringer of Apocalypse" or something that makes grammatical sense, but "Apocalypse" as a descriptor.
That sprite also looks a bit more stumpy than they probably want her to look like. Regardless, though, fight time! Six versus six, here we go!
Ah, a Nucleon of her own! Clearly, a woman of good taste.
Psychic brain oarfish versus mutant geometry fox go!
Unfortunately, the Nucleon is faster, higher-leveled (by one, but still) and Hyper Voice deals 4x damage to Cerebella, a fact I have abused many, many times while using my own Nucleon. Oops!
First blood to Curie!
Charlie pops out Flame Impact, which is a priority move that always goes first. One down on both sides!
WAR OF THE QUEENS! Queen of the nuclear-irradiated aliens from space versus the queen of all that writhes and wiggles below the soil!
Xenoqueen is, obviously, Xenomite's final evolution.
The Queen's STAB, Life Orb boosted, 2x-effective Thunderbolt can't kill Xenoqueen.
Unfortunately, whatever "Proton Break" is manages to kill The Queen in one shot. That's the power of 4x STAB moves, I'm afraid.
Blight's fast, so I'm going to let him come out and get a guaranteed kill.
We'll see if using a Nuclear-type to be defensive against other Nuclear-types might work out...
A nuclear Baariette? We killed a lot of those outside.
Wait, what? Wait, wait, aren't the only people with mega stones the ones who's beaten the Winterhold gym or whatever? How does a nuclear terrorist have access to one?
Yeah, Hyper Voice's not going to do it. Not against a mega-evolution.
Did enough damage to the Mega Baariette before he suplexes Blight, though.N
Priority move time! Let's hope it's enough to take out this tanky mega evolution.
SHIT, it's not enough. Should've mega-evolved.
Also, Mega Barriette, I think, has the same sort of life-draining ability that Vilucard has, so she's constantly regenerating health. Mega-LV-426 ends up getting one-shoted with a STAB Crunch. Steel-types don't resist Dark-types anymore since we're using Generation VI rules.
That is a huge waste of my Mega Evolution! Also, shit, my party's being swept clean by a goddamn muscleman goat.
Come E. coli, you're my last hope, my favourite and the best of all my Fake Pokemon-
Outsped and a critical hit on that Thunderbolt. Masterful, E. coli. You truly are an awesome monster.
E. coli also one-shotted this damn snake!
But against this legendary-stat robot man, though, E. coli didn't quite survive. Urayne apparently has Overheat, which one-shots my poor bacteria boy.
To be fair, he took out two out of five of Curie's Pokemon!
What happens now? We lost!
CRAZY LAUGHING
CRAZY BAD GUY SPEECH
Okay, that's actually cool. It's not just a black-out, it's an actual alternate 'bad ending' thing going on, because Curie isn't a polite sort like most Pokemon baddies who's going to wait for the protagonist to run back to a Pokemon Center and return to try and stop the doomsday plan. That's kinda cool.
"Game over, man, game over!"
Okay, that's interesting! That's a genuinely challenging fight, and one that I perhaps could've made some better decisions in... that's a neat little boss battle, though, even if the gameplay and story leading up to the Curie fight could've been a lot smoother and executed better.
Current and final team:
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