Sunday, May 25, 2014

Pokemon Black 2: The Chronicles of Izalith #8

Since last time, I made it through the scenes following the last gym with Team Plasma and some story about the Unova Dragons, Reshiram and Zekrom, and onwards through the Marine Tube to the town with the final gym, Humilau City. Its actually quite a small amount of content in between these gyms, well perhaps compared to last time (as I did a lot of grinding and spent time catching 2 out of 3 of those 'lion' pokemon: Cobalion, Virizion and the one I've not found yet - Terrakion?)

Anyway, I had also looked through the nearby cave, Seaside Cave, as the gym leader in Humilau wasn't in. Confused as to where to go, I mess around for a while finding hidden items and trainers for some battles. Eventually, I find the gym leader. He was off swimming like an idiot somewhere.

Before I take on the gym, I thought I'd talk about some more recent news, which came out a while back. People in the pokemon community have long been requesting remakes of Ruby and Sapphire, and I thought they would eventually come out, after all, we have seen remakes of Red (as Fire Red, GBA), Green (as Leaf Green, GBA), Gold and Silver (as Heart Gold and Soul Silver respectively, on the DS).The remakes of Ruby and Sapphire will be coming out in November 2014 apparently. People are on the whole happy about this, but some people are saying it is a bit of a lazy, perhaps even desperate move for a quick cash in... I don't really care about the details to be honest, as long as I can play one of these games again.
They will be called Alpha Sapphire and Omega Ruby - Link to some cool reminders of what makes the Hoenn region an awesome world to set these games in. I do kind of hope that it adds something new to the formula and doesn't just faithfully rehash Ruby and Sapphire, however saying that, I really liked Sapphire and Emerald and played a lot of these games, so any opportunity to go back to the third generation will be really fun I reckon. There isn't a lot of info out there yet - but there is plenty of speculation so far about mega evolutions and stuff. Check out youtube and keep an eye out on sites like Serebii if you want to keep up with any announcements.

My team is now fairly strong, but not complete in terms of evolution just yet. Before taking on the gym, my team looks like this: Krookodile "Terra" lv49, Lucario "Genji" lv49, Sigilyph "Horus" lv49, Lampent "Vorpal" lv51, Magnezone "Iron Giant" lv53, Samurott "Barioth" lv51. I need to learn a few more moves with Lampent before I evolve it to the final evolution, Chandelure.

Gym #8 - Water

This is a cool gym in terms of theme and layout. Then again, I'm a fan of water pokemon and environments. The first lily pad on the left brings me over to a platform where I fight the first trainer. They have a Floatzel lv47, which hits my Magnezone pretty hard with Aqua Tail and outspeeds him a lot, but once I switch in and get Discharge off its not too much of a problem. I'll need to remember how fast and strong Floatzel can be if the boss turns out to have one.
The next trainer has an Alomomola lv48 as a lone pokemon. I managed to find one of these as a wild pokemon on a dark shimmery bit of water, so I remember they are fairly bulky. For this reason I put up Light Screen with Horus, and expected to potentially need two attacks with Iron Giant to KO it. But once I switch in, Discharge takes it out in one thankfully.
The next trainer has a Walrein lv48, which I switch from Horus into Iron Giant again. He uses Swagger on me, which is slightly annoying and always makes me reconsider, and switching again just to avoid damage from hitting myself. Not this time though, I decide I might as well stay in, and I hit myself and then take damage from Ice Fang. Next turn is the same, hitting myself and another Ice Fang, bringing Magnezone down to 38 HP smh...I go for a Hyper Potion, and next turn I finally get a Discharge away, getting rid of another trainer.
Next up is an Ace Trainer (one of the stronger types of trainer in certain games, so perhaps this will be challenging) with a Pelipper lv47. I start off with Lucario "Genji" and go for two Swords Dances back to back to start off with, whereas the Pelipper goes for Stockpile and then Spit Up, so boosted his defense and then damaging me slightly with Spit Up. Pelipper is another cool pokemon that reminds me of third gen, like Walrein previously. Pretty nostalgic...I remember playing Sapphire on holiday one time ages ago. I think we were in this area in the South of France with these amazing lakes that look like this, yeah playing vidya gaems on holiday lol...probably one reason I am as pale as some subterranean troglodyte.
Aaannyway, I go for Force Palm now that I've got a few boosts of my attack with Genji. This does about 70% and paralyses the Pelipper. Even though the Pelipper went for another Stockpile, Force Palm finishes him off. The damage output wasn't as good as I'd hoped, perhaps due to the water/flying typing. But I think I'll stay in against the next poke, Wailord lv47. I go straight for the Force Palm to see how it goes, and maybe it was the Flying typing keeping the damage down, because Force Palm oneshots the Wailord this time around. Much better! On to the next trainer now, and hopefully I'm getting near the end of the gym, as it doesn't look like the lilypad rafts allow  me to backtrack (to heal T_T) Even though my HP across my team is looking good at the moment, I think I'll need to heal before the leader.
Next pokemon trainer up is in the middle of the gym, and starts off with a Basculin lv46. I start off with Horus and go straight for Psychic, screw setting up the shields as normal hehehe... This takes the Basculin down to around 20 or so percent. He gets away a Scary Face attack against me, and if I remember rightly, this drastically reduces the speed of your pokemon. I try to go for Psychic, and I get outsped by Double-Edge and this does almost half my health. After making a series of mistakes, I get past this next Basculin. His last pokemon is an Azumarill (yay! something I like, and in fact, I've bred a 5IV egg move, hidden ability Marill for XY battling if I ever get around to that stuff) The Azumarill goes and sets up Rain Dance, and a previous Soak attack from Basculin means my Discharge with Iron Giant doesn't quite oneshot it. Maybe due to the lack of STAB now. Need to remember that these Marill family pokemon always seem to carry Superpower, that can hit Iron Giant fairly hard.
The next trainer has a Golduck lv47 and a Starmie lv47 I think. I set up Light Screen and then switch in to Magnezone, and Discharge makes short work of this team. Onwards! When is this gym gonna end...
Ok, so that was actually the trainer before the gym leader, so this is the end apparantely! Once we get this badge, on to the Elite 4 and the end of the game.
The gym leader starts off with a Carracosta lv49. (Makes me wonder if we actually get a Fossil pokemon given to us in this game, I can't remember how it works) I start off with Horus lv49, and I'm not liking this matchup at the moment...considering the benefits of the screen though.. Yeah, I go for Reflect, however the Carracosta goes for Shell Smash, an attack I really like. It puts down the Def and Sp.Def stats by one stage but sharply ups the Attack, Special Attack and Speed of the Carracosta. From here, I go into Genji, however that switch doesn't go well....it took my health down to 30 and burned me with Scald. So I won't be able to set up Calm Minds/Swords Dances with Lucario it looks like...I will probably also be outsped unfortunately. I go for Force Palm anyway, hoping he'll do something dumb. Hmm, I actually outsped the Carracosta and did less than half its health...even with defense down? I might have to revive Lucario and see if I can do some damage to Carracosta...I blame the burn for nuking my attack stat. I managed to get in a Revive and then survive a Scald with Magnezone to finish Carracosta off. Next pokemon is a Wailord lv49, which I think I'll stay in against with Iron Giant. Discharge manages to oneshot this beastly HP pokemon (it has terrible defense stats to make up for it, and I think this makes it a fairly weak pokemon overall.) His next pokemon is a Jellicent lv51, a Pokemon I quite like. Its a Ghost/Water pokemon, and has two different forms, one for male and one for female. I decide to switch in Terra and hope that I can outrun it, going for Crunch. Terra does manage to go first, and thankfully oneshots the Jellicent. And that is it! Once I got past that Carracosta which I thought was going to sweep my entire team the last gym battle wasn't too bad.

Play Time - 107:00
Pokedex - Obtained: 104, Seen: 202
Gym Badges - 8

Up next:
Elite 4???
I'll just do one post for the rest of the game, as this has gone on too long, taking up way too much time and space on the blog, even though I have enjoyed this wee project so far.

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