Pearl is being delivered today. It's the one I bought way back in the day so I didn't even look at the differences.
I'm doing a blind (ish as it's a remake) hardcore Soul Link with my brother so it'll be a disaster.
Pearl is being delivered today. It's the one I bought way back in the day so I didn't even look at the differences.
I'm doing a blind (ish as it's a remake) hardcore Soul Link with my brother so it'll be a disaster.
I've got my copy too but seeing as I bought Shin Megami Tensei V last week, Pokemon will be my reward for beating it on Hard mode.
Went for Diamond in the end and I couldn't say no to Chimchar.
Finally got to start our Soul Link tonight after Amazon fucked my brother about so much he cancelled and downloaded it.
We've always done our Soul Links a bit different to the norm- if we get a dual type Pokemon we choose which type it counts as (rather than just using the primary type). When it evolves we can also change the typing if we choose to. All the other normal rules apply- we can't over level the gym leader, we can't heal in battle, if a pokemon dies it's gone along with it's partner. We also can't have the same types across both teams once the types have been chosen (such as below you'll see we both have Geodude... but one is classed as a Rock and the other a Ground type).
Current Pairs in our team (mine listed first):
Chimchar (Fire) and Turtwig (Grass)
Bidoof (Normal) and Shinx (Electric)
Kricketune (Bug) and Abra (Psychic)
Geodude (Rock) and Zubat (Poison)
Machop (Fighting) and Geodude (Ground)
Back up pairs:
Starly (Flying) and Bidoof (Normal)
Shinx (Electic) and Budew (Poison)
Zubat (Flying) and Onix (Ground)
Obviously, he's fucking destroying me when it comes to who has the better team. We opted to keep my Bidoof instead of his in the hopes of getting me a water type for the first gym only to realise it evolves at Level 15 and so won't gain the water type in time.... After that we hoped I would be the one to land Budew but no such luck. It was looking like the first gym was going to be hell for me, and i'd have to hope my Monferno was enough despite being weak to rock... but then I landed Machop as the last encounter before the gym who legitimately could be a run saver. At some point I'm sure there will be an argument as to whether him having Alakazam is good enough to warrant me keeping Kricketune around....
We haven't done the first gym yet but the plan for tomorrow will be to get the teams to Level 14 and hope it's enough.
Oh and we absolutely should have lost at least one team member in the mine. My bunch of shit munchers running into a Level 9 Machop who had revenge and was critting all the time due to Focus Energy took some miracles to get around. Fortunately, Kricketune proved his worth and pounded it to death.
Last edited by Browning; 21-11-2021 at 01:10 AM.
Well attempt 1 fails at Gardenia because my brother is a cunt who couldn't be bothered to grind before Gardenia and thought she'd be easy on the basis his drastically under levelled Murkrow had beaten her junior trainers with ease and he had Alakazam (low levelled and only knowing Confusion) and Grotle (at the level cap but with only Bullet Seed and Bite to deal damage) in reserve. He got the shit beat out of him and I was fuming at him for rushing in without consulting me. He could have grinded and had a Gyarados and a Golbat for the fight but yea...... stunned he was so stupid.
We'll go again but I'm fuming. If he refuses to grind next time I'll be continuing my original run as a Nuzlocke instead.
Attempt 2 was going fine until he decided that instead of joining me on the route to Gardenia he was going to go explore every building in the city... and he got into a trainer battle with a Level 18 Chatot. It's total bullshit to have that there when the trainers on the next route (where you're supposed to go) are still using Level 7s.... but it is what it is. He wanted to ignore it but I just can't out of fear we'd actually win the run and it would be clouded by ignoring that.
I feel like we've learnt some valuable lessons on how to construct the teams (his team had a massive flying weakness, not that I think it mattered with that level difference) but it is getting frustrating. I think unless the next attempt goes seriously far, I'll just do a Nuzlocke on my own. I can't really blame him too hard on this one though, having a trainer that strong at that point in the game is pretty bollocks.
Attempt 3 has gone much better and we had no deaths through Maylene. That couldn't last though and the Wake split has resulted in me losing 3 mons for us. Firstly I was training up a Budew to try and get Roselia for the gym but thanks to the level cap being 30 2 gyms running I didn't have any of my good Pokemon with me.... this shouldn't be an issue picking off a random Fisherman who leads with a Magikarp..... except he then pulled out a Gyarados. I expected my squad of shit munchers to wipe right there, but thanks to Staravia (who was also part of my Wake strategy) firing off 3 intimidates, we limited the damage to just Budew and Staravia drying before I took it out with Rock Tomb from Sudowoodo. Still, those were 2 of the 3 mons I planned to use against Wake, so my plans were in tatters.
The new plan was to grind up a level 4 Magikarp I had in the box and evolve it into a Gyarados. Then my Luxray would take out his Gyarados before I swapped to my own Gyarados and set up Substitute/Double Team and then beat him down slowly with Crunch. This was going to plan until his Quagsire pulled out Haze and removed my Double Teams. He was also 2 shotting my substitutes and not missing at all, which wasn't ideal. Eventually Gyarados took out Quagsire but with only 1 Double Team set up. Floatzal took out my sub while I set up a 2nd double team but no luck and his Ice Fang killed Gyarados. Not the greatest loss as it was paired with a shit Meditite he has never used and I'd only bought it into the team this evening. Luxio came back out and one shot Floatzal with Spark.
That could have gone a lot worse but he hasn't battled Wake yet and I'm not not confident in his Thunderbolt on Clefairy strategy. We'll see....
Soul links sound like a right pain in the arse if the other person is just yeeting their pokemon into the grinder half the time
I've just started getting back in to some rom hacks - played Flora Sky which is meant to be one of the best, but I found it kind of a slog, and not very clear on where to go most of the time. Stuck with it until I beat the Champion but i gave up on all the postgame stuff & I've just started Radical Red instead, which seems amazing early on.
There's a part of me that's debating getting a Switch when Legends comes out, but we'll see.
I’ve given up on Sword/Shield cos it was too complicated compared to the likes of Emerald, which was the last one I played.
What’s the newest version that doesn’t have Dynamax and a load of other added confusion? Am I safe to get balls deep into Brilliant Diamond?
I'm a twit
Yea, Brilliant Diamond is safe enough. It's a remake of the game after Emerald so you should be fine.
And yea, those first 2 attempts at the Soul Link had me fuming, but luckily, he seemed to have learned from it. I've devised the cuntiest strategy yet for Fantina.... just hoping he can find something equally unfair to use at the same time. Blissey really is going to start earning his spot in the team at last.
Fantina was way more stressful than she needed to be...
My ultimate cunt strategy was devised after realising her lead Pokemon only had Fly as a physical attack. This meant it was easy to set up Blissey who was immune to her Ghost move and thus could only be fit by Fly. I used substitute (and it's lucky I did in hindsight) and then protected on the turns where Fly would hit whilst setting up Minimize on the other turns. In hindsight, I should have set up Calm Mind.... as once the set up was done I only had 10pp on Psychic to hit her with. I kind of thought it wouldn't be enough but I wasn't expecting to need 4 to take out Drifblim. Gengar went down in 2 easily enough but Mismagius had Magical Leaf which doesn't miss and made my minimize strategy redundant. It did however take 4 hits to break my sub so it clearly wasn't a threat. Calm Mind over Minimise likely made this a free win.... but I went the wrong way and ran out of PP for Psychic with her Mismagius on the brink of death, which she then of course Hyper Potioned off and I could do nothing with Blissey. I stalled her as long as I could hoping she would run out of PP and then swapped into Crobat who resisted most of her attacks.... but she confused him. Still, my team was too strong for one Pokemon to cause too many issues and once I switched to Luxray and he paralysed her with Spark the path to victory opened up and Crobat was able to come back in and finish her off, with Blissey still serving a purpose of blocking Phantom Force (why the fuck does she have that over Shadow Ball). A win with no losses, but more stressful than I expected. My original plan was to use Charge Beam as the attacking move but seemingly that's not obtainable until the 8th gym... and my back up choice was Shadow Ball which I thought was on sale but wasn't.
She was an easy Dragon Dance-Gyarados sweep for my brother so we continue with no losses and pretty well established teams now:
Me: Infernape (Fire), Blissey (Normal), Crobat (Flying), Golem (Rock), Luxray (Electric), Misdreavus (Ghost)
Him: Torterra (Grass), Mr Mime (Psychic), Golem (Ground), Crobat (Poison), Gyarados (Water), Murkow (Dark)
Does feel like I'm missing out big time not having a Gyarados in my own team but we'd have to bin off the Crobat's to fit him in as a Flying type. I'm also guaranteed to be able to get Garchomp once we have access to Strength so that'll probably force changes too.
Byron's gym was again a lot more stressful than it needed to be....
Due to not trusting Infernape to tank STAB EQ from Steelix I was training up my Meditite which evolved into Medicham... my brother rushed off and beat the gym without me as he knew Torterra would demolish it. I then asked him if there was anything in the gym I needed to worry about or if I could solo the gym trainers with just Medicham/Infernape as everyone else was approaching the level cap (the EXP share is a REAL cunt as it stops you having your full party with you for safety when grinding). He told me there wasn't.... conveniently forgetting the Azumarill the last trainer her. We should have wiped right there but Infernape was able to finish it but Medicham died, taking with it his best Pokemon Clefable. Maybe he should have warned me....
This killed off my Plan A for the gym (solo it with Drain Punch Medicham) so I had to turn to plan B.... Substitute/Minimize/Calm Mind/Flamethrower Blissey. Stupidly, despite going out of my way to get Calm Mind, I forgot to teach it. The strategy would have worked but after getting his final mon to red health and burned he full restored it twice leading to Blissey running out of PP for Flamethrower... the 2nd gym in a row where this has been a problem (albeit if I remembered Calm Mind, it wouldn't have been). He had also Iron Defensed to the max so without a crit Infernape wasn't getting anywhere. In the end I had to gamble, sending in my last remaining special attacker (Misdreavus) who landed a clutch Sp Def drop with his first Shadow Ball and KOed with his 2nd... which was lucky as he couldn't live another turn. No casualties in the gym, but Clefable is a massive loss.
You bastardSub-minimize Chansey sounds like the most disgusting tactic possible. Teams look solid though.
Radical Red is brutally hard - the gym leaders are basically maxed out on their EVs & IVs, and they all seem to hit like trucks & take no damage from super effective hits.
You basically have to counter team each gym, and level everything up to the cap to have a chance, which kinda takes away some of the fun of being able to use whatever team you want, but everything else about it is pretty cool, so I’ll keep grinding away.
I finally beat Misty, after probably about 15 hours of using DexNav to seek out pokemon with specific moves/abilities, grinding them all the way up to the lv27 soft cap, then going & getting hammered, doing some more digging & repeating the process.
Eventually got to the point where I basically had a step by step process for the first 5-10 moves of the game (lead with Clefairy teleport out to my Mightyena as they flip turn out to Starmie, sucker punch it to death, etc), then had to hope I could finish the job. Gonna get started on the road to Surge now, but I get the feeling I'll be repeating the process for every gym battle
I don't really have a team as such, but the lv27 squad is currently:
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Nope, I smoked Surge - almost beat him first try with a team of guys I was training up in case I needed them, but I made one misplay at the end that cost me the game. He was blown back with little trouble shortly afterwards though.
I’d caught a Numel earlier on & had it sitting in my box, so levelled that up on the way to the gym & it ripped through half the team on its own. Mightyena is still proving valuable just for sucker punch, and having a Lanturn with volt absorb gave me a nice pivot to be able to come in on something & flip turn out to a more dangerous mon. I also had Lucario, Pangoro & Donphan in there, which gave me a nice load of priority to be able to call on in an emergency, it they were barely needed at all.
This one feels like a huge win after Misty, and now things are starting to fully evolve & learn better moves it feels like we might be able to compete on more even terms with the gym leaders going forward. Having said that, we’ll probably just get stomped again next time out.
Erika was much closer to Misty than Surge in difficulty - Mega Venusaur took me down the first few times, then when I did manage to get pas that her contrary Serperior smashed me.
It took a few attempts & some messing around with the team, but managed to beat her pretty convincingly after a handful of attempts.
The team keeps changing all the time, and the squad is only getting bigger, but it does seem like everything will come in handy sooner or later.
Pokeball catch rates in BDSP have been nerfed I'm sure of it.
On Sword/Shield quick balls were ridiculously good, now they rarely ever work and ultra balls are useless.
Trying to catch Mesprit and his/her friends has been painful.
I’ve been continuing to chip away at Radical Red, with the whole Rocket Interlude of Celadon Game Corner, Silph Co & Lavender Tower now being out the way.
There’s a 2v2 battle before the Silph Giovanni fight that was up there with Misty as the toughest battle in the game - you partner with one of the other friend characters & all their pokemon just exist to make things worse, so that one took ages to luck in to, then the Giovanni fight was pretty tricky too, until I decided to just counter his weather with my own, which got the job done pretty quickly.
I’ve also since cleared through Saffron, slapping the poor fighting gym with Mega Alakazam as you get the mega ring once you’ve finished Silph. Sabrina was a cool battle as it’s done in doubles format, and once I figured out the correct strategy for the first turn the rest of the battle went pretty smoothly.
Just finished the trip to Fuschia & done some more grinding to make some more money etc.
The squad is huge, but there are a few who have been putting in a lot of work in the tough battles:
Lv68 Cinderace - pyro ball, high jump kick, u-turn, sucker punch
Lv68 Alakazam - psychic, shadow ball, dazzling gleam, nasty plot
Lv67 Sableye - foul play, shadow ball, will-o-wisp, recover
Lv66 Toxapex - scald, venoshock, baneful bunker, rest
Lv59 Mightyena - crunch, jaw lock, poison fang, sucker punch
Let it be known that Mesprit and the whole tracking thing is a real cunt.
Fuck that little twat.
Managed to finish off the main game of Radical Red. Sadly there's no post game content yet beyond rematching all the gym leaders/elite 4, so just working my way through those & then I guess I'll have to find something else to play
Koga isn't a poison trainer in this, he's a ninja speed guy, so all his pokemon are super fast. Took a couple of goes to beat him but he wasn't too bad. Blaine was a sun team, and was seen off relatively easily, then after a quick side quest at Cerulean Cave it was back to Viridian to see off the final dragon gym - Toxapex & Ferrothorn just lolled half of their team away so that was easier than expected, especially as they had wild shit like Dialga & Eternatus.
Elite 4 was surprisingly easy once I figured out I should just run a rain team - took a few goes to beat the first one whilst I faffed about with the team, but once that was sorted I swept through the whole thing in one go, and should have beat the Champion first time too, but I needlessly sacked two pokemon then couldn't beat their last pokemon. Had to play that one a couple more times, but it wasn't too bad.
There were a few pokemon who put in some serious work during the back half of the game:
Mega Swampert - basically destroyed 60% of the elite four on its own under rain.
Toxapex & Ferrothorn - just a great defensive combo. Toxapex in particular is almost impossible to kill
Dragapult - the best pokemon you can buy from the Celadon Game Corner. It's just a fantastic, versatile offensive mon with a really nice move pool to be able to do a lot of different things if needed
Cinderace - libero cinderace is easily better than protean greninja in this. It's got a great move pool to hit much harder whilst still being fast
All in all it's a fantastic hack, just needs some post game stuff added in an update to give it some extra longevity. Misty was definitely the hardest battle in the game, although the rocket admin double battle with Brendan was also tough because you're paired with a moron who just makes everything harder.
Doing my first ever nuzlocke on fire red, I got as far as victory road before finally cheating. My graveyard box has about 10 pokemon, some were painful losses, but I just had my nidoking KOed by a fucking wild marowak, and I've just gone you know what, fuck it, that's my one freebie. For a first ever run-through, I don't feel too bad.
I also just savescummed the elite 4, but I did it knowing I was going to lose and didn't bother prepping items etc, I just wanted to get a feel of how hard it is/how far off I am. Based on fucking BRUNO doing me in, quite far, lol.
Brunogenuinely one of the worst trainers in the series.
Originally Posted by Browning
Brunoyeah it wasn't ideal
this was fun though, i love my shitty gen 3 team
https://replay.pokemonshowdown.com/gen3ou-1484128774
SD/Shadow Ball Absol? Had the physical/special split not happened by gen 3 & all ghost moves were physical or were you just playing someone running janky sets?
The former.
Physical/Special split happened in Gen 4.
Makes sense. Everything before Black & White is all one big mess to me - I thought they split in gen 2
My main problem I'm having with nuzlockes, aside from obviously losing pokemon to careless mistakes/lack of preparation, is that I've always played the games in a England and Wales Cricket Board way of "playing to their strengths", e.g. just training the best STAB moves, rather than engaging in any kind of horses for courses pragmatism.
I've just got to the dragon gym on HG, and realised my Golem, Magcargo, Meganium and Gengar, without any ice or dragon moves are a bit useless. I should probably just train one of them blizzard but it just feels a bit...wrong?
https://pokescents.com
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I'm a twit
Legends: Arceus is here, so will be giving it a bash on stream if anyone is interested to see what its like.
My copy isn't coming until Monday
I’ve got it, just starting now. I know nothing about it; obvs going the grass one.
I went with Rowlet too. I'm loving it so far, once they let me run around uninhibited.
It has an odd tone. Been sent off to face what they acted like was certain death and then, having been established I’m 15, so a child, been slapped to the floor by some fella who’s now my boss apparently!
Made some good progress today. Reached Fourth Star Member status, picked up a Gastrodon and Golbat, and came across a number of Alpha Pokemon which I can't yet beat. Can also fast travel now, which will make things much easier.
I've not really made any progress but I've barely had time to play. I have mixed feelings so far. One of my side missions is to find a Buizel who is at least 2'8 tall and there's no fucking way to tell which ones are even in the ball park. I've caught about 30 of the fuckers now, of which about 8 of them were "big" versions and not one of them is that tall....
Isn't that the same as the Magikarp guy in Gold and Silver? A nice thing I've come across was a Pichu and Pikachu frolicking around in the middle of nowhere. And a Chimchar too near the 2nd base camp, but that ran away before I could chuck a ball at it. I definitely like the sense of exploration, when making my way to the first proper boss (Kricketune doesn't count), I took the route which led me on the other side of the Horseshoe plains and through a cave littered with Machop. So good.
Maybe but gold and silver were 20 years ago and we’ve had games in the meantime where they indicated which Pokemon were bigger (let’s go) so there isn’t really an excuse for this.
Thinking about it, all my Buizels were exactly the same size so it must be to do with the Alpha Pokemon, the ones with the red eyes, which are clearly bigger. I've come across an Alpha Ponyta and Abra now, so my thinking is that every single Pokemon can be Alpha, therefore Buizel can too. I'll let you know if I find one.
I don’t think it is. My Buizel’s so far range from about 1’4 to 2’7.... just an inch off. They just don’t look any different.
Passed by Gamestop yesterday but they were sold out. Thought it would be fun for the weekend, but not sure that I will bother. Shield was a bit disappointing, tbh.
It came today \0/.My copy isn't coming until Monday
Cleared out the second area today. Had a bit of trouble with the last Noble Pokemon as you must use dodge and my reflexes aren't what they used to be. Still loving the game, especially that feeling when a cheeky Pokeball in the back of a strong Alpha Pokemon nabs it. The side quests are interesting, the new Pokemon designs are useful if a bit ugly (Decidueye I'm looking at you) and there's plenty to do.
The team:
Decidueye
Crobat
Wyrdeer
Luxray
Shiny Rapidash
Gastrodon
I was on a ridge and saw a shinx, I lobbed a ball down at it but it moved at the last minute. I thought I was fine as it can't get up there but the little shit starting lobbing electric balls at me.
Quality game.
So last night I decided to abandon my Buizel quest and just crack on for an hour or so. It was so much better doing that. I managed to catch a fair few mons, take down the first Noble, also take down one of those red eyed cunts... and on my way back I caught a few Buizel's and one of them was 2'8
I'm ready for them to take the main series in this direction. I think the thing that will ultimately hurt this game is not having Gyms/a league etc. I don't think you could get away with too many games in this story style, but if you could combine this with a proper story it would be the best Pokemon game ever.
A lot of QOL steps forward too, such as being able to Nickname/Evolve/Re-learn moves at will without having to go to a specific cunt who does them for you. Unfortunately getting rid of the pocket PC feels like 2 steps back, but if we can have all of those things in one game we're laughing.
Found an "Alpha" Rapdiash who is at level 40.
Fucker OHKO'd my Oshawott before I could run although he then tried to chase me.
That stops being a problem once you can ride the deer thing, you can run away much easier.
Yeah I'm still early in and pissing around with bidoofs, starlys and shinxs.
Caught the prick today by sneaking up on it and throwing a great ball at it's back.
Also that Buizel mission is shit.
It took my 34th Buizel to be 2"8'.
I even found an Alpha Buizel but I accidentally knocked it out.
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