Pokemon Moon Text LP: Part 20 (Patreon)

Prepare for a short and substanceless update here. Basically this is the result of me seeing that some major stuff is about to happen, but not having the time or ability to actually go through it while taking notes, so instead I decided to put it off as much as possible. You know, because I've never done that before.

To start off, I'll be picking up from where I left off last time, saved in Vast Poni Canyon before a series of trainers. I sure did fight them. Yup. Not really a whole lot to say about that part, but I do remember the last guy causing me to reset due to some bad luck. But that's about all I can say on that subject. And for that matter, that's the only non-wild Pokemon combat you'll be seeing here. Well, technically. Because you see, the cave entrance in front of them has some trial gates on the side of it, meaning that there's a surprise trial coming up. Will this be the one set up by Mina, who showed up briefly and did nothing of consequence? As far as I can tell, no. It's just kind of ... there.

After switching up the team and such (always gotta have the ones that need experience the most, you know), I head into the cave and find a little stone pillar thing with a message on it, basically just saying that to pass, you must complete the trial. Funnily enough, I had worked that out on my own. Still no idea who's running it though. After taking a few steps in, I shortly get set upon by a Jangmo-o. It, unsurprisingly, doesn't offer much of a challenge. It does, however, drop a Heart Scale after being defeated, which is kinda weird. After beating it, I also gain access to a small alcove with the TM for Dragon Claw just kinda chillin' out. I mean, I guess so. Nobody on the team can learn it, so whatevs.

A few more steps down the hallway and I get attacked by a Hakamo-o. Definitely didn't see that one coming, nope. It falls about as easily as the first one did, and I move on to the end of the very short trial area, where the Z-Crystal can be found on a pedestal. I'm gonna give three guesses as to what'll happen here:

A) I collect the crystal and nothing happens, the trial is already over.

B) The crystal turns out to be Lock Capsule, which I have to transfer backwards to Black/White and use it to get the Snarl TM. Doing this randomly unlocks the Hall of Origin in Pokemon Plaid version, which will be released next year, but for it to work, you'll need to buy the special bluetooth adaptor to sync up the two games.

C) A Kommo-o attacks and it's the Totem Pokemon of the area.

So yeah, Totem battle, and it gets a +1 buff to all stats, much like the previous ones. Kinda surprised it's not anything stronger than that, actually. I lead with Lena and go for Dazzling Gleam immediately, since it's 4x weak to that. Unfortunately it uses Protect on the first turn, and summons a Hakamo-o for help. Well whatever, I do it again the next turn. This is a one-hit KO on the summoned help, and takes the Totem down to about 40%. I get hit with a Flash Cannon, which does only about 25%. On the next turn, as I probably should have expected, it uses Protect again and summons more help, but this time it's a Scizor. That's actually somewhat interesting to see, and would be slightly threatening in many other situations. However, the Scizor is stupid and uses Leer instead of something actually dangerous, and another Dazzling Gleam finishes the Kommo-o off. At this point, Lena's actually taken a fair amount of damage, since she got hit with a Sky Uppercut before the KO, but I stay in anyway out of stubbornness. Scizor uses Metal Claw, I survive with 1 HP due to the Refresh benefit, and Scizor goes down to a Sparkling Aria. Easy peasy, didn't even have to switch Pokes.

And with that, the Dragonium Z is mine. That actually means the only Z-crystal left (the only typed one, anyway, since I know there's several Pokemon-specific ones) is the Ice one. Oh, Gamefreak. You sure do overestimate the power of Ice types, it's kind of sad really. There's never been a game with an Ice gym that was earlier than the 7th one, they're extremely rare to find early in the game (the earliest I can think of is the random gift Lapras in X/Y that you get after the 3rd gym), and yet the type is still fairly underpowered. I dun get it.

The area after this cave, as far as I can tell, is going to be definite progress and the start of a whole bunch of climactic story stuffs, so this is where the actual progression stops. Yeah, after about 20 minutes of gameplay. So here's a summary of everything else I did just for the sake of record-keeping. I won't claim that any of it is really that interesting.

After checking Pokemon locations and such, I found that there's apparently a hidden area in Vast Poni Canyon that I hadn't explored yet. It's accessed through a crawlspace under a tree to the left of that last line of trainers. It leads to another cave with a single trainer, the Flamethrower TM (which I'd love to teach to stuff but the only Pokemon capable of learning it is El Grapadura, who I'd prefer to stick with physical moves), and a couple new Pokemon. I also find and catch a Golduck by surfing in here, and manage to fish up a Dratini in the rippling spot. The Pokedex mentions that it was "first confirmed to exist" after a fisherman caught one following a ten-hour struggle. Gotta love how stuff is actually way more common than how it's described, at times.

It's around this time that I decide to go after some more Pokemon that I haven't caught yet, since any extra levels that I gain from doing so will probably be appreciated in the coming sections. This includes the Weather SOS exclusive stuff, which is one of the most annoying mechanics imaginable. My first step here is to get the Damp Rock and Icy Rock to elongate the weather moves, and I find that they're available in the "Community Center" back in Malie City. ... Huh, I have no idea what that is, actually. So I go back to find it, and sure enough, there's just an entire building next to the library that I never explored and never realized it existed in the first place.

It's still pretty unimpressive though. There's a room with people selling stuff, including a young bab who is trying to sell a Dusk Stone (not going to bother, though I am curious if his stock changes after buying it) and a pink girl selling really expensive shoes that are also fairly ugly. I'll pass. I do come across someone who gives me all four of the weather stones (one by one, may I add) after answering very easy questions about them. So with that obtained, along with the TMs for Rain Dance and Hail (purchased from the Pokemon Center in Royal Avenue), I can begin the GRAND HUNT.

First is Goomy. It appears in a few areas, and can only appear if another Pokemon calls for help while it's raining. So yeah. Route 17 is one of the areas it can be caught in, and it's always raining there, so that should be pretty easy. But I'm the worst person ever and actually care about getting stuff in the earliest location possible, so I specifically want to get one in the Lush Jungle. It was moderately annoying, but that THAT bad overall. Probably took about 20 minutes if I had to guess.

While working on finding and catching the Goomy, I was lucky enough to realize that Vinny was streaming Pokemon, so that was the last thing I did that night, since I wanted to take part in the Wonder Trade stuff and hope to get lucky. Predictably, I was not. I'll go ahead and list what I did get, though:

- A Japanese Mimikyu. It's Jolly and was hatched from an egg. Might have good IVs, but I have no idea.

- A Chinese Magnemite. Fairly bland in all other respects, but the OT is B I L I ♂ [smiley face in a square], which is pretty good.

- A Rattata that is unremarkable in all ways. OT is "stitch".

- A hatched Comfey. Bashful (neutral nature). OT is "Ardi".

- A hatched Gastly. Timid, and allegedly 31 IVs for HP, Defense, Special Defense, and Speed. OT is "Despair".

- A hatched Cleffa named "BEP BEP BEP" with an OT of "LEMMONBEATLE". I find this one kinda interesting because I'm pretty sure this person did manage to get through to Vinny in one of the previous Wonder Trade sessions, so this is like, one step away on the Bacon Scale or whatever.

- A hatched Beldum. Impish, no idea if that's a good nature for it. OT is "Ruby".

- A Spanish Salandit. It's male, so yeah, it's trash. OT is "Axebrín".

- A Chinese Machop that is once again unremarkable aside from the language. OT is "BLACK*", with the * at the end being an actual star shape.

Overall nothing all that great, but I'll keep 'em anyway just for the heck of it. I've not released any Pokemon yet and I'm kinda curious if I'll ever actually need to. Depends on if I start breeding for good stats in the postgame, I guess. Oh, and after the Wonder Trading segment of the stream was over, I managed to find and catch a Vanillite in Tapu Village. Having to constantly reuse the weather moves sure is fun, I tell ya hwhat.

On the next day (Sunday the 18th), I made no progress other than catching some more Pogeys: Lycanroc (Midnight Form), Umbreon, Garbodor, Pangoro, Electabuzz, and Poliwhirl. Poliwhirl's noteworthy for being another Weather SOS exclusive, and also for taking FOREVER to show up. I swear it took me at least three hours, and I wonder if the problem is because I was trying to chain off of Pokemon other than Poliwag. It really shouldn't matter as far as I can tell, since the Weather SOS stuff isn't based on species, but I can't understand why it would have taken so long otherwise. To skip ahead a bit, I started looking for Politoed a couple days later, and ran into like 10 Poliwhirls without even trying. More on that later though.

The next day, I caught Gengar, Sliggoo, Dragonair, and Kommo-o, meaning that I've caught every possible wild Pokemon except for Poliwrath and Politoed. They're uh... they're pretty freaking awful. In addition to being Weather SOS Pokemon, they also have about a 1% appearance rate according to Bulbapedia, and better yet, Politoed is notorious (with me personally, at least) for being a complete arse to catch. Mainly because it knows Perish Song, which will end the battle in three turns if it decides to use it. It's this combination of awfulness that made me decide to not really bother going after them yet.

... Until the next day, that is. I did try a bit to find one. I didn't succeed. Gengar was enough of a nightmare on its own, with the insanely low encounter rate that it had going on (no worse than Snorlax or Salamence, honestly, but the Haunters also did a ton of damage and didn't have very much PP, making the process more annoying than it needed to be), so when you add the other crap on top of this, they're just thoroughly awful. I will try to get them eventually, but not now. And for anyone else attempting this, I'd like to recommend bringing a Pokemon with the Soundproof ability so Politoed can't use Perish Song. I personally am too stubborn to use anything other than a dedicated team member (up to this point I've managed to avoid getting a single exp point on any other Pokemon in my PC, so I'd like to see how long I can keep that going), so I'm going with Taunt instead, but that's not quite as reliable since it wears off after a few turns.

But yeah, that's it. I'm fully aware that this was a useless update, and it was kind of meant to be one. Next time, story progression. Probably a lot of it.

Current status:

http://i.imgur.com/0A7am3P.png