Pearl Kingslocke: Episode 15

Big rules here, little rules down there, let’s go.

I may have a bizarre Johto-only half-team, but I can still enjoy my small victories.

The owner of this house will trade ten artefact Shards of the same colour (Red, Blue, Yellow or Green) for TMs of Sunny Day, Rain Dance, Sandstorm or Hail.  We can mine Shards in the Sinnoh Underground, but to be honest I’m not really in a position to do the kind of team-building it takes to actually do anything with weather effects.

I mean, I applaud the vigilance, but you’re doing 24/7 guard duty in a swamp.

See, these rangery types have got it; they’re good at living in swamps.

Everything from Pastoria City back to Hearthome City is technically route 212, but it’s a very long route and divided into two clear halves – the southern rainy marsh in the south and the sprawling grounds of a country estate in the north, with quite different wild Pokémon in the two zones.  That means it’s time to draw a card…

And once again, it’s our good friend the Page of Cups.

Page – Never Have I Ever: Teach all of your current party Pokémon a new move from a TM (if possible, this must be a move that Pokémon has never known in the past). If some of your Pokémon can’t learn any new moves from the TMs you have, do as many as you can.

Well, I’ve only got four Pokémon, and one of them is Effie, who can’t learn anything.  Still, this might be a good chance to get some more variety in our non-STAB moves.  I did, in fact, quickly nip back to Veilstone City, so I have another Thunder TM that I could use for Divine.  The fact that Girafarig, one of the few Normal-types with good special attack, can’t learn Hyper Beam is really just an insult to everything I stand for; there isn’t much else that Otto can learn, but I suppose I could satisfy the requirement by just giving him Strength, it’s a stronger Normal attack than Stomp, although it would be nice to be able to pick something usable under the Elements rule.  And I just found a TM for Silver Wind that someone left lying around in the swamp, so that would be a decent pickup for Tiktok.  Yeah.  That’ll do.

Tiktok – Silver Wind
Otto – Strength
Divine – Thunder

ohhhhh, I get it

There’s police all over route 212 because a rich person lives here and they need to keep the area Safe from the Wrong Sort of People.

I’m nearly at Hearthome City, and it’s not night-time yet so the police won’t challenge me to battles, but I want to make one more stop before we get back: the manor house itself.

The manor’s Trophy Garden has its own selection of wild Pokémon, and later on in the game can get a rotating selection of rare Pokémon from outside Sinnoh, according to the whims of the owner of the house, Mr. Backlot.  It’s a pretty small area, but it definitely counts (I have a feeling it may be the only place in mainland Sinnoh with wild Pikachu).  So one more card…

Five – Guys: You cannot use your female Pokémon (unless you have no male or genderless Pokémon).  This rule is overwritten by drawing a Six/Chicks, and ends if you draw another Five.  You may catch the first male wild Pokémon you see in this area.

Well, that loosens things up a bit.  The Five of Swords cancels out the Five of Wands that’s already in play, so I might be able to add a couple of female Pokémon to the team – y’know, as long as they’re from Johto and have compatible natures.  And I can catch the first male Pokémon I find in the trophy garden, which is…

Sure, I’ll take a Roselia; I don’t think I have any Grass-types yet.

Now that I’m back in Hearthome City, I can take a look at the female Pokémon in my PC and see whether any of them can fit into this team.  The natures I already have are… hardy (neutral), gentle (minus defence), impish (minus special attack) and rash (minus special defence), so I’m looking for generation II Pokémon with natures that penalise attack (modest, timid, bold, calm) or speed (brave, relaxed, sassy… and… um… quiet?  I think?).  The only Johto Pokémon we’ve got are Anna (docile, so that doesn’t work – and, um… also a Girafarig, so not ideal in any case), Du Fromage (careful, that’s minus special attack, so would have to replace Tiktok) and Alexolotl – who is quiet, which is allowed, and will evolve into Quagsire very soon with a little bit of training.  Less ideal: her only un-STABed attack is Slam and we’re… uh… about to head into a Ghost-type gym.

Evolution is nice, but I don’t think I can expect any better moves unless I get a chance to use some TMs; I can’t look up Quagsire’s move list for Diamond and Pearl but I doubt there’s much on it aside from Water and Ground moves.  Nothing for it but to step into the gym and see what card we draw.

uh

hang on

Fantina’s not back yet.  Am I supposed to have done something else?  I’ve beaten Maylene and Wake, come round in a big circle and back to Hearthome City; did I miss something?

ohhhh, hang on.  Is this about that Team Galactic piece of $#!t in Pastoria City?  Y’know…

…this guy?  What’s his deal?  I talked to him before and he muttered some vague bull$#!t about blowing something up, but just kept standing there staring at the Great Marsh entrance; maybe now that I’ve beaten Wake he’ll actually do something.

This dumbass here has a mysterious package to deliver to Lake Valor, so obviously we’re going to chase him.

…phrasing.

Bird Jesus Christ, Barriam, this is not the time; I have to chase that one moron.

look, it’s fine, you can plow me later, but-

or I can plow you, sure whatever, I’m easy, we just really need to-

or both!  Both is great!  Just not right this minute!

I raised them to PLOW YOUR DAD, Barriam, shut the fµ¢£ up

Divine just missed with Thunder four times in a row, we are on a fµ¢£ing time limit here

you can

look you can just say, if you want to have sex

it’s fine

I mean dinner and a movie would be nice first, and also if we could both be, like, 5 years older? fµ¢£, I don’t know how old we are, maybe if we’re the same age it’s just fine

as mentioned though, kinda busy right now

Did you also need a bunch of random stolen Pokémon?  Also how did you blow that head start, you honest-to-god pot of rancid yoghurt?

okay so, 1) this is one reason why Charon in Platinum is a pointless character who adds nothing; Diamond and Pearl were already totally happy to attribute Team Galactic’s technology to Cyrus; and 2) “scientific genius”?  It’s a fµ¢£ing bomb, it explodes, it’s not that groundbreaking.

Just wanted to bookmark this line because of a conversation I had with someone in the comments a couple of episodes ago about how many people in Team Galactic actually know what the real plan is (seeing as Commander Saturn later claims he wasn’t in on it).  It kinda seems here like at least some of the rank-and-file grunts have heard from Cyrus himself that he wants to build a “new universe” – which I guess they could have taken figuratively, since Cyrus is prone to vague high-flown language, but it doesn’t seem to me like he was keeping his true goal all that secret, at least within the organisation.

…actually, y’know in a very literal sense I suppose it is groundbreaking.

And you made it all this way, too.

good gods, man, you just lost to an Unown; do you know how bad Unown is?  Some trainers never recover from losing to an Unown; they forsake their former lives and become typographers in Slovenia.

Press F to pay respects.

Oh good, the Champion’s here; she’ll be able to help out.

yeah, I know they said that, but they’re not, like, official guards or anything and this dude I was chasing just ran in there and-

…

You are the reason kids don’t trust adults; you understand that, right?

okay, but consider this:

fµ¢£in’… do it yourself, and I’ll break into this lake and deal with Team Galactic.

…

…yeah, I guess

Let the record show that Team Galactic was allowed to blow up a lake because Cynthia thought it was more important for the player to take some medicine to a place she was going anyway.

why, are you worried you might not be able to visit in the next three and a half minutes?

well, now we’re here

is this a new area?  does it count?  I don’t even fµ¢£in’ care, let’s draw a card, it’s not like any of these morons care what happens to their region

Two – You: You may catch one Pokémon of your choice in this area.

What is even in this area?  Is there anything I want?  Is there anything gen II?  I think the wild Pokémon here are the same as the ones on the southern part of route 210 that we’ve seen already, but change once we get further north into the foggy bit, even though it’s all still technically the same route.  Cynthia said something about “rare Pokémon” on the way to Celestic Town but I think we’ve established she’s full of $#!t, so-

AH $#!T WHERE THE Fµ¢£ DID YOU COME FROM

okay, to be fair to me, they are quite well hidden; there’s two more ninjas in this image

oh good.  Fog.  This is the environmental hazard cleared by the Sinnoh-only HM move, Defog, which lets bird Pokémon clear the fog with a gust of wind (y’know, because this generation buffed the HM move we already had for Flying Pokémon, so we needed a new bad one to keep forcing our teams to have Flying Pokémon and make sure they’d suck; no, I don’t miss HMs at all, why do you ask?).  Fog is like the darkness of some caves, in that you can navigate without it, even if you don’t know the area.  However, unlike darkness, fog, if not dispelled, has an impact on battle: it makes all attacks on both sides half as accurate, painfully drawing out every fight you get into in foggy areas if you don’t bring Defog.  Which I’m not gonna, because I don’t want Tiktok to get stuck with that $#!t.

eh; you’ll do.  I don’t have one of these yet and I’m pretty sure Cynthia was just making stuff up to get me to do her grandmother’s dumb errand; I don’t remember there being any interesting Pokémon around here, except on Platinum.

Most of the trainers on the route are simple enough for even Effie to contribute to the battles, but this pair of Ace Trainers are a little tricky.

A Gyarados and a Raichu, under normal circumstances, would definitely have a Girafarig and a Noctowl outgunned; Otto’s Thunder changes the equation significantly, but the fog also makes every fight in this area chaos.

Fortunately, when Otto’s Thunder lands, the Gyarados drops, but when the Raichu nails Tiktok with a Thunderbolt, Noctowl’s solid special defence saves the day.

where the fµ¢£ am I; I hate this

Thank fµ¢£, I made it to Celestic Town

why am I even here

Cynthia had better appreciate this $#!t

I bet she doesn’t; maybe we’ll find out next time