I hurry into Nimbasa City, and immediately run into Jim, who is standing outside the central subway station, deep in conversation with two official-looking men in ridiculous coats.  He seems surprised to see me, and remarks that he thought it would take me at least a day to run Join Avenue into the ground.  I shrug and suggest that maybe I’m just that good.  Jim rolls his eyes and introduces me to his friends the Subway Bosses, Ingo and Emmet (no, neither of us knows which is which, and we don’t care).  They run Nimbasa City’s subway system, which as public transport goes is pretty frightful… not because it’s expensive – it isn’t – or because the trains don’t run on time – they do – or because the subway network isn’t extensive enough – it is – but because you can only use the subway if you are a Pokémon trainer, and must win seven consecutive battles before reaching your destination.  If you fail, you are not permitted to get off the train at the other end, and in fact you are unceremoniously dumped back where you started.  Since every battle has a winner and a loser, not many people make it to seven consecutive wins and get where they’re going on the first try, but they keep it up anyway, bless them.  Rush hour is an absolute nightmare, and heaven help you if you have to take more than one train.  For less skilled trainers, getting from the outer suburbs to the central city is a four-day commute.  Jim is astonished.  In our city of Auckland, the same trip would take three weeks.  Ingo and Emmet have apparently agreed to share their secrets if he can defeat them in a double battle, and my arrival is thus rather fortuitous.  Jaime and Ulfric are able to deal quickly with the subway twins’ Boldore and Gurdurr, apparently the only Pokémon they deign to use in a casual match.  Unfortunately, they prove unwilling to make good on their promise, and instead vanish, cackling, into the subway tunnels.

Nimbasa City, like Castelia, is much as we remember it.  The great and small stadia are open for business as usual, the Pokémon Musical theatre still stands, despite the fact that no one ever actually goes there by choice, and the Battle Institute remains open, though it seems to have developed a snobbish streak and is no longer admitting anyone who cannot boast of a Pokémon League victory.  We, however, are drawn only by the amusement park – the site of the Nimbasa City Gym.  Jim and I make a beeline for the great rollercoaster, only to find that the Leader, Elesa, being even more ADHD than all the other Unova Leaders, was not satisfied with mere renovations and has instead constructed a whole new building in which to hold court.  Apparently she’s at the rollercoaster right now, though, doing… something.  Presumably something important.  One hopes.  We obediently fight our way through the rollercoaster, which has maintained a complement of Pokémon trainers despite no longer being a Gym, only to find – surprise! – Elesa has finished whatever she was doing and gone home.  With a resigned sigh, we turn around and head for the new Nimbasa Gym, which is also in the theme park.  We enter, and…

 

Okay, well, we knew Elesa was a model, but really?  The Gym is her own personal catwalk?  Good lord; the place is a monument to her own ludicrous self-absorption.  Well, there’s only one thing to be done: take her down a peg or three.  Clyde the guide, as usual, appears at the entrance to advise us of the weaknesses of the Gym’s specialty type, in this case, Ground,  but he manages this time to add a very important corollary which he forgot on Black and White: don’t try it on Emolga.  In fairness, on Black and White most of the trainers in the Gym used Emolga, so if you hadn’t clued up by the time you reached Elesa you were really asking for it, but it’s still a bit of a rotten trick to play on anyone new to the game.  Anyway, that’s fixed; whoo.  Jim and I make our way up Elesa’s catwalk, knocking her three underlings aside as we go.  I note, with amused approval, their names: Nikola, Fleming, and Ampère, doubtless named for Nikola Tesla, John Fleming, and André-Marie Ampère, pioneers in the study and manipulation of electricity.  Elesa herself is perched at the far end of the catwalk.  She welcomes us warmly, and-

“What, no puzzles?”

Elesa looks at Jim in confusion.  He challenges her to explain what kind of half-assed Gym doesn’t have puzzles, or at least some sort of maze.  Elesa mutters something about the price of the new construction and all the stage lights.  Jim glares at her imperiously and demands a puzzle.  Elesa, quite flustered now, thinks to herself for a moment and tries a riddle.

“I am, in truth, a yellow fork, from tables in the sky by inadvertent fingers dropped, the awful cutlery of-”

“Is it a bolt of lightning?”  Elesa hangs her head.

“…take the damn badge and get out.”

I step up as Jim heads back along the catwalk.  “Can I have a rid-”

“No.”

I call out my secret weapon, Daenerys the Trapinch, whose Rock Slide quickly does in Elesa’s Emolga.  Her Zebstrika proves a more difficult customer, but is seriously debilitated by Daenerys’s Bulldoze and Barristan’s Intimidate, leaving it easy prey for the bold Growlithe.  Finally, her Flaaffy manages valiantly to overcome Barristan, but has too little strength left at the end to go toe-to-toe with Tyrion, and barely manages to paralyse him with Thunder Wave before succumbing to his attacks.  Elesa decides to make the best of her situation and hands me my Bolt Badge with all the ceremony she can muster, before leading me in triumph down the catwalk as fans scream with delight.

Good grief; I hope no one from Pokéstar Studios is watching.

 

Elesa’s Gym is lovely and flashy, and she certainly knows how to put on a spectacle, but when it gets right down to it, all you’re doing is walking through the Gym in a straight line, defeating the trainers in your way.  I like the way the fifth generation games have tried to personalise their Gyms a bit more, making them appropriate to the personalities of their Leaders – Lenora’s library quiz in Black and White, for instance, or even the purely decorative addition of Burgh’s artist’s loft in the new Castelia Gym – and in that respect it is nice that, since Elesa is supposed to be a famous model, she gets a catwalk (I suppose Roxie’s Gym is similar, in that way).  Part of the fun of a Gym challenge, though, is that (well, in most cases) you actually have to navigate some sort of obstacle other than the purely combative ones provided by the trainers, obstacles which have tended to become more elaborate and interesting as the series has progressed.   I would almost suggest that Elesa’s Gym should have been integrated with the Pokémon Musical system, if not for the fact that the Pokémon Musical is such an irritating and gimmicky little sideshow in its own right.  In short, the new Nimbasa Gym is all flash and no substance – unsurprisingly, I suppose, for an Electric-type Gym.

Next time, we’ll be exploring the environs of Nimbasa City… and checking up on dear, sweet Hugh…