Tag: b2w2

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 15: The wind beneath my wings

As I hike back through the desert and across the great drawbridge to Driftveil City, I silently vow to evolve Daenerys into a Vibrava so I can show up Jim and his stupid Ducklett, Lydia.  How does a Ducklett even carry a kid halfway across the country, anyway?  The damn things barely come up to my knee!  Muttering mutinously to myself, I storm right through Driftveil, casting black looks at the commoners who cross my path, and move on to the next road – the road to the Chargestone Cave and Mistralton City.  With Daenerys at my side, I smite every wild Pokémon foolish enough to harass me, and eventually I am rewarded for my ill temper – Daenerys evolves at last.  I immediately teach her Fly and celebrate by flying right back to Castelia, buying a bag of rainbow confetti, and then zipping around Unova in a convoluted zig-zag pattern, sprinkling cheer and joy over every town I pass.  Some hours later, I grow bored and have Daenerys take me back to Driftveil City.  Jim can’t be that far ahead, right?  He’s probably waiting somewhere on the road to the Chargestone Cave, level grinding.  Sure enough, I soon find both him and Cheren hanging out at the climate research lab on route 6.  I strut in, my new Vibrava at my side, completely ignoring Cheren and the bewildered scientists, and approach Jim.  I scratch Daenerys behind her nonexistent ears and proudly tell him of my accomplishments, mocking him for his sad little Ducklett and basking in the glory of my proper flying Pokémon.  As I begin to wind down, Jim wordlessly takes Lydia’s Pokéball from his belt and cracks it open.  Out pops…

…Lydia the Swanna.

God damn it.

Deprived so cruelly of my moment in the sun, I remember that Cheren is here and decide that questioning him is better than wallowing in my own inferiority.  Why is he at the climate lab, anyway?  Cheren has come to make use of the climate scientists’ sophisticated monitoring equipment to investigate a strange anomaly – the sharp temperature drop we felt when we boarded the Team Plasma ship.  Apparently similar extreme temperature gradients have been detected all around Unova, vanishing as suddenly as they appear – in Virbank City, Castelia City, and far away Lacunosa Town.   Hmm.  Virbank City and Castelia City.  We fought Team Plasma in both of those places, so presumably their ship was nearby.  And Lacunosa… Lacunosa is near the Giant Chasm, Kyurem’s home.  More confirmation, then – they have Kyurem.  Kyurem is on the ship.  But that’s game over, isn’t it?  They control the legendary dragon, but this time there’s no goody two-shoes N figure standing in the way to mess up their plans by insisting that they re-enact some ancient epic and give another hero time to mount a challenge.  That sounds to me like it’s time to pack up and let them have Unova.  I’ve always wanted to go to Hoenn anyway.  Jim points out that this isn’t necessarily so.  Kyurem’s the crappy dragon, remember?  The one who’s an empty shell, thought to be the ‘corpse’ left behind when Reshiram and Zekrom split in the first place.  Unless the other two dragons come back and ‘restore’ him somehow, Kyurem’s not nearly as apocalyptically powerful as either of them.  And Reshiram and Zekrom are both gone.

…right?

I grudgingly concede that our doom may not be at hand just yet.  Meanwhile, some of the climate researchers in the background are heard to speculate on my dedication to upholding the virtues of the Pokémon Trainer, and on my general sanity.  I punish them by confiscating one of the Serene Grace Deerling they use to study seasonal climate variation.  This Deerling, under the name of Bran, becomes the sixth and final member of my party, and with a little training very quickly evolves into Sawsbuck.  Thus appeased of my minor humiliation at Lydia’s hands (or… wings), I gather Jim and move on, wishing Cheren luck in his ongoing investigation.  We again set our sights on the Chargestone Cave and Mistralton City.  A few Foonguss bar our path, and we exterminate them for the insult.  Soon, though, approaching a bridge over the Mistralton River, we encounter a far more significant challenge to our passage – none other than the legendary Pokémon Cobalion.  It tosses its head and cries out, glaring in our direction.  I march onto the bridge to negotiate with Cobalion for our passage.

“Right.  Shove off, or we will beat you senseless and stuff you into a tiny ball.”  Cobalion responds with a Sacred Sword attack that narrowly misses my head as I dodge to the left and tumble to the ground.

This is how haggling works; you start with an unacceptable offer and an equally absurd counteroffer, and then work your way towards the middle.

I get up, dust myself off, clear my throat, and prepare to launch into an impassioned harangue on the rights of Pokémon and the privileges of humans – a prelude to my revised offer of “shove off, or we will beat you senseless and not stuff you into a tiny ball."  Jim knocks me to the ground as Cobalion pre-empts my speech with another Sacred Sword.  Honestly, the rudeness of some people!  I had everything under control; it was all part of the diplomatic process!  Cobalion, evidently insulted by Jim’s interruption, roars again and springs away, disappearing into the hills.  I shake my fist as he vanishes into the distance, swearing to finish our conversation some other time.  Without warning, we hear Rood’s voice from behind us.  The old sage, along with one of his similarly geriatric attendants, has apparently observed our encounter with Cobalion.  They talk us through Cobalion’s backstory – how he, Virizion and Terrakion became the enemies of humankind because they realised how much harm human conflicts can cause to Pokémon.  Rood speculates that Cobalion’s reappearance may have something to do with Team Plasma, and suggests that catching him would greatly increase our already formidable powers.  Jim feels it would be a waste of our time, but I am intrigued.  I’ve mentioned long ago that one of my difficulties with Cobalion’s quartet is the fact that, although their background and beliefs give them every reason to be directly involved in the ideological conflict with N, they spend Black and White hiding, taking no part unless the player chooses to drag them into things.  Could they actually have something to do in this game?  I am sufficiently curious to go and check out Cobalion’s home, the Mistralton Cave, while Jim presses on towards Mistralton City.  The cave turns out to be a let-down.  There is nothing of interest there, barring another old man who claims to be searching for Cobalion, but has no idea where to look.  Disgruntled, I stomp out of the cave and run to catch up with Jim in the nearby Chargestone Cave, the seldom-used pathway to Mistralton City.

Jim, meanwhile, is following someone.  Picking his way between the electrified stones that levitate above the cave’s floor, he heard a voice – a rapid, almost incomprehensible stream of consciousness, rambling about the formulas that express the power of electricity.  At first Jim followed at a safe distance, expecting some garden-variety nut-job and wanting to approach with caution – but then the person he was following began to speak about something entirely different.  Something about saving Pokémon, and protecting a friend.  Wait.  Hmm.  Jim quietly recalls his Pokémon and creeps through the cave, trying to hear more of this suspiciously familiar fellow’s musings.  At this point, I find him and startle him with a loud, echoing “HI, JIM!”  There is a frantic scuffling sound in the distance, then nothing.  Jim turns and mimes throttling me.  As a gesture of reconciliation, I send Daenerys through the cave to see if she can find anything, but to our immeasurable displeasure she manages only to find and lead us to Bianca.  Bianca is evidently researching the Pokémon of the Chargestone Cave for Professor Juniper, but is having trouble with one species in particular – the elusive Tynamo.  We obligingly descend into the cave’s deepest level and capture a Tynamo for Science.  When we make it back to Bianca and present the Tynamo to her, we discover that the ungrateful little ditz doesn’t want it, and indeed refuses even to look at the thing – she’s happy to stand around in the cave navel-gazing and wondering what Tynamo do with their lives.  We leave in disgust, and soon find the north exit to the cave, emerging into the light of Mistralton City.

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 14: Winter is coming

As Jim and I leave the Pokémon World Tournament, arguing about its relative merits, we nearly run straight into a Team Plasma grunt, who does a double take as he passes us, visibly panics, and bolts for the Driftveil docks – just as Hugh and Cheren emerge from the tournament building.  Hugh sees the villain fleeing and is instantly ready to give chase, but his blood-curdling battle-cry is cut off when Colress appears right behind them and softly but firmly tells him to stop, warning him of the risk of tackling a powerful criminal organisation like Team Plasma and admonishing him for his recklessness.  Hugh dismisses his concerns and proclaims that if there’s any chance of finding a lead on his sister’s Purrloin he is damn well going to go for it.  Well, jeez, Hugh, that’s fine; go ahead and casually reveal, to a random scientist and a Gym Leader you don’t even like, the deep dark secret that you kept from your two closest friends for years; it’s all good.  Cheren, who was a fairly militant opponent of Team Plasma himself back in the day, supports Hugh, and they both leave for the docks.  Colress shakes his head with scorn at their overconfidence in their Pokémon.  Surely they can’t believe that friendship and trust alone can protect them from hardened criminals with Pokémon of their own?  Jim notes that a bunch of Team Plasma ruffians are unlikely to pose much of a problem for a Unova League Gym Leader; the fact that Hugh is a reasonably accomplished trainer in his own right is really just icing on the cake.  In fact, you could almost say that they probably don’t need any help.  There’s really no need for anyone else to go along at all.  Colress gives him a reproachful frown, and I point out, with a sinking sense of foreboding, that as Hugh’s dearest friends we are responsible for both his safety and, to a lesser extent, the safety of those upon whom he chooses to inflict himself.  We look at each other, sigh in unison, and reluctantly dash after Hugh and Cheren, leaving Colress quietly tutting to himself behind us.

The Team Plasma grunt seems to have disappeared into a large black sailing ship moored at a wharf near the Pokémon World Tournament – Team Plasma’s new base of operations?  Cheren and Hugh are already rushing up the gangplank after him.  We ask a nearby local whether she knows anything about the ship, and receive only the cryptic response “a ship’s not really a ship unless it’s crossing the ocean.”  We stare at her in disbelief, respond “of course it is, you nitwit,” quietly shove her into the water, and board the ship.  Hugh notes that there’s a strange coldness about this boat – and he’s right.  It’s a pleasant Spring day in Driftveil City, but there’s a chill in the air that cuts right to the bone, and we can see our breath steaming in front of us.  I glance nervously at Jim.  Reshiram and Zekrom are gone, and there’s no telling where or for how long, but wasn’t there a third legendary dragon in Unova?  One with the power to fill the air around it with a terrible supernatural cold?  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.  I point insistently at the gangplank.  Jim shrugs helplessly and gestures to Hugh and Cheren, who have their backs to us and are looking around the deck.  I glare at him, point at our allies, firmly draw a finger across my neck, and then point at the deck beneath me before throwing my hands in the air, miming an explosion.  Jim stares incredulously, holds up four fingers, mimes sneaking, and jerks a thumb over his shoulder towards the gangplank.  I stare back, roll my eyes and hold up three fingers instead.  Jim cocks his head slightly, thinks about it and shrugs.  We turn back in the direction of the gangplank.

There’s a Team Plasma grunt standing in the way.

Well, $#!t.

Pokéballs fly non-stop for the next ten minutes.  At first, each of us has a single Team Plasma member to take care of, but this arrangement quickly proves far too simple for anyone’s taste; first I pair up with Jim and Hugh with Cheren for a pair of double battles, then we trade partners, and before long all of us become embroiled in a complex set of three intertwined rotation battles, at which point we collectively admit that the whole thing has basically become a free-for all.  I’m pretty sure that, at one point, I was partnered with two Team Plasma grunts in a triple battle against Cheren, another grunt, and my own Scolipede.  I see a Liepard, and the thought briefly flashes through my head that the Purrloin Hugh is searching for might have evolved, but I can’t get Hugh’s attention any more than I can tell whose Pokémon is whose at this point.  Someone makes an unflattering comparison between Hugh’s hair and a Qwilfish, which… actually, yeah, okay; fair call.  I am desperately trying to keep track of a quintuple rotating Contest battle when I suddenly realise that one of my opponents is, in fact, myself and frantically call for a time out, causing everyone present to collapse immediately from a combination of relief and exhaustion.

It is, I am later forced to admit, the most fun I’ve had in years.

An old man in a heavy purple robe emerges from below decks and demands to know what right we have to be snooping around on his ship.  Cheren studies his face for a moment, names him as Zinzolin, one of Rood’s former colleagues in the Seven Sages, and tells him that we have every right to investigate the activity of a notorious criminal group.  Zinzolin furiously proclaims that Team Plasma’s intent remains unchanged – to use a legendary Dragon Pokémon to rule Unova (well, that confirms it, then) – and summons the Shadow Triad to remove us.  The Shadow Triad, Team Plasma’s three magical ninjas, appear before us in a puff of smoke and begin to tell Zinzolin, “by the way, we are not your-” but he cuts them off and insists that they do this for him anyway.  Not his- underlings?  Of course; the Shadow Triad never worked for Team Plasma, N, or the Seven Sages.  They were personally loyal to Ghetsis alone – which means he’s back.  Joy of joys.  The Shadow Triad blink us off the ship, and when we regain awareness, the ship and everyone on it is gone.

Damnit; how the hell do they do that!?

Well, Hugh and Cheren are both alive, which means we’ve done our bit.  Time to continue our journey and forget about Team Plasma completely!  I’m sure everything will sort itself out in due course now that Cheren is on the case.  Besides, if Unova expects us to be socially responsible then it deserves everything it gets.  As Jim and I head back in the direction of Driftveil City proper, our eyes are drawn to a cave entrance near the Pokémon World Tournament grounds.  We question a construction worker in the area and learn that this is the north entrance to the Relic Passage, the ancient tunnel network that connects to the Castelia sewers.  The Relic Passage, Jim recalls, is inhabited by weirdoes of every conceivable shape and size, but the two of us together should be fine, and anyway it’s our duty as archaeologists to loot- er… I mean… to preserve everything we can find in the site.  The worker guarding the entrance listens patiently to our spiel about the value of the past and the importance of knowledge, before waving us through and explaining that no-one really cares about the Relic Passage anyway; he’s just stationed there so it looks like things are under control.  As we investigate the Relic Passage, we quickly develop a hypothesis about the place: the popular belief that it was built by ancient people is absolute rubbish.  The degree of organisation required to build a tunnel like this would be immense – and no-one going to that sort of effort would waste time building the kind of pointless loops and dead ends that fill the place.  Any human group capable of building something like this would be capable of building it according to a halfway sensible design.  Besides, it has none of the hallmarks of human construction.  It does seem to have been used by humans, though.  The tunnel connects the sites of Driftveil City and Castelia City – major cities are almost always built on sites that have been used before, often for millennia.  We also find an entrance to the lower levels of the Relic Castle, the site of another ancient city, though we are quickly chased away by the castle’s guardian Volcarona.  We conclude, eventually, that the Relic Passage may have started life as a series of unconnected Onix nests which were later taken over by humans and joined together, probably using captured Onix, to create an unbroken path – hence the seemingly random design (construction almost undoubtedly went through several false starts).  Resourceful, if nothing else, and seemingly indicative of extensive trade and travel between Driftveil, Castelia and the Desert Resort.  We make plans to take a few months later in the year to write an article for an archaeological journal, and move on.

We complete our trip through the Relic Passage and emerge in the Castelia sewers.  Refusing to touch the filthy ground, I command my largest Pokémon, Sansa the Ampharos, to carry me out of the sewer.  Jim rolls his eyes and follows.  When we emerge once more into the light, Jim immediately summons his Ducklett, Lydia, grabs her by the legs and holds her up in the air.  I ask him what on earth he’s doing, and he replies that he’s flying back to Driftveil City.  I protest that I don’t have a flying Pokémon yet, but he just shrugs and whistles at Lydia.  As Jim soars into the sky, dangling from Lydia’s legs like a hang-glider, I pull Daenerys’ Pokéball from my belt and call her out.  I lift my Trapinch into the air over my head and say, as imperiously as I can, “now, Fly!”  Daenerys twists her head to look down at me, bemused, and makes a clicking sound.  I sigh, recall her to her Pokéball, and begin the long walk back to Driftveil City.

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 13: An offer we can’t refuse

'Sir, Ah say sir, Ah have important business to attend to and you are wasting mah time; can we *please* wrap this up?'

Clay has no time for frivolity.  He is a Serious Businessman who spends his days engaged in Serious Business.  Of course, since he owns a mining business, he undertakes this seriousness at the bottom of a mine shaft.  Clay is too industrious to take time off to run the Gym, and too cheap to buy separate premises for his official battles, so he’s just opened a section of his mines to trainers as the Driftveil Gym.  The maze of elevators, tunnels and walkways provides all the testing most challengers need.  We notice, upon entering, that much of his lighting has failed in the past two years and the miners now work mainly in the dark.  Many of them have lights in their helmets, and the rest know the mines like the backs of their hands anyway.  We are not so fortunate, and consult Clyde the Guide for assistance.  He explains, regretfully, that most of the electrical cables have been on the blink for months, and the Gym loses more with every power surge, plunging more and more of the mines into darkness, but because Clay himself doesn’t mind working in the dark, and most of the miners can muddle through as well, he’s never bothered to replace them.  We stare at Clyde wordlessly.  He shrugs and points to a pile of spare cables sitting in the lobby, suggesting that we rewire some of the lights ourselves.  With raised eyebrows and sighs, we gather up the cables, call out Sansa and Elisif, and get to work.  The mine is a veritable maze of platforms, bridges and conveyor belts, but our haphazard restoration of the Gym’s lighting serves as a trail of breadcrumbs, helping us to keep track of where we’ve been, and any task involving sparking cables or ungrounded wires is firmly delegated to our Ampharos.  Eventually, just as we’re about to run out of spare cables, we stumble into Clay’s arena and come face to face with the ‘Miner King.’

When questioned about the state of his Gym, Clay explains that he doesn’t have the time for- sorry, that he “ain’t got no tahm” for “messin’ about wit’ maintenance,” and that he prefers to let “y’all li’l trainers” take a crack at it when challenging the Gym, apparently to avoid paying an actual electrician to do the work.  At this point my understanding of his cringe-inducing accent breaks down as he makes an indecipherable comment about mangoes (I think) before barrelling right through our looks of disbelief to accept our challenges.  Nothing if not an opportunist, Clay decides I will open with the Pokémon I have out already – my Ampharos, Sansa.  Between Confuse Ray and Take Down, she proves to be more than Clay’s Krokorok bargained for, but predictably falls flat against his signature Pokémon, Excadrill.  As a matter of public service, I wish it to be known that Clay’s Excadrill is a bastard of Whitney’s-Miltank proportions, with tremendous excesses of speed and power which Clay exploits without mercy.  Even after being slowed and weakened by Daenerys’s Bulldoze and Intimidated by Barristan, Excadrill still manages to take the Growlithe down before being defeated by Jaime’s Razor Shell.  Luckily, Clay’s last Pokémon standing, Sandslash, is not nearly so thorny (well… I mean, literally it is, but not in the vaguer metaphorical sense) and quickly falls.  Clay grunts some manner of congratulation and hands me a Quake Badge before turning his attention to Jim, whose new Ducklett, Lydia, acquits herself admirably (y’know… for a Ducklett) as does Ulfric the Servine.  After being handed his second loss of the day, Clay looks at the two of us thoughtfully, the dollar signs that perpetually swirl in his eyes beginning to tick over slowly.  He tells us he has a proposition for us, and leads us out of the Gym.

 Clay's lair deep within the Driftveil mines.

Over the past two years, Clay has been studiously building up both Driftveil City’s economic influence, and his own influence within it, by means of a dramatic new attraction: the Pokémon World Tournament, a permanent large-scale facility which hosts regular high-profile Pokémon battles.  It’s… not really a world tournament just yet, he admits sheepishly, but it’s already attracting powerful trainers from all over Unova, hence Driftveil’s recent tourism boom.  Of course, strong trainers instinctively seek other strong trainers – which is where we come in.  Attracting tough trainers has something of a snowball effect; the more there are, the hotter the battles will get, and the hotter the battles get, the more trainers will flock to the city, and the more money will flow into Cl- er… into Driftveil’s economy.  Yes.  All for the city.  Naturally.  He’s already started getting expressions of interest from a few of the other Gym Leaders – one of whom has already decided to make an appearance.  Cheren is waiting at the tournament grounds, talking to Hugh, who was presumably sent there after defeating Clay, just like us.  Clay makes a curt gesture to the staff, who sign up all four of us to take part in an upcoming eight-person singles tournament, and then quickly departs to take care of something else.  I frown and start up a conversation with Hugh, hoping to gauge his mental state after his meeting with Rood, while Jim quietly scopes out the other trainers milling around the lobby.  He manages to pick out three of the other competitors – presumably more of Clay’s recent successful challengers – but cannot immediately find the last one.  Suddenly, just as we’re about to file inside the arena, he notices the scientist Colress watching us from across the room.  Colress gives Jim a jaunty grin and a thumbs up before joining the three unknown trainers at the opposite entrance.  Hmm.

 The PWT building, in all its splendour.

Once we get through all the usual palaver of opening the tournament and introducing the competitors (Clay sure knows how to make a spectacle of things) I am paired with Cheren in the first round, and Jim is paired with Hugh.  Evidently fed up with having to tone things down for his Aspertia Gym challengers, Cheren is packing some serious firepower this time, in the form of one of my old enemies from Black and White – Stoutland, who hits like a truck and is built like one too.  Sansa, luckily, is tough enough to weather its hammer blows, paralyse it with a Thunder Wave, and finish it with an electrical onslaught.  Cheren’s remaining Pokémon, Cinccino and Watchog, are not nearly so menacing and fall relatively quickly to Sansa and Barristan.  Jim, meanwhile, seems to have soundly trounced Hugh, unsurprisingly.  The next round pits us against… each other.  Joy of joys.  Jim’s Lucario, Dovahkiin, is first up and gives Sansa a run for her money, weakening her severely, but eventually collapses under her assault.  When his Servine, Ulfric, appears, I seize my opportunity and switch in Barristan, whose fire is sure to wither the Grass-type.  My Growlithe closes in for a Flame Wheel, and-

Oh, god damn it, Zoroark!

Caught off guard by Jim’s newest Pokémon and on completely the wrong foot, I lose Barristan to Zoroark’s Foul Play, and Sansa, already weakened, doesn’t last long either.  The victories do not come without cost, and Zoroark is left too tired to defend against Jaime’s relentless Razor Shell… but now it’s all down to Jaime and Ulfric, not exactly a match made in heaven.  Though my Dewott fights valiantly as always, leaf against shell is one sword fight he isn’t going to win.  Pouting and sticking out my tongue, I vow revenge, but grudgingly wish Jim luck in the final round – against Colress.  Colress, when he appears, is as excited as ever for a battle, exhorting Jim to show him the strength of humans and Pokémon united.  Eyeing him warily, Jim calls on Dovahkiin to smite Colress’s Magneton, which has to spend the rest of the match trying to put itself back together.  Although he’s brought in a new Pokémon, the Psychic-type Elgyem, Colress fails to make any real headway against Jim’s Pokémon, and Dovahkiin and Zoroark manage to mop up his Elgyem and Klink without much trouble.  With much fanfare and glaringly bright stage lighting, Jim is proclaimed the victor and led triumphantly off the stage, where he is unceremoniously presented with a little ticket reading “1 BP” (fine print: “redeemable only at participating battle facilities; expires one year from date of issue; Miner King Enterprises will not accept torn, faded, burnt, soiled or partially digested BP; terms and conditions apply”) and dismissed.  Now that the battles are over, this is Clay’s show once again.

 Keep at it, and you'll even attract Champion-level trainers to the PWT - just THINK of the advertising revenue!

The Pokémon World Tournament is what we get instead of the Battle Frontier in Black 2 and White 2.  Much like the Battle Subway it awards Battle Points for each tournament victory, redeemable for a variety of useful battle items not available elsewhere, and like earlier versions of the Battle Frontier it collects a number of important services into one place – in this case, the move deleter, move reminder, and Hidden Power dude.  It also offers a couple of unusual battle formats; a rental tournament (just like the Battle Factory of old) and a ‘mix’ tournament, in which you borrow one of your opponent’s Pokémon in each battle – and your opponent borrows one of yours (this… can end badly)!  Perhaps a little washed-out in comparison to the fourth-generation Battle Frontier, with its tricky Battle Arcade and Battle Castle formats, or the even older and even more expansive Emerald Battle Frontier, but the weird formats aren’t the main draw of the Pokémon World Tournament – the true attractions, Clay notes, are the trainers themselves.  Once you progress further in the game, all kinds of famous trainers will start entering tournaments here, including just about every Gym Leader since forever.  Want to relive former glories with a battle against Winona’s Altaria or Jasmine’s Steelix, or just enjoy one last punch-up with Giovanni?  This is the place to do it.  Personally, I was something of a fan of the eclectic battle styles you had to learn in order to complete some of the old Battle Frontier challenges, and the fact that the Battle Points you earned from all of them were universally useful kept them from being too much of a pointless sideshow, but I have to admit there’s something to the ‘all-stars’ feeling of the higher-level tournaments in Driftveil City.  Challenging these people on their own turf is one thing, but entering tournaments with them finally puts the players on the same tier, which is a tremendously empowering thing for the game’s atmosphere – and nostalgia is certainly a factor (I have to admit, the designers do seem to know their audience… from time to time).  I also like the way the Pokémon World Tournament fits into what’s going on in Unova, because of course Clay is exactly the kind of person who would go to these lengths to boost Driftveil’s economy, and you can see the effect that it’s already had on the town, even in the early stages of the project.  Hey, I don’t often get to see sensible world-building from these people; let me enjoy it.  In short, while Clay’s latest project isn’t exactly my ‘vision’ of a perfect battle facility, I think it’s a pretty solid addition to Black 2 and White 2.

Discuss.

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 12: Isms and Schisms

Driftveil City sprawls out before us as we reach the other end of the great drawbridge.  Unlike Castelia City and Nimbasa City, this place has changed a great deal in the last two years – in fact, it’s barely recognisable.  Great swathes of residential space have been converted to commercial use, filled with innumerable hotels that, in true Driftveil style, do not reach for the skies but plunge deep into the rock.  The whole city is a tourist town now, and a very profitable one by the looks of it.  Probably the work of Clay, the ‘Miner King,’ Driftveil’s shrewd Gym Leader and, I quietly suspect, mob boss.  The old industrial zone, the Cold Storage, is gone too, replaced by… something, looks exciting, lots of tourists, but we don’t have time to look at it now; something is happening.  There’s a Team Plasma member at the entrance to Driftveil City… along with another man wearing one of the old grey hooded Team Plasma uniforms from two years ago.  The two men are having an argument about something – the one in the old uniform is trying to convince the other man to leave Team Plasma, while his friend seems to be complaining that he’s not cool anymore and that he used to love stealing Pokémon, but they never talk now and he’s gotten so distant, always going on about whether things are ‘right’ or ‘ethical,’ or wondering what Lord N would think, and damnit, N doesn’t care about you; what about us, doesn’t that even matter to you anymore?

…he seemed to say.

Normally we would figure this is none of our business, but they’re blocking the main bridge into downtown Driftveil City with their little drama, and Jim is on the verge of approaching to ask what’s going on.  He doesn’t get the chance because Hugh comes screaming out of nowhere, tackles the fellow in the black uniform, and starts demanding answers about his sister’s Purrloin.  Jim quietly releases Ulfric and gestures to him to get ready to restrain Hugh with a Vine Whip.  The Team Plasma grunt says he’s supposed to avoid trouble, waves to his friend (no doubt stifling a flood of tears) and runs, with Hugh in hot pursuit.  Jim and I look at each other and I shrug helplessly, pointing after them.  Jim and Ulfric give chase, leaving me with the man in the old grey uniform.  I learn, through some brief questioning, that Team Plasma is not the unified organisation it once was.  There has been a schism between the followers of N, who want to help Pokémon, and the followers of Ghetsis, who want to take over the world.  I can see how those two policies might not mesh perfectly.  I am invited to meet the splinter group at their base in Driftveil City and hear about their beliefs, an offer I hesitantly accept.  They’re probably not like those door-to-door evangelicals who wake you up early on weekends but you never e know.  I follow the ex-Plasma to his group’s building on a hill overlooking the city, where he introduces me to their leader: Rood.  In Black and White, Rood was one of the Seven Sages, the group of wise men assembled by Ghetsis to help him take over the world – except that most of them didn’t know that this is what they were doing.  After a quick Pokémon battle to test my worth, Rood decides that I am trustworthy and allows me into his sanctum to tell me more.  He explains apologetically that his group are often targets of hatred and retribution for their former actions as part of Team Plasma, and they need to be careful about who they talk to.  As he speaks, I hear another voice from outside, shouting something about “Team Plasma lowlifes!”

Why, speak of the devil…

Another ex-Plasma member leads in a very curious train of guests.  In the lead is Hugh, who is screaming blue murder as he struggles with the thick, tough vines wrapped around his body, trying to grab for his Pokéballs and demanding the return of Purrloin.  Behind him is Ulfric, Jim’s Servine, who is supplying the vines.  Ulfric is clearly annoyed, but is having little difficulty keeping Hugh restrained, being much stronger than a human adolescent.  Bringing up the rear, Jim is walking several paces behind Ulfric, one hand covering his face, trying to pretend that he doesn’t know Hugh.  The ex-Plasma quietly tells Rood that he found the three of them in the middle of Driftveil City, where Hugh tried to attack him, and Jim had requested help dealing with the lunatic.  Rood asks me whether I know them.  My mortified hesitation is all the answer he needs.  Rood calmly walks up to Hugh, waits for him to get tired of shouting, and gestures to Ulfric to release him.  Ulfric looks uncertainly at Jim, who shrugs.  Once Hugh is free, Rood asks him what he’s so angry about.  Hugh breathlessly repeats his story about his sister’s stolen Purrloin.  Rood shakes his head sadly, apologising on behalf of his whole group for their part in Team Plasma’s operations, but regretfully explains that there are no Purrloin in their base.  The Pokémon in question is probably still in the possession of one of Ghetsis’s loyalists.  Hugh very nearly explodes again, raising his voice as he demands to know what good an apology does him.  Ulfric tenses and prepares for another Vine Whip.  Hugh settles down, though, turning away from Rood and telling us that he’ll be in the Driftveil Gym before leaving under a dark cloud.

These guys are interesting.

My biggest complaint – perhaps my only major complaint – about the plot of Black and White was that it underutilised the ambiguity inherent in the main conflict with Team Plasma.  What they are fighting for (or, rather, what Ghetsis claims to be fighting for) is not, on the face of it, a bad thing.  Many of the people who attend Ghetsis’s rallies, even including a Gym Leader, Burgh, admit that he has a point.  The actual Team Plasma members themselves, though, are not nearly so admirable when you meet them and speak to them.  They are, almost without exception, a bunch of zealots with little sympathy for the unfortunate trainers they seek to separate from their Pokémon.  Many of them, in fact, seem to enjoy it, and are working with Team Plasma more because they like having an excuse to commit crimes than because they actually believe in what N is trying to do.  This, I felt, blunts the effectiveness of the ambiguity which makes the plot interesting.  These guys – the splinter group led by Rood – are exactly what was missing from the first games, the members of Team Plasma who are genuinely good people, manipulated by Ghetsis into doing terrible things in the name of Pokémon liberation.  They’re now caring for the Pokémon they once stole in an attempt to atone for their crimes, and honestly their story is what really grabs me about the new games so far.  I want to know what happens to them!  Heck, I want to help them, because even if they did dreadful things they were at least doing them for noble reasons!  Ghetsis fooled a lot of people – even his six fellow Sages, who were supposedly chosen for their intelligence and their… well, sagacity.  Now his ex-minions have no idea what to do.  Theoretically they still follow N, the ‘child of the Pokémon,’ and try to emulate his teachings; in fact they seem to view him almost as a sort of messianic figure – and why not?  He was wise, and kind, and for goodness’ sake the guy could talk to Pokémon!  He’s buggered off to heaven knows where with Reshiram, though.  We meet his handmaidens, Anthea and Concordia, in Rood’s base.  They give us a little more of N’s backstory – all three of them were orphans taken in by Ghetsis, who groomed N to be the King of Team Plasma and the girls to care for him (because, let’s face it, he’s nice but the guy’s a little short on general life skills).  Despite their relationship with N, though, they can’t provide any direction.  They’re not leaders.  They just kinda hang out in the basement and help take care of the Pokémon.  Basically, this group has been ditched by its one unifying figure and left with no purpose in life but to fix its own horrendous mistakes, while enduring the shouts and attacks of lunatics like Hugh, and I cannot help but feel for them.

As we leave, Rood apologises once again that he can’t offer us any help – in fact, he has a favour to ask.  He needs to find a trainer for one of the Pokémon in their care – one of N’s childhood friends, a Zorua.  I glance at Jim with a look of “well?”  He agrees to take it and thanks Rood, deciding immediately to add Zorua to his team (with no nickname, sadly, since N counts as its ‘original trainer’).  With a new Pokémon in tow, we depart to prepare for our next Gym battle – against Driftveil’s conniving master, the mining tycoon Clay.

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 11: He who fights with monsters

Bolt Badges in hand, Jim and I decide to look around Nimbasa City and its surroundings a bit more.  We head east, out of the city, and explore the road to the Marvellous Bridge.  We try the bridge, but find that we cannot reach it from ground level without taking an elevator, which is broken.  As in so many other buildings in the Pokémon world, the elevator is the only way up.  I have never understood their reliance on elevators.  A woman in Hearthome City once told me that her house had no stairs because elevators were much easier for small Pokémon to use than human-sized stairs, which I suppose could apply to a lot of buildings, but isn’t that a massive fire hazard?  I bring this up with the guards at the Marvellous Bridge, but they just stare at me blankly until Jim grabs me by the collar and drags me off.  Since the bridge is closed, we go instead to the wilderness area northeast of Nimbasa City – the Lostlorn Forest.

Lostlorn gives me the willies.  I complain, as Jim leads the way inside, that we shouldn’t be there, and that some forest spirit could jump out at any moment and turn us all into star-nosed moles.  We find no forest spirits – only Roselia, Combee, and Pinsir.  I briefly consider catching a Roselia, but decide that since I already have a Poison-type I’ll wait and go for another Grass Pokémon later.  We hang around to train our Pokémon a little instead, and are rewarded when Sansa and Elisif evolve into a pair of Ampharos, Tyrion reaches the pinnacle of grumpiness as a mighty Scolipede, and Falk’s fire erupts into life as he evolves into Magmar.  We wander deeper into the forest, and meet a backpacker who explains to us that a woman once lived here in a broken-down old trailer, bluntly refusing to speak to anyone and generally wallowing in her own crotchety misanthropy.  Apparently she turned out to be a disguised Zoroark who had used her powers of illusion to turn the forest into an insane maze, but she’s gone now, and people don’t get lost here anymore.  Well, that’s a relief, I say.  The backpacker farewells us, walks a short distance away, then turns into a Zoroark and vanishes into the trees.

Jim.  Leaving.  Now.

Jim insists on checking the area more thoroughly to see whether there are any Zorua still living in Lostlorn, so I abandon him and wait at the entrance, refusing to take responsibility for his fate.  Eventually, he reluctantly moves on and we decide to hit the stadia back in Nimbasa City for some training.  When we get there, though, we find Hugh waiting for us… along with some Team Plasma goons.  Hugh is doing his usual “destroy all Team Plasma” speech and warns them that they’re “about to feel his rage.”  Ordinarily, of course, Jim and I would ignore this nonsense and get on with what we were doing earlier, but we’re not sure whether Hugh has ever heard of the Geneva Convention (or even whether it exists in this word) and we decide that the Team Plasma grunts need to be chased away for their own safety.  With an awkward apology, we spring into action and, as gently as possible, disable their Pokémon with Sansa and Elisif’s Thunder Wave attacks, keeping all the trainers occupied so there’s no-one for Hugh to battle.  Hugh quietly simmers in the background until we’ve scared them all off, then demands to know who he can unleash his rage on now.  We tell him very sternly that he is not to unleash anything, rage-related or otherwise, without giving one of us notice and seeking permission, and that he is going to bottle his rage up inside until it sends him into a death spiral of depression and anxiety like normal people do.  Hugh starts to object, and then, with a sigh, finally explains the deep, dark secret of his troubled past that is the cause of all his explosive rage.

A couple of years ago Team Plasma stole his little sister’s Purrloin.

We look at him blankly.

“…and…?”

Look, don’t get us wrong, it was a dick move on their part, but Team Plasma stole, like, a zillion Pokémon and most of their owners’ older brothers didn’t become gruff, obsessive sociopaths filled with barely-suppressed rage that explodes onto innocent bystanders at a moment’s notice.  We sit Hugh down, repeat the “anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering” sermon, and ask him to tell us whether it’s really all worth it.  Will fulfilling his goal and getting Purrloin back truly make him a less violently angry person?  He raises an eyebrow and answers in the affirmative.  Jim points out that at least Hugh’s on our side.  At the moment.  I tell him he’s not helping, and explain to Hugh that many of the Team Plasma crew from two years ago had been manipulated by Ghetsis and truly believed they were doing the right thing, even if their zealotry got out of hand at times.  Jim mentions, thinking out loud, that the new Team Plasma seem much less morally ambiguous and are probably genuine bastards.  I tell him he’s still not helping.  We argue about it, and eventually come to an agreement that Hugh is still potentially a danger to himself and others, but at least he’s theoretically pointed at people we don’t like, and with fairly good reason.  We just need to keep an eye on him.

This is problematic since he’s wandered off during our discussion.

We hurry out of Nimbasa City to the west, looking for him, and- oh, damnit, it’s Bianca; quick, hide before she- too late.  Bianca is here to introduce us to Hidden Grottoes, one of the new features of Black and White 2.  She drags us over to a place in the tree line where some bushes are visible between the trees – the sort of thing that’s obvious once you know what to look for, but you might never find on your own.  Bianca explains that this is the entrance to a Hidden Grotto, an area where rare Pokémon sometimes hide.  She shoves us into the hidden path between the trees, and we fight our way through the tangle of leaves and branches, to find… a Minccino.  Seriously, Bianca?  I know you think they’re cute, but was this really so important?  Ah, what the hell.  I battle the thing with Tyrion, capture it, and move on, giving Bianca a reproachful glare which, true to form, she doesn’t notice.  Only much later, after stuffing it in a PC and leaving it there for days, do I realise that this Minccino has its Dream World ability, Skill Link.  Hmm.  Okay, maybe Bianca and her Hidden Grottoes aren’t a waste of time after all, but don’t tell her I said that.

Jim and I still can’t find Hugh, so we make for the Driftveil Drawbridge, which is being blocked by a crowd of people watching none other than Charles the Heartbreaker.  Charles was in Black and White, but you might not remember him because he is silly.  He is an expert on rotation battle, the mind-warping new battle format introduced in the fifth generation, as well as its less trippy cousin, triple battle.  I have never really been sold on either of these.  Double battles were already kind of a niche thing – I mean, I know people have double battles, and there are doubles tournaments and everything, but really?  We all know they’re never going to rival singles as a battle format – and now the game is throwing triples at us, so we can have an even more niche format, and compounds it by throwing in another ridiculous niche format at the same time where predicting your opponent’s choices becomes so insane that your brain melts after three turns against the AI.  Honestly, I think even Smogon gives up and says “don’t look at us” when faced with rotation battles, and they know everything!  Fuelled by pure righteous irritation, I marshal my forces and stomp Charles into the dirt so we can use the Driftveil Drawbridge.  We encounter a few Ducklett as we cross, and Jim, realising that he still doesn’t have any flying or swimming Pokémon on his team yet, catches one and names her Lydia.  Other than that, the Driftveil Drawbridge presents few surprises, and we arrive safely in Driftveil City – time to find Hugh and keep him from getting into trouble…

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 10: City of Lights

Ingo and Emmet, the Nimbasa Subway... twins? Joy/Jenny-style identical cousins-in-law? Unrelated friends who like to dress the same? ...lovers? Whatever.

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…

 ...oh, good grief.

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 seems to have undergone a costume change since Black and White, which I suppose is in character for her, if nothing else.

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…

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 9: Mo’ money, mo’ problems

(Thank you to Wekhter for telling me how to edit the html code to do things with my pictures that Tumblr will no longer do for me)

Jim and I with our teams, as of this episode, just in case you're having trouble keeping track.

Jim and I take some time to explore the desert in the north.  We find it much as we remember it from Black and White, though the sand continues to claim more of the ruins in the area.  It’s not the worst that could happen to them.  Sand preserves things wonderfully.  The desert will keep them nice and dry, and they’ll still be there in two hundred years.  We do find some interesting new wildlife, though; in addition to all the desert Pokémon we remember, there are now Sandshrew and Trapinch in the area.  After a moment’s thought, I add Daenerys the Trapinch to my team before we move on.  I also find something else, though – a Sigilyph that seems to sparkle somehow.  I look again.  It’s not a shiny Sigilyph; I know what those look like.  Wondering if I imagined it, I decide to catch the Sigilyph for further study.  It turns out, on inspection, to have been partnered with a human before, someone with the trainer ID number 00002.  Hmm.  There turn out to be several more Pokémon like this in the area – I find a Sandile, a Scraggy… and an extremely powerful Darmanitan which manages to level half of my team before I can force it into Zen Mode and capture it.  I hate Darmanitan so much.  These seem to be the Pokémon N used on Black and White, and subsequently released back into the wild, in keeping with his philosophy of Pokémon liberation.  Unsure what to do with them, I shelve them for the moment and settle in to train up Daenerys a little bit while Jim pokes around in the Relic Castle for anything that hasn’t been looted already.

 ...hello? Anyone in here? At all?

We meet up again once Daenerys has caught up with the rest of my team in level, and strike out again for Nimbasa City.  As we reach the outer limits of the city, though, we encounter something… unexpected.  What was once a mere gatehouse has been converted into a long, neon-clad street, completely covered over with an arched roof.   This huge building appears to be deserted.  There’s no one here.  Although the place is majestic enough, with its sparkling ceiling and beautiful stone columns, it really doesn’t look like much more than a glorified entrance gate to Nimbasa City.  I mean, it’s exactly the kind of thing Elesa would build, but even by her standards it seems to put form over substance.  I look at Jim, who just strolls onward to Nimbasa.  I shrug and follow.  Before we can get far, however, we are accosted by a purposeful-looking businessman and his crew of assistants.  He declares, loudly and enthusiastically, that we are perfect, and runs up to shake our hands.  This man is the owner of ‘Join Avenue’ – the name of the building we are in – and needs someone to run the place for him.  Following a new trend in upper-level management, he has decided to entrust this vital responsibility to the first random trainers to wander by, putting his massive and important new project in our hands!  His minions’ faces fall slightly, as though questioning the wisdom of putting a pair of unknown teenagers in charge of a huge financial investment.  He assigns two of his minions, the blue-haired Jacci and Future, to our staff – at which their forced smiles suddenly turn to looks of surprise and confusion – before wishing us luck and disappearing.  We watch the owner leave, and then turn to go – Nimbasa awaits!  Jacci and Future, however, fall on their knees and beg us to stay.  Without our help, they’ll never bring this avenue to amount to anything!  We shrug and move on.  They call out, promising fame, a cushy base of operations, useful services and items, and riches!  We ignore them and walk-

Wait, what was that about riches?

Jim rolls his eyes and tells me he’ll meet me outside the great stadium in Nimbasa once I’ve turned Join Avenue into a smoking ruin.

I tell him I don’t know what he’s talking about, then turn to Jacci and Future.  They prostrate themselves and ask me how I would like them to address me.  I think for a moment and tell them to call me “Empress.”  They look at each other and I see a shadow cross over their faces, as though they are just realising how much trouble they are in, but they force grins and greet me by my new title.  They explain that my new empire is supposed to be a shopping mall, of sorts.  As people enter and leave Nimbasa City, I will be able to persuade some of them to set up shops in the empty niches of the avenue in between the decorative columns, gardens and fountains.  Once we have a couple of shops, I can try to drum up business for them by recommending their wares to passing customers.  Basically their business model is to let random people camp out in their fancy hallway and provide them with free advertising.  Hmm.

 This is the office. Some of these people are probably our assistants. I think most of them just decided to crash here one night and haven't left yet. I've given up trying to figure out which is which.

As they explain their plan to me, a young boy, perhaps twelve years old, enters the avenue heading for Nimbasa City.  Future points at him excitedly and tells me to talk to him; he can be our first proprietor!  I raise an eyebrow, but go up to the boy anyway, introduce myself as Empress of Join Avenue, and ask him whether he would be interested in owning a stall on our fine premises.  It turns out that this boy, Janus (named, I can only assume, for the Roman god of doorways), has always dreamed of owning a stall selling useful items for trainers!  He has fresh water, Moomoo Milk, and… well, okay, at the moment he just has fresh water and Moomoo Milk but he promises he’ll talk to his suppliers about getting other products once he’s established.  If I give him a spot, he’ll be so happy he’ll say ‘pit pat’!  I assume ‘pit pat’ is what kids these days say when they are happy.  I squint at him, framing his face with my hands.  I look over at Future, who is nodding enthusiastically, and Jacci, who waves her hand and sighs.  I look back to Janus.  “Welcome aboard, kid.”  He cheers and hurries over to a spot near our office to set up his shop.  I soon recruit a second shopkeeper, a ranger woman named Annetta.  Annetta, it transpires, is a clever charlatan who sells people rocks by disguising them as valuable artefacts.  Now, as an archaeologist I have a deep-seated hatred for people who deal in actual black market antiquities, but selling cheap fakes to unsuspecting members of the public is a-okay as long as I get a cut of the profits!  Annetta sounds like my kind of felon, and I permit her to join my empire.

Now we just need some customers.

Before long, a woman with a parasol wanders through and Jacci suggests, somewhat despondently, that I try to engage her interest and win her custom.  I accost the woman and awe her into submission with my almighty personal charisma, before telling her our mission and asking about her shopping preferences.

“I want to wander around the avenue,” she says.  “If there is a shop with a male clerk, I want to go there.”

I consider her request and size her up.  Mid-twenties, I’d guess.  I glance briefly at Janus, who is pottering around his new stall trying to connect his fridge to our power generators.  He continues to look about twelve, fourteen at the most.

“Well, there is one, but I’m not sure if he’s exactly what you’re looking f-”

Parasol chick barges past me and goes to check out Janus Mart (Janus’ imaginatively named store).  “Uh… Miss!  Please!  Wait a minute!”  What did I just do!?  Oh, good lord, are they flirting?  I- what?  I glare at Future, point urgently at Janus Mart, and draw a finger across my neck.  Future shrugs, then grins and gives me a thumbs up sign as parasol chick hands Janus some notes and a few coins, accepts a large case of Moomoo Milk, gives him a saucy wink, and leaves.  As she walks past me, she assures me that Janus Mart is a wonderful place, and she’ll tell all her friends.  I respond with a stunned nod, decide I’d prefer to let Jacci and Future run their creepy dating service alone, and sneak out while they’re not looking.

Join Avenue is a weird place.  Jim feels it’s gimmicky, and I have to agree, although the products and services you can buy there become extremely useful once you fill up all the shop spaces and start to level them (the more customers you attract, the better the stuff they’ll sell).  The avenue will grow more quickly if you regularly interact with other players, but even if you don’t customers will appear every day so you can direct them to the shops they need and boost the place’s popularity.  It gives the old concept of specialty shops a new twist by enlisting the player’s help in building them up, which is a nice touch, although I would gladly trade the dozens of blank, relatively emotionless shopkeepers you can choose for a small handful of actual characters to run your stalls.  The premise used to get the player involved is also, let’s face it, fundamentally absurd, and I can’t help but feel there are less ham-fisted ways of putting the player in a position of control over the place.  Like a lot of things in these games, then, Join Avenue is far from perfect and I probably would have done it rather differently, but it’s certainly not a bad addition – it gives you a lot of interesting things you can spend your money on (important, given the vastly expanded size of your purse in the fifth generation games) and, more importantly, it gives players a sense of achievement by directly involving them in building up the businesses – so I guess it’s kinda fun.

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 8: For Science!

Leaving Castelia behind us, Jim and I take the north road towards Nimbasa City.  We find Colress very quickly – it’s hard to miss him, in fact, since he’s waiting for us on the main road, next to… a line of rocks.  Okay… so someone’s just… taken a bunch of perfectly cubical boulders and lined them up across the main road?  That’s, um… why would someone do that?  Game Freak, is this really how low you’re willing to stoop to keep us from travelling to Nimbasa City before battling with this guy?  Ah, whatever.  We approach Colress, who doesn’t notice us at first since he’s busy doing something on a laptop, but greets us excitedly when he looks up.  He begs our patience as he finishes what he’s doing, and continues to type.  As he does so, he explains offhandedly that the delicious candy he gave me in the last episode was laced with 50 microlitres of concentrated Science, which he is now using to track my position and monitor my interaction with my Pokémon.

Wait, what?

The two-faced little-!  How dare he!  Does he know who I am?

Colress, apparently taken aback by my outburst, protests that actually he has no idea who I am; he just saw that my brother and I had some impressive Pokémon and wanted to study the way we worked with them.  I will have none of this nonsense.  I draw Barristan’s Pokéball from my belt and challenge Colress to a duel, a challenge which he accepts with a smile, as Jim settles down on one of the flat-topped boulders to watch.  Colress’s Pokémon, Klink and Magnemite, both Steel-types, fall quickly before my Growlithe’s relentless fire, and I march up to Colress and demand compensation for being dosed with Science without my knowledge.  Colress blinks twice as I glare at him, plays with his hair momentarily, thinking, and offers me another chocolate bar.  It is as delicious as the last!  As I eat it, Jim smacks his palm to his forehead and sighs, while Colress treats us both to a little exposition on his theories.  Team Plasma, he notes, believe – or at least, believed two years ago, under N’s leadership – that Pokémon need to be separated from people if they are to fulfil their destinies and achieve perfection, since humans hold them back by subordinating them to our own goals.  What Colress thinks is just the opposite – that it is through embracing life alongside humanity, not rejecting it, that Pokémon can attain their true potential.  This is why he studies trainers – to understand how people can make Pokémon strong.  And, he says as I finish my chocolate bar, he has a demonstration for us!  He gestures to the rock Jim is sitting on, explaining that these are actually-

OH!  They’re not random boulders that some jerk lined up in a row in the middle of the road; they’re a bunch of worn-out Crustle, too tired to move!  That makes- wait, no, that still makes no f#$%ing sense, but what the heck, let’s go with it.  There is no obvious way to move the Crustle, but Colress has a plan – use a device he has created that invigorates Pokémon!  We are sceptical, but tell him to go ahead.  Colress strikes a dramatic pose, points a remote at the Crustle, and, with a cry of “for science!” presses a button.  Nothing happens.  A ball of tumbleweed threatens to blow across the road, but Colress shoos it away.  After about twenty seconds’ silence, I open my mouth to ask Colress what’s supposed to happen – and I am interrupted by a creaking noise, as Jim’s Crustle drags itself to its feet!  The lumbering crustacean staggers momentarily under the weight of its great sandstone slab, but soon rights itself and wanders off into the desert – carrying a stunned and alarmed Jim along with it.  One by one, its brothers and sisters follow, until eventually the road is completely clear.  Colress triumphantly holds his device in the air and proclaims victory.  I quietly wonder whether the Crustle might simply have gotten bored and wandered off, but decide not to voice my suspicions.  Colress tells me that he is determined to keep up his studies and learn how humans can bring out the true strength of Pokémon.  If only it were possible to get some idea of the Pokémon’s perspective on all this, he muses.  If only there were a human who could talk to Pokémon… He leaves, heading off down the road to Nimbasa City, thinking out loud to himself.

Hmm…

So, Colress is suspicious.  The man doesn’t seem to be aligned with Team Plasma in any direct sense, based on what he’s told us so far… but he was lurking in the Castelia sewers awfully close to a Team Plasma operation of some kind… and Jim later remarks that Colress remind him of N, in his intensity, his obsession with realising the true potential of Pokémon, and his determination to change the world by examining the relationship between humans and Pokémon, even though their beliefs seem to be polar opposites.  And, most importantly, he was in the opening title sequence, so he must be significant.  We’ve got our eye on this weirdo…

I look around and see no sign of Jim.  The Crustle has already wandered too far while I’ve been talking to Colress.  I reason that he can probably take care of himself, and decide to wait for him in Nimbasa City.  There’s a Gym there, and various sundry amusements, and if nothing else the Skyarrow Bridge to Nacrene City is apparently closed for repairs, so it’s either this, or make a new life in Castelia City.  I strike out northward, keen to close the distance in as little time as possible.

Route 4 has other ideas.

As I walk down the main road, I notice that route 4, once an uninviting desert littered with construction materials, has changed a great deal in the past two years.  On the right side of the road, a forest of new development – tall buildings, some of them still under construction, and land being prepared for more.  On the left side of the road, a huge archaeological excavation; dozens of ancient stone buildings have been unearthed from the desert sands, and the whole area is buzzing with both academics and tourists.  And, as I continue to advance, I find the spot where the two have reached an impasse.  Two men are standing in the road, wildly gesticulating at the two very different scenes.  I am determined to ignore them and keep walking.  One man, an immaculately dressed businessman, is waving at the shiny new buildings.  I hear words like ‘progress,’ ‘future,’ ‘jobs,’ ‘economy,’ and ‘homes.’  Still not my problem.  Walking on.  The other man is a beardy academic in a home-made cardigan, and is pointing at the archaeological site behind him.  I hear words like ‘culture,’ ‘understanding,’ ‘heritage,’ ‘irreplaceable,’ and ‘permanent.’  Walking… on.  Still… not… my…

…damnit.

Something that you may know about me and Jim, if you’ve been reading this blog for a while and paying careful attention to my pearls of wisdom, is that we are both archaeology students.

As I near the two men, the fellow in the suit, evidently seeking to prove a point, gestures towards me and says something about young people and the voice of progress, suggesting that he and his opponent ask this random strangers what she thinks.  The older man looks dejected, but assents, and they walk up to me to explain their situation.  A huge new development planned for this area, with an immense amount of money tied up in the project already, was halted when the workers levelling the ground discovered an ancient stone wall, which quickly turned out to belong to just one building in an entire previously unknown city, thousands of years old.  A team of archaeologists was called in to salvage as much as possible, but their leader is now arguing for the permanent preservation of the site from all further development.  The tycoon funding a big part of the construction project says he understands the site’s importance, but it’s already been scanned and surveyed in detail, and the archaeologists have been over the place with a fine tooth comb.  How can he be expected to forget about the whole project?

I adjust my clothes slightly to reveal the Pokéballs at my belt.  I smile sweetly and explain to the businessman in sugared tones that I don’t know much about progress, but if I see so much as one of his construction workers set foot on that archaeological site, my fist is going to progress so far up his-

Meanwhile, Jim’s Crustle has come to a halt somewhere in the desert.  He gingerly hops off, careful to avoid the sharp stony crags that litter this desert.  The whole area is filled with half-finished buildings and abandoned construction equipment, none of which seems to bother the wild Pokémon one bit; they just keep playing amongst the rocks and the sand as they always do.  There are no roads.  No signs.  Just a maze of rocks and construction sites, filled with Sandile.  Jim sighs with exasperation.  Who creates a new suburb without first designing and building a thorough road system?  This is frightfully un-Roman.  He calls Ulfric the Servine to his side, then picks a direction and starts walking, but quickly finds his path blocked by a stack of girders.  He turns and picks another direction.  Fleet of abandoned cranes.  What irresponsible bunch of loons is in charge of this site?  Suddenly, faintly, he hears a tortured scream in the distance, accompanied a girl’s voice spewing a raft of unprintable but highly imaginative curse words.  He smiles and begins to clamber over and around the cranes.

“Good girl,” I tell Sansa, patting her on the head.  Things had looked hairy for a moment when the developer had called over the workers he affectionately referred to as his ‘muscle,’ but Sansa and I had… explained to them, in a… a polite and concise manner, the cultural advantages of preserving the excavation site for future generations.  We explained it twice, in case they didn’t understand all of our points the first time.  Sansa’s debating skills have improved markedly since she learned Take Down.  As I congratulate my Flaaffy and talk shop with the grateful director of the archaeological site, a nearby wall collapses as Ulfric’s Vine Whips tear apart its scaffolding, and Jim strolls out of the unfinished building.

“Did I miss anything?”

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 7: OHGODSPIDERS

NB: There are no pictures because Tumblr is being a jerk.  Will attempt to do something about it later.

The Castelia City Gym I remember was… odd.  Its residents, a group of clowns who specialise in Bug Pokémon, had modelled the place after a beehive, with hexagonal rooms divided from each other with walls of gluey honey, which challengers could walk through, but only with difficulty.  I always found these honey walls tremendously bothersome, since they don’t actually present a puzzle to be solved or a maze to navigate the way most Gym features do, but still slow you down significantly as you move around the building.  When Jim and I step into the Castelia Gym, we note that the honey walls are nowhere to be seen, and realise that Burgh has been busy over the last two years – and the other Gym Leaders probably have been as well.  The inside of the Castelia Gym is now wreathed in fine white thread, as though some enormous spider has taken up residence – and, hell, for all we know, that’s exactly what’s happened; Burgh’s probably been making some new friends.  With this in mind, we enter – slowly, carefully.  The clowns are nowhere to be seen.  Perhaps Burgh has eaten them.  Such a… tragedy.  Yes.  Quite.  The ground level of the Gym is empty, but for a few woven cocoons, connected to the upper levels by long, thick cables of silk.  One is inaccessible, separated off by an impassable silken thicket, but the closest cocoon seems to have two openings in it.  Jim and I glance at each other and unclip Jaime and Ulfric’s Pokéballs from our belts before walking gingerly up to the thing.  Jim touches it cautiously; his hand comes away sticky, but the cocoon doesn’t react.  Hmm.  Step by step, I move around the cocoon to examine the rounded opening, and-

OH DEAR LORD IT’S EATING ME!

Through some inexplicable force of suction, the cocoon draws me in, swallowing me whole before I can jump away and leaving behind nothing but a strangled screeching noise.  I feel myself being dragged upward, though the silken ‘cable’ which I now realise is a hollow tube.  Convinced that I have been snared by the monstrous spider Pokémon which has certainly taken over the Castelia Gym, I start kicking as forcefully as I can and try to twist my body around in hopes of wedging myself halfway up the tube.  I pop open Jaime’s Pokéball, screaming through the muffling silk for him to cut us free with Razor Shell, and wrench my ensnared hand down to my belt in hopes of finding Barristan or Tyrion.  I hear Jim, faintly, through the silk as he calls for a Cut from Ulfric.  Jaime, now out of his ball, is squirming for his scalchops but can’t reach them with the sticky threads hindering his movements.  Luckily, I manage to get my hand down as far as my waist and tap on another Pokéball, not much caring at this point whose it is.  Success!  Barristan bursts out and gives a low, distressed howl as he realises our predicament.  Convinced that I have the way to freedom, I scream the words “Flame Wheel!” at the top of my lungs.

You can… probably imagine how the situation deteriorated from there.

Half an hour later, a rather mournful Burgh paces back and forth in front of us on the ground floor of the Gym.  The walls and floors are built from a hardy construction polymer, and are a little blackened but largely undamaged.  Unfortunately the webs, which apparently allow the Bug Pokémon and their trainers to move between floors, have been burnt completely to ashes, including Burgh’s spiderweb loft at the top of the building.  It will take months, he wails, for the Ariados to repair the place, and he may never replace the paintings he had stashed in some of the cocoons.  Jim points out diplomatically that no one has been seriously hurt (or at least, nothing a Burn Heal won’t fix) and suggests that a battle might take his mind off things.  Burgh sighs and admits he’s probably right; if nothing else a good battle might at least inspire him to get started on some new paintings.

At some point during the… incident… Jim had called Falk out to help, and a slight misunderstanding with the Gym trainers had led to the poor Magby being surrounded by half a dozen angry Whirlipede and Swadloon and bludgeoned into submission; he is therefore in no condition to fight.  Dovahkiin, however, is still fit and ready, and manages to handle all three of Burgh’s powerful Bug Pokémon – a Swadloon, a Dwebble, and a Leavanny – with skilful use of Counter and a little medicinal support from Jim.  Burgh hands Jim an Insect Badge, with a brief remark of congratulation, and gives his Pokéballs to a clown to have his Pokémon healed.  He then turns to me, slouched against the wall with Jaime and Barristan still at my side.  He attempts to give me a friendly smile, but it comes out as more of a grimace.  He starts to say something, but chokes on the words.  He finally throws a second Insect Badge at my feet, makes a mournful rattling noise in his throat, and leaves the building.

Victory is mine!

Obviously that didn’t go exactly as planned but it’s still worth a celebratory moonlit walk in Castelia Plaza!  Jim and I get our Pokémon checked out at the Pokémon Centre, then stroll down Castelia Street to the plaza.  Even at this late hour, the main streets are still bustling, though the plaza itself is fairly quiet… quiet enough that Jim instantly recognises the curious-looking scientist he met in the Castelia sewers the day before and points him out for me.  He notices us looking and, rather than fleeing as he did in the sewers, begins to approach us.  Jim quietly warns me to refuse any candy offered to me and keep my eyes peeled for a white van with tinted windows.  I adjust my belt and casually tap my fingers against Sansa’s Pokéball as our new friend gets closer.  He introduces himself as Colress, and compliments Jim once again on his battling in the Castelia sewers, before asking to see our Pokémon.

No.

“Are you sure?  But this is,” he strikes a dramatic pose, his notebook clasped against his chest, staring intensely into the night sky, “for science!”

 …hell no.

Colress thinks for a moment, and offers us a chocolate bar in exchange for letting him see our Pokémon.

Ooh!  Gimme!

Jim protests, but I happily accept the proffered candy and munch on it as Colress examines Sansa, who bleats at him and crackles a little bit, but doesn’t attack.  He proclaims his delight at seeing a Pokémon so strong and confident, and explains that he studies ways for humans to “bring out the power of Pokémon,” something Jim and I appear to be doing.  Colress tells us that he’s heading North, out of Castelia City, and invites us to follow him for a Pokémon battle to further his research.  He then turns and leaves without another word.  I want to follow see what he’s on about; if nothing else, there might be more candy.  Jim admonishes me for taking chocolate from a stranger, but admits that he’s curious to know what Colress wants (he’s probably just jealous because he didn’t get any candy), so we set off for Route 4 together.

White 2 Playthrough Journal, episode 6: The Plot Thickens

Team Plasma in their new trendy get-up.I hurry through the streets of Virbank City towards the ferry terminal, my eyes darting left and right, ever-watchful for Stu Deeoh’s accountants, whose wrath shall surely follow me to the ends of the earth.  As I safely draw near to the docks, however, I am confronted with an obstacle: a six-way Pokémon battle in the open streets.  To my surprise, Jim, Hugh and Roxie are all involved, and are being pressed hard by a trio of ginger ninjas.  No, really; I mean actual ninjas who happen to be ginger.  I realise that I know one of the ginger ninjas – the fellow who lobbed a DVD at me back on Floccesy Ranch – and reason that this must be Team Plasma.  I briefly weigh up in my mind the relative importance of following Pokémon League rules, helping my friends, my distaste for Roxie, fighting crime, and my own massive laziness and apathy.  Eventually I realise that Hugh, Jim and Roxie are battling with Pignite, Falk the Magby and Whirlipede, respectively, and that Pignite and Falk will be absolutely fine if I tell Barristan to scorch the area.

When they realise they’re outnumbered, the Team Plasma goons quickly recall their Pokémon and scatter.  Hugh, not missing a beat, chases after one of them, screaming something about never forgiving them.  Hmm.  Forgiving them for what, exactly?  Come back, Hugh; I think we’re on the verge of a real breakthrough here!  No, never mind, he’s gone.  Well, now that that’s taken care of with absolutely no negative consequences, I guess we’re off to Castelia City now, right?  No… no, Jim wants to help Hugh look for Team Plasma.  Come on; are we running a charity here now?  I elect to wait at the ferry terminal for him to get bored.  Jim, meanwhile, pursues the Team Plasma goons out of Virbank City into Route 20.  He manages to track down one of them, about halfway back to Floccesy Town, and knocks him to the ground with Elisif’s Thunder Wave.  As he flops around helplessly, Jim manages to extract a little information – the man was trying to come around and head back to the coastline.  Unfortunately, the Team Plasma grunt manages to flail onto a hillside and starts rolling before Jim can get anything else out of him.  He disappears into the bushes at the bottom of the hill, and has recovered from the Thunder Wave and scarpered by the time Jim gets down there.  Still, he and Hugh agree that the man’s comment can only mean Team Plasma are travelling by ship.  They return to the ferry terminal and are met there by Roxie.  Roxie thanks both of them on behalf of Virbank City and presents them with a pair of Cut HMs.  She presents me with a death glare and a silent threat to break her guitar over my head if I ever return to her city again, then departs.  Well, it’s not like I wanted that particular HM anyway.  The three of us board the ferry at last, and reach Castelia City before the day is out.

 Castelia City, in all its glory.

Castelia City is as absurd and wonderful as I remember from Black and White – the largest city in Unova, possibly in the entire Pokémon world, teeming with people and packed with businesses as absurd as they are numerous.  I pay a visit to the Battle Company, a huge corporation whose workers are devoted entirely to having Pokémon battles with each other and with visitors to their building, and Passerby Analytics, a group whose name, I can only assume, comes from the fact that they do absolutely no work themselves, but instead enlist random volunteers to conduct surveys for them.  We indulge in a few battles in the city, and little Tyrion evolves into a Whirlipede.  Eventually Jim suggests that maybe we should try to hunt down Team Plasma, and decides to seek the assistance of the Castelia Gym Leader.  I grudgingly agree and we head for the Gym – only to find it closed for business.  Luckily, help is at hand, in the form of… good grief, is that Iris?  The Opelucid City Gym Leader from White version?  What on earth is she doing here?  Is she after Team Plasma too?  Oh, whatever.  Iris confidently explains that she knows exactly where everything shady goes down in Castelia City (I can only presume she’s involved in half of it) and leads us to the easternmost pier of the city docks, where one can enter…

…the sewer level.

Why is there always a sewer level?

I refuse, point blank, to enter the sewer level.  The Virbank Gym was bad enough.  Jim and Hugh can muck around down there with the rats and the sludge monsters and goodness knows what else; I am going to the Café Sonata for antipasto and a glass of sweet white.  Iris doesn’t want to enter the sewer level either but she tries to hide it by claiming she’s standing guard on the surface, the sneaky little brat, so I do not invite her to join me.

 The Sewer Level.

Jim and Hugh enter the sewer level and, in fact, find Team Plasma remarkably quickly.  There are only two grunts in the area, who fall very quickly under their joint assault and flee the scene.  Burgh, the Castelia Gym Leader, emerges from the tunnel near where the goons were standing and declares that there are no other suspicious characters in the area.  Hugh’s thirst for vengeance is slaked for now, and he leaves, as does Burgh, who is returning to his Gym – well and good, but it leaves us no closer to finding their damn ship.  What kind of Bug Pokémon Master doesn’t keep a String Shot or Spider Web handy for just this kind of situation?  Immediately after Burgh leaves, having declared that there are no other suspicious characters in the tunnel, an extremely suspicious character steps out of the tunnel – the blonde white-coated scientist fellow who appeared in the games’ title sequence.  He reveals that he had been watching Jim and Hugh battle, and was impressed by their power, but slips away before Jim can call out a Pokémon to detain him for further questions.  Since Burgh has now been revealed as just about the most incompetent Gym Leader in the history of ever, Jim elects to remain in the sewer level for a while to make absolutely sure there’s no one else suspicious down here.  In fact, he finds that there are a great many suspicious people in the sewer level, though none of them seem to be affiliated with Team Plasma.  The tunnel, which is known as the Relic Passage, turns out to have been built by an ancient civilisation and links up to… somewhere, but Jim isn’t able to get very far inside.  He does find an extremely dodgy scientist who asks him, apparently in total seriousness, whether he is part of the sewer.  As fascinated as Jim is by the Relic Passage, he leaves as quickly as possible to search the sewers, making a mental note to report the scientist to the nearest asylum.

The sewers turn out to be full of Pokémon trainers, one or two of whom appear to have legitimate reason to be down there, though most of them just like hanging around in sewers.  Jim finds no trace of Team Plasma, although in one room, he finds a female scientist who claims to be attempting to create medicines from the venom of Poison Pokémon and other substances from the sewers.  She proclaims her day’s experiment a minor success, and hands Jim an oddly murky-looking Potion to test.  Jim smiles charmingly at her, saying that he’ll try it out later, leaves the room as quickly as possible, and promptly tips the Potion back into the sewer water from which most of it probably came.  He elects to get the hell out of this hive of madness and returns to the surface, where Iris congratulates him on whatever it was he just did and wanders off.  Jim scrapes the sewer muck off his shoes and decides to find me.  I have just finished my meal, and meet him on Narrow Street as I head back towards the Pokémon Centre.  We take a moment to discuss recent events before turning in.  Team Plasma is back, clearly, and they seem to have discarded their former facade of a movement for social change and Pokémon rights; now they’re just perfectly standard Pokémon thieves.  That’s fine by me; it makes them someone else’s problem.  Let the police deal with them.  Jim points out, not unreasonably, that teenaged Pokémon trainers are the closest thing this universe has to a police force.  I mutter that this is clearly the public’s own fault and the inevitable price of their low taxation, and propose returning to Aspertia as soon as we can use Fly to bypass Virbank City.  For now, though, we’re in Castelia… so we may as well stay long enough to take on that cloud cuckoo of a Gym Leader…