Pokemon: Generation III (Part 6 - Winona)

Today on Pokemon Emerald, Renee walks through tall grass like that scene in Gladiator.

::looks up:: Now we are free.

I'm already at the sixth gym, but I can't get in because...invisible thing. I was worried that it'd take a while to find a solution, but luckily the item I need is nearby.

More hot trainers!

"Check out my butt!" she says while twirling her umbrella. She's like half the women who go to the Starbucks in my neighborhood.

My old pal Steven has the Devon Scope, the latest Devon Corp technology. It lets the wielder see invisible people. Wait...what? Forget the Devon Scope, I want the technology that lets you turn invisible in the first place!

...oh, it isn't technology at all, it's a particular Pokemon type.

My God. It's Sting Chameleon as a boy.

As rain continues to fall, I get a heads-up on the next gym leader. Winona utilizes flying-types, which is rare for a gym leader.

With Sting Chameleon As A Boy out of the way, it's time. IT'S TIME. IT'S VADER! TIME!

We're there. Yep. Already. This gym is kind of annoying because it's full of these weird revolving doors that you have to push from various directions.

Some of the battles in this gym are two-on-two. This is one of the things Emerald does that I really like. The key is to figure out which attacks can hit multiple foes at once. The game doesn't give you any particular clues to that end and you don't know until you go to use a move.

Winona is all about bird 'mons. She's...a little weird.

Uhh...yeah. The hell are those weird pants?

She immediately attacks with... Jay Leno? IT'S JAY LENO, EVERYBODY!

As Blaziken wages war on Winona's pseudo-dragons, I have a thought. Given how the new thing among rappers is naming themselves after random historical figures, we are just ONE rapper with wit away from getting "Hoochie Minh".

"Give me my badge, bitch!" says Renee.

This is the big reward. I'm surprised it took six gyms for me to get access to what is essentially the Return spell. This makes getting around SO much easier. These Pokemon games aren't exactly known for their speedy land travel.

Thanks to Trump getting rid of environmental regulations, soon I'll be able to axe this tree. Actually, given that Cut is usually one of the first HMs you get, I feel like I missed it... I'll need to look into this. It isn't necessary to progress in this game, unlike the others, and only exists to open shortcuts and various side-areas.

Surskit may be Hoenn's creepiest Pokemon.

"Member Pikachu?" say the berries. Who?

Mt. Pyre? Isn't that from Chrono Cross?

Oh geez. Speaking of creepy, it's time for more Pokemon Creepiness(tm). This couldn't just be a regular mountain, could it?

Moving on, here's Lilycove City, which was voted the "sexiest-named city in Pokemon" for several years running before it got toppled by Cinnabar City.

Oh geez, it's Brendan. Is this guy ever going to do anything interesting?

"I'm not going to lose to no Renee"

What follows is another battle with his usual squad. Blaziken, as with everything else so far, dominates. Man, it'd take like, a two-on-one fight with an overpowered Psychic-themed gym leader to stop the Blaziken Train. Luckily THAT'S never going to happen.

"Fear Me!" says Marshstomp. Weaknesses or not, over ten levels means our heroine wins again.

WAIT! I spoke too soon, as Brendan also has...whatever the hell Ludicolo is. Ludicrous Cholo? All I know for sure is that this is the most racist Pokemon since Jynx.

"Member Kanto?"

"Ooh, I 'member Kanto!"

"Member Pokemon? Member catching monsters?"

THOSE THINGS ARE STILL GOING ON! THEY NEVER WENT AWAY!

"Member the N64?"

"Ooh! The N64 was the best system!"

"Member Pikachu?"

Oh My God. It's Pikachu. It's like the berries summoned him! Unfortunately, this is a trainer battle. Haven't seen a wild Pikachu in this game at all. You'd think every Pokemon would have wild Pikachu...

Mt. Pyre is full of gravestones and general morbidity.

It's kinda fitting that Kadabra finally learns Psychic here. Psybeam is good, but Psychic obliterates. It was one of the best one-shotting moves in the first two gens. This gen has a ton of Psychic-immune types (pretty much everything used by Team Aqua and Team Magma, for instance) so the effectiveness is nerfed, but Psychic is still awesome when it does work.

This guy is going to beat me up to impress his girlfriend, who is really funny and really smart.

Renee proceeds to BLAST HIM WITH A CHAIR! Forget Poke-battling! Then she blasts Dez with a chair too! EQUAL OPPORTUNITY CHAIRSHOTS!

With those douchebags out of the way, I run right into more douchebags: Team Aqua. No, I never tried to join Team Magma, you complete tool.

That's awesome, because I don't want to join your annoying boutique party of fake social outrage.

Team Aqua's ultimate objective is to expand the oceans and put more of the world underwater. Well, all they have to do is vote for Team Magma, who want to de-regulate corporations and increase global warming. We'll have less land in no time!

Occasionally, NPCs in the Pokemon-verse make reference to a great war that transpired in the past where Pokemon were utilized as weapons. As far as I know, none of the games have really told us too much about this great war, so it's shrouded in mystery. Maybe someday we'll get a prequel game set during the great war, but I imagine it'd be vastly different from the rest of the series and take a more grown-up tack. Not too sure I'd actually like it. It might be better suited as a novelization.

Next time on Pokemon Emerald: I take on Gym Seven. I'm sure I'll roll over that one too, unless it contains a handicap match against OP psychic types or something.

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