This shot reminds me of the beginning of Secret of Mana. I can hear the music in my head now. It's one of a small handful of things that still make me nostalgic.
This reminds me of the Dwarf Cave. 'Member Tropicallo?
Geodude/Graveler/Golem is a Pokemon I've always been partial to. I like 'mons that have three tiers of evolution. Unfortunately, a lot of them (this one included) need to be traded to evolve, and I can't really do that in this version of the game.
Next up, I storm the base of Team Magma. This won't be easy, because they're all armed with AR-15s as the Lord intended.
Some Team Magma grunts show remorse for what their organization is doing to the environment, and are promptly shouted down as "liberal scum" by their cohorts. How did all of these politics get into Pokemon? My God!
Remorse doesn't stop them from trying to fight our heroine, regardless. I'd take them more seriously if they weren't wearing these stupid, stupid outfits.
In the depths of the volcano, I find Groudon. This massive 2,000 pound Pokemon was the big legendary in Pokemon Ruby. In this game you can get it, Kyogre (the Pokemon Sapphire legendary) AND a new one, Rayquaza. Much like the previous gens, one of those three is much easier to obtain than the other two.
As I battle Team Magma bigwigs, my Surf-mule accidentally catches the experience from a trainer battle and gains a bunch of levels.
"It's my time now!" screeches Zigzagoon before being escorted out.
With another Team Magma skirmish out of the way, our hero now contends with Team Aqua again...or at least, runs into them. Now they're all about hoarding loot.
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Time to fight. In the original Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, I believe you'd fight either one team or the other (in addition to going after one legendary or the other). Emerald has all of that content, and as a result this part of the game is very long.
In Team Aqua, you ARE allowed to hold hands...but only if the woman signs a consent form.
This couple is not so lucky. She isn't into you that way, bro!
Moving on, we encounter... Matt Hardy? My God! It's Matt Hardy himself! And he's no longer Broken! He tries to recruit Renee as a Mattitude Follower, but fails.
The base is full of teleporters, an unfortunately common late-game mechanic in these Pokemon titles. They're usually confusing to deal with. In this case, one of the teleporters leads to a missable room that you DON'T want to miss:
Whoa. No less than FOUR treasure chests here. What are they, you ask?
Two of them are mimics. This is such a letdown.
One is THE Master Ball. OH MY GOD. The last one is a Nugget. Yeah, whatever. This is an important thing to make note of because it's VERY easy to miss this room entirely, and once you're done with this dungeon it becomes locked off after a while. In short: GET THE MASTER BALL on your first trip here.
In the middle of the sea, our hero finds the house of Hunter Hearst Helmsley. Weird place for a house. It must be waterproof. How does he go grocery shopping?
Well, that explains why Stephanie likes him so much.
Finally, I reach the island city of Mossdeep, home to the seventh gym. This guy has been repeatedly losing there because he only has Fighting-types and the gym is Psychic-based.
...uh oh.
In other words, Blaziken, my solution to everything, is at a massive disadvantage here, since they can all hit his weakness. And it's about to get worse...
...the battles are all two-on-two. Which, in my case, basically means two-on-one.
Moments after saying this, the psychic's eyes widened and they jumped out the window.
Getting to the gym leader was a meticulous task of going back to rest after every trainer fight, but I did it.
And the leader...is the creepiest gym leader ever. "Dancing Calbrena" should be playing here.
Apparently, one of these two is a dude and one is a chick. I have no idea which is which.
All of their 'mons are death-machines, making this fight a HUGE step up from previous gym leaders and one I'm not prepared for. Blaziken can still do a lot of damage, but it's mainly a situation of hoping that they attack Kadabra (or whoever is in the second spot) instead just to spare Blaziken from decimation.
The fight...does not go well. I'd go so far as to say I got demolished. Aside from their Psychic attacks, Claydol in particular is brutal in group battles because it uses Earthquake (which hits both 'mons on the other team).
After a few tries, I finally manage to get past that first stage. Next up are Sun and Moon, and they're actually a little easier to deal with. Stronger Psychic attacks, but nothing group-damaging.
A few big-damage strikes later and I finally eke out a win. It took getting very lucky with Blaziken getting the first move on most of the turns and the enemies not targeting him back very often, but it was doable.
...uh oh.
First...one more gym stands in my way.
Alpha Sapphire has Rayquaza and what I assume is a fair amount of Emerald content but it also is clearly Team Blue and you can't get Groudon.
ReplyDeleteMatt has no chance of winning without his /broken brilliance/.
Throwing all of your eggs into one basket is never the right way to pokemon!
SO MANY WATER HMs