Tuesday, December 11, 2018

Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu, Part 3 - Electric Rat City

We now return to the adventures of Cataluña: THE Latin cultural sensation of 2018.


Our next stop has Pikachu playing detective at a house that was apparently rampaged through by a dinosaur.

"Actually, it's MY yard" says Undertaker when reached for comment. 

He's wrong too, it's Raticate's yard. It's rodent versus rodent in a battle for the heart - nay - the very SOUL of humanity.

Mr. Hyper is lurking at the Pokémon Daycare. I don't remember this guy from previous versions of Gen 1. Got a feeling he's going to be important later, with his weirdly Earthbound-esque name. 

::eyes narrow:: Go away, Generalisimo! 

Go! Shoo! Cataluña wants none of your diabolical schemes! 

Uhh...I need an adult 

He then proceeds to "find" a Revive in her hair. Yeah right. I hate this guy. 

Things go from bad to worse, as the next area is a long creepy subway tunnel. 

It smells like pee in here, and you can find strategically-placed Lures laying around. The horrific news reports practically write themselves. 

On the other side, this hot teacher tells me something I could have been filled in on YESTERDAY. 

Arcanine is easily one of my favorite Gen 1 Pokémon, and here I obtain his first form. The best part is that you can evolve him soon after this since the game practically hands you a Fire Stone.

Since Charizard is also super-good, I usually end up with two Fire Pokémon by the endgame of this gen. 

Moments later, we encounter this trainer who has been struggling with his boner. "It ALWAYS lets me down!" he mumbles. Look dude, I'm sorry about your boner. It happens to a lot of people. I hear.

Was wondering when I'd get a Squirtle. Here he is. It's about time because he's pretty much going to evolve ASAP. 

Enjoy the adorableness while you can. Moments after this picture was taken, Mario leapt onto the screen and bounced off his head. He was 22. 

Finally, I have a full party of 'Mons that I really like. Normally at this point in Gen 1 I'd try to have a Kadabra, but I haven't been able to manage that this go-around. He's OP anyway. The only one here in danger of getting bumped is Geodude, and he might stick around a while if he evolves soon. 

Sailor Elijah: "Look at my butt!" 

Tentacool reminds me of War of the Worlds (in all of its forms). That...that isn't a good thing. 

::Vegeta is heard yelling off-camera:: "HE'S! SO! CUTE!" 

I don't know what she's talking about. Women don't sweat, they glisten.

The old guy on the right tells us the tale of how this land used to be verdant and beautiful. Back in the day, ya see, before the Machop came along and started stomping the land down. 

I don't know how I feel about flashing my "SS Ticket" at all these checkpoints around Vermillion City, but I'll roll with it. 

"You've won a free OVEN MITT" he says. Let's just move on quickly.

At this point I get access to a new hat, which means Cataluña can finally get rid of that "Make Kanto Great Again" looking hat and put on...  

...a shiny new Democrat hat! It doesn't have any cool catchphrases, but it's smarter and it'll do a really good job as a hat.

...it lost to the other hat. 

The cruise ship is the next "dungeon". It's FULL of trainers and a great source of exp. I've done this enough times by now to want to just get to the end of it quickly, so I go straight to the top floor. Will I come to regret not leveling up by fighting all of the trainers here? 

 
He's HERE too? How do I get away from this guy? 

The former Gary interrupts before The Generalisimo can find a Burn Heal behind Cataluña's ear or something. 

What follows is yet another fight with The Generalisimo. The story here is a surprising one: His Eevee is easily defeated, while his final Pokémon is this SUPER ODDISH. Seriously, this thing decimated half my party by itself: 

And that's with TWO Fire Pokémon. Where the hell did this roided-out Oddish come from? 

He would have evolved a lot sooner if I'd cleared the cruise ship of trainers. Say bye to my last starter. We just got him! 

Well, Wartortle is really good, at least. He's probably the best second-form of the starters, but don't quote me on that. The best third-form is most likely Charizard. Factoring all of this in, it makes sense that Bulbasaur is the best first-form starter, at least against the early gym leaders in Gen 1. 

Protip: Head to the TM collection and equip Wartortle with the Scald ability ASAP. It's stronger than any of his native water attacks at this level.

GET OUT! 

What follows is a bizarre scene where El Capitan is puking into a garbage can, so our hero has to give him a back rub. Luckily, this isn't a moan-filled minigame like the one in Final Fantasy X-2. Oh, I'll get to that game.

...I think. 

We go around about how his secret technique (Cut) is only for humans. Cataluña isn't interested in cutting, and Pikachu demands to learn it instead, and El Capitan argues with them for a bit. 

Eventually he teaches the move to Pikachu, which means we can get past shrubbery on the overworld. It's weird how every special move teacher seems to argue with our heroes about teaching the move to Cataluña, only to have Pikachu demand to learn it instead. Did I miss something? Why not just cut to the chase? Well, at least HMs - and their moves cluttering your ability sets - are a thing of the past. 

We get a great shot of our heroes waving goodbye to the cruise ship. Man, all of that just to learn how to get past a shrub. 

Maybe our heroes should have just given up on this badge-collecting crusade and set sail along with that boat. Right about now it's sounding pretty good. Instead I have to go fight an insane drill sergeant whose electric rat is bigger, stronger, and way more psychotic than mine. 

All momentum halts as this NPC helpfully explains that I need to use the ability I just got to remove the obstruction in the way of the gym that I was already informed of which is why I went and got the ability. This was time well spent! 

After I trim the bush as per Nelly and JT's earlier discussion, the guy pops up AGAIN to explain to me that I just gained access to the gym. I understand that the game must be accessible to the wee, though I don't even think the wee need things spelled out for them this much. 

Jim's Dad warns us of Lt. Surge. He's an expert on Electric-type Pokémon, and he's also probably sexually enraged from years of guarding a base.

 It's like the formation of the NWO. All of this trash in here is what awaits you trainers in your future if you keep hanging out with the likes of Lt. Surge!

The guy with boner trouble from earlier is back, and oh God, he's got his own Pika. 

"...bro? Is that you?" says our hero. The other Pikachu responds in that European voice all Medieval movie villains use: "Truly, it has been a long time, my brother!"

They then circle as "Ritual of Ancient Battles" plays.

I despise the electric barrier "puzzle" in this gym, which does very little besides waste time. 

Lt. Surge himself is a formidable foe, and I'm expecting this to be a challenge since Pikachu won't be able to roll over him with Zippy Zap. Fun Fact: In the original Nintendo Power coverage of Gen 1 Pokémon, this guy was the last boss that they covered. So for a little while I had no idea who any of the trainers were after this point, and Lt. Surge occupied that "NP final boss" position held by foes like Magus in Chrono Trigger

Besides Nintendo Power, this fight was also the last thing I saw in the Pokémon anime. I remember it being a brutal battle.

He sends out a couple of weaker 'Mons before the main event, which is the monstrous Raichu.

I always thought Raichu looked really cool, and it's tough for me to not want to evolve Pikachu into one. He's sorta like Freeza Form 2, bigger and meaner and pointier.

This is easily the hardest fight yet, and I don't have any particularly good moves against him. He also tends to go first, which allows him to run roughshod over most of the party. Also notice that Raichu's level is much higher than ours, which makes a huge difference. This guy is a bit of a difficulty spike.

Lt. Surge hands me my first (and last, for a while) loss. It was SO CLOSE too. Part of the problem is that I didn't heal up before the fight. The party was at about 75% strength and I took him lightly...that extra 25% would have done it.

Now that the game has a bit of difficulty to it, I hit the shops and buy up on potions.

In other news, this mouth-watering woman has a controversial theory.

Time for the rematch, as Lt. Surge plans to shock and awe our heroes.

I send Geodude out to employ a tactic I'll be using quite a bit from here on out: The Chaozu.

He leaps into the fray and detonates, like those bombs in the Final Fantasy series. Will this be enough to stop Raichu?


Nope, and even at full strength we're getting killed out there. This time I left Pikachu as the final stand.

Pikachu unleashes the Zippy Zap to end all Zippy Zaps!

And we get the win. Lt. Surge is none too happy about this.

Here are the final stats as of the end of the fight. My God.

Well, this is the worst: You have to re-cut shrubbery every time you go back through an area.

And on that note, we're out of time for this episode. Join us next time as we take on Gym 4 and Team Rocket and stuff.






14 comments:

  1. That is one adorable Squirtle.

    By skipping most of the ship you didn't just miss EXP, you missed a scene on the deck with Pikachu being cute. https://youtu.be/XsGbn2Rgxg4?t=1454

    HMs are seriously not missed. I liked the idea of them originally, but they're more trouble than they're worth.

    There's a reason Souled Out 1997 starts with a garbage truck.

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