Well, we’re finally getting somewhere… Part 9 sees the anti-climax that is after the big battle with Team Galactic and Giratina. In comparison, these battles are going to be really boring and easy in comparison. But it’s all necessary before we can go to the pinnacle of battling (at least for now!)

Part 9…

At this point nothing is coming to mind about what I should do. However, I do feel that I need to report back to Rowan since he’s the one who sent me out in the first place. So, a quick Fly down to Sandgem (using the very nice Starly HM slave) and to his lab, to – woah! – find him and Dawn standing in front of the door like a dog waiting for it’s master to come home from work. He goes on about some crap, all I understood was the numbers 60, 167 (the number of Pokémon I’d seen already), and 7 (number of badges). With that out of the way, the blackout guy has moved on… Weird.

Flint still came up to urge me to challenge Volkner, I still found him in the lighthouse and convinced him to go back. Now at this point there I wanted my team to get just a little bit more powerful, so a couple of side excursions to Fuego Ironworks and the Surfing bit on Route 213! I’m not going to detail them, they’re that minor. But they do help to lead up to the battle with the Electric-n00b Volkner. Well, that is after this:

Evolution: Garch -> Garchomp

It seems funny how his Electivire is the strongest one on his team, yet when faced with a Ground-type, all he can do is Quick Attack…

Current party: Empol (Lv47), Garch (Lv48), Togek (Lv50), Leaf (Lv46), Doom (Lv46), Luca (Lv47)

I still fail to get the point of having Jasmine there, other than to give you Waterfall. It’s thanks to her inclusion that message boards all over were going ripe on the very slight possibility that there would be a Gold/Silver/Crystal remake at some point in the future. But given you can get Johto starters in Emerald and import them that way, I highly doubt it. Also, to note, WTFH ran into me when I was talking to Jasmine. At this point I was fresh out of the Gym and hadn’t even gone to the Pokémon Center yet, which did make me go “You have got to be shitting me…”. And as if the game senses it would have been horribly mutilated and ridiculed had there been a rival battle, it sensibly didn’t force one upon me

So, now it’s time to hit the road to the Pokémon League. As before it’s a short Surf up, a Waterfall, a cave, and another Waterfall on the way. And combined with high level wild Pokémon, strong Trainers, and the usual lark. Thankfully, no Strength puzzles. Although speaking of Strength puzzles reminds me of the Victory Road from Red/Blue/Yellow. I remember I had an Onix, and Rage was one of it’s moves. Now back then, once you chose to use Rage, that’s all your Pokémon would do until it was KO’d or the battle ended. All that Raging for only 1PP. It was good and had the nice effect of getting more Attack whenever you took damage, but I also had the unfortunate circumstance of having a Rage battle between my Onix and a wild one. I think it went on for about 10 minutes, all thanks to the incredibly high defense of Onix… Thank god they nerfed the move…

Back to the modern day, Victory Road is just another cave with Trainers. Although the Trainers, and even the wild Pokémon in a way to tend to throw a few curveballs. One in particular is the addition of wild Gabite on at least the main floor. I guess they’re trying to push Garchomp a bit since it may not be as effective as other pseudo-legendaries? To cut the cave short, I got through it. I won’t bore you with any details (since it’s all the same!)

Up the final, huge Waterfall and into the castle that is the Pokémon League. Yes, the castle is the same. At least from the outside.

The first thing to notice when entering the Pokémon League proper is that the entry hall has been changed completely! Less of a Pokémon center, more a lobby for something more important in back (duh!). I do remember that before, your rival rushed you just as you were about to take the challenge, and now, it’s no different. Sigh

As usual, easy to kill, but he has gotten to the point where he has started to teach his guys TM moves (Earthquake, and U-Turn – not on video) and relearning old moves (Ice Fang). And if you’re wondering why the video cut off so abruptly, I ran out of room on the camera (it’s 1GB and also had Volkner and a couple of pics on it), and I was not about to redo the whole thing just to include the bit of text afterwards that I can’t even understand!

Now all that was about two weeks ago. Since then I’ve been training up my team before taking on the Elite Four. My first go at it on Diamond with a team just past Level 50 was really hard work and did stretch me, my items, and my patience to the limit! Even with the slight level reduction for Platinum, I still want to get a good few more levels on these guys before I start. That and I’ve been backing up this much for too long now, and I want to get back on course. Plus, it’ll likely take a while to get all the battles done. My camera only holds at most 12 minutes of video, so if I am going to go for it, I have to do one battle, take it off the camera and onto my computer, before recording the next one. If the battle against Cynthia from Diamond is anything to go by, I’ll be pushing that limit…

But I’m not going in completely unawares. Being the Elite Four, any one of their Pokémon could be hiding a super-effective move, even when I have the natural type advantage. Such things have included at some point in time: Stone Edge on Bertha’s Hippowdon; Thunderpunch on Flint’s Infernape, Thunderbolt on Flint’s Magmortar, Ice Fang on Aaron’s Drapion. Which is why I’ve been making “recon runs”. This is I save before entering, and go in with the full team, but won’t heal them at all. Not only does it help find the curveballs, but also lets me see who will do well, and who will struggle to keep their vitality and spirit!

Oh, and not intended to be a spoiler or anything at all, but Aaron will crash and burn. Literally and epically.

Current party: Empol (Lv56), Garch (Lv54), Togek (Lv54), Leaf (Lv53), Doom (Lv55), Luca (Lv54)