Timber Dragon

Don't know if this has been complained about yet, but am I the only one who's not really digging the new music in this update? I don't mean the remixed 'White' tracks for the cities (they're actually growing on me, though I'm sure others out there may not like them), I mean the replacements for the battle music. I understand Ame was trying to save space by compressing the music or something, but now a lot of the tracks sound poor-quality and scratchy. I know it's just personal taste, but I really preferred a lot of the previous battle music. I loved the Johto Champion Remix as the gym battle track. imo the new one sounds forgettable... like, I beat the gym leader like 15 minutes ago and I'm literally trying to remember what the music sounded like. It's kinda the same boat the new wild Pokemon battle music. I was going to give it a pass because of the changes in the city, but it looks like the new track is going to retroactively replace the previous one. And onto the second half of the title. Curbing the money gain might've taken things too far in the other direction. A late-game gym leader battle just gave me a whopping 1500. Maybe that's actually a lot by Pokemon standards and I'm just used to Reborn's hyper-inflation, but I thought we escaped that whole 'eternally in poverty' issue and now I'm a little concerned. I know there's the rebattleable trainers, but still. Anyhoo, those are my complaints this episode. Otherwise, yay ep 16, fun and pain and whatnot.

How specifically are you having trouble? Besides Blaziken, your team seems like it should be okay, but I'll see what I can do anyway. Psychic-types in general tend to have high special defense but low physical defense, so moves like Mamoswine's Earthquake and Crawdaunt's Crab Hammer should do good damage, especially after Swords Dance. Gallade with Close Combat should be KO'd ASAP. I suggest leading with Drapion and Eelektross and having them both gang up on Gallade with Crunch. Eelektross can use Thunder Wave then afterwards support Drapion in attacking. It's also possible to lead with Gardevoir and have it use one or two Calm Minds, which has double effect thanks to the field, and then just use brute force with Psychic. Enough buffs will offset the type resistance. Once you get past Gallade, your team already has the typing to cover the rest of Radomus's team. Eelektross and Mamoswine have good synergy with Levitate + Earthquake. Crawdaunt has Swords Dance if you can safely set it up. Even Blaziken can get in a hit or two with Shadow Claw. You'd just need to keep your team healthy. Don't be afraid to heal and revive.

GOD DAMMIT Dead Sirius Team Updates Welp, I'm in the area so I figure I might as well go catch myself a Furfrou. I'll do it for completion's sake, but it's a shame that Fur Coat is such a useless ability-- Okay wait no hold on WHAT Dear sweet Arceus Did... did anyone even notice this? I don't think anyone did, because I'm 90 percent sure that no one but me has ever had any reason to catch a Furfrou in Reborn, ever. Well gee, I guess I know who I'm bringing into the Steelix fight. Steelix McBigHuge and Abratwo Hey! Soooo would you guys think you'd get more bang for your buck if I recorded videos not just of the major battles, but of the general gameplay? It wouldn't be a true Let's Play (a talker I am not) or a complete walkthrough, but just to see the everyday stuff and give some of my doggies more attention. Y'know, to make the playthrough seem like a playthrough and not just a string of random battles where we get destroyed... or do the destroying. Meh, I'll do some recording and see what happens. Maybe the readers will bond a bit more with the pack as a whole and not just one or two of the primary asskickers (read: Arcanine).

If you're lucky you can find a Trubbish that's carrying a Black Sludge. I found one in the Obsidia Slums, but I don't know if you can find it earlier (you'd need to consult the Pickup table). I believe you can catch a Grimer from the murky waters as soon as you get the Old Rod, which should already be available to you. Muk looks like it'd be a pretty good tank with that high HP and special defense, and... not-awful physical defense. Drapion serves me pretty well even outside monotype runs. It and Skuntank take care of that pesky Psychic weakness, though they're both still vulnerable to Ground. Venusaur can cover Ground-types offensively, Crobat is part Flying and Weezing has Levitate, assuming you'd want to use one. I'm not too familiar with Poison tbh but Toxicroak is part-Fighting and I know Skuntank learns Flamethrower, so that would help against Steel.

Hells yeah. I don't necessarily go out of my way to get mons that can abuse field effects, but I try to have at least one or two 'field-changer' moves somewhere on my team, depending on what's convenient. And in my canine-themed run at least, thanks to Arcanine, any field that can be set on fire probably will be set on fire eventually.

... I walked right into that one, didn't I. Oh, and I went back and spoiler'd my previous posts so all those pictures won't bog down the thread. You guys are welcome. Mirror, mirror, in my brain How this field can cause me pain

I can't give a good explanation since I didn't watch much of Sinnoh or Unova, but whenever I decided to watch specific episodes of BW to see a certain Pokermun in action, I found myself unable to watch more than one episode at a time. Instead of one big issue, there were many many moderate issues that all came together to make it hard for me to watch. I think the biggest problems I had with it were Cilan and Iris, and the general plot of the episodes. Almost everything out of Cilan's mouth was just general commentary filled with a LOT of needless food puns, so it felt like he was just there to be a Brock 2.0 who focused more on cooking at the expense of... everything else. And Iris just plain irritates me. She constantly talks smack about Ash's skills, frequently telling him he's "such a kid" despite how her skills as a trainer hardly back up her boasts of becoming a Dragon-type master. And funnily enough, her sole Dragon-types are an unevolved Axew and Gible, and a Dragonite that didn't even respect her at first. Oh, and when she uses Dragonite in a tournament, when he doesn't listen to her, she essentially throws a tantrum and keeps yelling at Dragonite to listen to her, rather than try literally anything else to get Dragonite to obey her or even understand he's disobeying her in the first place. And this same person keeps belittling Ash's competence. (Speaking of Ash's competence, I guess I didn't watch enough episodes for me to take issue with that. I thought he was decently skilled, though that's probably because I hadn't watched too much of Sinnoh either. And it WAS irritating to watch when things like a freakin' Snivy getting the best of him happened.) And for the plots of the episodes seemed kinda... dull for me. Maybe I'm just imagining it, but the scenarios and the way things are resolved seemed kinda uninspired. Boring, even. I only watched the BW episodes to see the Pokermuns in action, not really for the gripping storyline.

Well, I do have a Ghost monotype run, but it's not a type I'd pick if I wanted to thrive. Ghost-types are uncommon and have an unusual playstyle, plus the weakness to Dark-type was a bigger problem than I expected. Bite, Knockoff, and Sucker Punch come from the most unexpected of places... Still, the run forced me to get clever with my strategies, so if you wanted something different, a Ghost monotype can be interesting. You can honestly make an argument for any type's ability to survive in Reborn, but if I had to pick, I might say Dark. They're a pretty diverse bunch with plenty of type coverage, and hard speedy hitters. If you can get around how squishy they tend to be, and their issue with Fighting-types (not a type you wanna be weak to in Reborn, especially post-Agate), then I think you can actually do pretty well for yourself.

Too bad Sigmund's not stupid enough to use Electric-type attacks against Electric-type Pokemon...

Was that big name game forum GameFAQs or IGN by any chance? If so, that explains a lot. The game starts off being pretty edgy (nearly getting nailed by a terrorist attack and a Meteor grunt getting interrogated via Torkoal + metal chair, to name a few), but that's really only in comparison to the main Pokemon games. There's waaaay explicitly darker stuff out there. I'd argue that Reborn actually gets progressively less edgy as the game goes on. It's still pretty dark, yes, but what separates it from being the emo 'edgy' kind of dark is the underlying optimism of the story. Hell, ep 16 will be all about running around in a newly rebuilt city -- a city rebuilt because the people were working together to fix their own home. The only things I can say are prooobably actually sorta edgy are Titania (who's controversial in the fanbase anyway), Charlotte and Saphira, and imo Corey, who seems very melodramatic in a way that other parts of Reborn aren't. Otherwise the game has plenty of humorous moments and characters, and you probably wouldn't notice it from what those big-name game forums say, but you actually get to help more characters than you watch tragically die.

I could've sworn Aya had a Muk somewhere

Adventures at Azurine Island In which we all learn how to take one for the team

Gym leaders and other major battles tend to be good at covering their own weaknesses. It could be certain moves or certain Pokemon, but they're measures put into place so that a single type/Pokemon can't just sweep the whole team. This might already be obvious for someone experienced in advanced Pokemon play, but when I started I was far from advanced. Reborn taught me some tough lessons about thinking up strategies beyond pure type match ups. Learning how to exploit field effects can also be a lifesaver in certain battles. Sometimes if your Pokemon are having trouble, the field can give them an edge and give you extra strategy you wouldn't normally have in the official games. It wasn't always this way, but gym leaders have strategies that revolve around taking advantage of their field. That means if you alter the field, you break their strategies. Ame is very, very particular about keeping things balanced, so rather than using your favorites, you'll most likely find yourself using Pokemon you might not normally use in official games. In Reborn, learning how to use what's available is key to survival -- you might find some surprising strategies in Pokemon you'd otherwise ignore. For example, there's a Kricketot at the beginning of the game. For Arceus's sake, get it. You will be thankful.

Team Updates Our lovable pyro has grinded to learn all her pre-evolution moves, and now she's finally evolved into Arcanine! Imagine how much more chaos she can sow now that she's evolved. Fun fact: I'd only named her Amaterasu because I was scrapped for female wolf names, but then I remembered Amaterasu is supposed to be a sun goddess. Yeah. Surprisingly prohetic stuff there. Okay, show of paws -- who here ISN'T weak to Fighting-type?

ZEL, please, make up your mind which mon you wanna use We're not the only ones who like to burn stuff

Long wait for a small update, OH WELL Team Updates Vulpecula's a Delphox now yaaay I have a spiffy new Zoroark now. I'm not 100 percent sure what to do with him with Houndoom around, but I guess it's nice not dying to Rock-, Water-, and Ground-types. I have a spiffy new Houndoom now. I'm not 100 percent sure what to do with him with Zoroark and a bunch of other Fire-types around, but... nice roll with the shiny and the stats, I guess? Daaaayum Manectric you scary

Team Updates Lassie's a Stoutland now yay Sorry about your home, Shelly

Yeah, I wasn't entirely expecting to see legendaries before post-game, even the low-tier ones like Articuno and pretty much anything with a base stat total under 600. ... but I actually really like Articuno. It's so pretty. ame plz A world of bliss where there is no competitive battling, tiers don't exist, and everyone's Pokemon is a Gyarados.

Speaking of bosses, if you use Ditto against the PULSE encounters, does it also copy their boosted stats and altered typing or does it just become the normal non-PULSE'd version of the boss?

Yeah, unfortunately I agree that Obsidia and the other 'white' mixes sound a bit off to me. It could just be that, like someone else mentioned, I'm just not used to it and I just need to experience it in-game to appreciate it, but I also agree that something about the instrumentation doesn't seem to fit. I dunno, maybe it'll grow on me eventually. I usually don't fully appreciate a piece of music no matter how good until I see it in action. For all the TMs being available, I... think that's the case, but I don't remember. All Pokemon are also supposed to be available by the final episode, but is that before the Elite 4? I don't think Ame would want us bringing in a Rayquaza or something for the final boss. In fact, I'm kinda hoping we can't, not because I don't want awesome Pokermuns, but because Ame only gives us Pokermuns that she thinks are appropriate for that point in the game. So I gotta wonder, if we're at the point where we're able to obtain Rayquaza, just what sort of insanity will we be up against? Scary thoughts, man.

Corey

Haha. I prefer to type out my creepy laughter. I also use XD unironically... but usually just in texts. Or on forum statuses. Or in forum posts where 'unironic' is a thing.

So! A comment on a random unrelated thread mentioned the 'Shift' battle style made the game too easy for him. Then I felt inadequate and not enough of a Pokermuns master, so to prove that I can be a Pokermuns master like the big kids, I decided screw it, Set battle style it is! Please bear with me while I adjust to this terrifying mode of conduct. Team Updates Ability: Rattled I know that Courage the Cowardly Dog is a dude, but c'mon. She's a dog, she's cowardly, and she's purple. Good enough for me. Confusion RNG is Confusing Moar Team Updates I have a spiffy new Manectric. Yay. Ability: Justified And a spiffy new Growlithe. Yaay. Too bad I haven't though of a name yet. If only the police Growlithe wasn't set to female. Then I could've named her Balto... oh well. Confusion RNG is very Confusing