drevance

August 30, 2016

OH MY ARCEUS IT FINALLY HAPPENED!

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After somehow managing to burn Terra to the ground, she went into hiding. We were finally able to use Waterfall and made our way to the water treatment center and WHOA BOY WAS IT TOUGH. I had conveniently forgotten to heal my pokemon from after the Terra battle and didn't know until later that I could reclimb the waterfall, so that sucked. Thanks to the level limiter though as I made my way through the Plant my team, minus Shame , were able to mostly ding L75. Honestly I'm so glad that the exp is so generous in hardcore. OMG.

ANYWAY. Pulse Swalot was something to overcome. I ended up using a combination of Curse and Confusion to fell it. Took a few attempts but /shrug. Finally being able to traverse the plant was totes worth. Now we had to free our favorite Aegislash user. After a few ~~minutes~~ she was free and we made our way to the boss room and found Taka. After listening to him and being majorly confused by his actions I walked away. While I could help him by battling him so that his father knew he at least put up a fight, that isn't something I would do. Taka should face his father considering his actions prior. I won't help him continue his lie or facade.

Anyway we get back and Team Meteor assaults us. The two Aces prove challenging, especially when SOMEONE's MEGA STEELIX SPAMS EARTHQUAKE FFS FLO!

Blake and Fern are next and LOL eruption spam.

Next is yaboi John and Solaris. This was a bit trickier, with Mega Gyrados causing me problems. Like seriously, I was pretty frustrated here. Much salt. Few tears. Anyway, getting it to miss was my advantage and a lucky crit did it in. After that I got schooled and Flo finished the battle for us (I can't wait to get my revenge on you in the CoM. I'm going to burn you to ashes)

Surprisingly that was fun, and after a few little twists we made our way back to Agate to challenge Ciel, the last leader standing in our way (presently).

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Did I mention I hate Noivern?

This thing was the bane of my existence. ANYWAY.

I just kept resetting this fight. Man, I'm not going to lie, this battle had me yelling a few times. The guy that lived next to me actually knocked on my door to see if everything was cool and I told him I was just getting my ass handed to me and he laughed.

Finally, the stars aligned.

Amon vs. Skarmory.

Flamethrower and Ironhead. With sturdy it survives with 1HP. Nasty Plot and Hyper Potion. Nasty Plot and Stealth rocks. Flamethrower KO.

Amon vs. Gyrados

Dark Pulse OHKO

Amon vs. Gliscor

Flamethrower OHKO

Amon vs. Noivern

Hurricane misses, and Dark Pulse OHKO GET OUT OF HERE YOU STUPID BAT I HATE YOUR ENTIRE EXISTENCE

Amon vs. Togikiss

Flamethrower almost KOs it and it gets off an Air Slash which takes Houndoom down low. Hyper Potion and Flamethrower x2. Finally Togi goes down.

Amon vs. Mega Cloud Server

Flamethrower because its dead anyway. The Cloud Server KOs Amon with Hyper Voice.

Cinder vs. Mega Cloud Server

Smokescreen and Hyper Voice KO

Happy vs. Mega Cloud Server

Confuse Ray and hits itself. Flamethrower and hits itself. It's getting near death. Flamethrower and it KOs with Hyper Voice

Sabrina(Rotom-H) vs. Mega Cloud Server gets KO'd

Cobalt is next and gets KO'd

Krakatoa is up last and KOs Cloud Server with a Sun Boosted MAX HP Charcoal Eruption. GG.

I take a screenshot and gasp. F12.

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My next attempt, on the next day ends up ending on Mega Cloud Server. I decide not to reset and take my first money loss from Ciel. Except that when I appear at the heal station she battles me again?

Except its doubles with no field.

I recorded the battle and I will be uploading it today after classes (I have one soon) I did defeat Ciel though here. It was pretty tough still, although without the field boosting Hyper Voice Mega Cloud Server just got rekt. Here is this to tide ye over.

Anyway, with that we got our last badge and Acrobatics. We were informed about some books ([ and with that, completed Pokemon Reborn Hardcore Episode 15!

OH MY ARCEUS I AM SOOOOOOO HAPPY. omg. You have no idea. Holy moley. That was the most intense Pokemon experience that I have had to date, and the most fun. Not only was it difficult but it forced me to improve how I battled and used certain moves/mons. While I've never really battled competitively on showdown or anything (aside from Random battles) I felt that this helped me move into that direction.

So next thing is next, tonight or tomorrow I'm going to do my best to write up and 'rank' each of the fire types that I had. I'll show pictures of them and their move sets etc. My next step is getting everyone breeded and leveled up to 80 to take on the CoM. My former roommate really liked seeing the battles I recorded, so I might stream them and just record the stream to put it up or I'll record it. But regardless, I'll have proof and probably type out my thoughts/why I did what I did for the battles. I don't know how fast/long it will take me but I will get to it (I promise). Although if I complete the CoM and Episode 16 is not yet released then I will be looking for something else to do potentially. Perhaps another monorun or I might even (plsno) attempt a nuzlocke which I have never done before. We'll see.

However, with being in school my updates will slow. I'm in multiple upper division classes this semester. Now while that might not mean much, it means that from the last week of September to the first week of November anything I do will be halted. I have something like 6 books that I will be reading and writing reviews on for my classes, in addition to already having books I need to read for small groups. That is only from two of my classes.

But if anything I'll try to get at least a CoM battle every few days if I'm not done by end of September.

Anyway, I just want to thank anyone who happened to read this and join me on this ~~rocky~~ hot road to episode 15. Hats off to the hardworking people behind Reborn and those behind the Hardcore mod.

Yeah I don't know what else to say really. Maybe end it here?

Actually nvm -I wrote a paragragh here about something but I'll just include it in my post following about the mons/the run-

Anywho, cya next time!

August 28, 2016

who is your avatar of/where is it from? I really like it

August 27, 2016

I picked up a double shift today, so I'm going to do a run through of the randomizer. I was going to ask if the gym leaders/rivals/important battles/events were randomized but now that I'm actually going to start playing it in under an hour, I'm sure I'll find the answer to my own question. Anyway, looking good with the updates. I'm excited to play No Item, Level Limiter, Nostalgia Mode, TM Breeding, and Randomizer. I'll be sure to report any hiccups that I find.

August 25, 2016

Probably from my Monofire run of Hardcore against Kiki. Camerupt 1v6'd her and I just laughed like a madman. Curse x3 and then Earthquake spam was glorious.

August 24, 2016

I believe the reason why Commander is there is kind of a funny one. In the first release of Hardcore Terra was one of the easiest leaders in the game tied with Ciel and Shelly (yes Shelly was the easiest leader at one point). She didn't really use the Glitch Field to the fullest potential so I tried thinking of a guy who really liked Psychic types and used a lot of gimmics and weird mon choices to fill the void. Just a fun fact but the original ace for me was going to be a shuckle but it didn't really work like it was supposed to so...yeah I decided to pick one of my favorite Psychic types to replace it.

The air balloon exploit is one of those things I was holding off on trying to fix in hopes E16 would be coming soon like a year ago and now it's at the point I may as well wait. I also believe Terra originally had a Mega Swampert, but that didn't work out as well as Quagmire due to it not being able to recover or just take a Surf to the face. Diggersby was also there but it was no Claydol. My only other mega options were Mega Rawrchomp or Replace Excadrill with Mega Steelix. Since Excakill is her secondary ace (technically her ace in the other season), I chose to mega Rawr.

CoM was one of those projects I created a long, long time ago (like 1.7 and had 70% of the project implemented) but I got burned out after spending like 3 weeks working on it and Hardcore fixes at the same time. 22 fights were originally planned in which I think I had to ask like 4 different people to try and help since that's a lot of fights that need quality checked (tbh I still haven't finished quality checking all of them) so eventually I grabbed Trevore who did a ton of the extra fights and Julia's as well. Around 40 trainer files were added in total and two maps that were made from scratch. Only one event is not fleshed out (I'm altering it since 100-200 lines of text is just too much for a single event). I was also working on a lot of the features for 1.5 when I picked the project back up. I tried my best to designing as close to the actual league challenge as possible.

I'm sorry but I just started laughing when you said Shelly was the easiest leader at some point. I can take a guess that her difficulty is why the rain was added because burning her team to the ground is one of the easiest things to do. I can't imagine how I would tackle a Shuckle as the ace tbh. I mean I'm currently playing with the AI since it won't use Psychic on a Houndoom so it spams Energy Ball...

If I didn't have the air balloon I'm not sure how I would have overcome that battle TBH. Nidoking forces me to sacrifice someone and either try to OHKO it or inflict a status. I can't risk getting it below half because Terra will heal it and if I can't OHKO it will destroy me. Part of me thought that Mega Swamp would be there but at the same time the other part of me didn't think so because 1. Quagsire and 2. I'm expecting the water gym to have it. Also - do me a favor and imagine Mega Swampert with Sap Sipper. LOL.

I'd honestly expect Steelix from the Steel Gym which I don't think we know who that is? Still, Exca and RAWR are scary threats considering their speeds.

I'm going to ~~prove that conquering the CoM is possible on a fire mono~~ attempt to conquer the CoM and hopefully not meet rain dance team but I do have Happy the Drought-Bringer, so we'll see. Going to breed and stuff for when I get to that point (which is soon)

This is awesome, very well documented. Just how much harder would you say this reborn is compared to the original? I recently did a water monotype on the original and found it quite difficult so I can't imagine how hard it would be on this if the difficulty is really much harder.

Thank you! Although I admit I got a bit lazy with the documentation post-noel, which is easily noticeable at Agate onward.

As far as difficulty goes I think the most difficult part is just starting the game. Early game Hardcore (both regular and this monorun) has a really noticeable difficulty change. However, once you reach Serra/Noel it seems to be pretty alright as things pretty much stay the same. I recently started a regular run of Hardcore and am shocked at how much easier it is than a monotype run. I'm not longer terrified of facing water types or anything of the sort. Early game is still a challenge but there are a few pokemon added to the early game that help move things along. (Psyduck, Shellos, the random water types from Team Magma, Corey's new mons)

Pretty much all trainers are much more threatening than regular Reborn but it gives out some generous experience which combined with the Lucky Egg and early EXP Share makes leveling no longer an issue (which I had in reborn) and rather overleveling becomes the problem. It actually promotes more of a rotation IMO which leads back to what I learned about Reborn my first run, to have more than just a standard team of 6 and to use pokemon that you wouldn't normally.

Although, if I had to rate the difficulty to reborn I can't give just a generalized one. I can however tell you from my personal experience whether a hardcore leader or regular was more difficult.

Hardcore Julia

Hardcore Florinia

Hardcore Corey (both fields)

Hardcore Shelly

Shade was about the same difficulty IMO

Cal

Solaris

Hardcore Kiki

Aya was about the same difficulty IMO

Hardcore Archie

Serra

Noel was about the same difficulty IMO

Hardcore Radomus (both single and doubles)

Luna. In regular reborn I had to collapse the cave to win

Hardcore Samson

Charlotte

Hardcore Terra

I'm currently right before the PULSE in Water Treatment center so I'll give my opinions on that and the rest of E15 when I do my next update.

Some of these might be biased as up to Shade is how far I am on my reg run, the rest are from this Fire run compared to my first run through the game. Some of the leaders could have been more difficult, but again due to the nature of the run I had some serious advantages when the NPC didn't. Cal running Mega Zard X didn't help him, Serra in singles was a breeze. Charlotte's lack of Flash Fire to take full effect of the field and her Mega Houndoom's solar power just worked against her.

I've been going on and on but basically regular Reborn seems to catch up to Hardcore around Agate, with Hardcore still leading in difficulty. If anything, being able to control the weather is one of the biggest deciding factors in most of my battles tbh.

August 22, 2016

What version of Hardcore do you have? Julia's team should have been different.

Simple Swoobat is going to be great, especially once you have access to the TM shop in the Grand Hall which has Calm Mind. Are you going to wait until Jasper Ward to grab Fearow or are you going to headbutt a tree to get a Spearow? Oh man just thinking of the possible flying types you'll be able to get soon/eventually, I'm looking forward to how diverse your team will be.

Love the nickname for Apache. I always like seeing people give mons nicknames so you can see what they named them. Does Apache know smokescreen? Running Dragon Rage and Smokescreen have been the saving grace for so many tough battles from Julia to Radomus, anything lower accuracy really. But on the flip side of things, you have access to more mons with sand attack etc.

I look forward to your battle against Florinia (really all gym leaders/major battles) because she was an interesting battle.

Will you be asking in Request-A-Mon for the mystery egg change if you don't get a flying type from it?

August 22, 2016

Have you ever played any of the following;

Star Wars Battlefront I or II
Donkey Kong Country
Porky Pig's Haunted Holiday
Crash Bandicoot Racing
Megaman X series

Have you ever played Dungeons and Dragons?

Did you have a favorite book/book series as a child/growing up?

If you had to choose to master one of the following instruments, which would it be?

Violin
Viola
Cello
Bass
Banjo
Harmonica
Harp
Piano

If you had to pick, would you rather live above sea-level or below sea-level?

Have you ever seen a Tornado?

Do you think that the Super Volcano under Yellowstone will erupt in your life time?

Do you have a favorite mountain/volcano?

Do you prefer winter or summer?

Rain or sunshine?

Do you ever lose track of what day it is/think that it is a different day than it actually is?

Do you like Fairs or Amusement Parks?

Do you have a favorite word?

Do you like the metric system?

Do you know the Quadratic Formula?

Out of the four suits, Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts, and Spades do you have one you like better than the other?

Out of a standard deck of playing cards, is there a card you like better than others?

Do you have any interest in ARGs? (like Marble Hornets)

Did you have to raise a butterfly in school at some point?

Do you have a favorite type of tree?

How about flowers?

How do you feel about AMAs?

Do you prefer a clear blue sky, mostly clear sky with some clouds, mostly cloudy, or overcast?

Have you seen a sugar glider or flying squirrel IRL?

Would you rather have bonfires or a lit fireplace?

Have you ever flown in a plane?

Have you ridden on a train before?

Do you prefer walking, running, biking, or driving somewhere?

Would you like to be on Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, or any other game show like that?

Do you like movies that are based on true stories?

Do you like the Planet Earth documentaries?

Do you think that space travel will be viable in your lifetime?

If so, would you travel?

Did you ever watch zoboomafoo?

Have you ever purchased something from an infomercial?

I really like reading your responses. Thanks for answering all the questions I've asked up to this point, including the stranger ones.

August 20, 2016

THIS ONE IS FOR YOU DAD!

Sorry, had to be super dramatic or something there because

R4WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWR ...

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Anyway, with that sentiment out of the way, where was I?

Oh yeah, the PULSE Avalugg or w/e. Burned it to the ground.

Blake's apartment puzzle was so far the easiest puzzle compared to Shelly Gym and 7th Street Sub Sanctum.

ZEL's backstory

Anyway after learning that Heather is actually an E4 member no one is shocked, surprisingly.

Cal no. Pls.

I thought it was cool that we got to go up the mountain and fight with Cal/Shelly. DAT FIRE TEAM DOE

Heat Rotom joins the ranks!

Run into an old friend who for some reason IS ~~OP LIKE YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE~~ the trainer of a beautiful milotic ~~who I hope freezes and shatters just like Giovanni did to that Magmar in Pewter City~~ that is rare and pretty. Took about 13 tries to get them beat and we got waterfall, and next we head up to Blake.

YES I GOT ANOTHER MEGA RIGHT. Unfortunately Blake is a piece of trash and was defeated in 3 moves because the volcano's eruption that was heard around the world, KRAKATOA, greeted him from the start and OHKO'd all of his pokemon. MY MAN. Then we Mafia'd him dragon ~~drivebys~~ flybys and got the Ruby Ring back. Learned that Terra is a liar. So back to Agate.

Terra escapes into the video game world aka gen 1 so we make haste.

First few trainers aren't bad, this can't be too bad right?

WRONG.

Oh look, it's some guy trapped in a corner. No wait, it's Commander! I'll battle you in a second, I have a funny feeling that the next area is going to make me rage hardcore (see what I did there?) anyway we make our way to Mewtwo who, surprise surprise, Mega Evolves [which I did not see coming] So like 9 years of me being defeated because this thing is Kungfu Fighting and it's fast as lightning. To be frank, it was a little bit frightening. Yet somehow we prevailed, by haxing it because it missed something somehow or I tanked something finally. IDK. I literally beat it and immediately blocked it from my memory. That was painful.

So there was a battle with Commander for a bit inbetween losses. Needless to say, I abstained from further shame as he put me in my place multiple times. Snorlax doesn't take well to fire. Lesson learned. Also, Mega Alakazam is terrifyingly strong. If only it didn't refuse to use any move but energy ball on Houndoom... We'll be back.

Onto Terra.

Oh boy.

Nidoking ammirite? This thing outspeeds my entire team despite having lower base speed and them matching level with some EVs in speed. But you know what, that's the name of the game. Nidokings always have scared me since Cain, so thank you Hardcore devs. Next up is more fast groundtypes that scare me. SWAAAAAAAAAAAGSIRE is the absolute bane of my existence. It is due to him that I spent about 2 hours bashing my head against the wall. I will admit that I swapped to regular Reborn and gave him a shot and still struggled with him. It fascinated me that he was giving me such a problem. Perhaps I'm just bad. Then I remembered something.

Swagsire.

Quagsire.

Fat.

Like 75 lbs fat.

Hmmm. Grass Knot? But it has to be someone speedy and sorta strong as I know that its Spe but based off of weight. SCORCH WELCOME BACK. Speaking of movesets, what kind of hidden power do you hav- OMG YOU HAVE GROUND HIDDEN POWER COME HERE YOU LOVABLE MONKEY.

Now, the problem is these pesky earth types are just too gosh darn mean and hit me like a semitruck. What could I possibly do...>intense flashback of Julia battle

-Checks inventory

-Air Balloon

Let's get this show started...

Let me preface this by saying that I was basing this strat around the game's AI with typings and my own experience. So for example with Nidoking you see me spending 10ish seconds maybe on the party screen going crazy. I wasn't sure who would be best to send out, who needs to stay alive, who has enough power to KO Nidoking for sure with sun out if he hits himself, who has a chance to possibly resist a Sludge Wave if it doesn't quit. Running the choices through my head. It landed and I said sure.

I was thinking of reviving Happy for Sunny Day but 1. I hate using items mid battle. 2. She'll get OHKO'd 4. I don't know if Garchomp has more PP than standard.

I was also going for the defense down chance but for some reason it wasn't in the cards.

Next time I see ya it'll be after I complete Episode 15! I have a few plans in store for the file after I defeat Ciel and I certainly plan to evaluate the Fire types available and all that jazz in regards to the gym leaders and general trainers. After Ciel we also have to head back to 7th street to take care of Archie rematch.

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I've been pretty spoiled in the run up to this point. This was the first gym that was actually my type weakness and it makes me think to Rock/Water. If Chimchar or Torchic become available in Episode 16 I'll get a real giggle out of it.

Seriously Terra was a nightmare. Either Happy survived a hit from Nidoking or he swept everyone. It wasn't funny. He was way to fast for me to handle and I had to rely on hax. I would rather not resort to abusing AI to get past things but damn is that battle difficult. I sort of want to go back and try it on regular with my strat and see how that goes but Mewtwo AND Terra were just absolute nightmares.

Part of me is worried about Ciel because Flying/Dragon and I have a strong feeling that she has a CHATOT which alone is enough to make me rage. I hate confusion more than anything because for some reason RNG is never on my side but when I confuse the enemy, they snap out quickly or rarely hit themselves. Then again I did flinchhax Cain's Nidoking 5 times in a row with Pyroar's STAB Headbutt, so win some lose some?

Finding Commander was honestly one of my favorite parts. I look forward to finding other NPCs that were added once I finish and finding Corey's mon. Right now I have Nidorina and Toxicroak's first evo. Both before I updated. Also Qwilfish. So I'm going to spend some time looking for them. I have a feeling I'm going to be looking for a while to say the least.

Depending on how the CoM goes, I may or may not try to reconstruct the teams they have in my Alpha Sapphire to use for fun in random link battles. Idea that popped into my head today. Granted it will take a lot of time and breeding to do but something I can do. The goal is to wrap E15 by tomorrow night as Monday I head back to Campus so we'll see. I'd like to just have CoM to do during school as I'll be getting an essay or two plus book reviews right off the bat. Anywho, those are the plans. Very rough. Reuniting with friends, dungeons and dragons, tons of reading because History, progress will be much slower come next week but the biggest part of the run is going to be finished before then, so yay.

Buh-bye.

August 20, 2016

Do any of the gym leaders have EV trained teams?

August 20, 2016

I keep forgetting Typhlosion gets Flash Fire XD so I'll probably change that for Hardcore (probably not here) and CoM for E16. Charlotte's teams was one of the first ones I actually did where the only revamp she got was that Talonflame. The only reason she has that bird was for a compromise not giving her Mega Charizard Y, and for good reason because she just hits so freaking hard without it. Her damage checks were pretty borderline in my original testing so I'm probably not going to give her a buff.

Samson oh boy Samson has a funny story. His original Mega was Lucario. Lucario is one of my least favorite Pokemon (it's growing on me, but not by much), but that Mega sprite was just so ugly. So I did a poll and people picked Blaziken over Heracross (I also did a poll for Noel). Noel originally had a Mega Audino for a Misty Terrain gimmick, but it didn't work as intended (if it was regular reborn difficulty though, that would've probably impressed a lot of people imo). ~~I also learned Gogoat is not a Grass/Normal type designing that fight.~~ Noel was also going to get Mega Bird Jesus but that thing was broken to hell.

Anyways, Samson's team was a lot of fun to design even though I had to like completely flip the level cap of Luna and Samson since Luna made the cap 70. I even edited the trainer card to match (I betcha didn't notice that slight change). I probably should lower his levels by 1 or 2, but it's kind of to bring back memories of how overleveled he felt back in the XII-XIII versions of reborn. Luna was designed the same way as a nod.

Can I also say I'm very impressed by all the Megas you got including Cradburry. That old lady was the last person to get a Mega when I was doing trainer edits since I felt like revamping her team a little bit. That was another fun fight to design despite her not being too hard. I also sometimes did Megas just merely for the purpose of guess the mega like you were doing since I try to pick a Mega that makes sense to the leader.

Edit: I'm also surprised you didn't name me after the Ninetales.

Yeah, I imagine that she would be more difficult if I didn't have her locked down to non-fire type moves. I've come to realize the difference between what was easy for the run and how easy it is for a regular team. When my other file gets to Charlotte I'm going to abuse Flash Fire if possible because it made it easy, with the except of Darmanitan but I just need to have something outspeed it and Typhlosion.

On one hand I was really expecting Lucario so I had that as preparation in my mind, so when I happened to see Mega Blaziken I heavy sighed so yeah. My first few attempts were basically Blaziken sweep. If I didn't have bounce I imagine I would have been stuck on him for a lot longer. I've never battled/encountered Mega Heracross but if it's any faster than regular Heracross then I want to thank everyone for voting for Blaziken. I fought Luna at low 60s and the only mon near cap was Charizard against Samson. I can't vouch for a run that has more available pokemon than I did but I thought his levels were fine. Not to mention that his Heracross, Mienshao, and Hawlucha are the only fast ones excluding SB Blaziken. I haven't really felt any issues with levels except for Eclipse and Aster after Samson as they were a lot higher than me but I hadn't fought wilds or the repeatable. The fight before Blake was rough but that wasn't due to levels.

Funny story about Cradburry. When I originally went through the game I was pretty sure that I'd be facing Megas at some point and so I'd take measure to see each Ace of named battles. When I learned that they didn't I was relieved. So when I started Hardcore I made careful note of possible Megas after Shade. I wasn't sure if Cradburry would have one but on the off chance she did I had to prepare for it. She couldn't have any of the starters as Megas. Deffo not Metagross or anything that I have fought up to this point. She also wouldn't have any of the possible ones for the last few leaders/big battles. The only one that made any sense for her to have would be Banette because the other ones seem too strong for her and I don't see us fighting another Ghost User to use Banette. That also assumes that we won't face anyone that has a surprise mega that doesn't fit the team. So I kept Houndoom for it.

I thought it was funny that I got Blake and Serra's Megas mixed up as far as guesses go. I was worried about Glalie from Serra and bought potions just in case due to it being faster than most of my mons at the time and has decent offense.

I'm not sure if it's a good thing that I'm more worried about the other 5 mons than I am about the Mega. Because more often than not it seems each Leader has 1-3 pokemon that are an absolute nightmare not including their Mega.

No, I had no idea and I often check my card because I get paranoid that I mix up the level caps. Kudos for that. Completely slipped by me.

When I was looking at what monotype to do for my first run of Hardcore I had a set of nicknames/people that I was going to do it of. Fire happened to have the right amount. I'm assuming that Ninetails is a favorite of yours? I have it named after someone that I think of a cornerstone of sorts, given the role of a Drought Ninetails in this type of run. Others were named either due to availability or utility. I actually named my Darmanitan Commander because of Sheer Force and STAB Flare Blitz because Shelly caused me such grief I wanted a mon that if hit could OHKO pretty much anything given sunlight and a hold item. I have my Magby named Solarance, but I don't have access to a spare Magmarizer and I don't feel like it would be right to add a spare one in. I'm really excited to have a Magmortar as I haven't used one before.

August 19, 2016

Double update. Not sure how far I'll get tonight but figured since there wasn't much between Luna and Samson that I would combine Samson with Charlotte.

First thing is first, after many many many repeatedly heavy sighs I figured out the strength puzzle for the Rotom Key. My first time doing that puzzle and no me gusta. Anyway after placing Rotom in the PC and mixed around my party I made my way to Agate to meet Terra. While I get an occasional laugh from Terra, I'm not necessarily a fan. There are characters I like much more, like Cain. Anyway we made our way to Agate and dealt with the clowns. Found the move tutor guy who has drill run and ~~Rapidash~~ Lord Chespin learned it, guessing that it might be useful in the near future. I assumed that I would be going against either Mega Lucario or Mega Blaziken. Part of me was holding out hope that Charlotte had Mega Blaziken and so far I've been fairly accurate when guessing Mega Evolutions for Gym Leaders.

Shade -- Yes

Cal -- No

Kiki -- Yes

Archie -- Yes

Aya -- Yes

Serra -- No

Noel -- No

Fern -- Yes

Radomus -- Yes

Luna -- Yes

Solaris/Sirius whoever had the mega Manectric -- Yes

The annoying old lady that I stole pokemon from -- Yes

Samson -- No

Charlotte -- No

So I'm going to guess the rest of the Mega Evos that I can think of.

Blake -- Glalie

Terra -- Garchomp

Ciel -- Altaria

Taka -- Aerodactyl if he has one?

What gyms are left after Ep15? Fairy, Rock, Steel, Dragon, Water? Judging from the types alone, Rock and Water are going to throw me into the dirt. Dragon might. Steel will hopefully not be very difficult. Fairy IDK, don't have much experience battling fairy types honestly. Luckily we have Rotom so hopefully the water gym is completely weak to Electric pls >:]

anyway back to Agate. Before we can battle Samson we need to get a Battle Pass because it would far to easy to challenge him straight up. Also where is Hardy?

Route 2's puzzle of the Crustle took me a while, mainly because I did the top portion first and I had no recollection of how to do it. I prevailed. The bottom portion wasn't too bad from how it went compared to my memory of it. Anyway, make our way to meet our favorite Garchomp food and her friend Titania. We find Hardy and are told that Team Meteor has not only captured a town with a super long name but is sieging another town with a shorter yet still long name. So we are going to head there and back Saphira up but before we can we need Surf. Back to Agate. Now we can challenge Samson!

Boy did that Blaziken surprise me. Also kept me stuck for a while because it didn't know how to miss HJK apparently. Finally I realized that Lord Chespin could bounce and force a HJK miss and KO it. On the downside, someone needs to either KO Hariyama or act as a sacrifice so he can get KO'd quickly because EQ + Smack Down is NASTY. I didn't think Heracross would outspeed Lord Chespin but I was proven wrong, so that means he would outspeed Krakatoa as well. Don't get the Mienshao switch but I won't complain over it. Hawlucha scares me but Commander had no problem with Blitzing it. I knew that everyone could outspeed Conkeldurr so that didn't concern me much. I just wish I could have won without having a sacrificial pawn.

Now to have a level 15 Horsea in my party >.<

Back to grab Surf, I chose to read the diary and not say anything about it. I'm pretty nosey plus I figured that's what I had to do to get Surf. After they both dive down the waterfall it's time to surf finally! Grabbed ton of goodies in the mountain, kept an eye out for any of Corey's pokemon which I didn't find. Teamed up with Aya who was surprisingly strong and made our way past Team Meteor to our next Eclipse/Aster battle. I swapped out Horsea for Cobalt996 (Chandelure) and battled them. Infiltrator destroyed Lunatone and Solrock because Shadow Ball. Milotic was the bane of my existence. Why didn't I train up Rotom? WHY?

After a two attempts Aya wins with me watching. Then I was pretty sad about the death that happened. I grabbed Grass Knot from the left path and finally made my way to my first destination. FIRE CITY. Found a Magby that I can't yet get but I will because Magmortar is going to be great. Blahblahblah everyone is excited to see me, I give the Ruby Ring to Charlotte and we I get to go challenge her.

I liked the gym puzzle, and only the last part I had to retry because I had running shoes on and messed up. Turned em off and did it fine. Onto the battle that I had been waiting for since starting this run.

I was expecting her to have Flash Fire left and right but she didn't. My only concern was her Darmanitan which would either Rock Slide me or Hammer Arm. But yeah just burn burn burn. She loves the immolating spirits so burn burn burn. ALSO LAY OFF KRAKATOA SO HE CAN ERUPT FFS. Flash Fire is love. Flash Fire is life. Burning fire types was so nice. Man am I glad she didn't have Mega Charizard Y though. I mean besides Darmanitan and Mega Houndoom she wasn't really threatening. Rotom wasn't using Discharge so I had nothing to fear.

And I'll seeya next time when we get ~~pounded in the ground~~ light Terra on fire.

============================

Was a bit weird not having many trainers to battle but it's been that way since Radomus so I'm not very surprised. Samson was more difficult than Charlotte imo. More could go wrong. I'm just a bit surprised that Charlotte wasn't able to take full advantage of the field and have more Flash Fire. That would have made the fight much more difficult as I couldn't use Fire attacks boosted by the Field, Sunny Day, STAB and Item Boosted. But it was a fun fight nonetheless. I'm looking forward to CoM Charlotte after I complete Episode 15.

Concerned about Terra but I have a ways to go until that battle so we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Gotta train up Rotom once we can turn it into Electric/Fire. Super excited for him.

August 19, 2016

Do you read Haikyuu!, Berserk, or ~~Hiatus x Hiatus~~ ~~Togashi's Side Hobby inbetween Dragon Quest releases~~ Hunter x Hunter?

Did you read Bleach? Omg this is weird to say now

Given Bakugo's newest technique and during the sports festival he thought of ~~bestBRO~~ Todoroki's power in terms of mana, that his future moves will have some sort of game name or mechanic name in them?

August 19, 2016

Is there a way to turn on the Level Limiter or TM Breeding midway through the game or is it something that has to be edited/turned on via RPG Maker if you're playing an already existing save file?

August 18, 2016

omg yas Bakumom is the best, real discipline. I loved the little in home visits. Especially Jirou's house because her dad.

Who is best girl in Tokyo Ghoul and why is it Eto?

Man I'm still salty about the Eto situation.

Did you like Tokyo Ghoul Jack better or Root A better?

Favorite moment from Tokyo Ghoul?

Favorite moment from MHA?

Do you have a favorite animal?

Would you rather have a pet turtle or a pet snake?

If you could have any quirk, what quirk would it be?

Who is best girl in MHA?

Top 5 anime/manga?

If you could live in the pokemon world, which region would you live in and why?

August 18, 2016

How do you feel about Deku?

I love both your avatar and sig.

Do you prefer Bakumom or Dekumom?

Are you up to date with MHA?

August 18, 2016

Do you like Delphox?

If so, do you prefer regular or shiny?

What kind of birds do you have?

Do you have any hummingbirds around where you live?

Do you have a favorite type/breed of bird? Macaw, Woodpecker etc

Have you ever seen the graceful [prehistoric, reminds me of a pterodactyl] creature that is a Pileated Woodpecker?

MAJESTIC!

Are you interested in Black Holes?

Do you have a favorite color that cats have?

Would you rather be in a room with 1,000,000 watermelon sized grapes or 1,000,000 grape sized watermelons and why?

August 18, 2016

Well it has been a minute or two since my last update.

Few things have happened. We've gained a few new teammates. We caught a Ponyta, Litwick, Cyndaquil, and Darmanitan. All of which have been nicknamed. I also spent a ton of time trying to level everyone up only to realize I most likely won't use them all. Anyway, onto 7th Street!

Immediately soft reset for shiny Cyndaquil. WORTH IT. Next we deal with everyone's favorite old lady who isn't very difficult surprisingly. Afterwords we meet Bennett and are captured by El's crazy cult. An hour or two of frustration with memorization and distractions and we make our way past the maze and puzzle to capture Litwick after saving Luna. Afterwords we head up to train.

Not much really happens. I grabbed the dusk stone for Litwick and made my way to Luna. My battle with Bennett was actually rather close but I still won in the end. Onto Luna!

I also recorded the battle because I'd rather not deal with typing it out and forgetting everything that happened. I will preface this with saying this is my second attempt. My first ended up with me losing to Luna's ace as I made some bad choices the first run.

Video of the battle

Short update though, and going to go find Rotom before we head to Agate! I'll see you after Samson!

===============

Honestly I was more worried for the battle than I should have been. My first attempt had Darmanitan doing work as Ninetails fainted early on, but it annihilated Spiritomb and Sableye my first run, just Sandstorm + toxic on Typhlosion didn't help with Eruption and ultimately Umbreon outlasted me with Moonlight/Leftovers.

I was debating about bringing Emboar but I just couldn't think of who to switch out as I remembered Luna's regular team barely but I guessed that there would be more coverage against fighting types so decided against it. While I didn't use Darmanitan as much in the video, it was useful in the battle and my only regret is I didn't use it in place of Typhlosion because I think Flare Blitz would have given me the KO.

August 14, 2016

Well...Serra without her field advantage is really, really weak but doubles Serra if she outspeeds you, you are royally screwed from my hilarious montage of getting destroyed. She's one of the leaders who relies way too much on her field and the AI is not her friend. Sirius took a while to get to good level in difficulty though Sigmund is way more competent for some odd reason.

I'm going to be interested in what happens during the next leader ~~unless you cheese it and do the singles fight instead.~~

So first of all, Fern in the rain sucks. I made sure to copy that specific save and fought him in the rain. There's a reason why when Julia put up Rain Dance earlier today on her Heliolisk that I immediately soft-resetted on habit only to realize that rain didn't affect that team.

=====

Entry # I really, really hate Radomus

So immediately we fight yaboi Fern who gets burned.

Although when we battled in the rain ~~he showed me what a broom looks like~~ I let him off easy.

After navigating Route 1 we meet up with Cain at Radomus's place and omg he isn't leading with Samurott, THANK ARCEUS. Something about Curse Camerupt? Cain wasn't very tough, Samurott and Nidoking being the most terrifying of his mons. Those aside it was pretty regular for Hardcore I guess. We end up having to chase after El since he kidnapped GG. We make our way to the gates and fall in where we meet an interesting character, the Coral Ward's Gym Leader. Xe doesn't like us at first but once we expose El Xe sides with us. Cue Arceus fight.

Fire Spin + Smokescreen essentially. Few soft resets to get rng on my side but it worked. Sided with Radomus btw.

Gates open and we tail Adreinn to xe's gym cue the freakout. After talking for a bit we split ways. I happen to catch a Tepig and head to the Lapis Ward to battle Team Aqua.

Now being nearly 30 levels makes a difference. Lemme tell ya. I GUESS I HAD A BROOM AFTER ALL! Got my houndour, trained everyone up to 57/58 at the Grand Hall and ran back to Radomus. I'm actually ight at Puzzles and only had to consult an outside source for the last one (;

I also updated to the newest version of Hardcore at this point and found this gym guy who explained how to go from doubles/singles. So naturally I chose doubles.

I instantly regretted everything. First of all what I failed to realize was that Psychic now does rock damage. So we'll leave that there. Also, there are multiple pokemon with trick room, so focusing down Exeggutor only to have Slowking through it up makes me sadface. I spent a bit more time struggling through it until I realized that with the pokemon I have, I can't do doubles because Radomus literally one shots me without calm mind or anything. Even Leah who has like 150 spec def or something gets one shot with a unaltered psychic/strength.

So I tried Singles. Single Radomus is deceptively difficult for an entire other reason. Starmie. Let me tell you how the battle went.

Lead with Houndoom and Feint Attack Girafarig to use up all the Hyper Potions. Before the final attack Radomus does one of two moves. A. Girafarig dies. B. Switches to Gallade for Justified Attack Boost. So after seeing this switch, I learned to anticipate it. There were a few losses from Gallade alone. So with Girafarig dead I swap to Happy for drought and then switch into Houndoom. Most of the time when Happy comes out Gallade uses Close Combat. So Houndoom dies. Gallade has def/spec def down. In comes Ember for intimidate. Ember can now tank any of Gallade's attack unless they crit. Flamethrower spam because sun. Next comes Starmie. Starmie outspeeds everything. RNG dependant for Leah being able to tank a hit, but usually it's all OHKO from this point. So I swapped out Vulcan for Ignis.

Back to Starmie. Hyper Voice Starmie. If Starmie calm minds, Headbutt for flinchhax, if not, KO with Hyper Voice. Metagross comes out next and Cinder OHKO's with Flamethrower. Next is Renunicles and Leah comes out and Flare Blitzs it for over 50%. Calm Minds and Flare Blitz for the KO. Next comes GG! Cinder comes out to smokescreen spam. That is his life. After two he gets Hyper Voiced. Next comes Ember who Intimidates (just incase) and Hyper Voiced. Next is Happy who dodges a Hyper Voice to use confuse ray on GG. Hyper misses again and Flamethrower + burn. Rinse repeat. Repeat. Happy gets KO'd and as she falls so does GG.

and relevant because trained up today

==========================

I think doubles Radomus is impossible on a firemono. I could be wrong, but I think it's impossible. Hell, the only reason I won is because Starmie refused to use Psychic on Pyroar. It would either use Calm Mind or Thunderbolt. I think it only used Psychic once on Pyroar on 12 attempts. I tell ya, there's a lot of times that I giggle as things burn and cheer after a hard fought win, but I feel like I cheesed that fight, like I did with Shelly and it doesn't sit right with me. Then again, with the fire types available at her I couldn't see how I could win in the rain. With Radomus I have a wider selection but again, when he outspeeds you and is far bulkier and only needs one hit to KO, it makes it really dependent on things like accuracy or status conditions. Like I'm going to keep Smokescreen on both Charizard and Typhlosion because I need it. IDK what I'm going to do when I have to go underwater. Probably laugh/cry.

I will say that around Shade it got much easier. Early game was deff the most difficult part so far, due to the lack of pokemon or evolution stones. However I haven't got to late game as I still have Dark, Fighting, Fire, Ground, Flying and I don't think any of those are going to be easy. Although having Fire/Electric will be nice. I need to level everyone up to 65 before I head to Agate though.

That being said, I think that at this point it isn't so much as me getting better per se but that I have decent mons and moves. I will definitely offer up that I've improved in both how I play and movesets from this run so far, but the available pokemon and two new ones I can get soon really made a difference. Even battling Julia today with a team of 6 was a huge difference compared to 2. Anyway, more soft resetting for me tomorrow because I want that blue flame.

August 13, 2016

The only difference between 2.1 and CoM is that I changed the Ciel fight (and the CoM postgame), but if there was ever a need to worry about saving inside a certain location or avoiding one I would generally tell you. The only place that gives errors is if somebody saves in Shelly's gym and tries starting up regular reborn. And that should never be an issue unless a certain old map gets revamped or updated.

Alrighty, thank you very much.

August 13, 2016

I tried using the search function and I didn't see the answer so figured I'd ask.

I just realized that I've been playing on v2.1 and want to update so I can check out the CoM. Do I need to save inside anywhere for updating from 2.1 to CoM?

August 13, 2016

What a productive day.

===================

Shiver me Timbers!

Off to save the children! The wonderful children of Reborn!

We team up with Cain to mop the floor with Team Meteor until we reach the top of the Yuruyu building and find the Doctor shocking Heather. We step in to battle him.

Nothing much here to say. A combo of Earth Power, Curse Earthquake, and Sunny Day boosted flamethrowers did him in. Lanturn was flinch/confused/smokescreened to death.

We then make our escape through the railnet, but before we do we find the Move Relearner's house key as well as the dull key and take them back. We let go of Crunch on Ember and replace it with Thunder Fang for some very slight coverage. Let's face it, I usually just burn water types now and hope for the best. Anyway.

We exit and make our way to Laura's house and are tasked to get Medicine from the nearest pokemart which happens to be where our next Badge is. We run into some Arceus fanatic, a bug type lover (YOU SHOULD MEET SHELLY), and Serra the Ice gym leader. After some talking we notice that things are teleporting around (grabbed the spare EXP.Share because why not) and then make our way to the center to heal up before taking the gym on. We get flawless victory on the puzzle and mop the floor with Serra's son, bugboy. He fell to the greatest type of pokemon, Fire. Onto Serra!

I lead with the MVP of the run, Vulcan while she leads with Abomasnow who Mega Evolves. He calls in the hail to attack the team and hits Vulcan with a Ice Beam(?) which takes him to almost yellow. EARTHQUAKE to ruin the field and Vulcan gets KO'd by it. Out comes Happy for Sunny Day. Ultra Potion and Flamethrower. Ultra Potion and Flamethrower. Flamethrower KO. Mamoswine comes out next and Happy switches with Cinder. Flamethrower OHKO. Cloyster comes out next and holds onto 1 HP from flamethrower and KOs Cinder. Ember comes out and gives us the KOs. Glaceon comes out and Flamethrower takes it to red HP. Flamethrower again and Glaceon switches into Froslass to be OHKO'd. Back to Glaceon and KO'd. Vanilluxe comes out and is OHKO.

VICTORY

Next we buy the medicine and head back and regroup. We also grab Eevee at this point and evolve it into Flareon and slap on an EXP share.

Team Meteor is making their way over to us we meet Charlotte's sister, who has a Dragonite! Team Meteor is coming in to attack and we finally meet ol' eyepatch.

He doesn't give us any real trouble, however Honchcrow almost won it for Sirius.

Next we go after to hit Team Meteor back. Now I will preface that this was a very difficult part because of the Team Meteor members. I had to go back and heal up 5 times during this.

Eventually we are teleported away and find a giant Steelix. We engage in battle with it!

However, with the gift that is FIRE we BURN it to cinders. Back to the base to confront ZEL, Sirius, and Pulse Abra.

Fire spam KO

We put Abra down and meet Lin who knows we aren't part of Team Meteor and leaves to take on the Steelix. We make our escape at this point and regroup at the house, having rescued everyone. Noel is now ready to battle us for our next badge but we take a slight detour beforehand. Meet our newest teammate, Leah!

We raise everyone quickly to level 53 and head back to take on Noel!

He sends out Cincinno and out goes Vulcan. Cincinno misses a tail slap and Lava Plume sets the field ablaze. Cincinno goes down after healing twice and the fielding KO'ing it. Staraptor comes out next and Vulcan is swapped for Ember. With intimidate working, Ember withstands a Brave Bird and KO's with with a boosted flamethrower. Pyroar comes out next and we send out Vulcan who gets KO'd. Ember comes back out for the Intimidate and gets a Close Combat in before being KO'd. Cinder comes out and a flamethrower finishes off Pyroar. Porygon-Z comes out next and Cinder switches with Leah. She uses Flare Blitz to OHKO Porygon-Z. Lopunny comes out and KO's Leah. Out comes Happy for Sunny Day and Lopunny Ice Punches Happy while she gets a 2x Flamethrower KO. Finally we have Clefable come out and our own Pyroar comes out to finish the job with Flamethrower!

Victory!

Cya next time!

==================

WOW. I know I had the advantage with Serra but singles? That trivialized her. If she had been doubles it would have been much more difficult. Nothing much to say here. Mega Abomasnow wasn't even threatening as it ate damage from the mirror. I expected Mega Glalie but /shrug. Glaceon could take a hit which was nice, but Serra destroyed any chance she had by swapping into Froslass who could probably outpseed my team.

Noel though was what surprised me. He's always given me trouble in Reborn so I was ready to do multiple attempts. Porygon-Z and Cincinno were the tipping points for me. Tail Slap missing and Flareon just destroying Porygon is what made that run possible. Flareon has most definetly earned a spot perm on the team. I also bought Shadow Ball and gave it to her for now. Won't hurt for the next gym perhaps. The next thing for us to do is to fish a Luvadisc, go get Tepig and Darmanitan, and go finish the Team Magma quest to get Houndoom.

~~Since Commander loves watching me have horrid flashbacks of the rain~~ Since Commander suggested that I take on Fern on route 1 in the rain, I plan on doing that next. Rip. I'm excited for 7th street. Like you have no idea. Cyndaquil timeee! Although I'm nervous about the next Gym, I should be fine.

August 12, 2016

If you could tame any wild animal, what would it be and why? It would basically be your buddy and not eat you.

Favorite cereal?

Do you have milk or no milk with your cereal?

Do you like grapes?

Favorite sweet?

Do you like candy?

If so, what is your favorite?

If not, why not?

If you could visit any body of water in the world, which would you visit and why?

Do you have a favorite continent?

Would you live on Pangaea given the chance?

Do you like learning the history of areas/peoples?

Do you like Museums?

Do you expect a really weird question at the end of this post?

Do you like math problems?

Do you like story problems?

Which do you prefer, flip-flops or Crocs?

Do you like wearing socks or walking around barefoot?

Would you rather visit Hawaii or the Galapagos Islands?

Do you prefer writing with pens, penicls, or quills?

Do you have any bird feeders or anything?

Would you rather read minds or have telekinesis?

Do you have a favorite European country?

Actually, what is your favorite country on each continent?

Penguins or Pandas?

August 12, 2016

So we head off to find Cain because we're taking the Reborn league challenge! Anyway, we run into Eclipse and Aster on our way to Cain and they're very, very cocky about how they're going to capture us since they captured Cain. They go down fairly easily to a combo of Solar powered fire attacks and Curse Camerupt EQ spam. Next we heal up and move to take on the true threat^tm. Taka.

Oh Taka. I hate you so much now. Burning Klefki is no sweat, but Floatzel is another story as it outspeed every pokemon I have. After multiple defeats and resets, I manage to tank a hit by Floatzel and sleep/confuse it to KO it. Aerodactyl is defeated similarly. From that point it was just more Solar powered burning. I never thought that I would thank Arceus to see a Chatot use Nasty Plot, but I sighed with relief when it did and proceeded to OHKO it with a boosted Flamethrower.

After we freed Cain we learned about Team Meteor's plan to use CAMERUPT to destroy Apophyll. Using such a great, sacred pokemon for their schemes has our rage consume the hero.

We head back to Apophyll and speak with Kiki, Victoria, and Cain. We then decided to go up and stop Team Meteor. Victoria decides to team up with us and we go on a rampage, burning everything in the mountain that we come across. Eventually we come to the peak and find Cain facing trench coat and Taka. Cal is facing the lava. He exclaims that he lost and the trench coat reveals himself to be someone named Solaris. He says that his plan is to have the Camerupt force the volcano to erupt and destroy the entire island. Hearing his plans for harming the sacred fire type pokemon, our hero is consumed with rage and attacks Solaris.

Solaris sends out his Scizor and the enraged trainer sends out Ember the Arcanine. Ember ignites the field and leaves Scizor with one HP. Scizor burns from the field. Solaris sends out his next member, Garchomp. Garchomp OHKO's Ember. Scorch comes out to yawn and is OHKO. The enraged trainer's rage becomes forcibly quelled by Solaris as Garchomp proceeds to annihilate each and every team member, leaving Drev completely and utterly defeated.

Victoria and Cain cannot believe it, shocked in disbelief as the very trainer that was ~~a mystical timelord that can rewrite history when defeated~~ undefeated in their eyes, stood in defeat. Kiki arrived and told the shell shocked trainers to back up and brings forth her Medicham who moves to destroy the PULSE machine, only for Cal's Magmortar to catch it and throw it into the lava. Everyone while already in a state of shock, is dumbfounded and while they were mesmerized by Cal's action, Solaris has Garchomp Dragon Rush Kiki. Cal has a change of heart and has Magmortar destroy PULSE Camerupt and Solaris retreats. After a falling out between Victoria and Cal everyone retreats.

Victoria says something that we've come to expect at this point and we get no badge. Cain tells us that we need to head into the Wasteland and challenge Aya for the Venom Badge and the power to use Strength. We sail back to Reborn City.

At the gate to the wasteland Cain tells us a bit about him and Aya and battles us before unlocking the door.

Curse Camerupt says hi.

We then make our trek through the wasteland and it's badass music. We finally find the next Gym and run into Fern talking trash to Aya. We meet Hardy, the Rock Gym Leader from Agate City. We then find out a bit about Fern and Hardy before battling.

Fern talked a big game about switching out grass types but he still got burned. Krokodile fell to 2x Flamethrowers. Next Aya returned with her team healed and we challenged her. Fern and Hardy watched with Hardy being the ref.

Leading off with Vulcan and Happy, we confuse Nidoqueen and hit Tentacruel with Earth Power while she uses blizzard which both mons avoid. Next Happy uses flamethrower on Nidoqueen and Tentacruel is healed with an Ultra Potion. Earth Power crits Tentacruel and gets the KO. Nidoqueen uses sludge wave. Next comes out Drapion and Drapion uses Aqua Tail to KO Happy, with Vulcan KO'ing Nidoqueen. Next comes out Gengar and out comes Ember. Earth Power crits Drapion after he Cross Poisons Vulcan and Focus Blast misses from Gengar. Flamethrower lowers Gengar to red hp. Venasaur comes out next and Mega Evolves. Shadow Ball KO's Vulcan and Power whip hits Ember and weakens him. Ignis comes out next. Gengar gets Focus Blast KO on Ignis while Ember hits Mega Venasaur with Flamethrower. Cinder comes out next and together they KO Gengar. Dragelge comes out. Cinder uses Smokescreen on Dragelge while Ember KOs Mega Venasaur. Dragelge misses a Hydro Pump. Crunch and Smokescreen. Dragelge misses another Hydro Pump. A third smokescreen and Ember gets KO'd with Sludge Wave. Scorch comes out and yawns and Cinder uses Dragon Rage while Sludge Wave misses. It falls asleep and DR spam with Cut spam hits. Dragelge is healed up to full and wakes up at half HP. It continues to miss while Scorch and Cinder fell it with Cut/Dragon Rage spam.

Victory! We can FINALLY use Strength. So now we can make our way back to the Railnet to save the kiddos!

The team so far;

Torkoal, Magcargo, and Heatmor in the PC.

===============================================

Okay so wow. Solaris has a team. Half expected Mega Garchomp but owell. I didn't expect to win and I personally prefer losing here for the later dialogue. Taka was frustrating because Floatzel completely outspeeds everything. Thank Arcues that Cain didn't lead with Samurott. If he did I would have struggled much more than I actually did, seeing as I beat him on my first try.

Nothing new with Fern. I'm probably over confident whenever we battle because Fern Burn but yeah, nothing special to note.

Aya was a fun fight, and it only took me two tries. The first battle I got to Dragelge and it finished off my exhausted team so I swapped members around and took care of business. I tell you what though, Gengar and Tentacruel were the scary ones here. Tentacruel had toxic spikes which it used the first time and Muddy Water which thankfully neither we used on the second fight. Nidoqueen was meh. Gengar KO'd 3 of my mons the first attempt which was annoying. Mega Venasaur was surprisingly lackluster, being surprisingly weak even with Thick Fat. I didn't think STAB/Sunny Day boosted made that much of a difference compared to it's relative defenses and Thick Fat but I'll take it. Dragelge was the most worrisome part. I had to make sure I could lock it down without items and ASAP. Smokescreen continues to stay on Charizard for that very reason. I'm going to be excited to get Dragon Rage off in the near future so he can have Dragon Pulse.

I don't see my team changing much. Emboar, Flareon, and Darmanitan will probably see places on the team. Flareon has some defense along with a few interesting moves. Emboar for the fighting coverage finally and Darmanitan for dat OP Flare Blitz. Darmanitan will most likely replace Pyroar, and Typhlosion will replace Charizard. We'll see how the team members rotate. As of now I can confirm that Camerupt and Ninetails have a permanment spot on the team. Camerupt is surprisingly my most devastating pokemon. He's reliable, powerful, and strangely enough always the one to get the final KO, Aya excluded.

August 12, 2016

I think there's like an almost unanimous poll that Kiki is the easiest gym leader in hardcore and everything in her episode bar ZEL is really easy. As for the difficulty, I designed the game's difficulty based on a team with 0 IVs, 0 EVs, and super potions up until Samson, along with shift mode to get a feel for the difficulty and how well performing they were.

Shade wasn't supposed to have a Mega (I did originally plan for Mist Corey to have a Mega Beedrill, but that was way too insane), but it was a Banette that I just for the life of me could not get to work well. So that whole thing was basically a YOLO in which I gave his Gengar like 0 IVs and negative speed iirc. His revamp team is much better than the old one which is still on my youtube channel. Solarence actually planned for Kiki to have the first Mega and it being Mega Cham.

Cal and Victoria are kind of exceptions since that's the only Cal fight and that's probably the last Victoria fight for a long time. I generally try to pick out a Pokemon that'd best suit the leader without being OP but as you'll see sometimes I throw a left hook so you'll never know. And yeah, I suck at designing fire type teams for some odd reason.

~~Edit: I dare you to fight Fern on Route 1 on a Rainy Day if you think Amaria will be bad.~~

I actually went on youtube just to see if there was any hardcore reborn stuff but I couldn't find anything past Julia. Then I saw tests against the Gym leaders by a channel named Commander, figured it was yours. Everytime I've beaten a leader I've checked the test video to see it done with a non monofire. So I saw the Mega Banette and wondered if that would have made the fight more difficult.

I feel like I should tell both Solarence and you that the regular trainers themselves have given me some trouble. Nothing on the scale of Shelly but it's been really rough at some spots to just battle some of the regular trainers. Having leveled up mons with a variety of types has been terrifying to say the least water. I never realized how many water types there are until this run and dear Arceus it is fear inducing. I was legitimately afraid of the first Team Magma quest because I had to face Team Aqua and I still haven't touched Archie. Actually stuck on Taka's Floatzel as I write this, damn Waterfall.

I'm not sure how others would have done but if Cal had Mega Zard Y I think I would have had to try him a few more times. Yes he's 4x to rock and 2x electric but once the field is combusted water hardly does anything without setup and Y has higher base Special Def and has ground immunity. I probably would have had to go back to Reborn and level up my Magcargo and gone back purely for Mega Zard Y. I was really hoping for X so I could KO him with ground. I was surprised he didn't run a Flareon.

Fern on a rainy day on route 1?

Fern on a rainy day?

Fern rainy day?

Rainy day?

Rain?

August 12, 2016

For me games that I find really fun and that I want to experience again are the main source, but some games have rewards for repeat playthroughs. Plus if the actual gameplay is fun.

Take the Ratchet and Clank series for example.

When you beat the game you can either reload right before the final fight to grab the collectables or you can enter Challenge Mode, which starts you over with all your weapons and some upgrades you've acquired (Nanotech for example) and you can get upgraded weapons, armor in later games, and a bolt multiplier to cover the increased cost of weapons by getting up to 20x currency for not taking damage.

I believe the first in the series, Ratchet and Clank have my lowest playcount at 10 playthroughs on the same file. While Deadlocked and A Crack in Time have over 20, Deadlocked being around 45 since it's Co-Op and there are separate difficulties. I've always loved the aspect of a Challenge Mode.

Champions of Norrath is probably the only game (it's sequel not so much) that I have replayed more than the Ratchet and Clank series altogether. 4 Dfficulty modes that you need to progress through each to access the next and with better loot, more EXP, and stronger foes in each difficulty. Not to mention there are more than one class and you pick and choose your playstyle. So alone getting each class through the game 4 times at the least to max them out, plus Co-Op playthroughs with others that can be 1-4 players with the PS2's multitap, it had huge replayability.

Something like Dragon Age: Origins though, for me at least, has limited replayability. The first run through is all about the story and learning mechanics, and the subsequent runs are on the higher and higher difficulties until you reach The Fade area on Nightmare ~~and once you have been through it you never run Nightmare again.~~ But I think Dragon Age offers similar replayability to Champs due to having different classes and your race determines your prologue which is a bit different and people react to you differently etc. So branching storylines help with that.

That's for me though, I just tend to look for fun, quick, and fluid gameplay. If it's up to my standards then I'll play it until the disc reader in the system stops working (RIP PS2) or a sequel is release. I still have my copy of Champions of Norrath with me and my ps3 which I play it on with some guys I grew up with. Maybe once or twice a year we get together for a day or two and just run through the game.

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