Jess

CHAPTER 11: Strengthen your mind... Om...... So, Noel is defeated... But now, we have to search for Saphira, after Laura returns crying and fills us in about the Charlotte backstory of how their parents died... The peak of Tanzan Mountain blows up, we meet Saphira in the West entrance of the Meteor base, which is now ruined. Then, Saphira gives us the gem artifacts/keys and tells us to keep them safe, while all the others relocate to Calcenon/Labradorra Cities... OK, don't let me say goodbye to them, meanieeeeeee! Anyways, next thing we do, enter the majestically green Route 1 and Aventurine Woods. Which looks beautiful from every aspect, apart from the fact that I find Fern. And his Roserade, which must be genetically enhanced to get higher base stats than other Roserades. *Sigh...* Anyways, new team additions we have here! In the Shelly chapter (which is the one in the spoiler) we had introduced a new team member, which finally sees some action! It is this beauty! And, in addition to this one, another beauty, that @RedAlert will love to see! So, after defeating Fern, he "allows" me to access Route 1, where we can slay Bouffalants/Tauros and go East, to Vanhanen Castle, to meet (finally) Luna aka Bennett's forbidden crush, Radomus, Gossip Gardevoir and rejoin (and fight, ofc) Cain, who got sure that Heather is safe, being "adopted" by Blake (good job, Cain, I'm proud of you xD)! So, here are the rival battles! VS FERN & CAIN But Gardevoir gets kidnapped by El, which we realise after my battle with Cain. Luna and Cain insist that we have to go save Gardevoir, while Radomus says it isn't necessary, but goes with the majority for the sake of Luna. Of course Gardevoir knows Teleport, I swear I realised that even from my first playthrough of the game xD And even wondered why it wouldn't Teleport, saying to myself how unrealistic Pokemon games are in these aspects, which was an interesting thing to remember when she actually did use stuff like Teleport and Hypnosis! So, after tracking down El, we find ourselves in a bottomless pit behind the Grand Staircase, and down to the Citae Arc d'Astrae, where the Meteor is sealed! We meet Adrienn, the Ditto-Gardevoir putting on a show that no sane person would believe, prove our capabilities in logical puzzles (I still have the piece of paper where I solved it on my first playthrough, took like an hour of assumptions and repetitive elimination by negation processes to solve the Hitmon- and Chimchar puzzles), reveal El's charade and facing Dittoceus! Which hasn't given me trouble in ANY of my playthroughs, for some reason, it always just takes like 5 minutes. Or seconds. So, we save the true Gardevoir, Hypnosis-arrest El and return to Vanhanen Castle for our Gym Battle! VS PARSON EL (DITTOCEUS) And finally, after solving the chess puzzles (have I mentioned how strongly I dislike chess?) it was time for the Gym Battle versus the bane of my existence... Radomus! Firstly, I will drop the following video here, in order for everyone to see how the chess puzzle is solved. Call it a tutorial, call it a visualization of my struggle, call it whatever you feel like! VS RADOMUS And, after this ordeal was over, it was Gym Battle time! The team I used to face Radomus was the following: In explanation of the team, I have introduced another new member to my team. This was done mostly because I refuse to experience again the same problem with Fern's infernal Roserade. Secondly, because battles vs A LOT of Fighting types are on the way in Agate Circus. And thirdly, because my entire team is slow as hell. Slow to the point that makes me miss my Bugs in my previous monotype. You all know how much I love fast, hard hitting sweepers. Here, my fastest Pokemon so far was Nidoqueen (or maybe Drapion, not sure). Not good. At all! So, Crobat is covering my team's lack of Speed! Welcome, Nephele! And, without further ado... The battle vs Radomus! Defeating Radomus grants us the 8th (Millenium) Badge, the TM for Trick Room, which is absolutely useless (unless I teach it to Gengar, which would be silly cause it is like the fastest 'mon EVER and I can't use it (even though I have it-thank you @Revan <3 because it isn't legitimately available in the game's current release) and raises the level cap to Lv.65. Furthermore, it proves to Cain that you don't need Galvantula or Absol to defeat a Psychic type Gym if you are a Poison monorunner. And it lets us wondering why the hell Radomus brought the snake itself and placed it near his heart (El in his house, my metaphors are rocking today), since EL and Team Meteor escape, kidnapping Luna and Cain this time, fleeing like flees (pun intended) to 7th Street! Radomus instructs us to go ask shady people (aka Gangs, none of which we have joined yet at all) for information on El's whereabouts, which we will do... In the next chapter of my poooiiisonous run! Till then, enjoy everyone!

I know people tht actually exploited this bug of Dark Rising TO GRIND UP SO THAT THEY AREN'T UNDERLEVELLED FOR NEXT BOSSES. This game is ridiculous xD

I've been hearing so much praise about the excellent series of Pokemon Dark Rising. So, I decided to check it out. But I'd never dive into it thoughtlessly, so I watched a let's play of Pokemon Dark Rising on youtube and (to my surprise) I genuinely developed suicidal thoughts due to the amount of (stupid) difficulty, bugs and the plot of this game. 1) Difficulty: It is just making you grind, grind and grind. You may fight a boss and then have nowhere to heal and another boss comes in your face within 10 steps. Like, calm down. Legendaries are handed out like coins to a beggar. Like 3 people have Reshirams, again, calm down game. 2) Bugs: You defeat a boss. Then you decide to go out, but you know that another boss is probably coming, cause fuck my life, and decide to go back and heal. Hence reentering the area of the previous boss fight. BOSS IS STILL THERE! WANTS TO FIGHT AGAIN! FUCK MY ENTIRE EXISTENCE! 3) Plot: Let's just introduce like 4 rivals, shove in Ash, Brock and Misty, get a storyline based on a mysterious pokemon-entity that just brainwashes EVERYONE for the reason of conquering the world and spreading chaos, for chaos itself and there we go. It feels clumsily made, plot has huge holes and everything seems to be designed to give the feel of a hard game. I don't get why a battle vs a boss would be with level 75 pokemons, while the wild mons of that area are only level 40. How can you even grind up for that. Let me know what you think, because (imho) either the community's standards about fanmade games are FAR too low, or they see something that I don't in this game...

We have not enough Poison monos

Underrated Poison types like Swalot and Garbodor are REALLY useful in Reborn! You mean his Larvesta, right? Thanks! Yes, I think AI should be improved so that Noel switched Wigglytuff out when he can't even scratch a mon with Dazzling Gleam after setting up Stealth Rocks and Thunder Wave. LOL, did he... Such a devilish strategy! xD Haha, thanks Amine He'd be much better if he had swapped Wigglytuff into, say, Swellow, but AI isn't THAT clever in this situation! Yes, you can say that I believe in something that is close to an extended version of Orthodox Christianity, which is the national Greek religion. In Christianity, nobody can become or be called "God" because of his/her/its deeds. Contrariwise, they are becoming "Saints". God's closest and most devoted servant in life and in afterlife. This applied in the Dodecatheism, which was the religion in Ancient Greece. But nowadays, only a tiny portion of people (like 0.05% of population) still worship the twelve Gods of Olympus. I don't believe that a God has human flaws, because a God is a being of primordial energy that has created everything that exist. People of ancient Greece did have so many Gods mostly to explain natural phenomena (Zeus=God of Lightning) or have deities who they could ask for help in certain occasions (Artemis=Goddess of the Hunt, Hares=God of War). This is why, that religion can't possibly have anything to do with the actual God. I get your point. However, I have never caught a Legendary in game. Even in pokemon red, I didn't fight the Mewtwo. In my opinion, the joy is in the journey, so after developing bonds with a team throughout a game, I would feel so bad if I replaced it with some legendary. Only legendary I caught was Mew in Pokemon Red via the Mew glitch, which meant that I had a level 5 Mew from just before the second Gym and throughout the game! And yes, human race has advanced intelligence. The drawback is that we are selfish and power-drunk, so we NEED to control everything in order to satisfy our lust for power. Even things that are more powerful than us. Like nature. Or God. We like using phrases like "we tamed nature", but then a tsunami or an earthquake happen to remind us how powerless we are. Ancient Greeks would say it is just punishment for our "hubris". "Hubris" is the unforgivable crime of comparing a human to a God. Or assuming that a human can EVER be nearly as strong as God. It is just not possible. So, I like keeping this in all aspects of my life. Of course it didn't bother me, I enjoy a nice discussion that has arguments. Plus, your English are OK. To transfer pokemon between your save files, you need two online game accounts. So, register twice, with different usernames. Then you need two PCs, or laptops, both with internet connection. I used my PC and had my laptop next to me as well. Then, in each PC you load one of the two save files between which you need to transfer pokemon. You go to online play and login with your two usernames. Then you can trade mons with yourself (simply request a trade from your first account to your second account on one PC and accept it on the second PC).

Duh, I thought Aggron learnt Stealth Rock by level-up, but needs breeding with Tyrunt after all... My mistake I'd guess that Escavalier would take hits equally well, if not more easily compared to Mawile! But again, in my Bug Mono, my Escavalier always got critical hit by EVERYTHING, so it must be an Escavalier curse or something @RedAlert knows what I mean... Yes, Charlotte can be a handful. In my Poison mono it took me like 40 tries and some heavy levelling up to defeat her. In my Bug mono, it took 1 try, and 3 mons, 1 of which was a level 1 Paras. It's all about strategy

Wow, good job! @EndearingCharacterTrait! Seems like Stahl is unyielding so far! Maybe it's Valyrian steel! Since Game of Thrones is back in our lives xD I thought Beldum was now only available after returning to the renovated Reborn City. I must be confusing it with something though... In the Samson fight, maybe Stealth Rocks by Aggron would help with removing the stupid Focus Sash that Lucario holds. Then Bastiodon could Metal Burst it down safely. And then, you could just let Bastiodon's last HP point go in order to get Aggron again to full health. That is, of course, if you don't have a "no-healing items" clause. Close battles vs Luna and Samson! I'm surprised you didn't have Escavalier in your team vs Samson, to abuse the Trick Room rounds! Swords Dance would make it a beast and Iron Head/Double-Edge could then OHKO everything. Well, apart from Lucario, but you could get Drill Run for that! Anyways, congratulations and keep going!

Yes, Nidoking and Nidoqueen are absolute beasts! I tend to like Nidoqueen more than Nidoking though But I doubt any of these two could've swept Sigmund, because Rotom and Eelektross have Levitate. Also, Nidoking has nothing to hit Rotom. Just a (not very effective) Poison Jab, while Nidoqueen with Sheer Force boosted Crunch saved the day. Even though I still had Sucker Punching Arbok! True, Noel has 2 Fairy types, but also has a Psychic (Girafarig), a speedy sweeper with Psychic (Porygon-Z) and the super-fast Skill Link flinch God, Cincinno. Breloom isn't a Poison type though . And Toxicroak can only learn Vaccuum Wave, which is Special, so would do nothing. Hell, Poison types have almost no priority moves at all! So, I needed some luck with it. Edit: Acid Spray is one of the most underrated moves in the Pokemon games. Some say it's just for early game, but it saved me in many occasions in late game too. I preferred Acid Spray over Sludge Bomb/Gunk Shot for my Garbodor. And never regretted doing so.

Indeed, Toxicroak is a solid Pokemon! It's strange that in a battle vs a Normal type Gym leader I didn't rely on my only Fighting type much! She carried me vs Serra though, so she could use a break!

True about Porygon-Z. But I would've still gotten it down to red. Noel would heal and any of my Special Attackers would've been able to OHKO it with -6 in Sp. Defence. I also derped massively vs Girafarig and forgot that Night Slash would've been Super Effective. This forced my Skuntank to tank 1 more Thunderbolt, rendering it useless for the rest of the battle. But pretty easy win, with Garbodor to be the MVP. I got a bit lucky as well, with Cincinno missing its Tail Slap!

CHAPTER 10: Return to normality! After successfully getting the medicine, we return to Belrose Mansion and give it to Anna, who gives it to Nostra, and they both get well! Of course, since only her mental health was affected, it makes sense that a psychological treatment was the only thing necessary. Then, we try to fight Noel. But NOPE! Team Meteor has to interrupt, and more specifically Sigmund and Sirius. Saphira wrecks Meteors like shooting lilypads floating on a lake, and Sigmund gets destroyed by me. Sadly though, I can only defend so many people, so Shelly and Charlotte get taken by Sirius. And then, we go with Saphira and invade the Tanzan Mountain Base! In the process, I solve puzzles, suppress a frenzied Steelix (God, that thing's huge), meet Lin (to whom I wanna dedicate a song) and take care of a PULSE Abra, helping Team Meteor with the mess they created themselves. The most interesting part of the following video (apart from the mass destruction) is that now Nidorina is a Nidoqueen. And quite a badass one! Sigmund doesn't like Hera one bit, that's for sure! VS DR. SIGMUND After Team Meteor is taken care with, but with Charlotte in emotional trauma and followed by Laura (while Saphira is MIA after Lin's Hydreigon took down the Steelix), we find our chance to battle Noel! Thank you Anna, for pushing everyone into helping our Badge-collecting quest! I will always love you for this! And yes, I will take care of Laura's garden. I won't Sludge Wave it, plus, I can't set it on fire. Why? Oh, cause it's raining! What a surprise, I know! VS NOEL (Bonus: Gargantuan Steelix & PULSE Abra) Well, anyways, this is the team I used to face Noel! And without further ado, the video coverage of the battles! By defeating Noel, we get the 7th Badge, the Standard one, which raises level cap to Lv.60, plus the TM for Hidden Power! Now we have to go find Saphira, who can't be dead, because let's be honest. If you die by a fall while having Flying type pokemon in your possession, you're an idiot. And Saphira is nowhere close to being an idiot! But, we will do that in the next chapter of this poooiiisonous run! Thanks for sticking around everyone! And, till the next time, enjoy!

Yes, you can still outspeed stuff and tank stuff without problems, because you are still early in the game. Charlotte is the first leader that has perfect IVs AND 252 EVs in the proper places. So, if you try to tank a Psyshock by Espeon in the battle vs ZEL in Devon with Breloom, you will just get 200% annihilated. As for speed issues, you will start seeing them soon, since Breloom is only as fast as Victreebel and the Big Top Arena with boosted Acrobatics (and Mienshaos) is approaching ... Edit: @RedAlert, yes, Sawsbuck has been in OU... http://www.smogon.com/dex/bw/pokemon/sawsbuck/ou/

I know what you mean. Sawsbuck was in OU at some point too, mostly thanks to Chlorophyll and Swords Dance. Breloom is good, but its Speed is godawful It kinda makes up for it with Technician priority Mach Punch, but it still won't kill anything that Fighting moves are neutral against. Plus, it is even more fragile than Sawsbuck and with even less coverage. Sawsbuck will be a godsend with its Megahorn vs Radomus' and Luna's Contrary Malamars too. Just give him the Wide Lens (since you don't have access to Life Orb) and it's a beast. Cherrim's useful for Sunny Day, but it has fallen off hard enough to make it only useful to set up sun now... And, even though altering the field is useful sometimes, I don't think it is useful enough to counter the fact that you'll be battling 5v6 in every Gym with Cherrim in... I love Cherrim's design though, so I enjoy seeing you having it in team Just consider setting up sun with Bellossom, so that you don't waste a turn of Cherrim. Bellossom can take a hit better and then you will be able to utilize Cherrim's attacking potential too! Also, Jumpluff is more like a speedy Leech Seeder. Its attack is too low to be able to use Acrobatics effectively later in game. But can be used amazingly to Seed people, then U-turn out If I'd suggest a mon, it would be Victreebel. Chlorophyll, huge Attack AND Special Attack, Nature Power and Knock Off. And Leaf Blade/Storm and Venoshock. Enough said.

Ohhh I see, this makes sense Awww, that's sad. In my original run, Sawsbuck proved itself to be excellent, by OHKO'ing Aurorus with Jump Kick and Jynx with Megahorn. It fainted afterwards, but got Vanilluxe to red HP as well Maybe my Sawsbuck hated the mirrors less than yours! xD Yayyyyyy!

Oh, I see. Well, I was just giving you an idea on what I'd find useful, since breeding for IVs is too troublesome and time consuming, so I never do it Thanks for your quite impressive and helpful work anyways

Cacturne and Breloom for the win! Tough battles vs two of your weaknesses, Bug and Ice, well, 3 if we count luck as well, cause we all know how evasion works! -1 in accuracy means 100% of us missing, while a +1 in our evasion means jack shit for the opponents! I yelled a bit "Nooooooo" when you used Sunny Day vs Larvesta to be honest, but phewwwwwww! You could've EV trained Sawsbuck in Attack and Speed and utilize Chlorophyll with Cherrim's Sunny Day as well! Jump Kick/Nature power would hit super hard Sawsbuck is a solid pokemon. Even if I forgot to give it Chlorophyll in our battle and got destroyed xD @RedAlert I hope you keep going <3

You could maybe enhance it for IV breeding. Make it check IVs of hatched mons for 31s, then check gender too, and swap one of the parents in Daycare, given the appropriate item. e.g Power items, if 31 is just 1, or Destiny Knot, if the perfect IVs are like 3, 4, or 5. And maybe Everstone when the Nature take a predifined value (maybe make it be same with the first mon in the storage box? This way you'd not have to change it in your java code every time)

Not really. With that, you still have to do everything. Walking is the most tiring part of breeding. This program instead, does the walking for you. Flame body and oval charm don't matter, it will just walk for you.

I'll agree with @Wolfox and @Pμrple. Torchik and Chimchar are great, as Fire/Fighting is a good typing and they have either Speed Boost, or priority attacks. Delphox has also a good typing and some great Special and Speed base stats, it will help massively. Froakie becomes the mighty Greninja, but it is relatively weaker early game, and this is where you had the problem. With Florinia, you can get a Trubbish, set up Toxic Spikes and then sweep most of her mons with a powered up Venoshock from Dustox. So, my recommendations would be Trubbish, Dustox and possibly a Woobat as well. Walk around, give it Soothe Bell to hold and it will soon be a Swoobat. Flying attacks will help massively.

Welcome aboard @Zetto! And don't worry, people here are super-friendly and always willing to help you in any way they possibly can! So, stick around, and have fun!

Additionally, initially, when you lost a couple mons, say to Typhlosion's Eruption, you had to replace them before Darmanitan's attack, so you ended up losing a third one to a Flare Blitz by Darmanitan. This can be seen at Shofu's playthrough. So, the whole snowballing double-battle mechanic was optimized/nerfed, and now you have the "But there was no opponent" phrase. It was crazy, if Darmanitan used Rock Slide too, you could lose up to 4 pokemons in a single turn due to the game forcing you to put them on, just to tank Darmanitan's attack after the first two getting OHKO'ed by that OP Typhlosion Eruption. Edit: Check the video in the spoiler, as of Episode 14 Charlotte

Haha, no worries! Quiver Dance is indeed the best setting-up move in game, together with Shell Smash. And pretty much the only thing (paired with the good supporting movepool and type coverage) that makes Bugs viable in late game with the lack of base stats they suffer from! And thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying it! Next chapter will be on either later tonight, or tomorrow. Haha, he will appear relatively soon. Thank you! And, by the way, this special someone has been an absolute star in many occasions and I've loved him to bits! <3

I get your point, however, in my mind all animals are creations, none can be the creator. That's why I deny the possibility of God being an animal. Since Pokemon are the animal equivalents of the world of Pokemon, and because it is impossible to harness God's power with a mere tool of human technology, like a pokeball, and make it obey to your commands, we reach to the conclusion that Arceus can't possibly be a God of the Pokemon universe. A God can't be threatened by humans. And it is a horrendous hubris to even consider enslaving a God in actuality, like cultists do. That's why El is probably the most despicable character of Reborn. In my beliefs, I prefer thinking of God in the form of an entity that is omnipotent and omnipresent and has created everything we can see from energy. If you want, in my mind God is the one who triggered the Big Bang, or the one who created the energy that existed before the Big Bang. Hence, God can't possibly be witnessed living among mortal creatures, striving for survival. But yes, many religions throughout the ages have worshipped animals, believing them to possess divine abilities. Ancient Egyptians with cats are just one more example. It is just not compatible with my set of beliefs and I didn't want to insult anyone by stating this. I apologise if I did. Thanks a lot! Feel free to stick around, give me advice or just say whatever you think about my run