vepper

The only item I'm really puzzled about being unavailable is expert belt (as it's worse than a life orb, generally) and Wise Glasses (feels like they forgot to put one in since you can get a muscle belt). Choice items are for the endgame. Especially choice scarf. Assault Vest lets you get away with tanking moves you really shouldn't. I can get feeling frustrated with there feeling like there's few options, but that's how these games are built, you need to make the most out of stuff that isn't just typical top-end items, TMs, and pokemon. At least 13.5 may add quests for some things, but don't expect Choice.

Trying to implement them in 13.5 is just going to cause problems and delays, I feel. I think 2 versions of new pokemon back to back is enough. While I'd like to see them eventually, I'm not extremely concerned about them being added to the game soon. Also, I feel like they kinda deserve a break in general after Gen 8/IoA.

This one's a long shot, as I feel more that we're going to have one more battle with her to finish the sidequest line somewhere as our final battle with her for her star shard maybe in V14-15 (I doubt 13.5 for some reason), I'm gonna take a guess - but is it possible Novae would have gotten strong enough to be an Elite 8 member by the time you actually reach that point yourself? By the least she'd be strong enough to get all the badges or close to it. More of a crackpot guess and one that makes no sense if you didn't do her questline, but it may be possible the E8 is somewhat variable due to the fact Karen can die, so maybe she'd pull that off if you help her get far enough. It'd be kind of cool to see you helped her get this far, but I still feel the chances are pretty low.

Rhodea always seemed like a likely option to me. She has no clear occupation outside of the Storm Chasers from what I know, yet something about her always felt important. She's also been training under Spacea and Tiempa as said, so there's a high chance she's one of the most powerful trainers. I honestly was 100% expecting Mosely to become the Dark leader before Alice was confirmed. Something about her just feels like a powerful trainer in an unassuming appearance. Similar to Heather from Reborn. I could still see her being an E8 member in the end.

Blastoisinite I would have said before Gen 8, but I'm not so sure now (Is it possible to teach it shell smash in Rejuvenation now?) I feel like they wouldn't want you to have a shell smashing mega yet (though Rejuvenation has a few really sick megas already like Swampertite as you said which isn't even available in Reborn). Phione has a crest now! Cairo sells it I think the second you can find him on Route 4. It raises its defense (not sure about S.Def) by 50% and gives automatic aqua ring. Seems like it would make it very bulky at the least.

Accidental post I don't knwo how to delete

If you have every current stamp, you can buy Link Hearts for 10,000. At least you can pay back the price with the money rewards. You could also use the Aquarium Mystery at Axis High, though that's random chance. I could see a mega stone or a z crystal replacing the super rod, though I don't really think any of the water mega stones are suitable. Maybe a Flip Turn tutor could open up for V13.5? Though I honestly have doubts on having access to Flip Turn before 16-18 badges...

I personally disagree. I actually was surprised Froakie was already available, even if it does take a lot of work. It's a lot less of a pain in the ass than Reborn (500 caught mons) other than the fact you have to have multiple copies of a line. Literally the only more busted pokemon it could reward (that are water types) are Magikarp or Dracovish and I'm not counting on those mons being available till 17-18 badges. I do wish the Super Rod actually opened encounters, but there isn't really much left to get in that sense.

It may not be intended, but you can also just forfeit. Was nice when I had to redo the fight with Adam and Delpha so I didn't have to slowly wait to kill Clear's pokemon.

One mon I want to shout out is Golisopod. It's kind of annoying to catch since you have to re-run the safari zone every single soft reset, so it's easier to breed to get a better nature or IVs; but oh man is it worth it, especially for its pretty generous availability. I went the extra step to breed Aqua Jet onto mine, but even without that its First Impression can annihiliate squishy pokemon, even ones not weak to Bug if you can get an insect plate with good stats. Its bulk also means it often survives to escape and land a second one in the future, though if you're on shift mode you can really abuse it. The only problem is it will rarely get to attack outside of priority moves - but its horrible speed also makes it good if you're utilizing Trick Room or trying to battle one of the trick room teams in the game. Silvally is also really nice if you go out of your way to get it as early as possible. Its memories mean that it's like training multiple rotation Pokemon at once, and its high if unfocused BST gives it good bulk. Gen 8's Multi Attack buff is huge, because it hits like it has a boosting item before you actually have good boosting items anyway. As a bonus, it's got a cool shiny. Eldegoss is shockingly bulky and is a good early-game pick, especially for Valerie. Especially if you can't use items, Regenerator makes it a great early pivot. The event one having Leech Seed is huge, too, but I also got a weird amount of mileage out of rapid spin and sing. Probably doesn't hold up later on, though. Feraligatr is accessible right after Valerie and comes with Ice Punch out of the box. It lacks in Water STAB for a very long time, but makes up for it in decent natural coverage, a good ability, and great late-game scaling with its crest, re-learning Dragon Dance once egg moves show up (there isn't really a good source to breed it from what I could gather from checking level up learnsets of available pokemon) and the Liquidation tutor. The crest in particular makes it a very potent revenge killer, or allowing you to use utility moves with priority, though it also works great with the Life Orb if you wish to use it.

Since pickup is per battle, I find the fastest way to repeatedly reinitiate battles is to fight a static Pokemon who doesn't despawn when fainted - good options are the Fletchling on Oceana, and later the Impidimp in Darchlight (lure it next to the healing point)

There definitely are a couple PCs in the bad future. I don't think i was able to change my team between Melia and Melanie, but Melanie is a 12v6 so that's not a huge deal. Wouldn't be surprised if one of the patches added them, though; I played through on 13.03.

The galar starters are strong enough that I'm not really expecting to see their mega stones in 13.5 regardless. Maybe Inteleonite, at least, like how Sobble is currently the only available Gen 8 starter without picking it from the beginning. Just don't be surprised if there's no Rillaboomite or especially Cinderaceite for a while.

I haven't gotten to the end of V13 yet (just about to catch up to actually starting V13 content in my replay) but after the changes in the patches to V13 I've been mostly happy with normal difficulty. I play easier games on set but I play this one on shift to avoid tilting myself out of existence, and only use items, especially revives, if I'm really frustrated with a battle. Not as restrictive as some people play, though. I have been training a larger than average, if type-lopsided rotation though, up to about 30 pokemon at this point; though only about 10-15 really get used extensively. One change I do actually kind of like is the complete removal of RNG from damage. While it removes the possibility to survive with lucky low rolls, I would take that for also not worrying about having attacks that have a non-100% chance to OHKO. It's a little weird at first, but it works. Fights that did stand out as off, though some of them may have been due to being in a bad mindset or being too stubborn to use items like seeds: Amanda in Erick's gym. Her opener is ridiculously hard to crack and she actually has one of the hardest to outslow trick room teams of any trick-room based boss with things like the 20 speed Torkoal. I completely demolished Lorna by contrast, though that may be due to a larger selection of slow pokemon along with her pokemon just not really being quite as slow as Amanda's. This could be me being too stubborn to adapt, and I didn't think of the possibly-unintended strategy of equipping Power items to slow your pokemon down further. I never cheesed Souta's field in the past, but I was a lot more liberal with revive spam. It was one fight I did end up burning one or two on anyway, though. Honestly, the only thing I hate about this fight is being flinched by Sky Attack, so even if you wall the massive damage with something like a Rhyperior you might get flinched anyway. I get you're probably meant to stall out his tailwind then counter with your own, but I was really stubborn on using an elemental seed or breeding Sky Attack onto my own pokemon. So part of this may be due to me not adapting as much as I could, as opposed to someone like Adam who I crushed with pre-prepared inverse-effective moves like Golisopod one-shotting Aerodactyl.

Small correction - Blizzard (as well as Thunder and Fire Blast) are not available in V13 as they were axed and replaced with things such as terrain TMs.

This is coming from someone who plays the game on normal, so it's not really from personal experience so much as it is opinion. Grinding new pokemon to counter gyms is incredibly fast in this version. You can sometimes EV train 6 pokemon all at once within a few minutes, and then you get massive EXP candies as well. I don't really mind the game encouraging lots of team changes. Intense having unfair advantages, even things as extreme as multiple megas with hold items, isn't something I mind (partly because I don't play it, heh) - it's the hard mode of an already difficult game, it has permission to be silly. I hope not too much of that leaks over to normal - there's already a bit of it with a few pre-statused Pokemon holding other items, essentially giving them a (better) flame/toxic orb and a second hold item, while also adding a system to (understandably - this shouldn't be reverted) prevent the player from doing that. Extra EVs may be a thing near the very end of the game like with Reborn, however, so I'm prepared for that. Field changing in this version is interesting. The terrain change was 100% necessary; even without terrain moves Rillaboom alone necessitates the system being reworked; while Blaziken has always been around as an ez mode pick, a starter that can literally disable the primary new game mechanic would be extreme. I do wish some of the natural field change routes weren't removed in V13, though I understand keeping a gym leader stuck in a disadvantageous field is essentially an instant win. I assume this was to lessen the amount of possibilities to have to balance around - fields that will change to one other field, so the gym leader's moves generally will revert it back. There are absolutely still times you can work that into your favor - I don't think Erick, at least on normal, actually has no way to re-poison his water; while he still gets buffs from it, it also opens up using Surf to absolutely curbstomp him, especially if you have a fast Torrent starter like Greninja or Inteleon. Terrains are also still good even as an overlap - the fact they put Pincurchins right before Valarie is clear they want you to still use them to your benefit. Most of my issues with V13 have been remedied, and some I also would have gotten used to even if they weren't changed. Again, this was based on Normal, but I think a lot of the base opinions still stand - hard modes are supposed to be stupid and I don't mind that one bit. (the IV cards at least unlocked before most trainers actually have specialized EVs anyway)

I got where I needed to go for the sidequest confused - I thought I had to pass through to the Pokestar Studios area directly, but I was able to find the path that starts the missing children quest proper.

I'm following the walkthrough and trying to complete sidequests in GDC, but I was unable to enter the Pokestar Studios area even though the quest let me start it and the walkthrough recommended I do it. I got the 12th badge, and I still can't enter it. Did something go wrong or is the walkthrough's order of the quest incorrect? Also, I can't seem to find where the nature changer is in GDC. Is it in that same area?

It's been a long time since I played through the game and I was preparing to travel to GDC, but I can't seem to remember nor look up if GDC also has its own daycare center or if the one in Sheridan is the only one. I'd rather find out before I progress the game further, since there may be some pokemon I wish to breed for better IVs before moving forward.

I found a Heracross in Valor Mountain, but I was only able to actually reproduce the right mood on the map to encounter it while actually progressing through the mountain, I can't seem to get it to be neutral while outside of the fortress anymore. Also, unless one appears there after returning from GDC, Heracross's original location was axed and replaced with Treecko.

After updating to the newest version, the font no longer correctly stays at its size and is instead shrank and resized unevenly. Is there a way to fix this manually?

Disclaimer: I do not have trypophobia, but I have close friends who do. I have been enjoying V13, especially as patches have improved and touched it up, but one thing has kind of concerned me. The cover art imagery involving the Puppet Master's eyes, both in their mask and the pattern of eyes on the paintings such as the one Saki is stuck to, based on what I know about it and it kind of making me uncomfortable on its own, makes me concerned it could be a trypophobia trigger due to the use of "too many eyes" as well as the uniform patterning of round, nearly hole-like shapes. Obviously, I'm not asking for the art to be replaced or redrawn, though I would like to hear feedback if others have felt this concern as well. It would be cool to potentially have an alternate version of the offending art covers to replace in the game files to avoid them appearing as your title and menu screens if so, too. Sorry if this comes off as nitpicky or too sensitive. Extra: