Too Long; Didn't Play- A Rejuv V13 playthrough (Update 5: Mewtwo fain- wait nevermind)

[uberle]

'Ello

I am Uberle

For thousands of years I lay dormant here but arise once again because Rejuv has added Gen 8 and has changed a lot of old stuff I'd like to see

Also joining me are a couple friends, Filthy and Riddle, in blue and pink respectively who'll pop in occasionally 

 

This is as the title says a run of Rejuv V13 where I do my best to summarize the game's plot as I go through it 

Because this is a long game and people may not want to play through it all again to see what's new

With that out of the way let us dive into the first update of this adventure 

 

Spoiler

 

 

We don’t start as ourselves but as a little girl named Maria who is being read the worst bedtime story ever.

It’s about a Zorua who decides to prank his Pangoro friend by creating an illusion of the Pangoro’s dead mother.

Happy times.

 

Now it’s morning and a quick run downstairs her mom tells her to get her dad.

 

Maria does that, then goes upstairs to get ready for dinner

 

Then a blue filter covers the screen and Maria tries to find her parents

 

 

She meets a woman clad in armor who tells her to never give up hope

 

Which is.... Well I’ll explain more when we meet Armor Lady again

 

She goes into the basement and finds her dad standing over her presumably dead mother who lays on a sacrificial altar

 

 

 Then fade to black and she wakes up as Marianette in a castle and is informed by a Maid that her father requests her presence. Down some halls and Maria finds her dad now dressed in full cultist robes as he sacrifices a Maid

 

 

Maria asks her dad where her mother is and her dad informs her that “She’s with the lord” and Maria will be joining her shortly 

 

Maria is forced onto the sacrifice altar and shouts her protests

Screen cuts to black and we hear the same noise as when the Maid got sacrificed 

 

What’s with these fan games and putting blonde girls in maid outfits on magic altars?

 

 

 

OK now we play as ourselves 

 

Choose player avatar, gender, name, all that

We meet our mother, Nancy, and go to say hi to the ship’s captain who is apparently related to Briney from the Hoenn games 

 

We go to our ship cabin and apparently we have very thin walls and listen to a conversation between our mother and a goth chick named Crescent who has a Gothitelle 

 

 

You are going to learn to hate her

 

 

Anyway the conversation tells us that Nancy was apparently tasked to keep us happy and possibly shouldn’t be capable of feeling emotions

 

Hope you don’t mind putting that plot thread on hold for a while

 

Next we go to the banquet and meet Pianolady Pianolady, one of the best characters in the game

 

RIP in peace to that one NPC who was staring right at her chest the entire time 

 

And then tentacles attack

 

Crescent’s Gothitelle teleports us to the captain’s cabin and we gotta get back to her while trying to navigate the increasingly on fire boat

A bunch of Deoxys pop up, one just f*cking annihilates a guy in front of our eyes and we eventually get to Nancy who is.... Fighting a ninja I think

Woman with sunglasses and purple hair just keeps vanishing and reappearing and reveals that the attack was to get Nancy

 

Again, don’t get too interested in this plot thread we have a bit of waiting to do

 

 

We’re chased outside the boat and Ninja lady and a dark-skinned man corner us

 

Then we get swooped up by a Talonflame 

 

Gearen City

 

 

Dropped off on a pier we meet the Talonflame’s owner: Tesla of the Elite 8

 

Yes

8

She makes sure we’re alright then flies back out to sea to see what’s going on 

 

And now we can finally get our starter mon 

 

Run right up and into Gearen Lab we meet Amanda who lets us into the back

 

Also you’ll see a green-haired girl be approached and then follow a man who is prime society 

 

 

 

Thank you Riddle

 

 

As we walk into the back we run into a blonde girl

 

You are gonna have very mixed feelings on her

 

In the back we meet Prof Jenner and see he’s talking to a woman with red hair who he immediately hangs up on

 

I’m sure that won’t be important soon

And now you can get your starter

Either pick one of the 24 available or just go to the machine for a random one

 

F in chat for the really rare starters like Axew

 

 

I picked Grookey and named it “Further Beyond” because Rillaboom has the SSJ3 hair

 

Though character limits meant it had to be FrtherBeyond 

And now I shall break this game dependent on fields with Grassy Surge 

 

So the way we chose our starters was simple. Each of us decided we would split the gen 8 starters for appropriate theming. Uberle picked first and went Grookey. Riddle picked second and took Scorbunny. And I got…

...Inteleon.

 

 

I love Sobble’s design, but god Inteleon is gross. He’s an uglier version of Randall from Monster’s Inc… and because of that, I named my Sobble Randall.

 

 

(don’t worry he will come around and love Inteleon eventually)

 

 

Don’t ask him about Meganium

 

 

Pokedex, Nav, and balls obtained you’re now a proper trainer

 

And you go down to the pier and catch a Fletchling with Wide Guard 

There’s a reason for this, trust me

 

Now you’re free to wander Gearen on your own, except for one bit because a guy has a level 13 Torchic with Speed Boost and you’re not beating that right now

 

 

Heading east you find a house that’s playing the theme from Roxie’s Gym

 

And you watch a girl fly through the roof and splat down on the stone in front of you

Claiming she’s dying the girl asks for a berry but when you go to buy one the shopkeeper instead gives you…. Something else 

 

You give the berry to the girl who turns out was not dying and learn that the berry was laced with wasabi 

 

Laughing the prank off, the girl introduces herself as Venam, the gym leader for this area and tells you to join her friends at the sewers

 

Not the greatest first impression, pranking you and all, but she gets comeuppance and acknowledges that she deserved it so not that bad

 

 

And then at the sewers entrance she’s doing the same trick to a guy named Sasuke (give it time) Ren

 

You get a lovely drawing made by Zumi, one of the game devs, and see him happily introduce himself

This is the literal only time he will feel or display any sense of joy in this entire game 

 

Sasuke Ren is a companion in the sewers so if you run into a shiny, pray to the coding gods that he doesn’t attack it

 

 

RIP my shiny Rattata...
And my shiny Poochyena…

 

Laughs in shiny A-Rattata 

 

He also heals your mons so this is a nice place to level up a bit 

 

 

You finally track down Venam do a puzzle then meet up with the blonde girl from before

 

Melia 

Who is trying to figure out what’s going on with the generators down here

And we find out exactly what 

 

Apparently Melia and Venam placed some trash bags down in the sewers to see if they turned into Trubbish and they were right

 

One even became a shiny Garbodor 

You fight the Trash Gang and Venam nabs herself a Trubbish 

 

And with that Venam says she’ll be waiting for you at her gym

 

Melia wishes you luck and that’ll be the end of things for now

 

Bye

 

[Blontary]

Hi :) In the wiki project discord there's a section dedicated to the chapter summaries, you may wanna have a look there so you could help us! 

[MhicKy]

23 minutes ago, Blontary said:

Hi :) In the wiki project discord there's a section dedicated to the chapter summaries, you may wanna have a look there so you could help us! 

Here are my chaopter summaries

Chapter0~15 - Things get bad, sometimes get better and then GET WORST!

Thanks, I will be accepting my payment via PayPal

[realbremebruh]

2 hours ago, MhicKy said:

Here are my chaopter summaries

Chapter0~15 - Things get bad, sometimes get better and then GET WORST!

Thanks, I will be accepting my payment via PayPal

amazing. would you like 100 or 1000 pokedollars.

[MhicKy]

19 minutes ago, realbremebruh said:

amazing. would you like 100 or 1000 pokedollars.

Why would I choose 100 if I can 1000?

[uberle]

Alright time for the second update

but first replies

 

Spoiler

On 9/2/2021 at 12:24 AM, Blontary said:

Hi :) In the wiki project discord there's a section dedicated to the chapter summaries, you may wanna have a look there so you could help us! 

 

 I am in the discord and have been thinking of submitting something but still undecided

 Will think about it tho

 

On 9/2/2021 at 12:49 AM, MhicKy said:

Here are my chaopter summaries

Chapter0~15 - Things get bad, sometimes get better and then GET WORST!

Thanks, I will be accepting my payment via PayPal

 

 Not entirely inaccurate

 

 

 

Update now

Really wish I could name spoilers

 

Spoiler

 

Ok so next up is Venam’s gym

 

 

The puzzles are fairly simple, mix poisons to get certain colors and then proceed

The gym trainers will give you the answers and the color combinations are on a chart at the front of the gym as well as a PC and heal spot

 

Make it to the end and Venam greets you

 

 

Also there’s a ghost girl

 

Think her inclusion here is new

Melia and Ren walk in to cheer you are and the fight begins

And if you just so happen to pick a Grass starter, then get ready for half your health to vanish!

 

Note, I am playing on Casual

 

So gym leaders have 4 mons at lower levels and that’s what I’m gonna be talking about

 

I, meanwhile, played using normal mode. In this mode, all gym leaders have six Pokemon and around the level cap. I won, using this team:

 

Truth be told, I won that fight by complete accident. I just wanted to see what was on it, hence the Metapod instead of Butterfree. However, I find that the battle itself isn’t hard as long as you have something that can take a hit or cripple. Voltorb was that Pokemon for me. It had Static for any physical attackers, as well as Spark for a good chance to land paralysis. My Bibarel (which was shiny) would then come in and clean up. Bibarel has both Moody and STAB Headbutt here, making it a fantastic choice for gym 1… except the Ivysaur. But I thankfully had Trubbish and Fletchling for that.

 

 

Good Pokemon to catch for this gym are Psyduck (found in Gearen Garden) and Butterfree (found as a Caterpie in the grass all over Gearen, as long as its daytime). Especially Butterfree. You can also find a Psychic Gem in her gym (in a secret room--there’s a different combination you can use for the third room of her gym). Equip that on your psychic-user of choice. Additionally, while it might be tempting, I wouldn’t bother getting Pecha Berries; it’s not worth the held item slot that can be filled by Oran Berries instead. The stacking damage of the Corrosion Field is much more taxing on your team than the off-chance that you actually get poisoned. I’d say the biggest problem on her team is the Mareanie--make sure that you kill it sometime early in the battle. You’re not going to win a last Pokemon vs. last Pokemon fight against it. 

 

 

Fun thing about this field, your mon is considered poisoned no matter what

So my main obstacle was Venam’s Mareanie which has Venoshock, so not only is that move doing double damage but it always crits because of Merciless.

Or rather that was the case, but it got patched.

I recommend doing a sidequest at the docks that nets you a Buizle with Sonic Boom

Fixed damage is life

This was my team after the fact

 

 

 

I would recommend properly leveling up, even though there isn’t really a good place to do that yet

 

Sewers are your best bet really

 

And with Venam down we get her badge and a custom TM Poison Sweep

 

50 power and can lower speed, so it’s not bad for now

 

And now

 

SIDEQUESTS

 

Rejuv has a very good sidequest system 

 

It just has a Help Center that you can go to and find quests

It’s a good idea to do them all before leaving the area proper

And in Gearen you have seven

Of varying difficulty and complexity so let’s go through them now

 

Save Starly!

 

 

Alright first sidequest 

 

Just go save a Starly right

....Right?

Well first thing is to go to Gearen Labs and talk to the Starly’s owner, next to the Nurse Joy

There’ll be another NPC there who will be ready to give you a fun gift if you’ve beaten Venam

 

The Starly’s owner will send you to the docks to stop the thieves

 

So you go down and find some bikers and beat them up

And then you meet someone you’ll be seeing a lot of during these sidequests 

A woman with magic powers named Karen

 

And Karen’s arc revolves around wanting to speak to the manager.

 

 

Which makes me think of the Johto E4 member first so that’s slightly confusing for me

 

 

And by “magic powers” I mean she flies in, summons spikes of rocks that jut out of the water and pierce the boat the thieves were going to take and then sends the thieves flying out over the ocean

 

She calls you “little dove” and peaces out

 

Go back to the owner and mission done

 

 

Missing Mother

 

 

This one is a bit long but simple 

 

Mostly 

Would recommend holding off on this until after beating Venam

 

First go to the salon, it has a Lilligant on the front so not too hard to spot

 

You meet the salon owner’s daughter and she informs you that her mother was meant to be back by now so you need to find her

 

This bit is a tad repetitive as first you go to the Aqua Apartments and get told that the mother went to the Velvet Apartments 

 

But first you need to go back to the salon and tell the daughter that

Then you go to the Velvet Apartments, learn the mom had then left to the Emerald Apartments 

But first you need to go back to the salon and tell the daughter that

Then you go to the Emerald Apartments, learn the mom had then left to the docks  

But first you need to go back to the salon and tell the daughter that

This time you’ve actually got something and the daughter goes to the docks

 

You go and find a boat from Grand Dream City, which is the largest and most powerful city in the whole region 

 

Walk inside a previously closed off building and you find the mother giving haircuts to the homeless and poor of the city 

Apparently the mayor of GDC is a bit touchy about stuff like this so it needs to be kept secret

 

And then a couple mean girls walk in demanding free haircuts

 

They’re told no and threaten to wreck the place so you step in to stop them

The mean girls just have one mon

A level 17 Lopunny

(Level 18 on Normal, Level… 20 on Intense? I dunno what the scaling is for that.)

Side note, and this is going to be a theme. This game has more characters than the Sonic franchise. Did you notice they tried to give that NPC a personality for one (at this point) scene? Just keep that in mind.

Reminder that your level cap before fighting Venam is 15

Defeat it and the mean girls go away

The mother and daughter have a bonding moment and you remember your mother telling you how much she loves you and wants you to be happy 

 

Mission done

 

 

The Hidden Library

 

 

One of the easier ones

 

Go to the Lab and immediately turn left, guy with the backpack will tell you about a hidden library that he wants you to ask around about

He gives you three people, you go talk to him, and then return to take a multiple choice quiz 

Answer all three questions right and that’s job done

 

Love Letter!

 

 

Also really simple 

 

Go to the building you walk through to get to the docks and go upstairs

You run into a guy who asks you to give a love letter to a guy named Cameron, and you notice he was looking for a Burn Heal

Buy one, give Cameron the note and Burn Heal then return to the quest giver

Tell him the good news and that’s all

 

 

Dangerous Pokemon! 

 

 

 

Recommend waiting until after Venam for this

 

So go down to the docks and you’ll find a pack of Litleo

And then

 

 

 

Yeah

 

You fight two Litleo and a level 20 Pyroar 

Buizle again is a massive help here

Beat the pack and one of the Litleo joins you

 

 

Battle Request!

 

 

 

Highly recommend to wait until you got your team to level 20 for this at least on Casual

 

Seriously this is pretty tough

 

Go to the Hotel’s roof and you’ll meet Noeva who is training to be a part of this group of powerful trainers

 

You’ll occasionally run into them, they all have white hair and a hairband-thing like Noeva does

As said, Noeva is pretty tough but beat her and one of the rewards is a Pichu which is neat

 

 

Wretched Music

 

 

 

This one can only be done at night

 

Also probably best to wait until around the same time as the last mission

 

Go to the hotel and talk to the desk clerk

 

He’ll let you into the basement where you run into... 

Him

 

 

 

 

Meet Rorim B

 

 

Really enthusiastic dancer and possible E8 member but that’s just my guesswork

He’s someone who has gotten one of Zumi’s arts that pop up in game so I have suspicions 

 

Fight him and he informs you that he’ll leave if you find two people willing to be part of his dancing team 

 

Run around on the ground floor and you’ll find both NPCs on that level

Once you find them go back down and Rorim will give them Magical Girl transformations and then boogies out

 

And that is all of the Help Center missions for East Gearen 

 

Next time is the start of Melia’s plotline so get ready for that

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[uberle]

Moving along

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

Let’s see....

Alright now we’re heading to Goldenwood Forest with Melia 

 

...but before THAT.

 

I briefly changed my team up at this point. Now, I have a Seviper on my squad. For this point in the game, it has great stats. Definitely something to consider for the first two gyms at least.

 

We run into Tesla at the train station and she pays our ticket for us then heads out

 

Now to Goldenwood

We meet with Melia and have a fun montage with her as we go along the route and have cute adventures 

Then we get to the cave and now Melia’s your partner as you go along

You may note that her Pokemon are all shinies 

Remember that

 

At the end of the cave is a wall with some ancient text

Melia takes a few photos of it, then one of us

She walks up to the wall and suddenly the cave shakes and the wall crumbles 

Completely unfazed by the havoc she’s wrought Melia instead delights in the new passage that was uncovered and goes on ahead of us

 

However, something else you can do instead of following her is head left. If you do, you’ll see a woman standing there and challenging you to a fight with her Leavanny. Usually, that thing hits incredibly hard. However, thanks to Seviper, I managed to tank her hits and get the KO.

Once you win, you get a Sewaddle yourself!

 

Once outside there’s a heal spot and it turns out Melia has set up a picnic for us!

Also there’s a statue of Arceus watching over us

Curious 

 

Melia talks about the great day she’s had with us and thanks us for a wonderful time.

Then she goes on to discuss her worries.

Melia has been chosen to be the Normal type gym leader in Grand Dream City and she’s nervous about leaving to a place she hasn’t been, away from everyone she knows and loves.

But she has hope.

So she asks for a battle, to get an idea of what  she will have to face in the future.

You win and she admits she didn’t think it would go like that, but is in high spirits still.

 

Then a blue filter appears over the screen 

And things are suddenly less fine

 

Run out to the front entrance of the cave and you are met with people in black and red uniforms calling themselves Team Xen.

Apparently they’ve been around for a bit but weren’t usually taken seriously, but Melia seems plenty worried about them.

And she should be because they’re there for her.

 

Then a grunt sends out a Shadow Meowth.

Somehow Team Xen has been able to recreate them and Melia tells you to put a certain combination into her briefcase’s lock

And inside Is a Snatching Machine, a device that lets you capture Shadow Pokemon from trainers

 

So catch the grunt’s mon and that’s that

Head south and you’ll run into several more Xen grunts with more Shadow mons you can get

You get them now or never, but you’re given 10 balls with the machine, so you stand a good chance 

At the end of it all are a couple more grunts, Eli and Shanon who fight you and then... 

 

You remember that shiny Garbodor from the sewers?

Yeah it’s back 

Eli and Shanon run after it leaving you with the Xen Admin running all of this

Zetta

We fight him and you can get his Shadow Snover

I’ll miss you Alolan Grimer

 

Bit of bantering and then he shows off his party trick 

Spawning this thing

 

Then Zetta has it eat you

Just swallows you whole and you find yourself in some weird alternate world 

Run up and you see a Magikarp jump up a waterfall then start to glow

It falls back down and emerges as a Rift Gyarados 

 

Rift battles are similar to raids in SwSh

The enemy has a massive health bar with a couple barriers you need to break first

In my case it was just using Fletchinder using Peck a couple times then Further Beyond stepped in and a couple Razor Leaks later it was done

 

I, however, did a different strategy.

 

In Rejuv, if you go to the casino, you’ll find these items called “Golden Items”. These act as replacement for HMs, and while HM moves themselves are still in the game, they are a huge time saver. You buy these items through AP, which is earned by completing challenges. I, myself, farmed on wild Pokemon, using over 800 (I think) moves to get enough AP to buy the Rock Smash Golden Item. Once I did, instead of going into the train station, I headed left, used Rock Smash (which I got early from the HM item) and got myself a Blitzle.

However, it turns out Rift Gyarados is not Water/Flying, but instead Water/Ghost. As such, my Voltorb had to attempt to paralyze with Spark. Once it did, Blitzle could get off as much damage as she could with Shock Wave before going down to Gyarados’s attack (trust me, that thing hits hard). Seviper then did additional damage before going down, ending off with Drizzile getting in some final damage.

 

 

God, I hate Drizzile’s design. Still, it at least came in clutch this time.

 

Still wish I had that Sobble design back though.

 

While I’m gonna let some personal biases slip through here, I should mention that before you fight the rift a projection of Melia appears and says that she’s helping

But if she did, then we see no evidence to support that claim 

 

Back to objective stuff

Zetta just goes “welp” and then peaces out 

Melia and we rush back to Gearen to tell Jenner of Team Xen embracing the power of demons and find that he’s a bit busy talking to someone

That someone being Madelis 

Another Team Xen admin 

Who we saw talking with him earlier when we first entered his lab

 

Anyway turns out Jenner was just meant to keep Melia safe until Xen needed her but turns out raising a child results in getting attached to them, and Jenner might’ve done a treason

Melia doesn’t exactly take the sudden news that she’s adopted very well and ends up fighting Madelis 

 

Madelis uses her Houndoom while Melia has.. A Togepi

My strat was using Yawn because Madelis always goes for Nasty Plot first

Then once asleep, spam Metronome and hope you get something good

In my case I got Power Swap and ended up taking Houndoom’s Nasty Plot boosts for myself and then just Ancient Powered to victory.

 

Madelis lost, but points out that she still has the rest of her team to use while Melia’s mons are all weak

So Melia uses her last resort

Have her Togepi use Metronome and Teleport the two of them away

Not entirely certain how that worked, but it gets things moving 

Madelis radioes to other Xen grunts patrolling the city to keep an eye out for Melia and leaves

 

After she does, Ren runs in and tries to figure out what’s happening

Jenner pleads with us to help Melia

Then Crescent 

 

Crescent speaks from somewhere unseen and chides Jenner for doing very little himself to save Melia despite knowing exactly what was going to happen

Then she opens a portal and sends him away

 

A bit more concerned with the evil team running about, we’re approached by Karrina, a local gang leader, and thinks a Xen admin may be hiding out in a building with a lot of very concerning noises coming from it

 

Run over there and turns out it’s the society man we saw earlier and Venam is there too for reasons 

Also a green haired person, presumably the same girl from before, teleports away as we walk in

He’s got a Musharna hooked up to a strange device and we’re given the option to side with Venam or Ren

And given this boss is a Psychic type... I went with Ren

Anyway turns out that society man isn’t with Xen and was actually helping the Musharna 

Red herring having been dealt with, Ren and Venam run off to the other train station while Karrina mentions something about giving people enough time 

 

And now we run off to join Venam and Ren and see what that’s about next time

 

[uberle]

Don't really have an update schedule 

Just every few days

And it's been a few days so here we go

 

Spoiler

 

Ok so

Train station, on the train

Little cutscene where Venam freaks out about the fact that Melia is being hunted by Xen and insists we should do something about it

Ren tries to rein her in, but Venam still insists that they need to take Xen head on

Train arrives and Venam sprints ahead 

 

BUT FIRST

 

In the park, you used to be able to get a Budew at certain times of the day. However, now, it appears to be Gossifleur. Normally, I wouldn’t bother showing this, as I told the others in chat I thought Eldegoss was really bad.

It turns out, however, Eldegoss carried me so hard through a huge chunk of the game.

 

So just keep this in mind. I’ll explain a bit later during the gym battles...

 

We run into some person wearing a cloak on the way to Amethyst Cave

And then we see them again as we enter

They explain that Melia ran deep into the mines due to fear of being chased by Xen, who we meet on the way down.

Turns out Melia’s being chased by an Admin so we better hurry.

 

Ren also notes that there are a lot of Joltik are around despite not being native to the cave

 

We get to the bottom of the mines and find Zetta again

He’s standing in front of a rift and tells the tale

He found a broken bridge and at the bottom, among the wreckage, Melia’s bloodied bag being chewed on by a Galvantula 

Venam and Ren deal with their grief while Zetta deals with the fact that he doesn’t have the greatest field report to make and tries to take us out to compensate and we all get sucked into the new Rift he’s made.

 

Inside the rift Venam continues processing her friend’s death while Ren asks her to try and focus on the friends she still has and loops us in that group

Not sure why because we’ve only known each other for a few hours, but I get his point.

That fails so he gets Venam motivated with revenge on Zetta 

Though we still need to get out of this rift

 

We inform Venam and Ren what happened the last time we got vored by one of these things and Ren seems a bit upset at having to destroy a Galvantula that got forced into a rift by Zetta

Venam meanwhile has no such concerns 

 

Stroll on up and suddenly we’re in Lovecraft territory 

 

 

It hatches and we’re met with the Rift Galvantula 

Electric/Poison with Parental Bond 

Also a bunch of Joltik 

Chose Venam as my buddy for this fight

Downfall my Fletchinder took out the Joltik and then I mostly used priority moves to take out the Rift’s shields 

 

Galvantula defeated, we return to reality and Zetta has peaced out 

And then Crescent yeets him back into frame 

She lectures everyone then vanishes Zetta

A bit more explanation about how we shouldn’t even have tried to save Melia since she was gone before we arrived and tells us to just stay in Gearen

 

Which we do 

Apparently we’ve been sulking in Venam’s room for a few days

This will be a bit of a trend 

 

A personal note: I really wish the game didn’t tell me I was this depressed about Melia. Instead, I wish it made me care more about her first. Yes, this is a subjective and petty comment, but I knew her for less than a week, and I’m apparently more sad about her dying than my own mom being lost? Keep this in mind: you stop looking for your own mom because you’re apparently supposed to be sad about a girl you barely know.

 

Several more days later and we are brooding on a pier

 

Ren approaches us, gives us a pep talk, and tells us that he’s heading home and we should leave Gearen too

Xen has done a lot of really terrible things to us so we shouldn’t just sit there in misery 

He advises us to go to Sheridan Village for the second gym and so we shall

Still in this update so here we go

 

Gotta go back through Amethyst Cave to get there

You run into the cloaked person again who goes “I warned you, now all of you know the pain of losing someone”

 

Which I still don’t get

What’s the alternative?

We just never learn what happened to Melia?

Seriously, what do these people keep tutting at us for?

 

And next you meet

 

 

Nim

Who is quite magical

As in she has access to an entire different plane of existence that she’s more adapted to than this world

Her just being ghosty in Venam’s gym took a lot out of her

And now you fight her

 

 

Another reason to use Seviper early game: despite being weak to psychic, its stats make it pretty strong and fast for this part of the game.

 

 

 

Fight her and win and she just chills with you for a bit

And she gives you a key card from Melia’s bag

So quick run back to Gearen and into Jenner’s area and you get an EXP Share

Just the regular kind 

Also some nice little things

Like notes Melia and Jenner wrote to each other and movie posters Venam got for her

Just nice details to cement just how close Melia was to the people in her life 

 

Back through the cave and finally we’re at the village 

 

We meet a young girl with purple hair talking to a woman named Eldest

They talk about how the village’s leader, the Sensei, hasn’t really been active in the community much then the purple haired girl leaves

Then Eldest notices us and whispers rather loudly to herself that things are about to escalate 

 

Quick note

Right now it costs money to heal at the Inn 

And my friends took this... 

 

 

Not well

 

 

Heading north to the Sensei’s house you meet the purple haired girl again who introduces herself as Naruto Aelita

She lets us know that we can try challenging the Sensei for his badge, but probably won’t get anywhere

And we don’t, we knock and then go back to the Inn and meet up with Naruto (just like with Ren, you’ll see) Aelita again

Eldest somehow knows our name and doesn’t provide the best cover for knowing it 

 

We learn that Keta, the Sensei, has been a bit off for the past year and has just been in his house the whole time

Aelita has a feeling that with us she can finally get through to him, but Eldest requests you wait until the next day

And now the Inn will heal you for free

Quick sleep, then we head back to Keta’s place with Aelita 

 

We’re let in and Keta has gone full nihilist

He doesn’t believe that there’s any point to remaining in the village and thinks its for the best that everyone leave

Aelita has complaints 

Then Keta has a flashback and asks to talk to us alone

 

We follow him into a little garden area and find him talking to the grave of someone named Taelia 

Then he pulls up his hood and turns out he’s the cloaked figure we kept running into at Amethyst Cave

He tells us to go to the start of Amethyst cave and retrieve something called a “Soul Stone” and to do it alone

And we’ll cover that next time

Bye!

 

 

[uberle]

Oh right time for update

 

Spoiler

 

So to the grotto and descend a rather tall ladder

At the base we find several stone slabs placed around the area and hear someone call to us

Walk up to the center platform and we meet... 

A worse sensei than Texen Raider

Keta

Or a piece of him

Something happened that made him literally cut out his own emotions and that’s who stands before us

Spirit Keta gives us the Soul Stone and asks us to help Keta and vanishes

 

Keta is waiting right outside and he’s actually surprised we got the Soul Stone and decides to test something

He heads down to where Melia died and finds that that Soul Stone has no reaction, so maybe something’s up

His experiment over, he tells us to meet him back in the village 

 

There we run into Aelita again and Keta says he’ll fight us so Aelita runs off to get a crowd 

And now the gym battle begins 

It’s a double battle so be ready for that

Advice is to focus on one side and just keep hitting away at it

Also be aware that a fair number of his mons have Protect

In case you were thinking of using Lunatone or Solrock here, there’s a move that Keta’s mons have that becomes a Grass move and it’s gonna oneshot them both 

And most importantly

That Lucario has Extreme Speed and it will wreck your day so be ready to deal with it

 

For me, it was a bit easier. Remember that Gossifleur I mentioned? I ended up evolving her into an Eldegoss. For this part of the game, Eldegoss has decent enough bulk. Plus, with the Effect Spore ability, it helped cripple a lot of Keta’s mons. This, in turn, set up my next team member to sweep:

Xatu.

 

Xatu, particularly in early game, is fantastic. With Ominous Wind and Stored Power, if you can get it rolling, it’s an unstoppable god of destruction. Add Air Slash onto it, and if it gets a couple boosts, the game is effectively over.

 

Defeated, Keta laments that he’s failed everyone but is surprised to hear the village praising him for such a spectacular battle and Aelita reminds him that everyone there is ready to help him.

Keta has a flashback of someone else telling him something similar and realizes how much of a fool he was. Telling Aelita to not follow him, he runs off and goes behind a waterfall. Aelita ignores his request and follows him anyway as do we

 

Behind the waterfall we find an entrance to Caratos Mountain which seems to be quite fiery for a non-volcano and Aelita joins your party so no need to run back for heals 

And then you run into tentacles 

And this guy

 

 

Installed under the authority of Madelis 

So we found a Team Xen hideout

SEC has a shadow Ponyta, so should probably grab that

Once you beat it, SEC explodes 

But you’ll be meeting it again 

 

Walk into the door and we find a bunch of Xen grunts and some have shadow mons too

At the end of the area you’ll run into SEC who will ask for passwords you find on signs throughout the area

There are three and they are case sensitive so put on caps lock as you type them

One more battle and then you’re clear to enter the elevator 

 

Turns out Xen got an entire mansion built in the mountain

You encounter SEC 2.0 aka Clara who grabs Aelita and delivers her to Madelis 

Inside the place is Keta who teams up with you to solve Madelis’ puzzles and get to the back of the mansion 

 

You can get an Upgrade and Mime Jr during this, and plenty of double battles for EXP and money

 

Fun fact: I discovered later on in the game if you bring Mime Jr. to a snowy mountain and evolve it there, you get Galarian Mr. Mime. Keep that in mind if you want a Mr. Rime.

 

All four keys obtained, you can now go confront Madelis and she has a few bombs to drop

Turns out she saved Keta’s life a year ago and allowed Team Xen to burrow into Carotos Mountain and let them determine the lives of Sheridan’s people

Keta wants to cancel that contract, but Madelis isn’t too happy with that

 

Also we learn that Aelita is Keta’ daughter here

Bit important, figured I should mention it 

 

Madelis uses Instant Transmission and takes Aelita to a more fitting place to battle and explains that she’s going to kill us with something designed for the leader of Xen, Madame X

And the project she has ready?

 

 

Yeeeep

And she jams our Snatching Machine so we can’t even try to catch it

Next is a double battle with Keta as a buddy 

 

You get a Zumi image of Madelis with the text “Fall” and that’s gonna be your experience here

Mewtwo is at a manageable level but it’s a Mewtwo, not gonna be having the best of times

I beat it with priority moves and Keta having enough mons left for my Koffing to poison it 

 

 

But the message saying Mewtwo fainted apparently is irrelevant to the current situation and Madelis commands it to attack Aelita

Keta suddenly hears the voice of Taelia calling for him to protect Aelita and starts to fight it hand to hand

He confesses his sins and prepares to meet Arceus 

We run with Aelita and go to complete Keta’s final mission: destroy the generator to this place

 

And the generator is this

 

 

A Rift Volcanion 

Madelis arrives to inform us that Keta is dead and the only way to shut off the generator is to destroy the Pokemon itself 

Aelita takes on Madelis while we deal with the rift

 

We get transported to another Rift world, this one a bit more lovely and hear something calling out for its mother

Turns out it’s the Volcanion which is actually a child desperately trying to find its mother and asks if you’ll bring it to her

 

Personally I question how necessary it was to give this rift mon this backstory

We’ve firmly established that Team Xen is lead by monsters, this just seems to be a bit much

 

Once you beat it, the Volcanion thanks you and you go back to the mountain where you find Aelita on the ground, Mewtwo reenacting the choking Sasuke meme with Madelis

And Cresecent’s Gothitelle

Crescent herself makes her appearance and decides now would be a lovely time to remind us how often we keep almost getting killed 

Clara helpfully reminds us that this place is about to blow and Crescent has her Gothitelle teleport us away

 

 

To be continued....