Let's Play! - Merritt Gets Smacked About by Pokemon Vega [COMPLETE] (2024)

Last time we gained access to the water. As you might expect, Vega proceeded to throw an absolute metric ton of trainers who were absolutely no threat whatsoever at us while we surfed.

One of them uses a new mon. Snalo is Grass/Water type with Water Absorb as one of its abilities because immunity > 4x resistance. It's got 45/25/85/50/70/55 base stats which on evolution become even more pronounced. Snalo and its evolution are extremely tanky, with access to Leech Seed and Synthesis by level, but the evolution can get Shell Smash.

In the course of beating these loads and loads of trainers, coco finally gets to evolution level after not learning Safeguard. I'm holding off on evolution for now though since at level 35 Maidawn learns Ice Beam, something the evolution never learns by level for some reason.

Finally we're at Totally-Necessary-Couldn't-Just-Surf-Around-Nooooo Tunnel. Alternatively, Undersea Tunnel.

which is dark because of course it is

fixed

Undersea Tunnel is massive. There's a ton of stuff and a large number of trainers in here. We've also got no buyable Super Repels at this point so swarms of the water and ground type encounters will be constantly jumping at us. It's very annoying honestly, and there's no new wild Pokemon, just Kawappa, Buizel, Rynos, Rollder, and Diglett.

Two of the trainers use new stuff though!

Peacoptic is the evolved form of Mintch. Like i mentioned back when we first saw Mintch, Peacoptic is a Psychic/Flying type who evolves early at level 18. It's got 55/75/65/90/70/100 base stats but it doesn't evolve any further.

Plasmox is a 30/60/50/75/55/70 Electric type that evolves with a Thunderstone into a 50/90/70/105/75/90. Basically it's Electrike, but won't be available for a while.

An unlearned move and a bunch of items, these are the two interesting ones. TM12 is Amnesia which had to become a TM for a reason I've forgotten.

The cave has a floor downstairs, and this is part of it. That ladder to the 2nd basem*nt is blocked off until postgame.

This is also in the basem*nt. Some of you who've played romhacks before might realize what it means when the player is forced into a single space. I thought I had a few more steps though, before...

Our view shifts to PAPER, who's rescuing wild Pokemon from rubble. Here he's rescued a Rynos who PAPER catches at its request. We then come walking down, where PAPER asks for directions out of the cave.

Naturally, after asking that we're going to have to battle him. PAPER's pretty much always a pushover fortunately, and this won't be any different.

oh it's you. what do you want?

WHAT MOSMERO NO

mosmero no

This fight is absurdly rude and is an ambush. Unlike what we normally have to do with PAPER who is easy, Mosmero...

Yeah. Here's what we're up against.

Houndoom L32- Dark Roar/Flamethrower/Thunder Fang/Faint Attack
Rynos L30- Sonic Sand/Body Slam/Spikes/Sandstorm
Dizasol L33- Psychic/Crunch/Dark Roar/Thunderbolt
Infiris L32- SelfDestruct/Mirror Shot/Magma Ring/Disable

Sonic Sand is a 70/100 special Ground type move. It does not have priority.
Magma Ring is a 55/-- special Fire type move which traps.

Houndoom is Mosmero's and, as such, is very dangerous. It's fast, Flamethrower hurts like hell, and even if we had a good Water type to throw at him (since you might have noticed that this team is fortunately pretty weak to Water) Houndoom packs Thunder Fang to at the very least dent them. Even with faster Pokemon Houndoom can get off Dark Roar before it goes down which hurts.

Rynos is PAPER's and is totally cheating the highest level you can find one in Undersea Cave is level 20 what the hell. It's a non-threat but it has Intimidate to weaken you if you lead with physical attackers.

Infiris is the evolved form of Peyero, the fire starter. It's a Fire/Steel type with 55/58/85/59/83/65 base stats. Magma Ring isn't exactly a slouch of a move, no matter what the base power might say, and Self Destruct is dangerous though fortunately rarely used. Obviously this is PAPER's.

Dizasol is the evolved form of Absol. Yep. It remains a pure Dark type and keeps Pressure, while its base stats increase to 70/135/70/115/80/85. Dizasol is absolutely absurd, is high leveled, and has excellent coverage to hit almost everything currently available. This is Mosmero's ace, and for good reason.

Well, let's get to it.

Like I said, I thought I had a few more spaces before the ambush. This isn't really the lead pair I wanted. On the plus side, Houndoom has a good chance to target ferry rather than coco.

And thankfully that's exactly what happens. ferry goes down, coco erases Rynos, and death and Infiris come out.

Aqua Shock fails to KO Infiris, who then Disables the move. Houndoom OHKOs death before she can do anything, and I send out lucy to lure a Flamethrower while I toss out Icy Wind so that masuls can outspeed and OHKO Houndoom. Things go as planned, although masuls takes a Magma Ring in the process.

and then Dizasol kills everything

Once more, from the top.

This time with masuls and coco leading. masuls takes the Intimidate hit but masuls is strong as hell, it'll be ok.

First two drop with only a little damage to masuls. So that I can keep coco alive, I switch her out to ferry, letting the Buizel get blown up by Dizasol and having Dizasol drop due to masuls.

Infiris is enough of a minimal threat that I'm willing to let death get the KO, just as a special screw you to PAPER and Mosmero. And with that the extremely rude ambush double battle is done.

The reward is nice though, this will be much better than grinding on wilds. PAPER and Mosmero run off afterwards and say nothing interesting.

There's still a bit more cave to spelunk through but nothing nearly as bad as that.

At level 32 Aisha learns GuardianLeaf. The defense raising chance isn't particularly high but it's stronger than Razor Leaf.

Finally we're out of the cave and have yet more surfing to do through a maze of rocks. You cannot surf off of this bridge, only under it.

Finally we make it to our destination. If the name looks familiar, that's because it should be. This is heavily based off Shamouti Island from the second movie, if Shamouti island had a game corner, evil team headquarters, and a department store.

It even comes with Melody who warns us not to disturb the legendary birds.

Two useful things to pick up. The Good Rod gives access to Staryu and Shellder, neither of whom are particularly compelling. Staryu wouldn't be bad but it's got some TM issues. The Coin Case is to allow us to use the game corner for its absolutely incredible prizes.

First some shopping. Super Repels are finally in shops, so I pick up a bunch. The TMs here are Headbutt, Shadow Claw, Substitute, Iron Tail, Baton Pass, and Psycho Punch. I buy two Shadow Claws and one each of Iron Tail and Psycho Punch.

Also here is this jerk. He says he's going to go next door and distract the guard into the evil team HQ so we can get in, before he leaves. I stock up on Lemonades.

There's also this. He wants a Larvitar, which we can't obtain yet.

I then spent the next several hours grinding coins from the slots. It's editted images in the slots but it's the same code as the FRLG slots so it's still exploitable with save states. After getting up to 9999 coins I go check out the prizes.

These are the Pokemon available. Most of them are familiar, but Hantama and Porygon are new. Porygon is the same as standard, but evolves at level 30 to Porygon2 and then by happiness to Porygon-Z. It's very good, if expensive. I was considering buying one hence why I went all the way to 9999.

Hantama is a Ghost/Fighting type with 60/115/70/65/50/95 base stats. Along with its perfect neutral coverage STABs it has access to a bunch of interesting coverage moves, has plenty of speed and attack, and can have either Intimidate or Keen Eye. We will be buying one.

Hasty nature. deadeye will be a valuable member of the team and won't fall off for a long time if ever.

The game corner also has some absolutely fantastic TMs: Air Slash, Megahorn, Psychic, Wood Hammer, and Magnet Force. Magnet Force is a 100/90 special Steel type move with a chance to lower the opponent's Attack or Special Attack. I buy Psychic and Air Slash for my team, and can always come back if I want more.

A lot of new moves here, all of which are pretty self explanatory. lucy wouldn't get a Steel type move for a very long time otherwise, despite Iron Tail's shaky accuracy. I won't be relying on it.

I'm going to do some training before heading into DH HQ. Pretty much instantly we run into this waterfall when trying to go north, the only way is back.

A little bit of training. This is deadeye's strongest Fighting type move, so it's learned, while Spite isn't anywhere near good enough.

This also happens. There's a move I want lucy to learn before evolution, similar to coco.

And it's time to go.

The DH grunts are mostly unremarkable, although they've caught up to the second gym leader in terms of levels. We're going in with everybody besides masuls and deadeye one or two levels away from when they'll be evolving, so expect a bunch of evolutions.

Some of the grunts are using evolved Pokemon like Hornikel and Bakeko, Maneko's evolution.

Stuff's lying around all over the place. These are, in order, Heat Wave, Focus Blast, and Rock Smash. Rock Smash is essential but easy to overlook because of course it is. As you can tell from the screenshots, DH Building is filled with spinning tiles.

First, death learns a very useful new move. This offers a huge amount of sustain and is a big damage upgrade from Karate Chop. And then a level later...

(scary face isn't learned)

Grissly, while nowhere near as well designed as Velvelt in my opinion, is a whole lot better. It becomes a Normal/Fighting type and gets 95/120/80/50/60/90 base stats. It's fast, pretty bulky, and very strong with access to Swords Dance. Nothing to dislike here.

And this is just the start of the evolution train. At level 34 Aisha finally gets to evolve, gaining a Flying typing at long last. 76/91/75/103/75/115 base stats too, so this brings Aisha up to the strength he'll need for the remainder of the game.

(This is at level 34)

Zen Headbutt is what lucy was waiting for, so she finally gets to turn into DemonGoat! DemonGoat's actual name is Goabalt, and it's a Steel/Dark type, meaning all those Dark type moves are finally STAB. Goabalt also has 75/120/100/80/70/55 base stats, so pretty much everything is going to be in agonizing pain after it gets hit.

And finishing things up, coco finally gets Ice Beam and gets to evolve. Aurostice, as basically Gardevoir, has 80/70/75/120/85/100 base stats, making it a strong and fast special attacker. She also really wants those TM moves that we've been feeding her so that she's not stuck with only Ice type moves.

Finally we're at the top floor, where this grunt is blocking the way. She refuses to fight and demands that we bring her Shards, which are invisible key items scattered around the entire building. While a few of the grunts in the building give pretty good hints after they're defeated, if you didn't get the Itemfinder then you're in for a rough time.

And here they are (remember these are hidden items)! Yes, the warp tiles get kind of annoying on the second floor because if you step on the wrong one it'll send you all the way to the other side of the floor.

Please move.

After she gets out of our way and we beat up the slightly stronger Grunt who we've seen a couple times now, we come across this room with a definitely perfectly normal grunt sitting in one of the chairs. Who am I kidding, it's Reginald.

Staryu L33: Nasty Plot/Surf/Psychic/Thunder Wave
Haunter L36: Hypnosis/Shadow Ball/Dark Pulse/Dream Eater
Houndoom L35: Dark Roar/Discharge/Fire Fang/Will-O-Wisp
Skarmory L36: Steel Wing/Rock Slide/Drill Run/Swords Dance

He's potentially dangerous, but we've got plenty to deal with him.

Staryu is laughable compared to Brooke's Starmie, despite Nasty Plot and a higher level.

Haunter has lost Calm Mind from the last fight so it's no longer able to set up after putting something to sleep. Dark Pulse and Shadow Ball are also the worst coverage and I don't understand why he has it. Any Dark type can wall him very effectively.

Houndoom, despite being higher leveled, isn't anywhere near as scary as Mosmero's since it has Fire Fang instead of Flamethrower. Discharge is in fact legal on Houndoom in Vega, being a TM move. Similar deal with Nasty Plot Staryu since Nasty Plot is a tutor move.

Skarmory thankfully drops Shadow Clamp, so it's not as dangerous. Swords Dance can be somewhat threatening and it keeps its perfect neutral coverage, but we're just enough further along that Skarmory itself isn't anywhere near as dangerous.

Overall Reginald shouldn't be an issue at all, we've got excellent counters to his entire team.

Come at me bro.

Staryu gets outspeed and OHKOed by GuardianLeaf.

Will-O-Wisp burns death, but Drain Punch OHKOs anyways because Grissly is very strong.

Haunter puts lucy to sleep immediately and lucy stays asleep for the max number of turns but didn't even taken half from the repeated Shadow Balls by the time she wakes up and OHKOs with Bite.

hello again

bye bye

Thunder Punch didn't OHKO since Skarmory has kind of ok physical bulk, but Drill Run didn't even do half.

And with victory, the entire building empties.

So that's where I'm going to end this for now, but there's a question I'd like to pose. First, masuls the Machu is going to be dropped from the team. It's very sad, but we just don't really need her with both death and deadeye filling the Fighting type slot. I'll pick up somebody else to replace her in the future, but she's not going to be coming back too often if ever.

The question is whether or not I should pick up Absol or Girafarig. A town I'll be in during the next update has the Safari Zone and while almost everything there is trash, Absol and Girafarig also appear at 1% encounter rates. Both have a new evolution, you've already seen Dizasol but Folifarig is a Normal/Psychic type with 80/85/75/130/85/95 base stats. It's not quite as good as Dizasol, and honestly both are fairly inconvenient to catch due to being low encounter rate Safari Zone mons, but they're both good at worst. If you think I should catch one then let me know, if there's a Pokemon I've passed over during the road to where we are now that you'd like me to use let me know as well. Alternatively there's a few Pokemon who come up later who I'd find interesting to use if you want to leave it as dealer's choice.