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dontfindyourcenter · 6 years

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Chapter 23: You’re Lanakillin’ Me

Rules: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/177027661290/rules

Previous chapter: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/178481441120/chapter-22-i-dont-know-about-you-but-heres

After getting a tiny bit lost looking for it, I eventually found that last section of Vast Poni Canyon! None of the healing items I was hoping for were there, but I did find a rare candy, the T.M for Flamethrower, and an old man called Terry who was practicing karate by himself in the dark. Still a less embarrassing hobby than making up arbitrary rules to make pokemon games harder, if we’re honest.

Then I remember a whole other place I haven’t explored for healing items yet - the Haina Desert! I skipped over this place last time I was on Ula’ula island because I didn’t think it was worth going into a place where it was constantly a sandstorm if I couldn’t heal my pokemon afterwards, but now I don’t have to worry about that because I’ve got a couple of max repels going spare! Let’s see what I can be having here!

Nothing. No healing items here either other than a Max Elixir. Bit of an anti-climax, but oh well - at least I got the psychic-type z-crystal, which none of my pokemon can use because they don’t know any psychic-type moves. Yay!

With that done, I pop to the foot of Mount Lanikila, where Gladion is waiting for me. “I’ve been waiting for you,” he says. He’s holding his hand in front of his head again, but it looks a bit less melodramatic this time; maybe it’s the camera angle or the fact that he isn’t vibrating slightly, but this time it just looks like he’s having a mild headache. That’s character development, that is.

Anyway, he tells me that he wanted to thank me for helping out his family in that Ultra Space adventure. No prob, Bob! Then he says “the only thing I can offer you in thanks is a great battle.” You’re being a bit harsh on yourself there, Gladion - I’ll bet you could arrange a really lovely fruit basket if you wanted to. But no, he wants to show me his full power “with the z-ring that old man gave him.” I know that he probably means Nanu when he says “that old man,” but my headcanon is that he’s just talking about a random old man that I’ve never met before. Gladion clearly has a life outside of the game I’m playing, after all.

Loki goes first against Gladion’s crobat. Instead of actually attacking the crobat, though, Loki’s just there to paralyze it with Thunder Wave and then set a couple of layers of Spikes, so that all Gladion’s other pokemon will get hurt now when they come into battle. Loki’s a devious little pisser like that. When Loki has had enough of being hit by the crobat’s Acrobatics attacks, I switch out Digit Al to finish it off with a Volt Switch attack.

Next into battle is Gladion’s lucario, who’ll be fighting Donna. Surprisingly, the lucario turns out to have a z-move - Corkscrew Crash, which he uses here without much effect. I would have expected one of the pokemon Gladion’s had for longer to have been given a z-move, but props to Gladion for being original, I guess. Anyway, a couple of Flame Charges later, the lucario is out for the count.

Gladion sends out his newly-evolved silvally next, but I keep Donna in the fight. Why not? It seems a waste to witch her out when her speed’s just been doubled, and she has a couple of moves which are good against fire-types, which I’m pretty sure this silvally is.

Ah. It turns out Donna still isn’t faster than this guy, and it uses Crunch, which brings Donna down to less than a quarter of her health. I guess that answers that “why not” question. I switch Donna out for Mr Nancy, who’s able to finish the silvally off, but not before taking a lot of damage as well.

Gladion’s last pokemon, weavile, then faces off against Digit Al. Though the weavile didn’t stand a chance of surviving Al’s Flash Cannon attack, it’s able to do an obscene amount of damage first by getting a critical hit with Night Slash. That’s a pretty good description of the whole battle, actually - Gladion didn’t stand a chance, but he did an obscene amount of damage anyway. I bloody hope the plot heals my pokemon before I face the elite four.

Then Gladion flashes me a creepily genuine-looking smile and hands me a Max Elixir which Lillie apparently wanted me to have. Since Lillie once gave me a bag to keep contact lenses in even though my character seems to have perfect vision, I can absolutely believe that she would believe a Max Elixir was a nice gift to give someone. Then he says “I know we aren’t friends. But we aren’t enemies anymore either.” You just described strangers, Gladion. That’s no fun. Haven’t you ever heard the term frenemies?

It’s at this point that I never beat that dancer back on the Poni Wilds who would only fight me when I beat everyone else there. What the heck, I decide; she might give me an item that Loki can hold that’s more useful than the Occa Berry she’s been uselessly gripping for the last three chapters. And sure enough, the dancer tells me before fighting that her pokemon use Focus Sashes, which probably means that’s what she’ll give me when I beat her. Nice!

Oh boy, I was wrong. That wasn’t nice at all.

It turns out that the trainer’s four pokemon are the four different forms of oricorio. The fight starts off great, with Digit Al beating both the fire/flying type one and the electric/flying type one. Unfortunately, for the third oricorio, I sent out Hedwig. I swear there was a reason that I sent my starter pokemon out against a strong bird pokemon, even though he’s vulnerable to flying-type moves and the oricorio was guaranteed to survive my first attack. I guess I was just pretty sure Hedwig would survive long enough to finish off the psychic/flying oricorio and level up.

No points for guessing that I was wrong, but man, I was really wrong. See, it turns out the light blue oricorio isn’t psychic type after all; it’s ghost type, and it’s just knocked Hedwig out with a tremendously powerful Revelation Dance attack. Oopsie doodle. That means I have to use one of my four max revives.

Anyway, I did manage to beat the dancer and get that Focus Sash in the end. Will the item end up being useful enough to justify using up one of my lifelines this late in the game? Time will tell.

I go back to Mount Lanakila now, and considering that it’s this game’s victory road (according to google, Lanakila is Hawaiian for victory), there sure aren’t any trainers about. I run through and am able to pick up a full restore, a max revive (yes! Back up to four!) and the ice type z-crystal without seeing anyone at all. What’s the deal with that? I can remember the victory road in pokemon Ultra Sun being much longer and full of trainers, just like it is in most other pokemon games. Maybe they just ran out of time when they were making the vanilla Sun and Moon version. The hilarious part is the rotomdex saying “Mount Lanakila is famous for being the most impregnable of all of Alola’s mountains.” I was able to pregn it in about ten minutes, mate.

I take the lift to the very top of the mountain. I walk past the pokemon center, because that’s the whole point of my challenge, you know? I don’t even totally know why I even bothered typing that. If you were expecting me to use the pokemon center at this point then you haven’t been paying attention to my entire journey.

A few steps later, I’m stopped by none other than Hau! Mate, it’s been ages! Where’s he been all this time? It turns out that after the business on Aether Paradise, Hau cleared the rest of his trials and then “went back home to train with Ilima a bit.” You went back home… to train? Did you think that through, young man? Did you really weigh up all your options and think “gosh, the best place I could possibly go to train is the island where the very strongest pokemon around are on level twelve”?

In any case, it turns out Hau came to Mount Lanikala to try out the pokemon league, heard from Gladion that I was on my way up here and dashed his way on up to meet me. He tells me that it’s the fastest he’s ever moved in his life. He probably shouldn’t brag too much about that - if Gladion was still at the bottom of the mountain when Hau got there, I had time to fly all the way to Poni Island and all the way back before he caught up with me.

Anyway, Hau challenges me to a battle to work out who should go up against the pokemon league first. And my god, this is a surprise - he doesn’t heal my pokemon to full health first! Maybe he did learn something from training with Ilima after all.

As always, Hau leads with his raichu. Having completely forgotten that Hau would be here, the first pokemon in my party is currently Wash, but that’s ok - his thunderbolt attack misses entirely when I switch Wash out for Loki. And what did I expect from Hau? Hell, I’ve faced off against Hau often enough to know how little to expect of him; I decide I might as well lay down a layer of spikes on Loki’s first turn, since there’s no way this raichu is gonna do any significant da -

What the heck? The raichu’s Thunderbolt just did 96 points of damage! That’s a LOT of damage! What’s with the power boost, Hau? Should I have been training with Ilima this whole time?

I switch over to Digit Al to save Loki from death, but it soon becomes clear that even Al’s not safe from the raichu - after Al does a fairly low amount of damage with Tri Attack, the raichu uses Focus Punch, and while the attack misses, it’s clear that it would have done a heck of a lot of damage if it had hit and might even have knocked Al out. I’m forced to switch over to Hedwig to finally beat the raichu with a Spirit Shackle attack. I mean, it’s good that I eventually managed it and all, but I had to switch out more than half my team to do it. That seems like too much.

Next out on Hau’s side is his flareon, which means it’s Mr. Nancy’s time to shine. But once again, Hau demonstrates an insane leap in power since I last saw him when the flareon uses Flare Blitz, which does so much damage that Nancy (who started the battle with about three-quarters of his health) is left with only about a third of his HP left. That’s insane, especially since Mr Nancy’s ability is that fire-type attacks do half as much damage to him. At least Mr Nancy’s able to do an awful lot of damage with his Scald attack, but that won’t be a whole lot of comfort if he gets killed on his next turn.

I consider switching to someone else in my party, but no; the only member of my team with more than half their health left is Wash, and while Wash has a lot of strengths, he also has a lower defense than any other member of my party. Switching to him, or any of my other pokemon, would be signing their death warrant. I’m gonna have to use a Max Potion instead.

It pays off; while the flareon’s next Flare Blitz attack does more damage than I’d like once again, Mr Nancy has just enough health left that he should survive his next turn. And that’s exactly what he does. He doesn’t get the chance to finish the flareon off, though - the knockback from his own attack knocks the flareon clean out. Good riddance!

Hau’s penultimate pokemon is a komala, which faces off against Wash. This, finally, is a much more straightforward battle. First, after getting hit by komala’s Sucker Punch, Wash uses Beak Blast. Then, correctly guessing that the komala would use Sucker Punch again, Wash uses Roost and ends up back to near-full health. Finally, Wash finishes the komala off with a Drill Peck.

And finally, Hau sends out his primarina, and so I let Digit Al out once again. Al uses Charge Beam, doing a lot of damage and raising his special attack. That should be enough for Al to beat the Primarina on his next turn.

Unfortunately, Al doesn’t get a next turn. The primarina uses Hydro Vortex, the water-type z-move, and knocks Al out in one hit.

Damn! I let out Hedwig and use a Max Revive on Al. I’m really, really lucky here, as it turns out - the primarina uses Moonblast and Hedwig survives, but with only 1 HP remaining. Hedwig is able to beat the primarina with Leaf Blade on his next turn, but that battle’s still caused a serious dent in my healing item lifelines.

Hau is a good sport about it to the last, telling me to go ahead and beat the Elite Four so that next time, he can come beat Champion Tori. Christ - if only the modern Labour Party had half that much determination.

Ooooh, and then he gives me 3 Max Revives. I always liked that boy. And he’s even healed my team up before the Elite Four! What a lad!

I jump back into Mount Lanikala to very quickly give some training to the members of my party who are closest to leveling up, then use the handful of Rare Candies in my bag on everyone else. And you know what? That’s enough for me. No more training - I’m not going to risk heading into the Elite Four with anything less than perfect health.

I step into the Pokemon League headquarters.

End of Chapter 23.

#Pokemon sun and moon #Pokemon moon #alola #hau #gladion #no Center challenge #suicide run challenge #pokemon #mount lanikila

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fcilure-blog · 5 years

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HEADCANON #16: Po Town History

&& other secrets

The islands of Alola were for years a peaceful place. Like any region, they had their own, private troubles - but nothing to the extent or scope of the likes of Team Flare, Team Magma, or Team Aqua. There were petty crimes and petty conflicts, but the Kahunas - chosen by the Tapus, governed by tradition and personal creed - kept this tranquility across the islands.

Humans are not infallible, though; and being chosen by a Tapu does not guarantee the morals of a saint.

Milo Coleus was the Kahuna of Ula'Ula island for years. He was known to the rest of the islanders as Coleus, or Uncle Coleus - and very few remembered the island without him as their Kahuna. A pretty sleepy place, even considering the observatory and the power plant, when Coleus first began to 'expand the island', he proclaimed that it was time to bring Alola into the rest of the world. He had always lived at the base of Mount Lanikila, a peaceful man who knew everyone. He started slow, initially building around his home to create a community that came to be known as Tapu Village. He was the owner of the Thrifty Megamart franchise location that was built further south of the village, and the sponsor for the construction of what would soon become Po Town.

It was meant to be an escape, a walled community for the rich and famous. Equipped with state of the art environmental technology, it was set up to cool, heat, manage humidity - the whole kit and caboodle. Investors helped to fund the project alongside Coleus, coming from Kanto with builders and associates.

They weren't simply investors, though. And Coleus... he wasn't everything that he seemed.

Being the Kahuna wasn't enough for him. Although he was respected, it wasn't for him. It was for the Tapu. He wasn't rich, wasn't paid.. he had been forced into the job in his youth, by a Tapu that didn't care, and a tradition that valued these pokemons as Gods more than it valued the lives they derailed by choosing them. Though he had begun eager to serve their traditions... the disillusionment eventually set in. He wanted MORE. He deserved more; and since no one in Alola would give it to him, he would claim it on his own.

Not entirely on his own, though. Coleus's sudden wealth came not entirely from his own savings, but instead from his 'investors' - men and women from Kanto who had ties to an affluent, secretive organization. Their name? Was Team Rocket.

Coleus was their contact in Alola, facilitating their expansion into the region. Po Town was meant to be their base, and every 'expansion' he made was meant to help them to build a presence within the region. The village was just an excuse for the megamart to exist so far away from Malie, and the megamart was a front for laundering cash. His plans were careful and calculated, and he formed them with the assistance of some very experienced people.

If not for some people who used to count themselves among them, they perhaps would have succeeded. Even though their organization was crumbling, disbanded by their shadowy Boss, the agents in Alola - and Coleus himself - weren't about to give up on all they had begun. Their opportunities were many and bright, and they refused to let them go.

They weren't, however, the only ones unable to let go. Guzma had once counted himself among the ranks of Rocket, a proud member... until they crossed his temper. Trying to take away his pokemon was the one thing he couldn't forgive, no matter how much he lost. He fled their group shortly before they crumbled into nothing, returning to the only place he knew with his pokemon at his side. It was the last place he expected to see the shadowy arm of Rocket -- and the sight of them made him sick.

It was part personal vendetta, and part personal disgust. To think that a Kahuna would do this to his own people, would corrupt the islands and bring in Rocket, of all things -- it made his blood BOIL. He had long ago lost faith in the work of law enforcement, and didn't trust any of the cops in Alola to handle what Rocket really was. So he took things into his own hands. Luck was with him when he set out to tear them down, brick by brick; an old friend had been sent along for the ride to Alola, as disillusioned as he was by the organization they had both joined. He willingly played the inside man, feeding Gusma with information that helped him to take the then-small group down.

Guzma wasn't the only one who took issue with Coleus's betrayal of tradition, though, nor with his betrayal of the people of Ula'Ula. As his fury rained down upon Po Town, a storm raged that but hinted at the Tapu's fury.

As the small band of loyal thugs took down Rocket from within, Tapu Bulu destroyed Coleus from without. Making clear it's displeasure, it tore apart Tapu Village, and aimed to send the Megamart crashing into the seas. By the end of that night, all that was left of Coleus was the legacy of angering the Tapu, and the slim file that the authorities had been able to form.

Without Coleus, Po Town was empty, and it was easy for Guzma to claim it as his own. As a symbol or a sign, for any who hoped to do the same as the Kahuna OR Rocket.

If they wanted into the islands, it was too damn bad. He was here, now -- and HE would fill the void that Rocket left. Organizing Alola's crime was easy, and there were plenty of wayward souls who were willing to join in. With their muscle behind his own, Guzma set himself up in opposition to anyone who wanted to threaten his territory, feeling as if he had finally found the throne upon which he could be respected.

There were similarities between them, true; but at least Guzma, unlike Coleus, admitted the monster that he was.

#✘|| ᴡʜᴀᴛ's ᴡʀᴏɴɢ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜ? ;; headcanons #this has been sitting in my fuckin' drafts for like 2 years god DAMN I am lazy #anyway this is kinda my hc of how skull started && why Guzma bothered #&& also why my blog is 'canon divergent'#plz feel free to ask me abt stuff !

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metalempire · 6 years

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A case against the world design of Pokemon Generations 5-7

So one thing that’s been bugging me is that ever since Gen 5 happened, something has felt off about the regions you traverse. Pokemon has always been a very competent RPG series, and part of that was due to how the regions were designed, and how organic exploration was in those games. The rest of this is going under the cut cos it’ll be a bit long but the short version is Gen1-4 had good world design and didn’t necessitate the use of Fly whereas Gen5-7 have relatively poor world design and are built around being more linear experiences and relying heavily on the player using Fly for any backtracking needed.

So, to explain what good map design is, in short, it’s an interconnected design that allows areas to connect into each other with a wide variety of routes and paths that expand as the game goes on. The idea behind this is if you want to go back to other places to try out new HMs or catch a Pokemon you wanted, you don’t need to teach Fly to a Pokemon. An example of this I’ll use is the Kanto region, since Gamefreak loves it so much. Kanto’s world design is actually a very strong start for the series, as alot of locations connect into and around each other, and while the initial adventure proceeds fairly linearly, areas still end up connecting nicely and serve more than one purpose. A good example is Cerulean City. You initially use it to access Nugget Bridge to get to Bill, and later in the postgame, Mewtwo’s cave, then you use it to do down and into Vermillion City. From there, you get blocked by Snorlax, and so once again, you pass through Cerulean on your way to Rock Tunnel to get to Lavender Town. And later on in the game, it connects to Saffron City once unlocked. The point here is that Cerulean City feels like an organic, real place, because you don’t just pass through and never come back again, it has alot of uses and places it connects to, it’s a present part of your journey and always accessible thanks to where it links to. Other places are like this too, Saffron connects to alot of places, making the world easier to go back to and traverse, and Vermillion already allows you to go back where you started if you want to, since Diglett’s Tunnel connects to both Pewter and Viridian, letting you use Cut to get the Old Amber very early on without needing to use Fly to go back. There’s even multiple routes to Fuchsia city, and having the path loop back around from Cinnabar to Pallet town not only adds to the feeling of how far your adventure has taken you, but organically puts you on the path to the last gym battle in Viridian, and then the Pokemon League is next door to that. It’s a solid world design that allows locations to connect into and around each other, making Fly a convenience rather than a necessity.

Generations 2, 3 and 4 all do this too. Ekruteak City eventually connects back into Violet city, as well as leading down to Goldenrod, across to Olivine and Mahogany, and Blackthorn leads back right down to where you started outside of New Bark town, so you don’t have to backtrack through the world or use Fly, and then New Bark town leads over to Victory Road. Similarly, in Gen 3 Mauville leads up into Lavaridge and Fallabor, as well as across to Verdanturf which leads back to Rustboro so you can easily go down into Petalburg when it’s time to rematch Norman, and then Mauville is revisted again to go to the route to Fortree. In Gen 4 Mt Coronet connects to a wide variety of areas, as does Hearthome city, so when you loop back around and through it, the pathways and shortcuts from down Eternia lead back towards Canalave when you need to go there, and then back around to the various lakes when it’s time to do that.

Meanwhile, Gen 5 does the exact opposite of this and throws good game design out of the window to make an ultra linear region that’s literally an oval that you explore clockwise. Each area leads into the next, nothing is interconnected, one half of the region is locked till the postgame for some reason, and when you need to backtrack to Nacrene and then to the Relic Castle, with no natural connecting points forcing you to walk all the way back from Iccirus city on a linear path, or use Fly. Instead of world design that allows for backtracking to be natural, instead it chooses painfully dull linearity that makes backtracking a chore and more or less necessitates you use Fly, which isn’t great for Nuzlocke players who might not have any Pokemon left who can use it, or players in general who didn’t build their team with it in mind. And then once you’ve finished backtracking, walk all the way back to Iccirus to go to Opelucid. Black 2 and White 2 tried to fix this by having you warp and go around different areas, but still proceeded linearly from there and cut off other areas till the postgame and just made the map disjointed and even less connected somehow.

Gen 6 isn’t much better, the positive is Lumiose city connects the two halves of the map, but outside of that one location, Coastal Kalos is one big oval, and Mountain Kalos, while a bit more connected, is still largely linear. The story of the game doesn’t necessitate as much backtracking, mostly focusing on Lumiose itself which is conveniently the only really interconnected location in the game, but nowhere really interconnects to Geosenge making that trek annoying, as well as going back to where you left off all the way in Couriway on the road to Snowbelle. It’s mostly linear and still not exploration and backtrack friendly.

Gen 7 is effectively this design spread out. The first island is one big loop, which is nice, but really only makes Route 1 the only interconnected point on the island, with the rest of it accessed by looping around the same path. It’s stronger design that Gen 5 and 6, but still not grand. The second island has the much better Heahea city, which connects to a wider variety of points on the map, and is a wonderful example of convenient interconnected world design. Sadly, the third island at most has it that Malie connects to two points on the map, but the rest is just a linear path to the end at Po town. The fourth island isn’t much better, and is effectively the same as the third island, you go one way till you reach the Battle Tree. The game even gives you the Charizard Poke Rider which is Fly but permanently available, which is only really used when you need to go back to the third island once Mount Lanikila is unlocked after the fourth island is sorted. In fact the game’s so linear as to force you off the third island and onto the Aether paradise once you’re done with Po town, and then once that’s done it takes you off to the fourth island. Each island is mostly a one and done affair that rarely utilises good map design.

The overall point is that after Gen4, the world design of the regions in Pokemon has greatly suffered, the world is no longer interconnected and feels less like a real, tangible place compared to the previous four generations, and the backtracking that the story usually forces isn’t organic anymore, but instead mostly a chore and necessitates the use of Fly, due to the world not offering its own proper paths that link back to these locations from others more relevant to where you are. Unova undoubtedly did it the worst and it’s effect on the series has ultimately had a lasting effect of poorer game design.

(not to mention that triple battles weren’t as fleshed out or complex or interesting or well executed as double battles were, didn’t have as many moves made for the mode, had no game based around it like colosseum, and rotation battles were gimmicky, poorly executed, and did not catch on. it absolutely shows that since these battle modes werent in gen 7 that they were a failure and considering gen 5 made no actual mechanical changes it was ultimately a generation that didn’t do any good for the series in the long term and only provided a good story, which is still just a reusing of the ruby and sapphire basic core plot) of bad team needs the legendary pokemon for their plan)

#Pokemon #long postt

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