Corinne's Adventure

[Balmund]

>Froakie
Unfortunately, not battling Calem at Lumiose was not a glitch, you simply aren't given the chance to see Froakie yet. That said, here's a new feature about the GTS you could've figured out by now: you don't need to have seen a Pokémon before looking it up. If you already know the name, you can simply type it up! This makes it incredibly useful when you're trying to find that one Pokémon you haven't registered in your Pokédex yet for completionist purposes. Of course, knowing that people often ask for ridiculous things in return as always, it is best to avoid it like the plague until post-game to prevent spoilers.

>Unwanted guests in Amie
I don't think there's a way to keep other Pokémon away from barging into your Amie App at all. Sadly, the best way to avoid this is to never use it until you don't care about spoilers any more.

>Move Relearner
One of those is true: the Move Relearner is quite a ways from where you are.

[Shuckle]

I had a Dunsparce when Tierno asked. Since you decided not to go through with it, I figure this is safe: all he does is congratulate you for having one ("You do? Wow, that's great!"). It's a little depressing how hard you tried to get one

Let me give you a nonspoilery recommendation:

Don't just go for perfect IV competitive 'mon right away. EV training is fine, and if your purpose is to bond with your lil' guys then sure! Go right ahead with it! But if you're going to spend like half an hour trying to hatch a REALLY GREAT RALTS then I would suggest that you go with the first female Ralts you catch and not care about its IVs.

When you have beaten the game and want to then go into competitive battling, then is a better time to go ahead and hatch the creatures you want. You've experienced firsthand that Exp. points are really easy to get in this game, what with the delayed-evolution bonus and the Exp. Share. Story mode does not require EV trained or high-IV Pokemon in the same way comp does.

You have more patience than me with Super Training X_X I gave up after playing around with my Froakie for a minute and a half and finding out about all the bags. I'm going to be resetting after I beat the game because I forgot to grind for the event Pokemon to have perfect IVs, but that doesn't mean you should be grinding in story mode.

I believe you have already discovered the reasons behind this recommendation.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Concept

>Move Relearner

Is a loooooooooong way away.

Well okay then. Time to maximize my time with Braixen as best I can. GameFreak intended me to spent 20 levels with her ... and I'm possibly only going to spend 5 with her instead. ^^; I'll do my best to try and avoid this "Ash's Charmeleon" scenario, but if the move at Level 36 is amazing and so is the evolution's look and everything, then it's not looking good. WE WILL SEE!

Originally Posted by DaveTheFishGuy

>Froakie

No, you don't see the first stage of your rival's starter. Not sure why.

Originally Posted by Balmund

>Froakie
Unfortunately, not battling Calem at Lumiose was not a glitch, you simply aren't given the chance to see Froakie yet. That said, here's a new feature about the GTS you could've figured out by now: you don't need to have seen a Pokémon before looking it up. If you already know the name, you can simply type it up! This makes it incredibly useful when you're trying to find that one Pokémon you haven't registered in your Pokédex yet for completionist purposes. Of course, knowing that people often ask for ridiculous things in return as always, it is best to avoid it like the plague until post-game to prevent spoilers.

Man, that is so strange about Calem's dialogue in the cafe then. I think that is going to bug me for the rest of my life my playthrough of Pokémon Y. But it's good to know that I didn't miss anything.

I won't be doing any GTS stuff. This news you've shared falls under the lines of answering unasked questions, but what you've spoiled isn't something I hadn't heard before. I'd forgotten it, so you've just been the one to remind me rather than the game getting to be the one to do it ^^; , but you're not the first person I heard about this from. Anyway, please, folks: let's try not to answer any unasked questions. Please. I can't beg you enough.

Originally Posted by Shuckle

Don't just go for perfect IV competitive 'mon right away. EV training is fine, and if your purpose is to bond with your lil' guys then sure! Go right ahead with it! But if you're going to spend like half an hour trying to hatch a REALLY GREAT RALTS then I would suggest that you go with the first female Ralts you catch and not care about its IVs.

When you have beaten the game and want to then go into competitive battling, then is a better time to go ahead and hatch the creatures you want. You've experienced firsthand that Exp. points are really easy to get in this game, what with the delayed-evolution bonus and the Exp. Share. Story mode does not require EV trained or high-IV Pokemon in the same way comp does.

I like to properly EV train my Story Mode Pokémon in this game because:

1. it is so easy to do
2. I am so much more likely (and able) to use them in WiFi battles than I would be were they traditional Story Mode buddies with shit EVs

I like to properly EV train my Story Mode Pokémon in previous generations for similar reasons, but because of the grueling nature of EV training in earlier generations, I tend to keep it fairly limited. In Emerald, I did it with initially two Pokémon (Zigzagoon #1, Zubat) and later two more (Oddish, Staryu), totaling four. In Pearl, I did it with only one Pokémon (Staravia), waiting until after I beat the game to do the rest. In HeartGold, I didn't do it during Story Mode until way, way late (with Swinub and Togepi, iirc) but I did pseudo-EV train by trying to preferentially send guys out against the right opponents. In White 2, I did it with only one Pokémon (Minccino) but again did the pseudo-EV training with two others (Sewaddle, Elekid). When I think about Pokémon I've EV trained after beating the game, that list includes Zangoose and Feebas (Ruby), Bellossum and Slowking (HeartGold), and a couple of others. The point is, I do EV train a few things during Story Mode, yes (starting in 2005 with Emerald), but I've never trained as many as I have so far during Story Mode (five!) -- and that's because of how delightfully easy it is to pull off here.

Also, I think you may misunderstand me as a person if you think I'm trying to get 31/31/31/31/31/31 competitives right now. ^^; Remember: I'm raising a Calm Squirtle. I'm raising a Sassy¹ Flabébé. I'm raising a Careful Zigzagoon. I avoid shit natures and shit IVs, yes, but I don't obsess on getting perfect natures or perfect IVs. That's just insane. ^^; I have a game to play right now, not wasting all of my time on trying to make a team for competitive play. I just want to have fun. Here's the thing: knowing myself, I know that I'll have more fun with my mind at ease that no one is soaking up "shit EVs" than I would if I pushed through and soaked up all the shit EVs despite knowing how easy it would have been to have prevented that from happening had I only been willing to invest one hour per precious partner. An hour's not that bad. Not for the peace of mind it gives and the satisfaction of knowing that my Story Mode buddy, who I went through thick and thin with, is decent enough to fare well in "casual competitive play," i.e. competitive play with strangers on Nintendo's servers. This isn't Smogon. I'm not about to run into people running 31/31/31/31/31/31s everywhere. And even if I am, there's a lot to be said for how good you are as a battler. Something I know firsthand from making it all the way to the upper 1900s in OU ranked battles on Smogon with my "shit team" of Staraptor, Mamoswine, Starmie, Togekiss, Hydreigon, and *sigh* Jirachi. Knowing when to switch and when not to switch ... knowing when to pull back and when to push forward ... knowing how to psych out your opponent ... these are all real skills that matter in deciding a battle, and they matter much more than the difference between a 329 SpAtk Pokemon and a 317 SpAtk one of the same species.

¹ Mind that Sassy could be the ideal nature for Flabébé's line but I've honestly no idea. Nor am I seeking clarification. ^^; -_-; I'm just listing it here since, afaik, "Smogon says! Smogon says!" that Flabébé ought to be Modest or Timid. I've looked nothing up nor do I wish you to tell me the answer. I'll find out on my own later.

[Talon87]

Glittering Cave: So I arrive at the end of Route 9 (after thoroughly exploring and enjoying my second sky battle) and there before me is a cave. Great.

... no, seriously: this was surprisingly great! I absolutely loved what they did with this. Everything was an upgrade from the past fifteen years:

• The viewing angle:I love how it's in an over-the-shoulder 3rd person view rather than being a bird's eye view from above. Why? Because: it helps to make it feel so much more like the experience of going into an actual cave. With Gens 1 thru 5, we could see everything around us for 30-50 feet in any direction. It didn't matter if it was on the other side of a wall. It didn't matter if it wasn't the direction the trainer was facing. Past games tried to fix this problem by making certain caves dark ... but that was just a nuisance. No one (?) enjoyed those caves. You'd either bring someone with Flash or else you'd angrily muscle your way through with a crapton of Repels. Usually you'd bring someone with Flash. My least favorite were the dark caves where Flash only illuminated maybe 5-6 squares around you in any direction. Sure, it might have been "realistic", but it just felt supremely aggravating when you knew you had this entire screen's worth of space ... but it was all being blacked out by some sadistic programmer.
  
  Not the case with Glittering Cave. By having it be an over-the-shoulder experience which takes up the entire screen, you don't have that same psychological frustration you might with a 80%-blacked-out cave. You can easily accept why you can't see that much: it's just like real life. There's a wall to your immediate left. There's a wall to your immediate right. You don't have eyes in the back of your head. And so the only direction you can see in at any given time is straight ahead. What's more, you can only see six to seven steps ahead of you at a time. While this very same feature was frustrating in older caves, here it's a delight of realism: it would look stupid if, in an over-the-shoulder third-person view, we could see all the way to the end of the tunnel as though it we were outdoors. I guess this brings me to the next point ...
• The scenary: I really loved the look of this cave. It was this perfect blend of "feels real" and "looks fantastic". It wasn't so alien as to make me think it couldn't be found in the real world but it was just alien enough to not be boring. Loved the fluorescent blues and greens which dotted the way. Really pretty stuff. But the #1 thing I loved about this cave was ...
• The absence of random battles: FUCK. YES. Oh my God: with this one feature alone, Glittering Cave catapults to the top of my list of best caves in Pokémon games. This is how you fucking do it. Not incessant random battles with a bajillion Geodudes and Zubats, forcing the player to angrily choose between snuffing out the fun of spelunking as they spray themselves with some Repels or else opting for the explorer's choice but being bogged down by the suffocating weight of so many unwanted wild Pokémon encounters. When I go into a cave, I do want to see at least some things! I just don't want to see all the things constantly, every ten seconds. Past gens have been insane like that. But not Gen 6. Or at least, not Glittering Cave. The programmers designed it to have designated checkpoints where you'd get into an encounter with one wild Pokémon. Furthermore, they programmed it so that once you cleared this checkpoint, no Pokémon would respawn there until you left the area. Thus, you only ever had to fight maybe six or seven Pokémon as you explored the cave. That number is perfect. You feel like an adventurer, getting to ask and answer the question "What Pokémon lies around the next corner? ", and you also get to keep your sanity.

If every cave from now on were like the Glittering Cave, it would be one of the greatest upgrades in the history of the franchise. I'm sad that not every Gen 6 cave is like this, but I'm optimistic that Game Freak is testing the waters with Gen 6 and is going to take note of which caves fans say they liked most and least.

Team Flare: I did not expect to run into any story advancement in this cave, much less the villains of the game. I was really surprised when I ran into that first Grunt. Anyway ... thoughts.

While I like Lysandre, I can't say I'm thrilled about Team Flare. They seem a bit too ... I dunno ... pushover-ey? They seem like a bunch of criminal wanna-bes who are roleplaying as a criminal organization rather than actually being a criminal organization. "Look at our stylin' suits! We're bitchin'!" Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. Suuuuuuuuuure you are. God, your hair looks awful ...

As someone who picked Fennekin for his starter though, I am at least pleasantly surprised by the Flare's most prevalent partner Pokémon: Houndour. Immune to Psyshock and Psybeam, potentially immune to Ember and Flame Charge, every time they send out one of their Houndour I have to call back my starter and send someone else out instead. If I were in a bad mood, I could see this being a nuisance; but I was in a pretty darn good mood thanks to how awesome Glittering Cave's design was, and so I was able to appreciate how this element of the gameplay signified that Team Flare was something of a "real challenge" (lol, no ) to my team. That they're an organization I can't just muscle my way past with Braixen.

But yeah, Fletchinder and Squirtle didn't really care much about these guys. Easily dealt with.

Aside: incidentally, I had nicknamed my Fletchinder "Flare" originally. ^^; I ended up going back to Camphrier Town and changing it to Feather. (Sounds like the name Heather; kinda sorta not really leads off with feu "fire"; obviously fits a songbird.)

Welcome ... to Jurassic Park: So I went ahead and got my fossil. I wish I could have been more excited but some inconsiderate FBers spoiled this one. Suffice to say, yeah: this would have been pretty damn exciting, and objectively I can still appreciate how incredible it is. The tyrannosaur and brachiosaur lines are two of the most iconic of all the dinosaurs. It's kind of crazy that Game Freak delayed for so long before giving us these. I went for the Jaw Fossil (I'll confess that I probably would have gotten the Sail Fossil had I not known what the Jaw Fossil turns into) and that was that.

Back at the fossil lab, I decided to have the baby Rex brought back to life. Tyrunt, huh? I got lucky (in a sense) and got a female on the first try, but since it wasn't a good nature and I'm in no rush to get the fossil, I reset the game and figured, just for shits and giggles, I'd also try out Aerodactyl, then reset again, then play on. So I soft reset the game, give the scientist my Old Amber, and he gives me ... a female Jolly Aerodactyl. I shit you not. Unfortunately, I'm not crazy about Aero ^^; and so she went straight into the PC. But I didn't turn the 2DS off and erase her, at least! I might raise her some day. At the very least she'll be an ideal breeding partner if I ever want to try and get a 31/31 Jolly Aerodactyl.

Ambrette Aquarium: So I press on to the aquarium. It was nice. Got the Old Rod, of course. Then headed on out to ...

Route 8 - The Beach: This was a cute enough route. The highlight was getting the Gen 6 Itemfinder. All I'll say is:

• I adore it visually.
• I resent it practically.

It's a really impractical version of the item. Gen 4's remains the best by far in my opinion, though Gen 5's was good too. Gen 6's looks like so much fun and is what a divining rod should be all about ... but I absolutely despise how the signal drops so suddenly and how sometimes, even when you retrace your steps, you can't re-establish the signal. How you have to go far away and then come back to the same spot. That's dumb. I also really hate how it doesn't tell you which direction the item is. Gen 4's did. It didn't just tell you that you were hot or cold: it also told you, by virtue of putting things on a Cartesian grid, whether the item was to the right, left, up, or down. I can see how some people might say "That made it too easy to find things! D: This way is more fun! ", but to me this way isn't more fun: it's pointlessly impractical.

And I think what makes the dowsing rod not so hot this time around is not only that it's less precise but also that it's way too strong at picking things up. There have been a few instances already where I've gotten a signal, it's gotten stronger, it's gotten very strong (but not red yet), and then it just drops. No matter how hard I look, it's big, bigger, bigger, but then suddenly vanishes. And every time I then ask: "... could it possibly be picking up an item that's not even anywhere remotely near where I am? -_-;" And every time I've been right. There was one time the signal strength got strongest at (say) coordinate 0,0 before vanishing ... and it turned out that the item was actually way over to the right around coordinate +16, +2. Once I returned to 0,0 after collecting the item, sure enough there was absolutely no signal. It had been picking up the far-away item and for some reason had been dropping even when I nudged towards the right.

Anyway, like I say: I love the item flavorfully. I've mapped it to my registered items list and I bust it out semi-frequently. I just wish it was less unwieldy.

Now for a quick intermission -- a hodgepodge of nicknames and evolutions.

Disclaimer: I do not want nickname suggestions. In fact, if you recommend a nickname, I'm likelier to blacklist it. I don't like naming my Pokémon names other people came up with. It has to come from me and me alone.

Nicknames: Shiina I explained a while back. I named myself Corinne, but I was kinda torn about doing so since I remembered Corinne from Tales of Symphonia and thought it might make a great nickname for Fennekin. Then I realized, "Hey wait a second! :o I could do a human-animal role reversal! Name the human trainer Corinne, name the fox animal partner Shiina! :o Brilliant! " So in case you'd forgotten, that's where Shiina came from. I still like the name and doubt I'll change it at this point.

Fletchinder was really tough to come up with a good nickname for. I looked up loads of foreign names for phoenixes and tried my best to come up with ways to name her something which would tie in to birds and still also sound feminine. In the end, I just couldn't think of one -- everyone else had gotten a nickname by this point except Fletchinder -- so when the word "Flame" came to mind as a stand-alone nickname, I said "Sure, why not." Well, you can imagine how I felt when I discovered that the villains in this game are called Team Flame. So like I mentioned above, I changed her name to Feather. ("Heather" + "feu" + feathers have to do with birds.) Not sure I'll keep it, but until I think of a name I like better, this is it.

Next up in team chronological order is Flabébé. I decided t nickname her Trixie. It has nothing to do with the MLP:FiM character. The idea was pretty simple but surprisingly solid:

• she's "thoroughly cunning", i.e. she's tricky
• she's a pixie

So she's a tricky pixie. Thus she's Trixie.

I may have forgotten a Ziggy somewhere in the mix, but the first Ziggy who really stands out to me (and certainly one of the earliest if not the earliest) was my de facto starter in Pokémon Emerald, a Zigzagoon/Linoone who I EV trained all the way up to 252/252/4 in the grass south of Rustboro City. Then I created a second Ziggy (though I'm pretty sure he's not properly EV trained) who I recently rediscovered is on my Pokémon Emerald save file. So I decided to name this Zigzagoon "Ziggy III", read "Ziggy the Third". I simply consider him Ziggy for short, but the III is a nice marker to help me keep straight in the future which Ziggy is which.

Finally, we have Nagi the Squirtle. I'm not too keen on weeabooing it up with Pokémon nicknames, but I'm just as unenthusiastic about the notion that I can't ever name a Pokémon anything in Japanese ever just because 99% of other adult fans do it. With White 2, I did a theme team where everyone had Japanese historical names (Tomoe and Tokiwa from the Genpei War, Shingen from the Sengoku period, and Okatsu from the Bakumatsu period), but with Gen 6, I knew I didn't want to name everybody in Japanese and so if I was going to name anybody in Japanese it had to really, really fit. That was the case with Nagi. In Japanese, the word nagi 凪 means "calm". But it doesn't just mean any "calm". It specifically means "a calm (at sea)". Given that Nagi is occasionally used as an actual name ... given that its meaning matches Squirtle's nature (Calm) ... and given that its meaning also matches Squirtle's type ... this name was pretty much perfect.

So with the names explained, now it's onto the evolutions.

Meet Shiina the Braixen: I allowed Shiina to evolve once she hit Level 32. But not before I played with her some more in Pokémon-amie. I even recorded her evolution on camera. :_;

While I wasn't thrilled about saying good-bye to Shiina as a Fennekin before I let her evolve, I have to say that sitting where I am right now, with a Level 35 Braixen, I really don't regret it. Braixen has been surprisingly fun and cute in her own ways. I mean, she's no adorable fox kit , but I still like her. Was pleasantly surprised to discover that she brandishes her stick in battle and uses it like a cross between a sorceror's wand and a baton twirler's baton. It's pretty neat, and if it disappears on evolution, I'm sure it'll be one of the things I'm sorry to have gotten to spend so little time with Braixen on.

Part of the reason I'm posting right now is because Braixen is at Level 35. This is the moment of truth. Time to see what this exclusive move is for Finalkin. If it's super flavorful, then it's a keeper. If not, then I don't mind spending a little more time with Braixen since I'd feel a little bad if my memories were all of Fennekin and Finalkin and not very clear on Braixen. But I'm not gonna lie: I'm really excited to see what Fennekin's final form looks like. One of the things I thought myself likeliest to be spoiled on -- especially once Pokémon-amie tried to spoil evolutions of the other two starters, I'm pretty sure!! >_< -- but I haven't been and so that's pretty rad. Is she gonna have two sticks? Is her ear hair going to grow out even longer? Will she look like more of a human being? Less of a human being? Only time will tell. But it's definitely exciting.

Meet Nagi the Wartortle: Nagi's been allowed to evolve as well. I sorely needed a boost in power and had only been holding off on evolving her to Wartortle because I didn't like anyone else evolving before my starter did. (It still bugs me that I let Fletchling evolve when I did.) She's still not that strong offensively even as a Wartortle, but she does the job okay, 2HKOing most things with her Water Pulse.

Meet Trixie the Floette: the third and final evolution in the list is Trixie's. Still not sure whether I did the right thing or not to delay evolution for so long, I'm just as unsure as to whether I did the right thing by letting her evolve now. But we'll see. I was super-certain that she'd be evolving into a Fairy/Grass Pokémon so you can imagine my surprise when I saw that she was still mono-Fairy. 30% of me applauds Game Freak for this while the other 70% of me is kinda pissed off.

• 30% of me says, "It's about time Game Freak's learned that there's a difference between the element of the attacks used by a Pokémon and the element of that Pokémon's physical body." That you don't have to have somebody be Type A / Type B just because they use A and B attacks. That it's okay to have them be just Type A if biologically that's all they really are. Floette's a pretty solid example of this. Nothing about her own body suggests she's a plant. Yes, her attacks have been predominantly Grass-typed or at least Grass-themed. Vine Whip, Razor Leaf, Magical Leaf, some grass floor thing, and now Petal Blizzard: the only Fairy attack she's ever learned which deals damage is the one she had when I caught her, Fairy Wind. But it's okay: this doesn't mean that she has to be a Grass type. Because conceptually, she's not a plant fairy ... but rather she's a fairy who happens to have a special affinity for flowers and who brandishes a flower as her weapon of choice. So she attacks like a Grass type ... but she isn't herself a Grass type. Cool. I get it. And flavorfully, it's cool.
• But 70% of me says "Never mind the flavor! Practically, this is terrible!" Most of her attacks are things she lacks STAB on. Not only that, but the one thing she does have STAB on she's only ever learned one damaging attack for. But the worst thing of all is this: while above I applaud Game Freak for breaking with tradition, here I'm going to get angry at them for doing it. Because here's the thing: we had an understanding. We, as long-time fans of the franchise, had an understanding with Game Freak. "You guys give a Pokémon 3+ moves of a particular type, we can expect that if it isn't already that type then it soon will be. You give a Pokémon 2- moves of a particular type, we can't expect anything." Staraptor? Has Close Combat. One Fighting move. Doesn't make him Fighting/Flying. Samurott? Has Revenge. One Fighting move. Doesn't make him Water/Fighting. We may wish they were, but we also understand that Game Freak never lied to us and said, "Oh yeah, here you go, fans! Have this bird with five Fighting level-up moves! But it's never gonna become part-Fighting, hahahahaha! " Yet that's exactly what I feel right now with Floette: "lied to". Not because of the initial flower theme, oh no. Just look back at my earlier posts to see my thoughts there. I never demanded she be Fairy/Grass that early. But where I am now in the game, where Trixie has two Grass attacks and only one weak-ass Fairy attack, where every time she's leveled up for the past seven or eight levels she's been asking to learn Grass attacks ... yeah, I do feel sort of lied to.

Anyway, we'll see. With any luck, Floette has a final form and they're saving the Grass typing for that. (No spoilers, please.)

Going to take a break here. Will continue the rest of the update in the next post.

[Talon87]

Cyllage City: This is an interesting little city. My only complaint / point of confusion is that the town seems to be built around some sort of cycling race ... yet we neither get to spectate nor participate in it. :\ It would've been cool if Game Freak had had us arrive at town just as the race was about to start and had then shown us a scripted sequence in which the gym leader, Grant, manages to take 1st place. As the crowd dissipates, we overhear one person saying how she'd like to purchase a bike of her very own. Then another person tells her about the bike shop in town. Then we regain control and bam: we have a bit more of an exciting and plot-driven direction.

But blindly exploring the city wasn't that bad either.

Smashing Boulders: Originally I found a Max Revive and a Max Ether inside some of the smashable rocks on the beach. Had to soft reset the game because I got the yellow bike and didn't care for the look of it. Smashing those same boulders provided no such items, to my dismay.

Rydel Rydel Rydel Rydel: So yes, the bike! I originally clicked on "Yellow" thinking that, like so many other things in this game, the guy would give me an "Are you suuuuuuuuure that's the one you want? " last second chance to back out were he not about to begin explaining what features the yellow bike can do that the green one cannot. But nope! I click on yellow and the next thing I know I'm the not-so-thrilled owner of a yellow bike. Now, I actually like the color yellow, but the problem is that it clashes something awful with Corinne's current red and black clothes. And as for what I'd ideally like to see her wearing as an alternate dress -- some sort of white summer gown, maybe? -- I think green would be the much more complementary color. So I first took the yellow bike out for a spin just to see how it looked in action. Wasn't very happy. Soft reset the game. Got the green bike. Tested it out. Liked it. As one might anticipate, it's very difficult to see the body of the bike due to the shade of green they chose; however, that doesn't matter to me so much. In fact, I'd rather have a bike that blends in with the background than one which garishly stands out. So yeah, green bike it was.

Cyllage Gym: This was a very simple concept with visually elaborate design that ... I think just barely falls short of the mark. Rock climbing is cool and all, sure, but I don't really get why a beach town with a passion for cycling is the Rock gym town of the nation. (Then again, Santalune City wasn't exactly crawling with bugs either so whatever!) I think the bigger shortcoming for me was the opposition. After all of the trainers I've fought to get here, you'd think the opponents would've all been Level 25 or higher and that the gym leader would've had a team of at least three, maybe four Pokémon. I'm grateful that the two he had were the two fossils -- thanks, Game Freak! -- but disappointed that he didn't supplement them with a Graveler or an Onix or something. For a Level 30-something Wartortle, they were no challenge whatsoever. And something to keep in mind is that I had Exp.Share turned off ever since Route 9, desperate to try and buy Braixen as much time with me as possible in case I decided to evolve her immediately at Level 36. So it's not like Wartortle even had as high of a level as she could've had.

I dunno. Okay gym, just not my favorite by a longshot.

Connecting Cave: So I press on east through the Connecting Cave, push boulders into place, and return to Route 7. I check on my berries, fight one set of battles at the Battle Maison for $$$, and return to western Kalos to continue my adventure.

Poitou, not Brittany: So, last time I excitedly thought I was on the beaches of Bretagne. Turns out I was mistaken. I looked at the map today in the game and realized that where I had been was much farther south, along the central west coast of France Kalos. That's closer to Poitou-Charentes or the Pays de la Loire than it is to Bretagne, although of course Bretagne is right there in the neighborhood. And speaking of right in the neighborhood, that's where we're headed: north, into the northwest corner of Kalos!

Route 10: This is the route where I had some of those dowsing rod troubles I mentioned last time. Aside from that, not too much to say. A whole lot of grass, but I didn't see enough diversity to keep me wasting any more time here than I already did. Whole lot of Sigilyph ... :\

I've never associated prehistoric stone monuments with France. That's always been something I've associated with England (Stonehenge). But of course the British don't have a monopoly over this sort of thing, and what we get to see here on Route 10 are none other than the Carnac stones I remember reading about as a teenager. It was neat to see them, both to be reminded that they exist and to see them in my Pokémon game.

Was surprised to run into Team Flare here. Dealt with them easily and pressed onwards towards ...

Geosenge Town: While there was a lot of little stuff to see here, I'll keep it short and simple: I don't understand why this town isn't host to the Rock type gym.

And that about catches us up to speed. Right now I'm onto the next route (11?) and am about to head into a cave. Shiina is about to evolve and I'll soon see whether this move is worth keeping or not. Likewise, I'll see what I think of her final form.

[jolteonjak]

I think I would have preferred Glittering Cave to have random encounters and still have the view that it had.

I wasn't a fan of any of the gym lineups this gen, but I thought all of the gyms themselves were quite creatively made.

[Talon87]

So ... I played a little bit more, and ... suffice to say, quite a number of disappointments. ^^;

Thoughts on Mystic Fire: So it's basically a Fire-type Struggle Bug except 15 base points of damage stronger. Put another way, it's Fire Punch except special instead of physical and with Struggle Bug's unique effect. When I think of it that way, it honestly doesn't sound too bad. But then I remind myself that Fire Punch is a pretty horrible move if we're having a discussion about ultimates and that the only Pokémon who are ever stuck learning it for competitive play are those with no better Fire options. (Or, as of the invention of Iron Fist, those with Iron Fist.) I seriously doubt that Delphox will be in that category -- she has to at least learn Flamethrower by TM if not by level up -- so yeah: the move isn't cutting it for me. But what about the creature?

Thoughts on Delphox: Very disappointing. ^^; I hate to be such a downer, but man was I really disappointed by this evolution. She looks like a textbook shaman who lives in the woods, has unkempt hair, is considered mad by the locals, etc. Reminds me (for whatever crazy reason) of depictions of Mary Magdalene I've seen in Christian cinema. What the hell. What the hell. This is not what I had hoped to see. Braixen, like I said, honestly isn't that bad for a humanshape. I'm not a fan of humanshapes, but she's okay. But Delphox ... too tall, too thin, too cloaked, looks too much like a crazy witch doctor lady who lives in the woods, I just ... very, very disappointed. ^^; I still love my Shiina to pieces, but suffice to say that I turned the 2DS right off and on and will be keeping Braixen as a Braixen for at least the next two gyms or else until she hits Level 50, whichever comes second. I'm in no rush to miss out on bonding time with Braixen knowing now what I know. Mystic Fire, not worth it. Delphox ... *sigh* ... sadly not worth it. Except there is one thing I've neglected to mention ...

Fire/Psychic: Très. in. croyable. This is incredible. I convinced myself this is where we would be heading pretty early on, so the surprise wasn't too great -- it felt more like confirmation than anything -- but it was still very nice to see that lovely pink "Psychic" label to the right of Delphox's red "Fire" label on her summary page. Putting the most immediate benefit of this type change -- STAB on all these Psychic moves I'm running :'D -- I'm just so happy that we finally have this amazing, oft-dreamed about type combination ... and on a starter, no less! It's very cool. And it has me very intrigued to discover what the deal is with the frog and hedgehog. I imagine Game Freak listened to us and we finally got our Fire/Psychic, Water/Fighting, Grass/Dark starter trio. A, thank the Maker we avoided getting a fourth Fire/Fighting starter in a row. -_-; B, I'm glad we got Fire/Psychic instead of Fire/Dark since the latter's been done before but Fire/Psychic hasn't (except for some non-Pokémon entity in BW2's Pokéwood, but that sure as hell doesn't count ). If the Chespin line ended up getting stuck with Grass/Dark, I feel a little bad for them due to that 4x weakness to Bug, but maybe Game Freak braced for that by making the line super defensive. After all, Chespin appeared to give Shiina 1 Def EV in our initial battle. That leads me to believe that the line's gotta at least be Def-beefy if not later also SpDef-beefy. Who knows. Well, I guess you guys do. lol And I will too in due time. But not just yet. I plan to find out by (presumably) fighting Shauna and Calem in the future, when I'll hopefully get to see their fully-evolved starters.

Reflection Cave: So here was our first traditional cave of the game. Sadly. ~.~ But it wasn't too bad. Two things happened which made me want to run into wild Pokémon for a change:

1. I ran into a Wobbuffet but it was the female kind with the red lipstick. I hate that look, and this was my very first Wobbuffet encounter in the entire game, so I desperately wanted to run into a male Wobbuffet afterwards such that I could then go into the PokéDex and change which form it displays by default. (A feature you could do in some of the more recent games; not sure if it's possible in Gen 6 or not. Seems like they took quite a few features out of the PokéDex ... )
2. I ran into Carbink, some Rock/Fairy type, and since Yuki had kept implying that I might run into one of her Kalos favorites once I start going into caves, I wondered if this might be it. Thus, I caught multiple Carbinks, blindly shooting for a good nature (which I'll have to determine at a later date).

Those two things together resulted in me not busting out a Repel until some time around when you run into Tierno. So ... about 60% of the cave? I dunno. Anyway, it wasn't a great cave in my opinion but it also wasn't onerously long. Before I knew it, I was ready to leave. To my surprise, the cave emptied me out not onto a route but instead into ...

Shalour City: Haven't done any exploring yet. Just went straight to the Pokémon Center and then did what I'll detail below.

Training Module Level 4 Stages: I'd beaten the first one or two of these a while ago, but then I put them down because I wanted to play the game, not play Pokémon Sky Soccer with Hot Air Balloons. But I decided to go back into these training modules and do two things. First, get all of the medals for all of the Level 1 thru 3 stages on one Pokémon. (Chose Feather the Talonflame.) Second, beat some of the Level 4 stages just for fun and for a change of pace. So I did this, and after I beat the one with Roserade, I was ready to take a break. Some of you may already see where this is going ... >_<

Meet ... Florges?: I'd gotten a few rubbish prizes -- crappy punching bags, some bags of stardust -- from the Level 4 stages, but I also had gotten a Shiny Stone from the Roserade one. I just so happened to be sitting on it for all of like 2 seconds, ready to move back to the top of the list, when I noticed something.

"... hey, does that say 'Able'?"

In past games, going into your backpack meant you only saw the backpack contents, nothing more. XY is weird in that it chooses to take up half the screen with your team members displayed on the left. Apparently when you hover over various items that can only be used by certain Pokémon, it tells you! Just like how it does with the TMs (which I'd already noticed ages ago). Well, here I am sitting on the Shiny Stone ... and it says that Floette is "Able". No one else is. Curious, I navigate away to some other stone I have. It's a Thunder Stone. I check the list on the left. Six red "UNABLE"s. I go back to the Shiny Stone. Five "UNABLE"s and one "ABLE". Huh.

Back out. Save the game. Go back in. Use the stone. Hold breath. Aaaaaaand ...!?

OTL ^^;

I'm not sure which disappoints me more: the design (which is grossly overdesigned and somewhat ugly) ... or the fact that she's still mono-Fairy. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha Damn. Damn, damn, damn. You have a super-secret evolution that I just happen to discover ... and you still don't become a Grass type. WHAT THE HELL.

So I go to the PokéDex, optimistic that I'll discover a fourth slot in the Flabébé family line. Nope. It goes Flabébé, Floette, Florges, and then some completely different Pokémon family. Meaning ... chances are pretty good that this is it.

Since stone-based evolutions are pretty weird with moves (and historically a very bad idea to do prematurely; Game Freak's admittedly gotten much better with this in recent years), I don't think I'll risk having Floette be a Florges right now. I'll go back and have her stay as a Floette for now. But man ... man oh man oh man. :\ I've put time and love and energy to this girl, but I dunno, man ... she's breaking my heart. Like I said in the previous update, I have no table-flipping level of anger or disappointment towards Floette being mono-Fairy. It makes sense. She's not the plant: the thing she holds in her hand is. But with Florges, who pretty much looks like she is half-plant, I don't get it. I simply don't get it. Why do you make a Pokémon merge with a flower, have 60-70% moves that are Grass type, and then not give it the Grass secondary typing? Is it because Grass is lol awful defensively? Is it because you don't want Florges to inherit all five weaknesses of Grass's, some of which Fairy is weak to as well? (Please: no comments on this. NONE WHATSOEVER. Have not looked up any type charts. Am having fun figuring out Fairy's deal by trial and error as I play. Same situation with the made-up elements in Touhoumon.) Is that what this is about? You don't want a Pokémon burdened with a crapload of weaknesses, some of which will be 4x weaknesses, so you're just not giving it a secondary type period? I mean, if that's the reason, then I understand that what you're doing is right for competitive viability reasons ... but man oh man is it wrong for flavor reasons. :\

Meet Talonflame: So was there any good news to come out of Sunday evening? ^^; Yes, yes there sure was. Feather wanted to evolve and I decided to allow it since what the hey we're evolving most everybody now anyway. So she evolves into Talonflame and HOLY COW YOU LOOK AMAZING. She looks way better than the tiny little icon that Pokémon-amie spoiled me on. Holy crap. That icon made me think I was about to get another Unfezant. Instead I get a goddamn gorgeous falcon. This is amazing. I love Staraptor, and looking at my own Talonflame's stats I'm not convinced that the line is going to be shoving Staraptor down to UU any time terribly soon (though they'll likely fill different OU niches: Staraptor the battering ram, Talonflame the speed demon), but I have got to say: I think I may like the look of Talonflame best of any Pokémon bird to date. Damn. Hot damn does she look excellent. My only complaints might be the headcrest and the cartoon-style white eyes. That's it. Everything else is just great. If there weren't a headcrest and if the eyes were jet black like a real falcon's, she'd be perfect. But even as she is, she's still gorgeous. Cannot wait to get her out into some Sky Battles.

[Whimsy]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I'm just so happy that we finally have this amazing, oft-dreamed about type combination ... and on a starter, no less!

Urm... I don't know whether or not this would count as a spoiler or not, because Gen V is now over...
But I'll put it in a spoiler box because I don't know how much you know of Gen V

Spoiler: show

but Victini was also Fire/Psychic.

Sorry if spoiler... *runs out of thread hurriedly*

[lilboocorsola]

Originally Posted by Talon87

I ran into Carbink, some Rock/Fairy type, and since Yuki had kept implying that I might run into one of her Kalos favorites once I start going into caves, I wondered if this might be it. Thus, I caught multiple Carbinks, blindly shooting for a good nature (which I'll have to determine at a later date)

BINK!



LOOK AT DOSE ADORABLE BIG BLUE EYES. <3

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by swampertforever

Victini was also Fire/Psychic.

It goes to show you a) how little I count legendaries and b) how much I despite Victini that I would have utterly forgotten about it.

Fine. I'll amend what I said. Delphox is the first non-legendary, non-Pokéwood Fire/Psychic we've had. Put another way, she's the first Fire/Psychic I'm happy to play with.

As far as older generations go, at this point, I believe that it is courteous of people to spoiler tag plot-related spoilers. Anything else even I personally would consider overkill, but that's me. (For the older generations, we're talking. Not this newest one.) Types, items, attacks ... they're all part of the very fabric of Gen 6 anyway. Like, it's not exactly a spoiler in December 2013 to say "TMs could be used infinitely many times in the Gen 5 games." What would be a spoiler, however, would be giving away the plot of either of the two games. And even then, since we're a Pokémon community, I think there's very little patience amongst most people to spoiler tag the more obvious things like the identity of BW1's final boss, the most prominent changes to the League in BW2, etc. Anyway, this isn't really the thread for a philosophical discussion about spoilers or more specifically whether it's too soon to go spoiling people on the plot of BW2. At least, I'd rather we not derail the thread in that direction. ^^; Thank you though for your consideration.

Originally Posted by lilbluecorsola

BINK!

Not gonna lie: I'm still surprised that this is the answer. But unless I'm mistaken, this is also the first Gen 6 Pokémon I've seen in a cave.

Guess we'll have to find out how good/bad it is. I'll feel bad for you if it's yet another Corsola. ^^; Maybe if I end up boxing Floette I'll island hop over to Carbink instead? ;o lol no way man , if I did that I'd go back to breeding Ralts now that I have my Everstone and get me a Gardevoir.

[Talon87]

I keep forgetting to do this. Not this time! I want to give a comprehensive status update on the team. I won't be posting stats for the time being, but I'll post everything else.

Shiina
Species: Braixen
Level: 39
Nature: Timid (+Spd/-Atk)
Gender: female
Attacks: Ember / Flame Charge / Psyshock / Psybeam
EVs: 252 SpAtk / 252 Speed / 5 HP / 1 Def

Feather
Species: Talonflame
Level: 37
Nature: Adamant (+Atk/-SpAtk)
Gender: female
Attacks: Ember / Peck / Roost / Return
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Speed / 6 HP

Trixie
Species: Floette
Level: 36
Nature: Sassy (+SpDef/-Spd)
Gender: female
Attacks: Fairy Wind / Magical Leaf / Wish / Petal Blizzard
EVs: 252 SpAtk / 252 SpDef / 6 HP

Ziggy III
Species: Zigzagoon
Level: 31
Nature: Careful (+SpDef/-SpAtk)
Gender: male
Attacks: Covet / Cut / Pin Missile / Return
EVs: 252 Atk / 252 Speed / 6 HP

Nagi
Species: Wartortle
Level: 36
Nature: Calm (+SpDef/-Atk)
Gender: female
Attacks: Water Pulse / Aqua Tail / Bite / Skull Bash
EVs: 252 HP / 252 SpDef / 6 Def

General Comments: I'm not looking for advice or criticism or anything of the sort. Thank you, but it's really not wanted nor necessary. If you have strong opinions on what you'd do differently, then as politely as I can I'll ask you to keep them to yourself. ^^; I'm only providing this list for two reasons: one, to satisfy your own curiosity; and two, for my own record keeping purposes.

However, I know it's inevitable that you'll wonder what the heck I'm doing with many of these move choices. If I explain some general philosophies of mine on how to ideally play through Story Mode, it may make better sense to you. Spoiler tagging only for length.

Spoiler: show

Rule #1: always try to keep at least one shitty move around for as long as possible such that you can use that Pokémon to capture things. Examples of this rule in action are Shiina's Flame Charge and Floette's Petal Blizzard. Moves may be shitty for a variety of reasons (low base damage, poor affinity with the Pokémon's attack stats, lack of STAB). Shitty moves are never kept to the exclusion of truly great moves. When a Pokémon is ready to learn four truly great moves, it graduates from having any shit moves at all.

Rule #2: For as long as possible, try to maintain at least one Atk and one SpAtk attack on the set. This has a lot of crossover with Rule #1. Specific to Rule #2 though is the idea that it's usually a good idea to have your STAB twice: once physically and once specially. That way, you can hit foes with the intent to kill (during battle) or the intent to not kill (when going for a capture) using your STAB. In the case of the latter, you rely on your STAB lending enough damage to the attack that the Pokémon will be brought down to the red without actually dying.

Rule #3: For as long as possible, don't delete moves that can't be relearned via the Move Reminder. This is what you see happening with moves like Ziggy's Pin Missile. This is also why you see that Ziggy hasn't evolved yet. (I'm obsessively debating teaching him Flail as that's another move Linoone can't learn.)

Rule #4: Talon loves aggro. Especially during Story Mode. So for example, even though my Wartortle has been EV trained to be a fairly Smogon typical Blastoise (Rapid Spin, Toxic, the works), you see that she has the moves of an attacker. And that's because I can't fucking stand to use Pokémon defensively during Story Mode. ^^; So, so boring to me. During a fun, competitive, "high stakes" game of 6v6 singles, it's okay if a battle takes 20 minutes. During Story Mode, it's not. If I'm not OHKOing everything the enemy sends out, something is wrong.

Rule #5: Talon has a soft spot for thematic moves, so long as space is still available. This is what you see happening with my Wartortle's Skull Bush. Even though it's a "shitty" two-turn move without STAB, I like how it thematically fits the Pokémon. And I think it's cute that Game Freak added a +1 Def layer of icing to the base 130 damage cake. (This rule was what would have gotten Mystic Fire and Delphox onto the squad had Mystic Fire been at least base 80 power with its effect or base 85 power with no effect.)

Rule #6: Talon is so old school he still doesn't use TMs very often. This is a deeply-engrained habit from Gens 1 thru 4 where we didn't have infini-TMs. While I do remember to use them from time to time, I have to confess that I think the only TMs or HMs I've used this entire playthrough have been the HMs and former HMs. ^^; Cut, Rock Smash, Strength, and (though I ended up never using it) Flash. This rule is why you see fucking Peck on poor Talonflame. Because I've been happily OHKOing everything in my path with either Return or (when that won't work) weak-ass Ember or weak-ass Peck anyway. After I finish this post, I'm going to seriously delete Peck for Aerial Ace. There is no excuse for me to have not taught that by now. Well, no excuse except Rule #6.

The above list is quite incomplete, but if I were to exhaustively give you a peek inside my brain and how it works, I'd certainly lose your attention. ^^; If I didn't already! haha Also, the rules aren't in any particular order of importance or anything. And obviously they butt heads from time to time. Anyway, all I can say is that by the end of this playthrough, you're obviously going to see a much meaner set of moves on most of these guys. Talonflame should have whichever the best physical Fire and Flying moves available to her are, Delphox should have whichever the best special Fire and Psychic moves available to her are, etc. But for now, these movesets are doing the job just fine. So don't panic.

Time Played: 32 hours 58 minutes (subtract ~8 to 10 hours for EV training and another 6+ for various things like Pokémon-amie, Ralts breeding, Battle Maison, etc.)
Badges: 2
Money: ¥219,924
Pokémon Seen: 159
Current Location: Shalour City

[deoxys]

Mind if I ask what your thoughts on the soundtrack thus far are? (or did I miss that whoops)

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by deoxys

Mind if I ask what your thoughts on the soundtrack thus far are? (or did I miss that whoops)

If I had to pick one word to describe it, it would probably be "unoffensive." The music is, for the most part, perfectly fine. A whole lot of C-grade and B-grade melodies. No remembered D's, no remembered F's. But by that same token, there have been very few A's. I haven't had a song yet which has grabbed me and made me exclaim with wonder at how good it was the way that Lentimas Town's song did when I first landed there. Now that was a song that blew me away both at how independently good and at how together-with-the-city-it's-paired-with good it was.

There is one song in the game which bittersweetly mirrors my experience with Opelucid White's song, and that's the theme song to Lumiose City. Both songs have one of the loveliest opening leitmotifs I've ever heard in Pokémon. Opelucid's is delectably melancholic while Lumiose's is delightfully joyful: they evoke different moods but both are top-notch bits. However, unfortunately ^^; , both songs then veer off course from this leitmotif and go into completely different and unwelcome waters. Lumiose's begin to happen at around 0m18s in the link provided; Opelucid's likewise happens early, circa 1m03s in the link provided for the point of no return but circa as early as 0m05s for the first hints of an unwelcome musical departure from the exquisite wistfulness of the first few seconds. Anyway, the point is, I love both songs for about ____ seconds but then they veer off and that frustrates me.

Aside from Lumiose City though, I dunno that any music has particularly stood out to me as being incredible.

Oh, I guess I did notice two things, one good and one bad and they ironically cancel each other out:

• I absolutely hate the Gym Leader challenge music this generation. So bad. So, so bad.
• I'm happy that Team Flare's battle music isn't as awful as the "EE-EE-EE-EE-EE! EE-EE-EE-EE-EE!" eardrum-bleeding horror that was BW2's Team Plasma battle music. ^^; It's still not great IMO, but it's an improvement from where we were just a year ago.

[Slash]

Zen Darmanitan was also Fire/Psychic.

[Talon87]

Shalour City: It's fine. The background music is okay. A little too high-pitched for my tastes. Also a little too Japanese-sounding for my tastes -- it reminds me of Ecruteak City (the place, not the city's own song), not of northern France -- but whatever. It's not a bad song, and it obviously does what it's meant to do which is to elicit a sense of an ancient and mystic city. Not really sure what is up with the name of the city though. Lumiose City, I get. ("Paris, the City of Light.") Parfum Palace, I sort of get. (I guess "Perfume Palace" works ... but do we really associate perfume with Versailles?) Ambrette Town I get but man if that isn't just a lazy-ass name. ("THIS IS THE TOWN WITH THE FOSSILS! ") But then there are towns like this one and I'm just like "Wha?" What does Shalour even mean? Looking it up on Bulbapedia, I now see that this is one of the few instances of us going with the Japanese (that's half of it) and also of the Japanese not trying to name the city more suitably (that's the other half of it). Really? You name a city in France after a Buddhist tree that few in the West have ever heard of? Well, whatever. Moving right along ...

The Tower of Mastery: After talking with Tierno and Trevor, and subsequent to that after taking a photograph on the beach in front of the tower, I headed on in to the Tower of Mastery. I liked what they did with Gurkinn and Korrina as far as the history of Mega Evolution goes. I was confused though by the fact that the tower seemed to essentially be a high-rise apartment for people to live in with books, TVs, etc. I would've figured it'd have been a place of non-residence to all except the groundskeeper (who I would figure would be Gurkinn). Barring that, I'd have figured it would've been a monastery or church where only the pious may take up residence. Seemed sort of strange that people were living there with flat screen televisions on their walls. ^^;

The cutscene that happened here with Calem sure was mean of Game Freak. ^^; Way to make me feel like such a jerk to be robbing Calem of his chance to inherit the Mega Stone bracelet when he clearly cares very much about Mega Evolution whereas I do not. I liked how the game allowed me to be honest regarding how I got Tierno's stone, telling Gurkinn that I'd received it from another rather than falsely claiming that I'd been the one to find it. I kind of wish that they'd done a similar thing with Calem and the Mega bracelet. Given me the choice to say, "Calem seems to want it more. He can have it," and then Gurkinn surprises us all by saying "Do ho ho ho! Please forgive an old man. I actually have bracelets prepared for all of you. Here you go!" and then all five of us get the rings. But no. Instead Game Freak gives us Calem making a passionate declaration about how, even though he knows his Pokémon are weaker than mine, he is going to win. And then when he loses, queue up the sad music and have him give another speech where he's pretty much fighting back the tears and trying to be a man about it. Nice. How kind of you, Game Freak. :p

Shalour Gym: This gym was really unimpressive. The idea -- a gym that makes the player make use of rollerblades -- was a good one. But they really failed in the execution. Without even trying, I ran into one of the gym's four trainers the moment I got off of the very first rail (the one that takes you into the gym's interior). And I ran into the second, even though he was trying to skate away from me, just by taking three steps towards him as he was skating away. So without even lifting a finger, I had 50% of the battles done. I then skated to the left to go fight my third gym trainer ... and with history repeating itself, gym trainer #4 is right next to us as we finish and, despite trying to run away, I skate after them and make them stop after only five or so steps. It was ridiculous. What I would've liked to have seen instead would've been a much more physically interactive gym. Something perhaps like the BW2 Mistralton Gym where you have to dodge puffs of wind that are hurtled towards you and, should you not dodge them in time, they'll knock you down and send you back to where you started. Perhaps something where you have to take advantage of the rollerblades' different speeds and how, at one point, you have to trigger a dash in order to rollerblade 360° around a large (25-foot tall?) tube. Even if it's impossible in real life, something visually impressive like that and a lot of fun for the player to pull off. Even if it's easy to pull off, something which still feels rewarding to the player and looks really cool. But no. This was basically a diamond where, after fighting four easily-flagged-down trainers, you go into the center and then fight Korrina. Such a shame.

The gym battle with Korrina would've been more memorable if my Talonflame, Feather, hadn't so brutally OHKOed everybody. Everybody, that is, except for the luchadore. That's the one Pokémon of Korrina's I remember, and it's probably because of the fact that it got to get one hit off unlike any of its teammates. Feather's Aerial Ace had its usual instanteous HP depletion effect (see below) but for some reason the luchadore hung on by a sliver of health. There was no announcement about Sturdy or anything, so I'm wondering if maybe it had a Focus Sash or something. Anyway, it did a pretty flavorful move where it piledrived me. Unfortunately for Korrina, it did like no damage. Next turn she uses some sort of potion to heal up and I hit her with Flame Charge. Third turn I finish it off with a second Aerial Ace, and that's game. So, speaking of Aerial Ace ...

Feather's Aerial Ace: Remember last night I mentioned how I'd delete Peck for Aerial Ace? So I did, and let me tell you something: holy shit I think I broke the game. ^^; When Shiina (Braixen) would attack somebody with Ember, their life would go down quickly but not super fast or anything. She recently learned Flamethrower, and when she uses that it's pretty much the same effect on the HP bar. Maybe it goes down a little bit faster, I dunno. Whenever Feather the Talonflame was OHKOing things with Return, it was the same way. Whenever anybody was OHKOing things, it was the same way. But when Feather uses Aerial Ace, HOLY SHIT the enemy HP bar depletes *literally* instantaneously. Like, one second it's fully green, and the next half-second or maybe even quarter-second later it's at 3% red and soon to be fully gone. It honestly looks like a glitch, it's such hilariously fast depletion. ^^;; I'm not sure what causes this effect exactly, but I love it. Makes me feel like my Talonflame is super strong. hahaha I had been planning to delete Aerial Ace for Acrobatics but now I'm tempted to leave Aerial Ace on instead so I can continue to enjoy this hilarious effect it seems to have on the enemy's HP bar. But nah, I'll probably delete it for Acrobatics, don't you worry.

Atop the Tower of Mastery: So I go back to the Tower of Mastery and face off against Korrina again. I thought it was kind of sad for her -- and another example of Game Freak being mean to the other characters in this game all for the sake of the protagonist's glory ^^; -- that Korrina's very own Lucario that she had lovingly raised for God knows how long decided it didn't want her for a master anymore and that it'd rather be with me instead. Given that Riolu are easily accessible in this game and given that I'm not too crazy about Lucario anyway, I kept the Lucario I got (male, Hasty) without soft resetting. I thought his nature sort of fit him -- "hasty" for hastily abandoning his master for me, rushing into a situation he didn't fully understand. You know what fate awaits hasty betrayers like you, Lucario? BOX 3 OF THE PC! Nah, I can't joke about that. ^^; I always feel terrible boxing plot-related Pokémon, especially when their trainers implore me to take good care of it, tell the Pokémon how it's about to go on the journey of its life, etc. Makes me feel like shit for depositing them. But yeah, that's what happened to Lucario. The search for Talon's sixth team member continues!

Route 12: So I head off here (after getting HM03 from Calem and teaching it to Nagi the Wartortle) and what do I find but ... a second Lucario-esque Pokémon, mere minutes after I felt like shit boxing the first one. ^^; This time it's a Lapras, and its trainer is all "Oh, Lapras! I want for you to see the world! Oh, trainer! I hope you will show Lapras the world!" And it's like maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, I don't need a Lapras on the team right now. ^^; Stats aren't too hot, have other Ice types I'd rather train, don't really need two Water types, etc. C'mon, man, don't do this to me. I got a male Lapras with a Docile nature and contemplated soft resetting, but right before I did I decided to check its stats on Veekun's stat calculator just in case. As it just so happens, this Docile Lapras has the following stats according to Veekun: 30-31 / 20-23 / 20-23 / 20-23 / 20-23 / 20-23. I shit you not: five ~20s and a 30 or 31 for HP. It's by no means the greatest Lapras ever, no, but it's certainly decent breeding stock as a starting point.

Also on this route, I ran into a crapton of wild Chatot. I caught one of them (he's Jolly so that's a no-go) and KO'd or ran away from the others. The only other Pokémon I've run into so far besides Chatot is a single Slowpoke. That's it. Then again, I only just arrived: with this paragraph, I've caught you up to where I am in the game. Next stop: the remainder of Route 12, possibly this Azure Bay I hear NPCs mentioning, and I would imagine Coumarine City beyond that.

Current Team:
- Lvl.42 Braixen with Flamethrower / Flame Charge / Psyshock / Psybeam
- Lvl.40 Talonflame with Flame Charge / Aerial Ace / Roost / Return
- Lvl.38 Floette with Fairy Wind / Magical Leaf / Wish / Aromatherapy
- Lvl.34 Zigzagoon with Covet / Cut / Pin Missile / Return
- Lvl.38 Wartortle with Surf / Aqua Tail / Bite / Skull Bash

[DaveTheFishGuy]

>Instant HP bye-bye

It's not just you, some attacks do this. Even when it's not even going to be a 2HKO, the HP just vanishes in a split-second, whereas with other attacks it goes down as you'd expect. Not sure why.

[Deebs]

I found Hawlucha to be a reasonable challenge, even wiping me out the first time as I was caught unawares by its Flying Press. But then again, you are hugely over leveled. I think it's a problem we all experienced in our own playthroughs, but yours is exacerbated by the fact that you only have 5 team members, and just 4 that fight.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Dream Breaker

I found Hawlucha to be a reasonable challenge, even wiping me out the first time as I was caught unawares by its Flying Press. But then again, you are hugely over leveled. I think it's a problem we all experienced in our own playthroughs, but yours is exacerbated by the fact that you only have 5 team members, and just 4 that fight.

See, this happened with somebody else (Fallen Icarus? redpanda15? I forget) when I was playing BW2 this summer. It seems like without even trying -- all I do is play smart ^^; -- I have the magic touch for gaining levels. I have done the following all game:

• fought every NPC I've come across
• zero grinding in the grass
• three or four visits paid to the Battle Maison to give me phat cash

That is it. It's not like I've gone around re-challenging older NPCs to battles or spending tens upon tens of hours grinding in the grass. I've been plowing through the game just like you guys have. The only difference is I've done quite a bit of dicking around in the training module and in Pokémon-amie. But neither of these two things should've had any impact on levels ... exceeeeeeeeeeept ...

The Magic of Gen 6's Experience Points System: I think the games are programmed with no fewer than two different causes for increases in experience gain. And it's possible that they even stack. The first of these is keeping Pokémon unevolved, which we've already mentioned. But the second of these is making them happy in Pokémon-amie. When a Pokémon's Amie Friendship goes up past a certain point (two hearts, maybe? ), I'm pretty sure that they unlock an increase in experience points gained from battles. So given that I'm keeping my team unevolved and given that I've done a lot of Amie stuff, this could partly explain why I've got such huge levels this game despite no Lucky Egg (BW2's deal).

But even so, here's the thing: you guys can't really complain about my levels when there's also the fact to consider that I'm underevolved. ^^; When you challenged Korrina, most of you likely already had some fully-evolved Pokémon. When I did, the only one I had (and the only one I have even now) was my Talonflame. And it's not like Talonflame's attack stat is ridiculously huge or something. It's about in the same ballpark as Braixen's Special Attack, from what I can tell from my own summary pages. So I still feel like if I, with a decent base Attack stat @ 252 Attack EVs @ Flying STAB @ Flying 2x super-effectiveness @ base 60 power damage could OHKO the first of Korrina's two creatures using Aerial Ace and 99%KO her final guy, you should easily be able to be doing the same thing with your starter (if Delphox) or your own other teammates (if fully-evolved and part-Flying, part-Psychic, or part-Fairy).

But yes, the level gain is pretty ridiculous here. I have only gotten my third gym badge and my team is already in the upper 30s and lower 40s. This is ridiculous. Imagine if the same thing had happened in Kanto (which had ridiculous level gain compared with Hoenn or Unova). Imagine if when you went to challenge Surge you had not only a Level 36 Venusaur but also a Level 36 Pidgeot, a Level 36 Pikachu, a Level 36 Butterfree, and so on. That's insane. ^^;;

[Deebs]

By the time I challenged Korrina I had a few two-stagers fully-evolved (Simisear and [redacted]), but my Charmeleon and Braixen were both level 34 or so. I had to drop the Mystery Gift Torchic from my team because it was gaining levels too fast from being a traded 'mon. I can't imagine what your exp gains are like with both the Amie and unevolved boosts.

I'm just afraid that you're going to find the remaining game unremarkable since you'll be curbstomping everything. Granted, this is a massive design flaw, and you've unknowingly managed to exploit it. I want you to experience the game at its best.

[Red Panda]

That was me with BW2. But I'm always underlevelled, so it wasn't anything new.

[Torkoal Stu]

Originally Posted by Talon87

See, this happened with somebody else (Fallen Icarus? redpanda15? I forget) when I was playing BW2 this summer.

I finally completed BW2 recently for the first time, but I found I was constantly overlevelled and that the game was just easy. I don't think I lost a single Gym Battle/Elite 4 Battle/Boss Battle in that playthrough. When I battled Black Kyurem I remember being about Level 60 when he was Level 55 and thinking that was ridiculous.

Not having played X/Y I can't relate to that, but it does seem a bit ridiculous how people can be so far ahead of the level curve. Like GameFreak have always struggled with the Level Curve etc., but this just seems too much. Then again it might just look ridiculous on paper and once I play the game it might not feel so ridiculous.

[Talon87]

Originally Posted by Dream Breaker

By the time I challenged Korrina I had a few two-stagers fully-evolved (Simisear and [redacted]), but my Charmeleon and Braixen were both level 34 or so. I had to drop the Mystery Gift Torchic from my team because it was gaining levels too fast from being a traded 'mon. I can't imagine what your exp gains are like with both the Amie and unevolved boosts.

I'm just afraid that you're going to find the remaining game unremarkable since you'll be curbstomping everything.

Nah, there's enough novelty and plot, I hope, to make up for that. I curbstomped everything in BW2 too. It's what I do. Go back to here and skim through if you like. For example, this post reveals that my two main Pokémon were already Level 26 and Level 25 before I challenged Burgh. And this post reveals that I had Levels 35, 35, 34, and 33 for my four Story Mode Pokémon between Burgh and Skyla. (It's not immediately clear to me where I was in the game when I posted this.) When I reached Lentimas Town, as this post shows, my team's levels were 42, 38, 40, and 42. That's after you've gotten your sixth badge, true, but it's also about as deep into the game geography-wise as I feel I am right now in Kalos.

So yeah, I don't think history's too different from my experience with BW2. It's just that the causes for the levels are different. White 2 had more to do with being smart with the Lucky Egg (A, making use of it; and B, frequently switching it around and switching who was my team's leader) while Y seems to have more to do with Game Freak losing their minds with Exp.Share and with Pokémon-amie being way too generous.

But back to the point I was making: curbstomped or not, I still rather enjoyed BW2. At the time I beat it, it was either my favorite or second favorite Pokémon experience, right behind or right ahead of HeartGold. While Y the game has been the clear winner in this department, no debate about it, the plot of Pokémon Y is less certain. So far, it's not as powerful as BW2's was nor as grandiose as RSE's and DPPt's were, but it's still gently pulling me along all the same. And as for the magic of the game, that's really where XY shines. Discovering never-before-seen creatures because for the first time in over ten years I tried to avoid Dex spoilers like the plague. Figuring out how the Fairy type works the same way I figured out how the Steel and Dark types worked back in the Fall of 2000: through hands-on experience. These are the things I've been most enjoying, even when the news has been bad.

Take Florges for example. Even with that terribly disappointing news, it's still exciting -- very exciting, as an older Pokémon fan -- to be surprised by Game Freak at many corners. I'm so used to the predictability of this universe that it's honestly been refreshing to see some surprises, even if they've been unhappy ones. Knowing that Game Freak has the balls to go and make Florges mono-Fairy means that I can't guarantee myself anything about some other Gen 6 Pokémon I've yet to meet gaining a secondary type upon evolution. For example, say I find some Gen 6 firefly and it's mono-Bug. And say it starts learning a bunch of Fairy moves. I can't assume, "Well, duh: firefly? Tinkerbell? I mean, just look at all these Fairy moves!" and conclude she's going to become Bug/Fairy. Because I did the same thing with Florges and look where that got me.

That's the thing: you say you're worried for me since I'm so overleveled, but really I'm the one who feels sorry for you guys. You all lapped up all the spoiler information you could possibly get your hands on. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, I dunno, but I know it would have diminished my own experience and I'm sure that at least some of you have got to be similar to me in this regard. I feel bad that you all must have known about Florges going in. That you must have known about Delphox going in. That the only real surprises you had waiting for you were the story details with Team Flare. (And frankly, from what I've seen so far, if all the game had to offer me was Team Flare's plot line, I'd be pretty damn disappointed. ^^; ) For all the grief we reciprocally caused each other all year long, for all the many arguments about Gen 6 spoilers we had, this is why. This is why I had those arguments with you guys. Because I knew that at least my own experience, if not the experiences of many others as well, would be so much richer the less I knew about the game going into it. And hot diggity damn if I haven't been proven right over the past ten days I've spent with this game.

[Deebs]

Well, at the risk of entering a pissing contest of who feels more sorry for who, I'll accept that. As long as you're happy and having fun with the game, since that's the important thing. I'm really enjoying reading your thoughts and I'll continue to lurk.

[Mercutio]

Talon, are you playing easy mode (the ridiculous exp share) or have you turned it off?

[Emp]

Originally Posted by Talon87

That's the thing: you say you're worried for me since I'm so overleveled, but really I'm the one who feels sorry for you guys. You all lapped up all the spoiler information you could possibly get your hands on. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, I dunno, but I know it would have diminished my own experience and I'm sure that at least some of you have got to be similar to me in this regard. I feel bad that you all must have known about Florges going in. That you must have known about Delphox going in. That the only real surprises you had waiting for you were the story details with Team Flare. (And frankly, from what I've seen so far, if all the game had to offer me was Team Flare's plot line, I'd be pretty damn disappointed. ^^; ) For all the grief we reciprocally caused each other all year long, for all the many arguments about Gen 6 spoilers we had, this is why. This is why I had those arguments with you guys. Because I knew that at least my own experience, if not the experiences of many others as well, would be so much richer the less I knew about the game going into it. And hot diggity damn if I haven't been proven right over the past ten days I've spent with this game.

Wait a minute I did the same as you and so did Kuno (although I allowed myself to be spoiled by some pre-release information)! I got to enjoy the surprises of finding out what my starter evolved into (although I wasn’t happy with that surprise either) as well as the rest of my team. In the end I ended up dropping my starter for a 6th ‘mon just because I wanted to see what its evolution looked like. I also carried filler Pokémon around like Bunnelby and Fletchling just to see their evolutions (which was made easy thanks to Exp. Share). I’d actually spoiled myself on Fletchling and Talonflame but did not know Fletchinder existed which was pretty cool. I also thought Flabébé would be a standalone Pokémon so you’d imagine my surprise when Floette and Florges started showing up in Pokémon battles.

I did like this experience more than any other post-childhood generation and I’d definitely do it again but I really didn’t like the things that you don’t like about it – the bad suprises. Looking back at my final team there were a few I wouldn’t have used. I definitely would’ve chosen a different starter, but I guess that’s what the third version game is for!

Originally Posted by Talon87

If I had to pick one word to describe it, it would probably be "unoffensive." The music is, for the most part, perfectly fine. A whole lot of C-grade and B-grade melodies. No remembered D's, no remembered F's. But by that same token, there have been very few A's. I haven't had a song yet which has grabbed me and made me exclaim with wonder at how good it was the way that Lentimas Town's song did when I first landed there. Now that was a song that blew me away both at how independently good and at how together-with-the-city-it's-paired-with good it was.

There is one song in the game which bittersweetly mirrors my experience with Opelucid White's song, and that's the theme song to Lumiose City. Both songs have one of the loveliest opening leitmotifs I've ever heard in Pokémon. Opelucid's is delectably melancholic while Lumiose's is delightfully joyful: they evoke different moods but both are top-notch bits. However, unfortunately ^^; , both songs then veer off course from this leitmotif and go into completely different and unwelcome waters. Lumiose's begin to happen at around 0m18s in the link provided; Opelucid's likewise happens early, circa 1m03s in the link provided for the point of no return but circa as early as 0m05s for the first hints of an unwelcome musical departure from the exquisite wistfulness of the first few seconds. Anyway, the point is, I love both songs for about ____ seconds but then they veer off and that frustrates me.

Aside from Lumiose City though, I dunno that any music has particularly stood out to me as being incredible.

Oh, I guess I did notice two things, one good and one bad and they ironically cancel each other out:

• I absolutely hate the Gym Leader challenge music this generation. So bad. So, so bad.
• I'm happy that Team Flare's battle music isn't as awful as the "EE-EE-EE-EE-EE! EE-EE-EE-EE-EE!" eardrum-bleeding horror that was BW2's Team Plasma battle music. ^^; It's still not great IMO, but it's an improvement from where we were just a year ago.

It’s a shame you’re not too fond of the music. I’ll admit it’s a step down from BW/B2W2 which had the best music we’ve had so far in my opinion, but I still think each track is quite charming and fits well with the Kalos region. I took a while to try and find my favourite track only to find it’s from a city you haven’t been to yet so I’ll let you discover that one for yourself. In my opinion the soundtrack is on par with DP in that the songs aren’t as instantly loveable as the BW ones but the more you play the more they get stuck in your head and you grow to appreciate them. I actually like the Gym Leader theme, I feel like it’s a lot more epic than any of the other themes we’ve had.