July 13th: The Scenic Route

I didn't actually put more thought into what my team should be for the Elite Four. I did try to add copies of my Pokemon from SoulSilver to this save, but PKHeX didn't want to deal with Generation 4 exports being loaded into a Gen. 3 game. With that, I didn't end up changing my save file... yet. There are some spots on the map I haven't made it to yet and I don't even know where the Elite Four is yet, so I'll need to figure that out anyway.

Opening my save in PKHeX revealed to me that Sredsa was secretly hiding an awful IV spread. I mostly just found this really funny and Aar agreed after I shared it with him.

I guess to not put too much more thought into my team composition for the E4, I'll train up Billy so that I can finally use him in battles and then try a different Pokemon that hopefully rounds my team out better. Right now, I'm thinking Cass, but I'll double check my boxes to see if there's someone I'd rather have instead.

- I ended in the Pokemon Center last time, making it easy for me to check my boxes first.
- At level 45, Kyogre is obviously a pick that could work.
- Checking her moves again, I still think Cass is a solid pick.
- Prism knows Psybeam? How did I not remember that?
- Of the other Pokemon I caught but haven't really used, the rest are too low level for consideration if I want to maintain some of my sanity for what's about to come.
- There are two that I have used that are also worth considering.
- Wilma could be a good pick, but I think I'd just choose Kyogre at that point.
- Wait, Kyogre has Ice Beam. That might be the decision maker right there.
- Castform has some good moves for attacking with Water and Ice.
- Gary picked up a Full Heal and I'm just now noticing this.

After much consideration, I think my other two slots are going to be Billy and Cass, as I expected. However, I will place less importance on leveling up Sredsa. In the event that I can't get her up to a high enough level or if she's struggling in the battles due to typing, I'll switch her out for Kyogre instead.


With this in mind, the levels of my Pokemon are currently as follows

I'd like the whole team to make it to level 50 before the battle, which means I am going to be grinding for a long... long... long time. At least, I think so. I don't really know how long this is going to take.

After looking at the map, there are two places that jump out to me that I haven't yet visited. The first looks to be the small island of Pacifidlog between Slateport and the main body of water in which Mossdeep, Sootopolis, and Ever Grande reside. I don't know if there's anything important there, but I'll visit it to see what it's like. I'm guessing it'll be a cool little place like Fortree. Ever Grande is where I imagine the Elite Four and Victory Road are located. I'll stop there second.

- Used Fly to get to Rustboro.
- Headed into the Devon building to talk to the scientist that I gave the fossil to.
- Whoops, I need to make room to receive the Pokemon.
> Received: SANDRA [F] (Anorith)
- Sandra is level 20?! I was expecting level 1 or 5.
- Moves are Scratch, Harden, Mud Sport, and Water Gun.
- I don't think this changes my plans, but I'm glad I finally came back to get her after so damn long of not remembering to do this.
- With that out of the way, I flew to Slateport to head to Pacifidlog.
- A strong current prevented me from traveling East away from the shores of Slateport.
- Flew to Mossdeep to head that way instead.
- Found a trainer in the water with four Staryus that were pretty much all the same level.
- A trainer had a Gyarados. While fighting Annie, it got confused from exhaustion and poisoned from Effect Spore in the same turn after it had already been Leech Seeded.
- The message given by one of the female swimmers before the start of a battle was about why men loved bathing suits and that she gets ogled all the time. Damn. Didn't expect something like this in a Pokemon game, even if this is one of the older ones.
- Swimmer Kara just had a Seaking.
- Gary picked up a Nugget.
- Finally made it to Pacifidlog. From all the trainer battles I was doing, Annie just made it to level 45 and had almost exhausted all the PP of her attacking moves. Mega Drain was used completely, while Sky Uppercut and Mach Punch only had one and four PP left, respectively.



- After a stop at the Pokemon Center, I decided to start talking to the locals.
- Pacifidlog is a town built on a bunch of floating platforms. A man in the Center said that many people resided here for their whole lives. I don't know how many of them spent all of their lives here and how many traveled places without moving their permanent residence.
- One house had some people that gave elusive clues to some strange, mythical Pokemon. Unfortunately, I'm playing this game at least twenty years too late and know that these are the Regis.
- One woman is looking to trade me a Corsola if I find her a Bellossom. I do not have one of those, but I might take her up on that eventually.
- An older man in a suit in a different house led with the phrase "Mirage Island...", which I immediately recognized as a similar name to the place that Togepis reside in that was a central part of the plot in a two-parter from the anime. The second of these episodes features the only instance of a Togetic appearing as a non-background character in the anime, even as far along as 2025.
- The man describes the island as appearing and disappearing based on weather conditions, which isn't quite what that special had going, but again, it's similar.
- I know that Togepi can only be obtained in these games by trading them from an older game that has a Togepi or Togetic, as I looked this up before I even started the playthrough. I'm looking up if Mirage Island is anything in these games anyway.
- Okay, so it is a real thing in these games, but it's apparently full of Wynauts and only appears under highly rare circumstances.
- Out of that house and into a new door. The Pokemon Club's Chairman's younger brother is vacationing in Pacifidlog.
- He has two Azurills, one that is said to not like him very much and one that is more fond of him.
- He noticed that my Pokemon (in this case, Annie) was friendly with me.
- Received Return (TM27) instead of Frustration because I'm not a fucking piece of shit.
- It sounds like I can get another one of these if I come back in about a week of real-time. Interesting.
- The last house I haven't popped into has a family living there.
- The mother and child talked about a Pokemon that was seen flying very high up.
- The father asked me where I came from, to which I was given the options "yes" and "no" to respond.
- "Yes? Yes Town? I've never heard of a place like that."
- Okay, this game is pretty funny sometimes.
- I'm glad I stopped and took a look at Pacifidlog even though I don't think there was any reason I needed to.



- Decided to head West to try Surfing back to Slateport, just to see if anything interesting was on the way.
- There was a Fighting-type trainer on an island in the middle of the strong currents all by himself. That's kind of cool.
- Found a fisherman on a side island who had five Gyaradoses and his last Pokemon was a Magikarp. Each Gyarados was a lower level than the last one. It would have been really bad if I wasn't overleveled for the fight. Annie finished most of the Gyaradoses and Slapkins took out one of them. I had Billy take out the Magikarp.
- This game is really funny sometimes.
- I found a Big Pearl on a shallow spot.
- There were a lot of different islands along the route, with their accessibility being determined by how I had moved previously. I ran into a lot of trainers and managed to get another level for Slapkins and Annie.
- On a whim, decided to Fly to Verdanturf and see how Wally was doing.
- Turns out, he had gone off on his own and wasn't there any more. I'm guessing there's another encounter with him waiting to happen.
- I got reminded that his parents are in Petalburg. I don't think he's there, but I'll try dropping by anyway.
- Wally's dad doesn't seem to know that he's not in Verdanturf anymore. Wally's mom immediately spills to me that she knows and to keep it a secret from his dad. It's very nice of her to try keeping her husband from worrying too much.
- Guess there's not much else for me to do but to finally make it to Ever Grande. Time to Fly back to Mossdeep and set sail.
- Made it to Ever Grande City.
- Fuck, I need a Pokemon that knows Waterfall.
- Flew all the way back to Mossdeep.
- Got Bertha and replaced Mist with Waterfall.
- Finally just used a Max Repel instead of pressing Run when wild battles happen.
- As soon as it ran out, a Tentacool was right there waiting for me. Killed it for attempting to insult me with its presence after I specifically told the game not to do that.
- Bertha got me up the waterfall. hat kind of asshole makes a city's main point of accessibility going up a damn waterfall? How do they get anything shipped there without air transport?
- Ignoring that, there are lots of nice flowers in the city right off the bat. There were even flowers near the base of the waterfall.
- Other than a neatly placed Pokemon Center, the only other thing just at the top of the waterfall is a cave entrance marked as Victory Road. Guess I'm going to be starting the grind.
- Chose to have Slapkins in the lead for this.
- The first trainer I ran into only had a level 44 Roselia. I managed to get set up with Sredsa and take it out, despite getting put to sleep a lot and the eleven level deficit.
- Grasswhistle has a nice little tune for when the move is used.
- Damn. Parts of Victory Road are "grab the Pokemon that knows Flash" dark.
- Spotted a wild Medicham for what I think is the first time in this playthrough.
- Found a PP Up after stumbling through the cave for a while.
- Typical levels for trainers and wild encounters seems to expect low 40's. Other than Slapkins and Annie, I'm very underleveled.
- Instead of trying to make it through Victory Road, I'll probably just start grinding near the entrance. That'll be for another day.

Well, that was a lot more eventful than I thought it would be. I wanted to get a good bit of exploring in before I spent a ton of time fighting in wild encounters over and over again, probably for hours. I guessed right on Pacifidlog being cool. I wouldn't be surprised if a place like that existed in the real world. I'd like to visit a place like that.

It could be my imagination, but I feel like the developers do a good job with making the routes and the game world as a whole seem larger early on, then feel smaller as more progress is made. Maybe it's just because the trainer battles and story beats make it take longer to go through anywhere the first time around, but something tells me there's a bit of genius in the level design that enhances that feeling of the world shrinking as it becomes more familiar.

After that win against the trainer Pokemon eleven levels higher than her, I should really put aside any doubts I had about Sredsa being a good pick, even with the knowledge of her poor IVs. I'll probably plan on training Finger first, then Sredsa. I'll get them to around level 42, then try making my way through Victory Road. I'll work on Billy and Cass more afterwards, leveraging the Exp. Share to get them levels while the other four get trained up more.

That chairman's younger brother treating one of his Pokemon well and the other poorly is such a shitty thing to do. What an asshole. Both of his Pokemon just want to love him and be his pal, but he only loves one of them back. There's also a chance that he's only giving positive attention because he wants that one to like him and not because he actually cares.

I'm calling it now before he gets any chance to hear about this. When Aar reads the part where I gloss over the existence of the Regis because I basically don't care and spend much more time talking about Mirage Island for reasons that exist in two anime episodes and not the game, he will think it's really funny.

The "two-parter from the anime" referred to during my ramblings about the Mirage Island being brought up is referring to the following Pokemon anime episodes:

[Pokemon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire]
Episode 318 [AG044] : The Princess and the Togepi
AG044 - The Princess and the Togepi - Bulbapedia

Episode 319 [AG045] : A Togepi Mirage!
AG045 - A Togepi Mirage! - Bulbapedia