January 21st: Battle Frontier

- Did a lot of Battle Frontier with Aar, doing everything except the Battle Hall because we didn't want to spend time figuring out what we had to do in order for it to let us in.
- Spent time in the Game Corner and did pretty well.
- Encountered Latios, who immediately ran away before I could even use a move.

YouTube Screen Recordings

After trying most of the rest of the Battle Frontier, I have some baseline opinions about it. The Battle Factory sucks because I don't know how best to utilize what I'm given and I feel like I may also be getting unlucky in some circumstances. Battle Castle feels like the Tower with unnecessary fluff added to it that I feel doesn't really add much. I guess I could say the same about the Battle Arcade, but its random effects actually make it feel more like the Tower with an extra little bit of spice. I think the difference that makes me like the Arcade but not the Castle is that the gimmick in the Arcade actually affects the battles, while the Castle is mostly just deciding whether another round can go by before needing to heal up. Again, we didn't do the Battle Hall because it took issue to the Pokemon we were trying to enter and we didn't feel like figuring it out.

I'm reaching a point where I feel like there's not much more to write about this playthrough. There's still a few things I'd like to get filed away first. Ideally, I would do these last few things in a day or two, then, with the exception of hitting the Battle Tower with Aar on occasion, put the save down for a while. There will be some other things I could do and may get around to doing at some point in the future, but that's for another time. It's unlikely I'd write journal entries about those. That said, my goals for the last stretch here are as follows:
+ Spend some time in the Safari Zone
+ Do some Pokeathlon events
+ Get to 10,000 Coins again so I can blow it all on a Porygon
+ Take on the Battle Tower solo and get to a 50 battle streak

The first three should absolutely be doable in a day or two. The Battle Tower, maybe not so much. I'll see when I get around to it. To start my first attempt or first few attempts, I'm going to have my team consist of Peep, Ramelia, and either Super! or Sync III. Peep has already proven herself to be a very capable lead in the Battle Tower experiences I've had with Aar.

Ramelia may seem like an odd choice with only damaging moves, two of which are some particularly crappy HM moves. However, her Normal typing in addition to the typing of the moves she has is solid. Rock-type 'mons resist Normal-type moves and Ghost-types are totally immune to them. One of her HM moves is Rock Smash, which is a Fighting-type move that's super effective against Rock, while Crunch is a Dark-type move that's super effective against Ghost. Hyper Fang is Normal-type, which has STAB because of Raticate's Normal-typing and nothing else has resistance to it. In essence, I see Ramelia being good to send in last to finish off whatever's left.

I'll probably end up choosing Super! due to him knowing Yawn, Haze, Surf, and Earthquake. Two strong attacking moves, a move that can cause sleep, and one that can remove any enemy buffs should make him well-rounded and dangerous. If this team was going up against a team put together by someone well-acquainted with competitive Pokemon, I can't imagine it go well for my team. However, they just need to face off against NPC teams. Maybe it's misguided in some way I don't yet realize, but I think I stand a real chance at making it through 50 battles this way.