Scramble [Complete] Kaori's Pokemon Soul Silver Nuzlocke Scramble [FINALE: VS RED]

[Zedark]

Looking good so far. it looks like you won't have much trouble with the next gym since it drops in levels for some reason. Good idea putting the lagging Tail on on Umbreon. I would never think of doing something like that.

 

[Some Asian]

I don’t fully get a Scramble, but who cares, you’re doing good.

 

[SAF]

I don’t fully get a Scramble, but who cares, you’re doing good.

The Scramble challenge is basically playing a Pokemon game only with Pokemon people gave you. You can ask for them here if you want to try one.

That aside, I gotta agree that @Kaori's doing good so far.

 

[Kaori]

@Zedark Thank you! I usually don't pay much attention to items either, but I've been getting more invested in competitive battling lately as well which might be why I'm thinking of these kind of strategies.

@Some Asian Thanks! It seems like someone already explained what a Scramble is to you! I like them a lot because I always ponder over which Pokemon to add to my team, but in this case other people are choosing for me! I combine my Scrambles with Nuzlocke rules for an added challenge but that's totally optional.

@SAF Thank you for explaining!

_

Part VIII. Overleveled

After finding out about the troubles going on at the Lake of Rage last time, I headed straight towards the place in question to check things out. On my way there, I made the foolish mistake of trying to take the shortcut, only to get caught up in Team Rocket's trap and get money taken from me. Not cool.

At the lake, a mysterious Gyarados has showed up ー One in a bright red color rather than its usual blue tint. Everyone is in awe by this rare occurrence, but we've already established our position as bravest 10-year old on this planet so we just surf right up to it.

As much as I would like to catch this shiny, nobody suggested I should use a Gyarados so unfortunately we have to obliterate it with Ampharos' Discharge.

Once back on the land, Lance compliments us for handling the situation so well and asks us to come back with him to Mahogany Town to investigate a suspicious house. At first glance everything seems normal, but Lance doesn't trust things and instead of talking it out, he decides to be an absolute savage and Hyper Beam this guy in the face.

At least his suspicions were correct and down a secret staircase we find Team Rocket's Hideout. There's several Persian statutes which set off the alarm as you pass by them, so what followed was a long and tiring series of battles. None of them were particularly hard, since I have totally overleveled by this point. I really wish they would have raised the levels a little because it's no fun fighting lv. 18 Zubat and Rattata right before the 7th gym.

Eventually we discover that two passwords are needed to make our way through, but we only have one. This is enough to bring us to the room of Executive Petrel, who disguises himself as Giovanni before revealing his true identity and challenging us to a battle.

ー VS. Team Rocket Executive Petrel

This battle wasn't particularly difficult because of the level difference. I lead off with Slowking and managed to get through the entire battle just using Confusion and Surf.

Despite losing, he feels confident in Team Rocket's success because we don't have the second password. Fortunately, a little Murkrow ruins these plans and leads us towards the next locked door, mimicing Petrel's voice to open the doors. Right as we are about to proceed, another executive shows up with one of the lower grunts, trying to outnumber us.

Thankfully, Lance rushes to our aid and decided to add to the fact that the enemy is already underleveled by sending out his level FORTY Dragonite. At least I don't feel as bad about being overleveled now.

ー VS. Team Rocket Executive Ariana & Team Rocket Grunt

The levels are a little higher for this fight and there's a wider variety of Pokemon as well, but having a Dragonite by your side still makes it very underwhelming. I was leading with Sudowoodo for this one, so when the Gloom hit the field I was a little worried but Lance took care of it immediately with Wing Attack.

Now that the path has been cleared, we make it to the final room which has the machine that has been sending out strange signals to the Lake of Rage, forcing the Magikarp to evolve. This device is being powered by six Electrode, so me and Lance split up to each take out three. I also handled this with Sudowoodo since he's my Pokemon with a ground move. I did get paralyzed fairly quickly by Static which was a little annoyed because I kept on getting fully paralyzed on the second turn of Dig. Fortunately, these Electrode only had Spark to really hurt me and Sudowoodo laughs at physical attacks.

With this whole Team Rocket drama out of the way, there's only one thing left to do in Mahogany town and that's take on the gym! The level cap goes down one level from Jasmine for some reason, so this will probably be another relatively easy fight.

Since I knew there would be a lot of Water or Water/Ice Pokemon amongst the gym trainers, I was leading with Heracross most of the time and literally the final fight before taking on Pryce, she learnt Close Combat. At that point I pretty much knew it was GG for the gym leader.

ー VS. Gym Leader Pryce

He leads off with Seel, who actually isn't an Ice type just yet. I didn't want to start lowering my defenses just yet, so I went for a regular Brick Break with Heracross rather than going all out with Close Combat.

Seel went down in one hit and Dewgong and Piloswine eventually had to suffer the same faith, standing no chance against a fighting type powerhouse like Heracross. This had to be the easiest gym battle yet. Unfortunately, I feel like Claire won't be this easy.

Pryce hands us the Glacier badge and the TM for Hail. I would have preferred an offense ice type move for the upcoming gym, but HGSS is actually quite stingy with TMs. Most of the good TMs aren't available until the post-game which is a little annoying.

Anyway, I think this part has gotten very long so I will end things here. See you all next time!​

____

Current Team

Ares - Male - Lv. 37 - Mild nature - Blaze

Cut / Swift / Flame Wheel / Lava Plume

Hestia - Female - Lv. 36 - Serious nature - Static

Headbutt / Thunder Punch / Discharge / Thunder Wave

Poseidon - Male - Lv. 36 - Sassy nature - Oblivious

Headbutt / Shadow Ball / Surf / Confusion

Aphrodite - Female - Lv. 37 - Serious nature - Guts

Aerial Ace / Horn Attack / Brick Break / Close Combat

Atlas - Male - Lv. 36 - Docile nature - Rock Head

Strength / Low Kick / Rock Slide / Dig

Hades - Male - Lv. 36 - Gentle nature - Run Away

Iron Tail / Quick Attack / Confuse Ray / Payback

 

[Kaori]

Part IX. Radio Tower Takeover!

After getting our 7th gym badge, Prof. Elm calls us - not to congratulate - but to voice his concerns about the recent radio broadcast. Apparently Team Rocket is up to no good again and they have targeted the Radio Tower in Goldenrod City this time. We can't let that happen, so I get my trusty Fearow out of the PC to fly all the way back to Goldenrod.

Team Rocket is actually being smart for once and won't let us proceed unless we are one of us. Unfortunately, not all grunts are so smart as one of them lends us a uniform in the underground. Now that we're looking all cool and tough in our new black outfit, it's time to infiltrate and ruin their plans! ー Or so I thought, until Silver showed up to blow my cover and ruin the entire plan. To rub salt in the wound afterwards, he doesn't even battle you but runs off to face Lance instead.

What follows is a series of battles against Team Rocket Grunts, none of them being particularly tough. I did run into a few self-destructing Koffing but I came prepared and made sure I had Sudowoodo out to soak up the hit.

Eventually I made it to the Director's room where a familiar face was waiting for us. Executive Petrel is up to no good again, imitating the Director and broadcasting deceptive messages to the public. Last time we beat him fairly easily, but he seems confident about beating us this time.

ー VS. Team Rocket Executive Petrel

Somebody at Gamefreak must have run out of inspiration when they were scripting this battle because this guy has FIVE Koffing and then one Weezing. What happened to his Zubat and Raticate from the last battle!? I took out most of the Koffing with my Slowking, who outsped due to the level difference and takes them out in one hit. I did decide to play it save against the Weezing by swapping out to Sudowoodo, but he didn't even go for a suicidal attack.

In return for winning, he tells us the whereabouts of the actual Director and even gives us the key to open up the door to the Department Store's warehouse. Perhaps Team Rocket aren't bad guys after all?

To save the Director we have to backtrack a little to the underground, opening up the door and fighting even more grunts until we finally find him. He is thankful for being saved, but begs us to take back the Radio Tower from Team Rocket as well.

Back to the Radio Tower we go, this time with the card to open up the remaining door on hand. Behind the door awaits even more battles and even more familiar faces. However, before we can go and beat up some more Team Rocket goons, Silver appears once again after failing to find Lance, using us to vent off his frustration instead. Unlike last time when he was simply there to spoil our plans, he actually does challenge you to a battle this time.

ー VS. Rival Silver

I actually forgot about this rival battle, so I had Slowking out in front rather than Ampharos. I decided to just go for Confusion, but got flinched by a Bite. I knew that even a critical hit couldn't kill me, so I went for it again to take out the Golbat.

Silver sends out Haunter next so this is my cue to swap to Umbreon. Silver decides to be annoying and go for Confuse Ray, but we break through and take him out with a Payback.

Sneasel and Magnemite follow, both getting taken out by Heracross' Brick Break.

This leaves just his ace, Feraligatr. I already lost a Pokemon to this one once, so I am not taking any risks and swapping out to Ampharos right away to finish it off with a Discharge.

Silver throws a bit of a tantrum over losing again, but he also seems to finally understand that his way of raising Pokemon might be flawed. It would be nice if he offered to help us out in taking down Team Rocket, but instead he runs off once again.

Unfortunately the battles are not over just yet. Soon after we run into Executive Proton, whose team is significantly less stacked than Petrel's with only two Pokemon. At least they are two Pokemon from different evolution lines.

ー VS. Team Rocket Executive Proton

I led off with Ampharos this time, an excellent choice to take out the Golbat in one hit and deal big damage to the Weezing as well. The latter lived on just 1 HP which did make me a little scared, but thankfully it didn't blow up in my face.

On the next floor the sole female executive, Ariana was waiting for us, delighted to find out we didn't have the help of a certain dragon master this time around.

ー VS. Team Rocket Executive Ariana

Her team is probably the most balanced so far with Murkrow preventing her from getting absolutely destroyed by a strong Psychic type. That being said, I had Typhlosion out in front who quite literally burnt through all three of Pokemon with Lava Plume.

After what felt like an eternity of battles, we finally reach the elevator which takes us to the very top of the building. There the final hurdle is already awaiting us. A new executive going by the name Archer, who seems very adamant about reviving Team Rocket in hopes of reuniting with Giovanni.

ー VS. Team Rocket Executive Archer

Finally some spotlight for the Houndour line! It really is a shame that one of the best designed Pokemon from Gen 2 gets almost completely forgotten in its own generation and isn't even available until after defeating the Elite Four. Unforgivable Gamefreak.

Unfornately Archer doesn't do the line justice with a physical based moveset which means they get completely walled by Sudowoodo and destroyed by Dig. Koffing has Levitate, but there's not much it can do in return so I simply used a couple of strengths to take it down.

This finally puts an end to Team Rocket once again as Archer admits defeat and disbands the group for the second time in two years. They retreat and the Director shows up to hand us the Silver Wing as a token of his gratitude. Eventually we will be able to use this to summon a legendary Pokemon at the Whirl Islands.

I think this is a perfect moment to end this part, so I'll see you all next time!

-- TO BE CONTINUED --
​

Current Team

Ares - Male - Lv. 39 - Mild nature - Blaze

Cut / Swift / Flame Wheel / Lava Plume

Hestia - Female - Lv. 38 - Serious nature - Static

Headbutt / Thunder Punch / Discharge / Thunder Wave

Poseidon - Male - Lv. 38 - Sassy nature - Oblivious

Headbutt / Shadow Ball / Surf / Confusion

Aphrodite - Female - Lv. 38 - Serious nature - Guts

Aerial Ace / Horn Attack / Brick Break / Close Combat

Atlas - Male - Lv. 38 - Docile nature - Rock Head

Strength / Low Kick / Rock Slide / Dig

Hades - Male - Lv. 38 - Gentle nature - Run Away

Iron Tail / Quick Attack / Confuse Ray / Payback

 

[Kaori]

Part X. Clair's rage

Last time we earned ourselves the Silver Wing from the Radio Tower's president, but just the wing on its own is not enough to summon a legendary Pokemon. Instead, we continue on our badge quest, making our way over to Blackthorn City, home to the eight and final gym. To get there, we had to travel through Ice Path, which wasn't as bad of a trip as I feared it might be because I was smart and stocked up on plenty of Max Repels before heading inside.

Blackthorn city doesn't have much else to offer besides the gym, so that's where I headed straight away. I was a few levels below the gym leader's ace, but since I had such an easy time with both Jasmine and Pryce, I wanted to challenge myself a little. I also made a quick trip back to Goldenrod City beforehand to buy the TM for Blizzard and teach this to Slowking.

The gym trainers weren't too challenging since I could use Ampharos against the Horsea and Seadra. Unfortunately, I may have underestimated Clair just a little...

ー VS. Gym Leader Clair

I totally forgot she lead with her Gyarados, so I had Slowking out first. I swapped to Ampharos immediately, but had to take two hits before I could take it out with a Discharge, taking quite a bit of damage.

Once the first Dragonair hit the field, I switched back to Slowking, missing my first Blizzard which immediately reminded me how much I hate moves that don't have perfect accuracy. Thankfully, I hit the last one but it did not OHKO. Clair used a Full Restore and thankfully I hit my third Blizzard, after which I could finish it with Confusion.

The second Dragonair went down the same way, except she did not use her second Full Restore when it was in the red after a Blizzard, saving it for Kingdra instead.

Kingdra is exactly where troubles started because Blizzard didn't do nearly as much as I thought it would and she hit fairly hard with both Dragon Pulse and Hyper Beam. Once I was out of Blizzards, I realized Slowking wasn't gonna cut it, so I tried switching to Umbreon to get some more chip damage instead. I missed a Blizzard earlier, but Clair kept on hitting one Hydro Pump after the other, one of which being a crit and almost taking down Umbreon.

I eventually got Kingdra down very low, but then she used a Full Restore and I was starting to get a little anxious. My best bet at hitting it relatively hard was probably with a neutral Discharge from Ampharos, but she was only at about 40% health after taking those hits from Gyarados earlier. I knew I couldn't switch her safely. In the end, I had to sacrifice Sudowoodo to get a free turn to heal Ampharos and get a clean switch in.

RIP Atlas the Sudowoodo

Lv. 20 ~ Lv. 38

Thankfully, Ampharos was able to finish it from there and we suffered no more casualties. I did feel bad about having to led Sudowoodo die like that, but out of all my team members, I think he was the 'weakest link' and the least valuable against the upcoming Elite Four.

We had defeated Clair but instead of handing us the badge, she throws a fit and forces us to head towards the Dragon's Den to truly prove ourselves as a capable trainer. After dropping off Sudowoodo in the PC, I did just that. You need to pass through a Whirlpool to reach the innermost part of the den, so I temporarily got rid of Blizzard on Slowking again. I can always buy a new TM and teach it to him again.

To prove our worth as a trainer, all we have to do is answer a few questions which have very obvious answers. The old man scolds Clair for acting so childish and she finally has to give up and hands us the Rising Badge. Upon trying to leave the Dragon's Den, she stops up near the entrance and gives out the TM for Dragon Pulse.

This TM will be put to good use because I will be picking up a Dragon type to replace the fallen Sudowoodo. Since we answered all questions of the quiz correctly, we can get a special Dratini with ExtremeSpeed.

Athena (F) the Dratini has joined the party!

Bashful nature

Shed Skin

ExtremeSpeed / Dragon Rage / Twister / Thunder Wave

Pseudo legends are quite a chore to train, but I did receive Dragonite as a reserve and this will give me two new types on the team once she is fully evolved. I taught her Dragon Pulse and Surf immediately, the latter being extremely useful to train against the wild Geodude and Graveler on route 45. I also went back to Mr. Pokemon's house to trade the Red Scale for an EXP. Share which I handed to Dratini while fighting the trainers on route 45. This path eventually brings us back to Newbark Town where everything started. Prof. Elm is delighted by our achievements and gifts us the Master Ball.

Next on the agenda is to meet up with the Kimono Girls in Ecruteak City, but I need to do quite a bit of training before that. There aren't too many great spots for grinding in HGSS, but the one I eventually settled with is on route 47, up the waterfall. There's wild Pokemon in the early 30s there, some of them giving out up to 1000 EXP. which is pretty respectable.

Athena evolved into Dragonair!

After many hours of grinding, my team was finally trained up. I will probably have to do a little more grinding before the Elite Four, but we have some battles left before that as well.

I will be ending this part here, so next time we can start off with the Kimono Girl battles and the summoning of the legendary Pokemon.

-- TO BE CONTINUED --
​

Current Team

Ares - Male - Lv. 45 - Mild nature - Blaze

Cut / Swift / Flamethrower / Lava Plume

Hestia - Female - Lv. 45 - Serious nature - Static

Headbutt / Signal Beam / Discharge / Thunder Wave

Poseidon - Male - Lv. 45 - Sassy nature - Oblivious

Whirlpool / Shadow Ball / Surf / Confusion

Aphrodite - Female - Lv. 45 - Serious nature - Guts

Aerial Ace / Strength / Brick Break / Close Combat

Hades - Male - Lv. 45 - Gentle nature - Run Away

Iron Tail / Quick Attack / Confuse Ray / Payback

Athena - Female - Lv. 42 - Bashful nature - Shed Skin

ExtremeSpeed / Dragon Pulse / Dragon Rage / Waterfall

 

[Kaori]

Part XI. Legendary Encounters

Once back in Ecruteak City, it is time to return to the dance hall and face off against the different Kimono Girls we have been encountering throughout our journey. There's no way to heal in between these battles, so having a solid lead is actually quite important here.

ー VS. Kimono Girls

I say that now but as I was playing, I actually got greedy and wanted as much EXP. for Dragonair as I could get, leading off with her even though she is definitely the weakest member on the squad right now. I managed to slowly whittle down Umbreon and take that out, but Espeon hits like a truck so I was smart there and swapped out to my own Umbreon.

Flareon was another Pokemon I could barely handle with Dragonair because I'm running Waterfall on her at the moment, so I managed to get off two super effective hits. Even though I resist Jolteon's STAB attacks, its SpA is still sky high so once again I swapped out, once again to Umbreon to tank the special hits.

Vaporeon was the one eeveelution I knew for sure Dragonair can not handle because of Aurora Beam, so I didn't even scout for damage here and just immediately swapped out to Ampharos to Discharge it.

After winning against all five sisters, we receive the Tidal Bell to combine with our Silver Wing and summon the legendary Pokemon Lugia in the Whirl Islands.

I'm glad I hadn't deleted Whirlpool on Slowking just yet because this is one last time we'll have to use it. I decided to really take my time to explore the Whirl Islands as well, having stocked up on plenty of Max Repels before doing so. There's a few Rare Candies you can get here which will come in useful for the Elite Four grind.

Soon enough, we reach the innermost chamber, being led inside by showing off the Silver Wing. The Kimono Girls are already there, performing a dance ritual as Lugia shows up through the Waterfall and we get a change to challenge it.

Usually this is where you would catch Lugia, but we're not using any legendaries in this Scramble Nuzlocke so Ampharos gets the honor of destroying it with Discharge.

This wraps up the main plot of the first half of this game and leaves us with nothing else to do but to head East of Newbark Town and take our first steps into Kanto on the way to the Indigo Plateau. There's two more routes before Victory Road, both housing a few trainers. The levels are higher than what we've fought before, but when you have a full team of six, it really doesn't yield all that much EXP. (Especially when playing on set mode which means EXP. is shared more often than not)

Victory Road doesn't have any trainers, unfortunately, but you do need a fair amount of HMs so I made sure to keep them on my Pokemon for now. I'll be optimizing all movesets as soon as I'm ready to take on the Elite Four.

At the end of Victory Road, our rival is waiting for us, determined he finally learnt what it takes to be a good trainer and confident in his ability to beat us.

ー VS. Rival Silver

It's a shame 90% of his team is not fully evolved yet, but at the same time it makes sense when you know there's still an entire second half to the game with more opportunities for rival battles. Pokemon like Sneasel and Magneton also did not have an evolution at the time the original games were released and are plenty of strong on their own.

Fortunately for us, we still had the upper hand. Typhlosion takes care of Sneasel easily with Lava Plume while Slowking defeats Golbat with Confusion. Magneton drops to Heracross' Close Combat and both Kadabra and Haunter get destroyed by any dark type attack from Umbreon.

Feraligatr is definitely the powerhouse on his team, but Ampharos doesn't fear it and can hit back for super effective damage. Dragonair didn't really get used in this fight, but I'm mainly just trying to get her to survive long enough to become a Dragonite so I'd rather not take any risks.

We exit the Victory Road and reach the Indigo Plateau, now gaining easy access back to this point without having to navigate through the cave again. I would love to be able to just go in now, but there's still quite a bit of training left to be done. Victory Road and the patch of grass up the waterfall on the route leading to the Safari Zone were my best bets for grinding, both yielding quite a bit of EXP.

Once the whole team was lv. 50, I also stopped by the Move Deleter and Move Relearner to finalize everyone's movesets.

The Elite Four and Champion battles deserve a part of their own, so I will end things off here. I will leave the stats of moves of the entire team below so you guys have an idea what the squad was looking like.

-- TO BE CONTINUED --

Spoiler: Final Team

Ares the Typhlosion ♂

Lv. 50

Mild nature

Blaze

144/107/90/148/104/129

Swift - Flamethrower - Lava Plume - Focus Blast

Hestia the Ampharos ♀

Lv. 50

Serious nature

Static

166/102/94/131/101/79

Headbutt - Signal Beam - Discharge - Thunder Wave

Poseidon the Slowking ♂

Lv. 50

Sassy nature

Oblivious

169/88/97/114/138/56

Blizzard - Psychic - Surf - Shadow Ball

Aphrodite the Heracross ♀

Lv. 50

Serious nature

Guts

146/148/92/64/119/118

Aerial Ace - Brick Break - Close Combat - Night Slash

Hades the Umbreon ♂

Lv. 50

Gentle nature

Synchronize

162/97/123/79/168/91

Payback - Quick Attack - Iron Tail - Confuse Ray

Athena the Dragonair ♀

Lv. 50

Bashful nature

Shed Skin

136/105/102/85/87/98

Dragon Pulse - ExtremeSpeed - Dragon Rage - Waterfall

 

[Kaori]

Part XII. The Elite Four

Spoiler: ー VS. Will

The first member of the Elite Four is Will, a Psychic type user. Out of all Elite Four members, he is the one I am least worried about because I have a tanky Dark type.

He leads off with this first Xatu, confusing me with Confuse Ray but Umbreon breaks through and OHKOs it with Payback.

Exeggutor comes out next and sets up a Reflect, so I decide to switch into Typhlosion and go for Lava Plume instead. I also avoided the Egg Bomb when switching in so my Typhlosion is still at full.

Slowbro is up so I have to swap out to my Ampharos and Discharge for the KO.

Jynx shouldn't be too much of a problem since I have Typhlosion, who avoids yet another attack as we are able to avoid getting hit with Lovely Kiss. After that, Lava Plume is an easy OHKO.

The Reflect has worn off by now, so I could go back to Umbreon to finish it the same way it started, with a Payback.

Overall difficulty: 0/5, very easy even if I didn't play on set mode. His Pokemon aren't all that strong and I had counters for all of them. It's a shame they didn't give him a stronger Psychic type like Alakazam or Espeon.

Spoiler: ー VS. Koga

The Poison type user Koga is next, which I am not looking forward to because I hate status conditions, especially Toxic.

I lead off with my Slowking, so this isn't the best match up, but we somehow outspeed and kill it in one hit.

Forretress is up next, so I swap out to Thyplosion immediately, but he does get up one layer of Toxic Spikes which might be annoying for later.

I swap back to Slowking as soon as the Muk comes out, but this jerk is going for Minimize which may get really annoying. Thankfully, Slowking is a bro (pun intended) and lands the Psychic even after two Minimizes.

Venomoth is easily the least threatening member on his team since I can easily swap in Typhlosion and OHKO it with Lava Plume.

Crobat is his last Pokemon, which should be easily handled by Ampharos. However, he starts setting up Double Teams and keeps on avoiding my attacks. Eventually I do land a discharge and manage to OHKO him.

Overall difficulty: 2/5, this Pokemon aren't the strongest but Toxic Spikes + everything after that having evasion increasing moves to Toxic stall you can get quite annoying.

Spoiler: ー VS. Bruno

My Slowking must be the fastest Slowking alive because he once again outspeeds and get anothr OHKO with Psychic.

I was fairly certain he would go for a Thunder Punch here, but Slowking should be able to tank one since it isn't a STAB attack. We do live it and retaliate with Psychic, OHKO'ing the Hitmonchan.

Onix does outspeed us and goes for Earthquake, but it gets absolutely obliterated by Surf afterwards.

I’m below half HP right now so I decide to heal up and at the same time scout for which move it would use against me. It ends up being Rock Slide, which doesn't hurt too badly and we take him out with a Psychic.

Hitmonlee is his last hope, but I don't think it has anything that can hurt Slowking or he would have sent it out earlier. He goes for Swagger which is mildly annoying since we hurt ourselves, but I stocked up on Full Restores and eventually get off the Psychic for the KO.

Overall difficulty: 2/5, Bruno's Pokemon hit really hard on the physical side, but if you have a good physical wall or a strong Psychic type which is either fast or bulky, he isn't that much of a challenge.

Spoiler: ー VS. Karen

I lead off with my Heracross, hoping to use brute force to Close Combat my way through her team. It definitely worked against Umbreon who went down in one hit despite its bulk.

I know Murkrow is quite frail, but I was also at -1 SpDef. and I didn't want to risk not OHKO'ing with Close Combat and getting absolutely destroyed because x4 weaknesses are no fun. Instead I swapped to Ampharos as a safer alternative.

I swapped to Dragonair because she has Waterfall and I wanted to give her a chance. However, Houndoom set up a Nasty Plot on the switch which is when I knew I had ****ed up. Waterfall doesn’t kill and Dark Pulse hits like a truck, so I had no other choice but to swap to Umbreon who should be able to take any hit. However, Flamethrower does way more than I expected and I started to panic just a little.

My best strategy was to go for Confuse Ray and then slowly whittle the opponent down with Quick Attack. Thankfully the AI decided to be 'smart' here and swap to Gengar who is immune to Normal type attacks, but by this, Karen actually threw away her chance to sweep me with a +4 Houndoom.

Gengar against Umbreon might seem like an ideal match up in my favor, but I do know it has Destiny Bond and I am obviously slower, so that terrifies me. Instead I just go for Confuse Ray to hopefully get a clean switch in to Heracross, outspeed and go for Night Slash for the OHKO.

Houndoom is back but if I was able to outspeed a Gengar, I should be able to outspeed a Houndoom as well. Thankfully we do and Heracross picks up another KO with Close Combat.

Karen saved the least threatening for last, since I can easily just swap in Typhlosion and go for a Lava Plume here. He does get paralyzed upon switching in by Stun Store, but I can fix that with a Full Heal after the battle.

Overall difficulty: 3/5, Karen has some really threatening team members like that Nasty Plot Houndoom who could have definitely KO'd one of my Pokemon if I didn't get lucky with the switch. Destiny Bond Gengar is something that can really catch you off guard and make for an upsetting KO as well.

 

[SAF]

Done with the E4 already? Good luck with the round 1's finale.

As a side note, round 1 is the Johto arc and round 2 is the Kanto arc.

 

[Kaori]

@SAF Thank you! Lance ended up being quite the struggle.
___

Part XIII. These dragons make me rage!

ー VS. Champion Lance

I knew his lead would be Gyarados, so I made sure to lead with Ampharos and get the OHKO with Discharge. We were not able to outspeed so I do take about 40% from Waterfall in the process.

Lance is not screwing around and decides to send out his Ace right away to Outrage. It does an incredible amount of damage to Slowking, enough to OHKO me with a critical hit. Since I had to switch in as well, I can't go for Blizzard until he gets confused and hits himself, giving me a free turn. We somehow manage to avoid critical hits and thankfully Blizzard does OHKO him once we land.

Lance's other two Dragonites are more special based, so I thought the worst was done, but even Dragon Rush still does about 70% to Slowking. I unfortunately missed my first Blizzard, so once again I had to heal spam until he finally missed one, allowing me get off an attack and take him out.

At this point, I am very sick of seeing Dragonites. Dragon Rush still hits like a truck and I'm really fearing a crit which would be the worst because I can not win this without my Slowking. I try to be smart and swap to my special wall Umbreon, but even then it does 50%. Thankfully, Lance makes a stupid play by going for Thunder Wave on my healing turn, activating my Synchronize and paralyzing him. He still outspeeds Slowking, but at least I have more chances of getting a chance to attack either by him missing or getting paralyzed.

Aerodactyl has two moves that can completely destroy my Slowking, so I have to swap to Ampharos here. Thankfully she tanks a hit upon the swithc in and my Static activates, paralyzing the Aerodactyl. This gives me an opportunity to heal up and OHKO him with Discharge the next turn.

Charizard is his last Pokemon and I am more than ready for this to be over. Those Dragonites were extremely mentally draining. Discharge just barely misses the KO, unfortunately, but I can swap out to Typhlosion as he Full Restores before switching back out to reset Ampharos’ defense after the drop from Aerodacyl's Crunch earlier.

ー And with that, we've officially defeated the champion without any casualties, although some luck was definitely involved avoiding critical hits.

Lance takes us to the Hall of Fame where we can register our party, although the adventure isn't over just yet. I will be continuing with the Kanto saga of the game, eventually challenging the E4 again and even taking on Red.

​

 

[Kaori]

Part XIV. Welcome to Kanto!

After earning ourselves a spot in the Indigo League Hall of Fame, the adventure wasn't over just yet. Professor Elm is overjoyed to let us know that there's a whole other set of eight badges to earn in Kanto. Technically we already set foot in Kanto when taking on the league, but this time we are going there by boat!

On the ship, an old man is making a ruckus over his missing granddaughter, so we show our kind heart and help find the little girl, who was actually just exploring and having a good time. There's also a couple of trainers you can fight on the ship, but they were quite weak in comparison to the Elite Four Battles.

The ship eventually drops us off at Vermillion City, home of the Electric type gym lead by Lt. Surge. The routes surrounding Vermillion have quite a bit of trainers in the original games, but we don't have that luxury this time around. My team hadn't really leveled much since the fight against Lance, but I figured it would be fine since I did plenty of grinding before taking on the league.

One thing I was not looking forward to, however, was doing the gym puzzle. I know how it works, yet I always have the worst luck with the Vermillion gym puzzle and end up choosing the wrong trash can EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Eventually I did get the thing unlocked to advance to the gym leader. I considered giving my Heracross Earthquake, but I would rather wait until Dragonair evolves and teach it to her then. This does leave me with no real answer to Electric types, but I was hoping Typhlosion could just power through with his strong fire type attacks.

ー VS. Gym Leader Lt. Surge

I lead off with Typhlosion as planned, doing a nice amount of damage to the Raichu as he opts to go for Thunder Wave and cut my speed. I don't want to mess with hax, so I use a Full Heal right away. This does open up the opportunity for Lt. Surge to start setting up Double Teams which is mildly annoying. Eventually I do hit another Lava Plume, taking out the Raichu but leaving my Typhlosion at only about 60% health.

I didn't want to take a big hit from the Electrode (especially since these things are notorious for exploding) so I healed up first before going for any attack. This is where things started going downhill because the combination of Double Team and Special Attack raises through Charge Beam proved to be very annoying. In a moment of panic, I also didn't remember that Swift has perfect accuracy so I should have gone for that as soon as the Electrode began to raise its evasion.

By the time I remembered, Typhlosion couldn't survive two Charge Beams, so swapped into Umbreon to get just a little bit of damage off with Quick Attack and ensure the KO with Swift afterwards, as well as give me a chance to heal Thyplosion. Having to sacrifice a Pokemon like this gave me flashbacks to the fight against Claire, but I didn't want to lose my starter and only fire type either.

RIP Hades the Umbreon

Lv. 5 ~ Lv. 53

Once the first Electrode dropped, Typhlosion managed to defeat the remaining of his team fairly easily. I knew I had to go for Swift right away against the second Electrode and both Magneton and Electabuzz were no match for Lava Plume.

I received the Thunder Badge and the TM of the move that almost swept me, but I was mostly just frustrated over losing my special wall. While Umbreon was definitely the weakest in terms of raw power, he would have been extremely handy to have around for the upcoming gym battle against Sabrina.

After taking a look at which reserves I had left, I eventually decided to head back to Victory Road to catch myself an Ursaring. This would add another Physical attacker to the team and Ursaring can learn some Dark and Ghost type moves which will hopefully come in useful against Sabrina's strong Psychic types. The bad news? I had to do A LOT of grinding.

Artemis (F) the Ursaring has joined the party!

Lv. 33

Gentle nature

Guts

Fury Swipes / Faint Attack / Sweet Scent / Slash

Since there are no trainers in between the Vermillion and Saffron City gyms, so I had to resort back to my old grinding spots in Johto. I can tell you, it wasn't fun to train up this thing a whole twenty levels. It is part of the reason why this update is so late, although I've also just been procrastinating.

Once Ursaring was caught up with the team, I headed straight to Saffron City and went straight for the gym. I taught Ursaring both Return and Shadow Claw, hoping she would be able to pull through in the upcoming fight. Pyschic types usually are very frail on the physical side, so having a hard-hitting physical attacker that isn't weak to Psychic helps a lot.

ー VS. Gym Leader Sabrina

Sabrina doesn't have as many Pokemon as Lt. Surge did, but two of them have the power to take out entire teams if they set up one or two Calm Minds. Which is why I was mildly concerned when her Espeon went straight for the set up on turn one and Shadow Claw failed to be an OHKO. Thankfully, Psychic at +1 didn't knock out Ursaring from full either (but it came very close) and the next hit took out Espeon.

Mr. Mime was the least of my troubles, but I wanted my Ursaring to be healthy for Alakazam so I swapped out to Ampharos to take out the Mr. Mime with Signal Beam. Mr. Mime did set up a Light Screen so it took more turns than expected, but his attacks didn't hit as hard as Espeon's.

Alakazam is her final Pokemon and a huge threat. I had to swap in Ursaring on a Reflect, which is both good and bad. It's good because I don't have to take damage, but also bad because now I definitely won't OHKO with Shadow Claw. It ended up doing about 50% while Psychic did over 70% to Ursaring, so I swapped out to Slowking hoping to finish it with Shadow Ball. I was fully expecting to get hit by a Shadow Ball myself first, but instead she runs Energy Ball on this Alakazam. It isn't STAB and Slowking has great special defense, so we live it no problem and finish off the Alakazam.

No casualties this time, but this gym definitely wasn't a pushover either. So far Kanto has been proving to be quite a challenge. I'll probably take on Erika and Janine next, which hopefully will be a little easier. Dragonair is getting really close to evolving as well so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

-- TO BE CONTINUED --
​

Current Team

Ares - Male - Lv. 55 - Mild nature - Blaze

Focus Blast / Swift / Flamethrower / Lava Plume

Hestia - Female - Lv. 54 - Serious nature - Static

Light Screen / Signal Beam / Discharge / Thunder Wave

Poseidon - Male - Lv. 54 - Sassy nature - Oblivious

Blizzard / Shadow Ball / Surf / Psychic

Aphrodite - Female - Lv. 53 - Serious nature - Guts

Aerial Ace / Night Slash / Brick Break / Close Combat

Artemis - Female - Lv. 54 - Gentle nature - Guts

Return / Shadow Claw / Fury Swipes / Slash

Athena - Female - Lv. 53 - Bashful nature - Shed Skin

ExtremeSpeed / Dragon Pulse / Dragon Rage / Waterfall

 

[SAF]

Aaah, tough luck for your Umbreon. I hope you'll get better next time.

But wait, Jasmine? I thought you've already took her out. Or did you mean Janine?

 

[Kaori]

@SAF Whoops! That was definitely a typo. xD I've fixed it now.

___

Part XV. Athena Rises!

It is a short journey to Celadon City, leaving us with not many places to train due to the lack of trainers in this part of Kanto. Fortunately, Erika is one of the easier gyms in Kanto and we have plenty of options for Grass types, so I am not too worried about it.

The Department Store in Celadon City also sells some different TMs from the one in Goldenrod, but I will be checking that out later. Right now Ursaring is the one who could really use a better movepool, but having Cut and Strength as available HMs is convenient as well so I'll just have to deal with it for now.

Instead I headed towards the gym, defeating most of the gym trainers with Typhlosion who was definitely leading in levels at this point.

ー VS. Gym Leader Erika

As expected, this gym was a complete push-over since she does not have any options for Fire types.

On top of that, Typhlosion outsped her entire squad and destroyed all of them with Lava Plume. I love Erika's design, but I really wish they made her a little tougher because this is not helping Grass types' bad reputation of being 'weak'.

We get the Rainbow Badge and the TM for Giga Drain which isn't very useful since we don't have a grass type on the team anymore.

After defeating Erika, I headed towards the Cycling Path to take on all the trainers there, wanting to get some extra training done before Janine's gym.

Athena evolved into Dragonite

Finally having a fully evolved Dragonite is extremely nice because it gave a huge buff to her stats. It also meant a complete overhaul of her moveset with Fly and Dragon Claw as dual physical STAB. While I would like to add Earthquake as well, I value both Dragon Dance and ExtremeSpeed at the moment. Once we don't have to explore the region anymore, I'll probably get rid of Fly in favor of EQ.

The rest of the team also gained some levels from the trainers around Fuchia City, so I felt confident going inside the gym to challenge Janine.

ー VS. Gym Leader Janine

This is another gym Typhlosion would do amazing in because half of her team is Bug type and therefore weak to fire as well.

However, I lead off with Slowking, hoping to Psychic my way to victory instead. The Crobat tried to be annoying with Confusion shenanigans, but we eventually broke through and took him out.

Her Weezing has Explosion which could be extremely scary, but thankfully it didn't go for it and also gets destroyed by Psychic.

The two Ariados could be dangerous because of their Bug type move, but we already know from the fight against Koga in the Elite Four that Slowking somehow outspeeds and OHKOs them.

I didn't want to risk my luck against the Venomoth, however, so I did swap out to Typhlosion there to finish it off with Lava Plume.

I think two gym badges per episode is a good amount, so I will leave things off here. Next time we will be heading back towards Cerulean to take on Misty and from there to Pewter for the gym battle against Brock.

-- TO BE CONTINUED --
​

Current Team

Ares - Male - Lv. 57 - Mild nature - Blaze

Focus Blast / Swift / Flamethrower / Lava Plume

Hestia - Female - Lv. 56 - Serious nature - Static

Light Screen / Signal Beam / Discharge / Thunder Wave

Poseidon - Male - Lv. 57 - Sassy nature - Oblivious

Blizzard / Shadow Ball / Surf / Psychic

Aphrodite - Female - Lv. 55 - Serious nature - Guts

Aerial Ace / Night Slash / Brick Break / Close Combat

Artemis - Female - Lv. 55 - Gentle nature - Guts

Return / Shadow Claw / Cut / Strength

Athena - Female - Lv. 55 - Bashful nature - Inner Focus

ExtremeSpeed / Dragon Claw / Fly / Dragon Dance

 

[Kaori]

Part XVI. Team Rocket's Return...?

I travelled to Cerulean City in hopes of battling the gym leader there, but Misty is nowhere to be found. This gave me some time to explore the areas around Cerulean, taking on all the trainers of the old Nugget Bridge, who have moved to the route right after it for some reason.

The route East of Cerulean, leading up to Rock Tunnel, have plenty of trainers to fight as well which made for some nice experience. I even had one close call against a Dugtrio with my Typhlosion after getting locked in with Arena Trap. My opponent got a critical hit with Dig, nearly taking me out in one hit from full. Thankfully Dugtrio are super frail so they easily got taken out by a Lava Plume.

Surfing down the water at the end of route 9, I stumbled upon the Power Plant which is experiencing a bit of a crisis right now after one of their generator parts has been stolen.

Could it be...? Is Team Rocket up to no good again?

One of the policemen at the power plant tells us about a shady figure lurking around Cerulean City so it's up to us now to go investigate. Eventually we find the team Rocket grunt inside the gym (while the gym leader is still absent for some reason) but he manages to escape.

After chasing him around a little, he eventually battles us but his team isn't very strong. After defeating him, he admits to hiding the part inside the gym. After some digging around, I eventually find it in one of the tubes to the side of the pool.

After delivering the parts back to the Power Plant, I was hoping to finally battle Misty, but she is still absent from her gym. (Gym leaders sure have it easy, huh?) Eventually we find her hanging out around Cerulean Cape with her boyfriend, completely ignoring her duties as a gym leader. She even gets mad at us for interrupting their moment. This is exactly why Misty is worst girl.

Either way, she finally goes to her gym, allowing you to take her on.

ー VS. Gym Leader Misty

I lead off with my Ampharos, who has been the MVP throughout most of this challenge. Once again, she proves her worth by taking out the Golduck in one hit with Discharge.

Quagsire comes out next and unfortunately I do not have a grass type. However, I do have Slowking with high SpA to use Psychic a couple of times and get the job done.

Against her Lapras I went out to Heracross, OHKOing with a Close Combat.

That leaves just Starmie, which gets easily taken out by Ampharos' Discharge. Thankfully, her Starmie does not have Hydro Pump so I could get a relatively safe switch in as well.

Our next destination is Pewter City which can be reached either through Mt. Moon or through Diglett Tunnel. The latter is being blocked by a sleeping Snorlax, but after fixing the Power Plant, you can get the Pokegear extension to get the Pokeflute channel and wake it up.

Mt. Moon does not have any trainers in HGSS, but when you try to enter it through the entrance on route 4, Silver shows up for a rival battle.

ー VS. Rival Silver

He leads off with Sneasel while I led off with my Typhlosion, being able to go for a Lava Plume and easily take him out.

Golbat is up next and while I could probably take it on with Typhlosion as well, I decided to swap to Ampharos to spread the EXP a little.

Heracross takes care of the Magneton with Close Combat while Ursaring puts in some real work against both the Alakazam and the Gengar with Shadow Claw.

Feraligatr is his last Pokemon, who also gets taken out by MVP Ampharos.

After doing the rival battle, I headed back towards Pewter City for one more gym battle.

ー VS. Gym Leader Brock

Brock's team is extremely weak to Grass type moves, which unfortunately I do not have on the team.

However, I do have a bulky Water type and a strong Fighting type so this gym was one of the easiest nevertheless.

Both Graveler and Rhyhorn are not even fully evolved, which is kind of ridiculous at this point in the game, but both of them got blown back by Slowking's Surf.

Omastar and Kabutops were taken out by Heracross' Close Combat while Onix fell to Slowking's Surf just like his other 4x weak mons. Easy gym badge!

Next time we'll clear out the rest of the Kanto region and get our last two gym badges. Until then!

-- TO BE CONTINUED --
​

Current Team

Ares - Male - Lv. 60 - Mild nature - Blaze

Focus Blast / Swift / Eruption / Lava Plume

Hestia - Female - Lv. 60 - Serious nature - Static

Light Screen / Signal Beam / Discharge / Thunder Wave

Poseidon - Male - Lv. 60 - Sassy nature - Oblivious

Blizzard / Shadow Ball / Surf / Psychic

Aphrodite - Female - Lv. 59 - Serious nature - Guts

Aerial Ace / Night Slash / Brick Break / Close Combat

Artemis - Female - Lv. 57 - Gentle nature - Guts

Return / Shadow Claw / Cut / Strength

Athena - Female - Lv. 57 - Bashful nature - Inner Focus

ExtremeSpeed / Dragon Claw / Fly / Dragon Dance

​

 

[Kaori]

Part XV. Feeling Blue?

After defeating Brock in Pewter City, I headed South through Viridian Forest. I have to say, out of all areas they revamped for the remakes, the forest has to be one of my favorite. I really like the texture of the tiles and the area just looks so much more alive than it did in the originals or even FR/LG.

There are a few Bug Catchers scattered across as well, but none of them are very challenging when you have a Typhlosion with Eruption. Even though this is my least favorite Johto starter, Eruption is just so powerful, it takes out almost any Pokemon that doesn't resist it from full.

The Viridian Gym is currently empty, so we have to keep on heading down across route 1 towards Pallet Town. From there you can Surf across the water to Cinnabar Island ー or at least what is left of it. During the two years in between the first and second generation, a volcano erupted on the island, destroying most of it.

On the island's remains, you can find Blue looking around. Unfortunately, he does not want to battle until you have collected at least one more badge in Kanto.

This badge can be obtained a little further towards the East in the Seafoam Islands. I have never been a fan of exploring ice caverns, but there's one particular item I would love to get. Good TMs are kind of hard to come by in HGSS, but I was very happy to finally pick up Ice Beam to teach Slowking. While Blizzard is extremely strong, I'm not a big fan of gambling with accuracy.

Speaking of Slowking, he is sure to put in a lot of work in this upcoming gym battle. Even though Cinnabar Island has been wrecked, Blaine still continues to function as a gym leader, although his gym design has changed just a little. I quite liked the quiz format of the old one, but the new gym looks pretty sweet as well.

ー VS. Gym Leader Blaine

Overall, this gym was very underwhelming for being the second to last one you have to face within Kanto. Not only does he have just three Pokemon, but all of them get destroyed by either Water or Ground type attacks.

Magcargo has a 4x weakness to water and extremely slow, so that was an easy OHKO. Magmar did get some damage off on my Slowking with ThunderPunch, but not nearly enough to KO and Surf easily took him out after. Rapidash obviously outspeeds and Bounce can hit hard or even paralyze you, but overall this gym did not feel like a challenge at all.

I could have technically taken on Blue right after, but I did not want to trigger the updated Elite Four just yet. Instead I decided to re-challenge the old Elite Four a couple of times to get some grinding done for the rematches. Now that I was 10+ levels higher than during my last attempt, taking them out was really no problem at all.

The downside to this? I was just a little bit overleveled by the time I went to take on Blue. I did not train all the way to lv. 70 yet, since Mt. Silver would open up after I get 16 badges as well, but I was around lv. 63~65 while Blue's ace is only 60.

ー VS. Gym Leader Blue

First of all, I was really glad to finally see a gym leader with a full squad of six. I feel like they should have given all the Kanto gym leaders a complete team since this is the post-game after all. At least you can gather their phone numbers and rematch them with their updated teams in the Fuchia City dojo, but that requires you to track them down across the region AND figure out who is available on which day.

Blue's team is looking quite powerful, but I am confident in my own Pokemon as well. I lead off with Typhlosion to hit something hard with Eruption and luckily for me, he sends out Exeggutor who definitely won't appreciate the super effective attack.

Rhydon gets send out next so I quickly swapt to my Slowking to hit him with a 4x effective Surf. Surprisingly, Machamp is sent out next. I go for Psychic as Blue hits me with a ThunderPunch, which thankfully didn't take out my Slowking.

Gyarados is up next, which is an easy swap to Ampharos as Discharge takes him out in one hit. For Arcanine, I decided to switch to Dragonite since Slowking was still quite low on HP from taking that super effective hit earlier and I didn't feel confident sending him out on an incoming attack.

Pidgeot is his final Pokemon, which is another easy KO for Ampharos' Discharge. And with that, we've earnt our final gym badge and the TM for Trick Room, a move which might come in very useful against the Elite Four rematches.

If I did not have the perma death rule in effect, I probably would have attempted to take on the Elite Four again right away, but I wanted to get some more training done on Mt. Silver first. The wild Pokemon are quite high leveled there and while grinding is still a pain, it did not take as long as I thought it would. My original plan was to train till lv. 75, but I wanted to give myself a bit more of a challenge and stopped at 70 instead.

Tune in again next time for the exciting Elite Four rematches!

-- TO BE CONTINUED --

​

Current Team

Ares - Male - Lv. 70 - Mild nature - Blaze

Focus Blast / Swift / Eruption / Lava Plume

Hestia - Female - Lv. 70 - Serious nature - Static

Light Screen / Signal Beam / Discharge / Power Gem

Poseidon - Male - Lv. 70 - Sassy nature - Oblivious

Ice Beam / Trick Room / Surf / Psychic

Aphrodite - Female - Lv. 70 - Serious nature - Guts

Aerial Ace / Night Slash / Brick Break / Close Combat

Artemis - Female - Lv. 70 - Gentle nature - Guts

Return / Shadow Claw / Rock Slide / Dig

Athena - Female - Lv. 70 - Bashful nature - Inner Focus

ExtremeSpeed / Dragon Claw / Earthquake / Dragon Dance

 

[Moxie]

You did NOT just use a pun for the title of this update. You should be given a violation of guidelines strike.

Inb4 final update is called: Seeing Red.

 

[Kaori]

@Moxie It has been noted. u w u I will definitely use that now.

___

Part XVI. Round Two Terror

After defeating all of the Kanto gym leaders, the Elite Four gets their updated teams with new Pokemon and higher levels. All of them have a full team of six now as well.

Before challenging the Elite Four again, I did decide to update some of the moves on my team, giving Earthquake to Dragonite in favor of Fly now that I no longer need it to navigate through the region. I also gave Slowking Trick Room, hoping to have a better chance against Lance's OP team that way.

Spoiler: ー VS. Will

Will leads off with Bronzong, but thankfully I led off with Typholosion so I could go for an Eruption right away. At full HP, this is an extremely powerful move and unfortunately for Will, his Bronzong is not Heat Proof so it goes down in one hit.

For some reason Will decided to swap to Grumpig rather than swapping to Slowbro. It might have something like Power Gem, but I was fairly confident that Eruption would OHKO this thing as well despite its good Special Defense. Thankfully, it does and we manage to take out two Pokemon while remaining at full HP.

Once again, I feel like this is not the Pokemon he should have gone out to. Typhlosion is having an absolute field day right now, taking out one Pokemon after another with Eruption.

Finally the counter comes out, but by this point we've already taken out half of his team with just one Pokemon. However, I am not going to risk Typhlosion here so I do swap to Ampharos to go for the safe Discharge.

Gardevoir is up next, so I decided to test my luck with Signal Beam. Unfortunately, it doesn't do that much and the opponent goes for Calm Mind. Instead I set up a Light Screen before swapping to Ursaring. This allows her to take a Psychic and defeat the Gardevoir with Shadow Claw.

My Light Screen is still up, so I can easily take any hit Xatu goes for and OHKO it with Shadow Claw.

Overall difficulty: 0/5, still a very easy member of the Elite Four, especially since his levels are so much lower than the rest.

Spoiler: ー VS. Koga

I led off with Dragonite this time, hoping to set up a Dragon Dance against this Skuntank. I get quite lucky turn one as he misses Toxic, giving me a perfect opportunity for a sweep.

I don't want to actually get Toxic poisoned, so instead of getting greedy and going for a second Dragon Dance, I go straight for the Earthquake and OHKO him.

Toxicroak doesn't stand a chance against Earthquake either, going down in hit.

Another easy OHKO with Earthquake.

Since Earthquake is only neutral on Venomoth, I went for a STAB Dragon Claw instead as Dragonite claims another victim.

I go for Dragon Claw against Crobat as well, but it actually lives and lands a Toxic. However, it is already too late to stop the sweep since I have plenty of turns left before Poison takes me down, while Koga only has his Crobat and one other Pokemon.

His last Pokemon is also weak to Earthquake so Dragonite can take it out in one hit, ending the almost perfect sweep with another OHKO.

Overall difficulty: 0/5, Koga was super easy with Dragonite on my side. It was pretty over from turn one as I was able to set up a Dragon Dance.

Spoiler: ー VS. Bruno

I lead off with Slowking and set up a Trick Room right away. This Hitmontop probably does not have anything to hit me with anyway, considering it actually goes for Counter turn one.

Once the Trick Room has been set up, I can easily OHKO it with Psychic.

The Hariyama actually lives on 1 HP, but thankfully Bruno is an idiot as he goes for Bulk Up rather than trying to get damage on my Slowking.

The Machamp also barely lives it and gets off a relatively hard hit with Stone Edge. Thankfully, I get a Special Defense drop so I can take it out in one hit after Bruno heals him up. The twisted dimensions also go back to normal.

I didn't think Hitmonlee could hurt me with much, so this is the perfect opportunity to set up a new Trick Room and continue Slowking's Psychic assault.

For some reason Hitmonchan no longer has ThunderPunch, making it even less of a threat as it goes down to Psychic.

I don't have much PP left on Psychic, so I decided to just go for Surf here since both deal neutral damage. Lucario does get a Defense drop with Iron Tail, but Surf picks up the 2HKO.

Overall difficulty: 1/5, a little trickier than the previous two since I did have to heal up once or twice to avoid getting screwed over by a critical hit. Slowking is a fairly good counter to his whole team though, especially since he doesn't have the best coverage moves for it.

Spoiler: ー VS. Karen

I lead with Heracross hoping to get an easy KO with Brick Break, but Weavile outspeeds and get both a critical hit AND a freeze on the first turn.

While it doesn't take me out, it does put me in a position where I have to start healing right away.

Fortunately, without a crit the Ice Punch isn't a 2HKO so I can go for Brick Break and take Weavile out in one hit.

I don't want to risk a 4x super effective hit, so I swap out to Ampharos as he goes for Drill Peck, getting paralyzed due to Static.

For some reason the Honckrow goes for Thunder Wave rather than just attacking me with a Dark type move. Now we are both paralyzed but my Ampharos is somehow faster and KO's him with Discharge.

Spiritomb has no weaknesses in this generation, so instead I swapped to Typhlosion to just hit it as hard as I can with my strongest move. He goes for Curse on the switch, already doing half the job for me by cutting his HP to 50%

I immediately swapped back to Heracross as it sets up a Curse. The first Close Combat does around 70% and Umbreon goes for another Curse. I doubt it can hurt me with anything, but I only have limited Close Combats so I would rather not get stalled out by this thing.

Thankfully, the second Close Combat is enough to KO the Umbreon even at +2 defense.

5. I’m at -2 Sp. Def and not confident enough about outspeeding, so I swap out to Dragonite instead.

Thankfully she doesn’t set up a Nasty Plot like last time, going for Flamethrower which doesn't hurt too badly. I can go for an Earthquake afterwards and take out her ace.

Her last Pokemon is an Absol, so I can go straight back to Heracross and finish it with a final Close Combat.

Overall difficulty: 2/5, I had a really good Pokemon to use in Heracross, but some of her Pokemon are quite crazy. Especially Houndoom and Umbreon can get annoying if you let them set up.

Spoiler: ー VS. Champion Lance

Before starting this one, I would just like to admit that I did wipe to Lance during my first try. His Garchomp got a critical hit on my Slowking as I switched in and just massacred everything from that point onwards.

However, I did not want to have to cancel the challenge so close to its finale + I had saved in front of the battle, so I reset and decided to give myself a second chance. If I wiped again, I would consider the challenge a fail and re-challenge HGSS in the future.

One Shadow Claw does over half to my Slowking, but I manage to set up the Trick Room, making me faster than his whole team. I don't have time to heal because Shadow Claw has a high crit ratio and I don't want to waste any Trick Room turns. Thankfully, Ice Beam takes out the Salamence in one hit.

I decided to stay in with Slowking so I could set up the Trick Room again at any time. Psychic only does about 35%, but I get a lucky Sp. Def. drop relatively early on to make it easier.

Trick Room is still active, so Slowking outspeeds and takes out the Garchomp in one hit with Ice Beam.

The Charizard just barely survives the Surf, but it doesn't have anything to really hurt me with, so I can take my time to heal up and even set up a new Trick Room for the remaning of the game.

Altaria is also 4x weak to ice, so Ice Beam claims another one here.

The Dragonite somehow survived the Ice Beam on 1 HP which made my heart drop for a second since Slowking was only at about 60% health here, but thankfully he goes for Safeguard.

Trick Room ends but I decide to heal up first as Lance goes for Hyper Beam. It doesn't do too much and I can use the recharge turn to set up a new Trick Room and then 2-shot him with Ice Beam.

Overall difficulty: 6/5, Lance's team is absolutely busted with powerhouses like Salamence, Garchomp and Dragonite. Even with their 4x weakness, if your Pokemon doesn't outspeed them, they can simply take you out before you get a chance to attack. If it wasn't for the Trick Room strats, I would have never been able to win against Lance.

 

[SkylarAlpha]

Thanks for the honesty about the Lance situation! Honestly, I get why you did it. Your challenge is just that bit more challenging with the Scramble aspect and yeah, you were close to the end. I'm glad you decided to give yourself the chance to retry that battle, because I also want to see this challenge come to a good end!

 

[Kaori]

@SkylarAlpha Thank you! I felt like there was no point in lying about it. Doing a Scramble with perma death rule + playing on set is extremely challenging. Especially in a generation with little good places to grind but very challenging boss battles. (Lance's ace is lv. 75 in the rematches which is a big oof if you know Will has Pokemon in the late 50s to early 60s)

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Part XVII. Seeing Red (Courtesy of @Moxie for the title inspiration)

After registering our name in the Hall of Fame for a second time, there is only one trainer left to take on. If you travel to the very top of Mt. Silver (which unfortunately required me to teach Rock Climb to my Typhlosion), you will come face to face with the strongest region of the Kanto region ー Red.

He isn't the most talkative person around, but he does challenge you to a battle. I did do some extra grinding in between the Elite Four Rematches and the battle with Red, but I got impatient and decided to battle him when my team was around lv. 75~77 rather than going all the way up to 80. Hopefully I don't end up regretting this!

ー VS. Trainer Red

He leads off with this lv. 88 monster which hits incredibly hard because of its Light Ball. Meanwhile I led off with Dragonite, taking a good 70% from Volt Tackle before thankfully taking out the Pikachu in one hit with Earthquake after it took a bunch of recoil damage.

There is no way I am staying in against a Lapras with my Dragon type, so I quickly swap out to Ampharos on the incoming Blizzard. It does about 50% and unfortunately cannot miss in the hail, so I have to hope to outspeed here so I can set up a Light Screen.

Thankfully, Ampharos does outspeed and behind a Light Screen, I can safely heal up and start firing off Discharges until the Lapras drops.

Even though a STAB normal type move will hurt, I have no choice here but to swap out to my Heracross. For some reason the AI decides to go for Blizzard instead, which barely does anything because this is the last turn of Light Screen.

I go for my strongest move in Close Combat and Heracross actually manages to take out the Snorlax in one hit.

It's time for Slowking to come out now as Charizard ends up critting me with Flare Blitz upon switch in. It's a resisted hit so Slowking tanks it and the recoil on the Charizard is very nice.

Since he doesn't really have any move to hit me with besides Air Slash (which doesn't do too much), I decided to take this opportunity to heal up my Ampharos in the back so she would be able to come in on later against the Blastoise.

After that I could start spamming Surf until the Charizard goes down. That's four down and two to go!

I swapped out to Typhlosion, hoping to get an easy KO with Eruption here but rather than going for Giga Drain, Red is smart and goes for Sleep Powder which unfortunately lands.

This is when things started to get tricky because I had to use an Awakening to wake up my Typhlosion, which gave Red the chance to start spamming Sludge Bomb which did over 50% to Typhlosion.

I basically had to heal spam for a bit until the hail brought down the Venusaur to a percentage where I felt like Flamethrower would be able to take it out. I do realize I got extremely lucky here because one crit could have ended it, but there wasn't much else I could do. The only other option was swap to Ampharos to set up a Light Screen again, but I wasn't sure how well she would take these attacks either.

His last Pokemon is Blastoise, who kept on going for Blizzard rather than a STAB water type move for some reason. (Perhaps because the hail was up?) Either way, I could swap back to Ampharos who was back at full after I healed her a couple of turns ago, so she could easily take the incoming attack and then set up a Light Screen before taking out the Blastoise with two Discharges.

Somehow I managed to defeat Red while underleveled AND without any deaths. I think that makes up for the fact I had to cheat a little during the rematch with Lance.

After defeating Red, he mysteriously disappears into thin air and the credits roll once again, marking the end of this adventure...

(I forgot to post this last time, so I'll post it now.)​

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As for some concluding remarks, this Scramble was definitely a lot more challenging than my Fire Red one. HGSS are tricky games because the wild Pokemon are so low leveled, but the Gym Leaders and Elite Four have good Pokemon and movesets which can really throw you off guard.

Towards the end, I really grew attached to my team and loved using Pokemon such as Heracross and Slowking. Typhlosion has always been my least favorite of the three, but it definitely proved itself during this challenge.

Just like last time, I will put up a poll where you guys can vote for the MVP of this run and in the future, I might do something special with it~ So please leave a vote if you followed the challenge. ^^

That's all I have to say for now. Alpha Sapphire is next on the list, which is a game I never properly played (I did play the original gen 3 games though) so I'm looking forward to finally beating that game.

Until then!

 

[SkylarAlpha]

Good job on Red! Looks like Venusaur was the most annoying one to deal with. Smart Red is smart. Congrats on finishing the run and good luck with AS!