Steel Monotype on Y, Update 2
-Made my way through Route 4, largely ignoring/evading the trainers there, as I wanted to not feed Fennekin exp it wasn't gonna need (why do Garderners have Corphish though that makes no sense to me).
-Arrived in Lumiose City, and promptly made my way to Sycamore's lab. Not that anything besides the 2nd floor actually looks like a lab anyway.
-Battled Sycamore. This was more work than I cared for, mainly because of having to deal with Leech Seed damage on top of Squirtle, but managed to pull through. Fennekin as evolved after this battle lol. Also ngl I'm confused as to his reasoning for giving you a Pokemon and a Dex and setting you off on this journey. It's basically "you're some person I've never met before but feel bad you're new here so here ya go". ????? Whatever floats yer boat Augustine.
-Boxed the Kanto starter, then took a look around what little of Lumiose you can explore at this point in the game. First stops were at the PR video studio and the hair salon. Hey fashion is important during yer Pokemon adventures and it's nice to be playing a game with character customization again, though most customization are still unavailable to me at this point).
-Then popped into Cafe Soliel like Calem wanted me to, meeting Diantha and Mr. So Obviously The Villain Team Leader. I sort of found the name "Cafe Soliel" funny at first cuz I was like "lol hey that's a Fire Emblem character's name!"
But it's also just French for sun, iirc.
-Exited the city to Route 5, which I also hurried through, since I just really wanted a Steel Pokemon and one was coming up so....
-Entered Camphrier Town. I wanted to get into Route 6 asap but the game was insistent that I visit Shaboneau Castle first, so I reluctantly did.
-After the brief forced visit to Shaboneau with Shauna, I hurried over to Route 6 to finally catch my first Steel type of the challenge: Honedge. Which took longer than I thought. I kid you not when I did not see a single fucking Honedge for like 20-25 minutes straight that night. A saw several Kecleons (which has a 5% appearance rate to Honedge's 15%) before I saw the Honedge. But my noble blade finally was mine. And with my sword, I cut down the trainers that I sneaked by before. Need that exp yo.
-After returning to Route 6, I entered Parfum Palace (what does the game expect you to do if you don't have the $1000 needed to gain entry?). The Amulet Coin in one of the rooms was really nice, let me get lotsa cash since Honedge was my only actual combatant and so every battle till Cyllage gave me good money. Anyway, made my way to the garden in the back after checking out the palace, and caught the owner's Furfrou (praise be Shauna for being useful and helping out with that, makes things so much quicker. Also got the Cut HM (and took a second quick trip back to cut down the few Cut-able trees that exist up till that point).
-Saw the fireworks together with her (and y'know, I don't think I've ever seen fireworks during the day irl), then departed.
-Dealt with the sleeping Snorlax. Steel/Ghost=not a fun time for it, as you'd imagine.
-Went up Route 7, enjoying the riverside view. Lord HM Slave Bidoof evolved into Bibarel somewhere along here. Stopped at the Battle Chateau to get more exp+money. Bow before me ye peasants, for I am a Viscountess. Then defeated Tierno and Trevor in a double battle with Calem. Which is kinda unfair when you think about it, it's two people who're focused on battling vs a dancing crazed kid and one who's more into the PokeDex than battling....oh well.
-Crossed through Zubat Roost, and into the cliffs of Route 8. There was this one scary battle with a Trainer's Axew that had Dragon Rage, a nasty move when you're early game with only one usable Pokemon ;-;
-Arrived in Ambrette, the tiny cliffside town that randomly has the aquarium and the fossil lab (no really, why there of all places?).
-Went over to Glittering Cave via Rhyhorn to do the stuff you need to do there, ie have your first encounter with Team
Flair Flare.
-After the shit with Team Flare, I started back down the 2nd part of Route 8, getting the Old Rod and Dowsing Machine along the way.
-Made it to Cyllage City. First order of business in town was to catch a Luvdisc. I was aware that you can trade one of those in Cyllage for a Steelix (rather convenient for this run), and very much needed a second Steel type since the 2nd gym was coming up very soon.
-After acquiring Thumper the Steelix (and a bike), I entered the Cyllage Gym. And it was slightly more annoying than I cared for. This is because I'm doing a Steel mono, and obviously Steel is very good vs Rock, but my party is rather lacking in Steel STAB. Thumper comes with Gyro Ball, but that has the problems of a) it has 5 PP and b) Rock types are generally slow, greatly hindering the damage output of it. But fortunately most of them fell on my blade (Thumper did its best to help), since Swords Dance+Shadow Sneak was enough to muscle through the Trainers. Had to go back to the Pokemon Center to restore PP before facing Grant. Thumper unfortunately missed out on some exp since Gyro Ball did not quite OHKO his Amaura, and it scored a crit, taking it down. This then almost led to a loss since Tyrint wields Strong Jaw boosted Bite, doing a number on Honedge, but Swords Dance Shadow Sneak won the day, and the Cliff Badge.
-As a side note, the rock climbing aspect of the Gym is cool, though I'll tell you that rock climbing is not as easy as your character makes it look (I've had the chance to try it before).
Whew, that's a lot. Let's see how tomorrow goes.
Party:
1) Yato
2) Thumper
3) HM Slave
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