Steel Monotype on Y, Update 4
-With everything in Shalour City done, I exited the city to the east to keep on going. Calem stops me briefly to give me the Surf HM, which was taught to Lord HM Slave Bibarel to cross the water just beyond the gate.
-Made my way through the route, making use of the Skiddo farm to run around a bit (there's a few items you need the Skiddos for). Why this farm just leaves its gates open and just lets people ride them, idk. What if I like, decided to just run off into the sunset on one of them? What're you gonna do then? After the Skiddo segment, the route branches off into Azure Bay and Coumarine City. Quick went through Azure Bay first, then entered the city.
-Yato (Honedge) also evolved into Alpha Yato (Doublade) during this time. It evolves sooner than I remember.
-Obtained the Fly HM from Sycamore, though I have nothing to Fly on at all right now lol
-Defeated Calem in front of the Gym, then went inside. The gyms in X/Y are actually kinda cool for the most part, even if they're not terribly difficult. Gym was pretty easy since Steel resists Grass and I have Pin Missile and Aerial Ace in my arsenal. Little Ferroseed in particular put in a lot of work. Easily beat Ramos for badge #4, then went down the slide (weeeeeee) to continue on.
-Normally when I do these I update after every badge+the endgame, but since the gap between the 3rd, 4th, and 5th gyms is small (in contrast to the large gap between the 1st and 2nd gyms) I waited until after the 5th badge to post this.
-Exiting Coumarine City brings you into Route 13, the Lumiose Badlands....and the beginning of X/Y's various unsolved mysteries. Moving around this area is slightly annoying due to how well the Pokemon dirt blob things can chase you down (and the winds don't help), and many of the wild 'mons have Arena Trap, but fortunately leading with Alpha Yato made this better since (and I had forgotten about this until partway through) Ghost types are immune to trapping effects. After checking the area for items, I went to the Power Plant like you're supposed to, beating that poor Team Flare Grunt who always has the misfortune of being the first one to have to deal with you, and then picking up the passkey that he so conveniently drops and even more conveniently tells you the rough location of (why??????).
-Enter the power plant (the music vaguely reminds of something btw), being greeted by a grunt who's like "do you really think you can barge in here and take everyone on?" to which I'm like, "fuck yes, this is Pokemon and I'm way better than you anyway". Swept him aside and went further into the plant. Made my way around the central chamber (lol that guy who insists on not moving), swatting grunts away and finally arrived at the center. Beat the admin and the scientist (besides Xerosic I really cannot remember any of the Team Flare scientist's names, I'm not sure why they're in the game really other than the need to have named admin type people), finally letting the plant return to normal functioning.
-Y'know how I mentioned "X/Y's unsolved mysteries" before? It starts here. After you clear Team Flare out, Sina and Dexio, very thinly disguised, show up. But why are they trying to be superheroes? Does Sycamore know anything about this?....Why did they not try harder to disguise themselves? There's then the
other Power Plant doors. When you head to the eastern part of the badlands, there's other doors and other plants very similar to the "main" one you go to as part of the storyline.....but you can never go inside, even though it seems like it
should be possible somehow. Is it related to Volcanion? Something else? Unless future games explain, we'll never know I guess. Anyway, now that you're allowed to go into Lumiose City, I headed that way, bumping into AZ, who they just like
literally drop into the game. I know he's gotta get introduced into the storyline somehow, but like c'mon, even I could do better than that.
-Returned to Lumiose City, running into Shauna again, who forces you to go to Prism Tower to meet Bonnie and Clemont. The game subtlety/not so subtlety telling you to go to the 5th gym now? But instead of doing what the game wants you to do, I set of to do much more important things. What's more important you ask? Fashion of course! I spent a few days basically trying to increase my "style points" to gain access to the Lumiose boutique and unlock additional hairstyles, as well as getting more $$$$ since the Lumiose boutique is hella expensive. Navigating this town is a pain in the ass though, a constant mini-map showing your location would've been sooooooooooo helpful. Had to take the taxi basically everywhere :| Lumiose then contains some of the other unsolved mysteries, like the (in)famous ghost girl, and the strange message scrawled in the train station. Why were any of these things never answered? Will future games ever answer them?
-Battling at Restaurants Le Nah and Le Yeah to get more money gave me probably more exp than I needed at this point in the game lol (everyone was level 40+ when I entered the gym lol), but hey, Ferroseed evolved into Ferrothorn and finally got some Grass STAB.
-Was a bit short on the money needed to get the two clothing pieces I wanted, and was like, fuck it let's go to the gym to get the remaining bit of cash I need. This one was also easy, the Electric types of the gym do not fare well vs Thumper since they can't use their STAB moves and their in-game coverage tends to be mainly shit that's not very effective vs Steel lol. Bulldozed my way through that gym, the question were very easy too, I mean c'mon I've been doing this for like 17-18 years ya gotta give me harder questions than that.
-With the 5th badge now mine, and over 200k in my pocket, I promptly made my way to the boutique to finally purchase the new outfit. Hooray. Now to go to Lysandre's cafe.
Badges:
Battle Party:
1) Alpha Yato
2) Thumper
3) Ferrothorn
4) Lucario
