Let's Play Pokemon Dark Rising 2! Chapter 3

Last time on Pokemon Dark Rising, we braved through the Lunar Cave and fought a level 30 Noivern with Shadow Tag. Would you believe me when I say that's only a taste of what's ahead?

Let's ask around the town to see what's up.



"I'm a Rich Boy, you don't deserve to be in the same breathing space as me!"

Well then, you're a lovely little twat who thinks he's God's Gift. Good start.

: "I've beaten plenty of Rich Boys back in the Core Region. What makes you so different?"


: "Cause I'm better and richer than all of 'em! That's it, we're gonna battle right now and after I beat you, I'm kicking you out of my crib while I laugh at you!"

Why couldn't this guy be an actual villain? He's petty enough to be one and honestly with the way he talks he could really entertaining.

Also:





Dosh King Deter here has the skills to pay the bills, unfortunately. He's a very powerful opponent for some random dude.



Granted, it's not like I can really tell if that's my fault for not grinding, but still.



His Snorlax is a demon - it hits like a truck full of lard and can squish my puny humanoids with ease. I had to reset a lot on this fight before I could get it down - that's how you know he means business.



It took a joint effort between Beatrice and Arthur to really take him down, so hats off to both of them.



He also had a Raichu that Beatrice poisoned to death. To think, if this were an Alolan Raichu, the outcome would be very different.



"I'll let myself out while you're still crying over your defeat. Next time, be nicer to people."



In-Game Monica is an absolute savage.



[Monica walks out of the house with a wad of bills in her hand and a snide grin]



He was pretty tough though, so I'll give him that at least.



"Which leads to Helios Cave."

We'll keep that in mind for later. (Maybe not. I don't know.)



"It's very dangerous... Besides, you don't even have six Omni League Gym Badges. You'd get slaughtered in there!"

You know, telling me not to go is only going to make me go in even more. Funnily enough, this is another thing DRG got right because the guy does go away after you beat the appropriate amount of gym leaders.



"Lower your guard. My name is Zyiah. I'm looking for a notorious thief named Jalice. She has my Noivern."

(How do you pronounce that, by the way?)

: "I just battled a girl with a Noivern!"

(And they were totally not cheating, no sir.)

Zyiah: "Excellent. That means she's close. Thank you."

[She disappears]



Nice. Jalice and her Super-Fennekin are gonna be in trouble now.

By the way, you cannot walk under Zyiah and skip her because there is an invisible wall in the way. At least DRG thought that someone would try to do that.



Oh snap, here comes Team Rocket.



"Not this time, though."

How much you want to bet?





Silly Rocket Grunts never learn.

Yamask has always been one of the cutest but saddest Pokemon to me especially when you pay attention to the lore that says they were a human in life. Like jesus.



Oh, do go on.



Says the people who are aligned with some eldritch god of darkness with plans to destroy the world and make everyone else's lives a living hell. If anything you should be glad Monica isn't messing with you any more than she already is.



Oh? How so?



Ah. So I shouldn't be scared at all, then. Gotcha.



There's just a bunch of these guys all over the place, huh? Oh well, that just leaves me with more trash to throw away.



In all honesty, the Grunts aren't too bad. The levels are really piling up, but even that shouldn't be too much of an issue if you cheat repeatedly to get more Rare Candies grind your heart out. You know, I discovered a patch for the first Dark Rising that's effectively a Kaizo version with refined plot elements, difficulty and bug fixes.



(Yeah it's the Power Plant again. Hooray.)

The oddest thing about the Dark Rising 1 Kaizo hack is that they actually tone down the difficulty. You know how I complained about the game having obnoxious levels and cheating by having fake base stat legendaries at the end?

The Kaizo hack (on top of making revives not work in battle) debuffed all of them - the 1000 BST Lugia Darugis has been reduced to only have 700 BST (20 less than Arceus) and the legendaries have been restored to their canon stats - the best example of this has been Regigigas's Huge Power being replaced with Clear Body.

The levels are also more balanced in that they're not a complete nosedive into "good god someone save me" territory (even if you still wind up at level 100 by the end) - just take a look:

(Original) vs (Kaizo)

Like jesus christ. You know the first Dark Rising was busted when the Kaizo edition tones DOWN the difficulty. Baby steps, but damn. Imagine if this is how it was like in the first place.



That said - dear lord in heaven, that is horrendous. At least the other maps in this were decent. You'd expect something better for this at least.

You can find Trubbish and Grimer all around here, so this place must smell rank as fuck.





: "I'm just gonna stop you right there."



: "Would a kid be able to do this, idiot?"

Then again, given how this is the Pokemon world, a teenager that's around Monica's age usually tends to be the hero in these kinds of stories.



Gale getting in some work - that Staraptor attack stat is fearsome.



Here we have a Max Potion! Excellent.

(There's no shops around, by the way, making this is the kindest gift the game has given me at this point)



"Don't worry yourself with the weaklings, deal with the leader."

Ooooh, they're actually helping us! This is a far cry from how they acted in the first game.



An Electrode that was hiding in a present box. Given how Electrode is three feet tall, that must be one giant-ass christmas present.



You can also find Klink here. Funny story: During a session of Mirage Island hunting in ORAS, I managed to find a shiny Klink right the fuck out of nowhere. The best part is that it was my birthday at the time, so thank you for the gift Random Number Goddess.



I would but you're in Dark Rising.





Thunder is more powerful than T-Bolt but the drop in accuracy kills it for me. 90 Power for 100% accuracy is far more reliable.



"I could beat a hundred of these small fries without having to go to the Pokemon Center once! I got this, just go find the Volton City gym leader."

Dray is cocky but in a way that's not pretentious this time around. Also, again, he's helping me instead of antagonizing me.



"But we managed to catch up with the others here. I planned on taking the leader out myself, but I'll let you have the honors. Good luck."

: "It's not luck, it's skill."

Damn, when did everyone start being so cool? I would have appreciated this earlier!

Florina talks about how the villainous teams are gonna put in an infectious toxin into the factory products, which might explain the presence of the Grimer here.

Anyway, let's go and -



Well hello there. What brings you into town, little zappy fella.

Yes, you really can find Rotom just wandering around this place! Good thing too, because Rotom is one of my favorite Gen 4 Pokemon period.

: ("Zzzup! How'zzz it going, pal?")

: "Pretty good. How about you?"

: ("Oh, nothing much... Just that some weird dudes barged into my house and got everyone riled up. Mind if I go with you to beat them up?")

: "... As good as an excuse as we'll ever get. Welcome aboard, uh..."



: ("Just call me Quote, doll. Nice to meetcha...zzt!")

: "Oh... alright."



Ooooh, look at that Hydreigon sprite. It's actually not too bad... Especially compared to everything else here.



"I wouldn't mind catching up, but right now we have bigger problems at hand. I battled both the Team Aqua and Team Magma leaders in a two on one battle, but I couldn't defeat both of them. I thought it was all over for me until your friends and that guy over there showed up."

: ("Kayo...")

Hot damn, we even got Not-Silver Kayo on our side! Also, in case anybody forgot (likely the case because even I almost did): Eon is a character that was introduced in the first game to hype up the sequel as he's a gym leader from the Omni Region that visited the Core Region for some odd reason I still don't quite understand. He's apparently famous or something, I don't know.



"It looks even more powerful."

Please, we took down this Hydreigon with one Aura Saber the last time we met. That, and he should be really lucky that there are no fairies in this game.



: "I'm sort of angered that you'd think otherwise. Not even one thousand of Darugis's puppets can stop me. Darugis will pay for brainwashing me. I'll destroy ANYONE who associates themselves with Darugis!"

He's still an edgelord, but the edge is on our side now. That's about what I'd expect from Not-Silver, really.



"This must be the other one we were told about."

: "Enough talking. Hydreigon - HYPER BEAM!"

Hydreigon: [Roars]

Damn, Kayo just pulled off a Lance! He really does mean what he said about people who associate themselves with Darugis.

Archie: "Ugh, I'm finished. Who is this trainer?!"

Maxie: "I don't know. We were not warned about him. Nevertheless, I'll settle for getting rid of this trainer here. For I, Maxie, leader of Team Magma, will melt the entire world into ashes!"

Hooo lord this is gonna get confusing once you take into consideration that canonically speaking, this whole series takes place after Snakewood. (Both in-game and let's play plot-wise too - DRG acknowledges "the Snakewood tragedy" in the first game.)



So crackpot theory because of this whole thing: What if Archie and Maxie appearing here is because they fled from Hoenn's zombie apocalypse? I mean sure, the protagonist of Snakewood solved that issue and everything's cherry, but it gets really really really weird when you start putting the pieces together.



Maxie is supposed to be a Fire-type powerhouse, but if you bring along a good water type then you should be fine.



Especially since he doesn't even evolve Lampent into Chandelure. But hey, he got some good hits off on the guys if their health dropping between screenshots is any indication.



Oh yeah, Rotom has the appliance forms in this too but I don't think there's a way to swap between them. What a shame.



... Wait, what the fuck? We beat all five of his Pokemon! What else could be left?





That uh... that is no normal Rattata.

[A deep, sinister voice echoes through the room, followed by a shadow appearing over Monica's shoulder]

[Demon King Odio]

: ("Why hello, Monica. Glad to see you've finally come along.")

: "It's you, isn't it... Darugis!"

: ("You're quite the woman if you're still going to do this even without Sigurd. Either you're the most reckless person I've ever met or you're one of the most confident. Either way, I expect you to give me a good show.")

: "Oh suck a chode, you so called Demon King. What even is this crazy Rattata, anyway?"

: ("Oh this? The start of something wonderful. You see, in the time it took you to get here, I had gotten so bored waiting for someone to defy me that I came up with an amazing idea - What if I created my own little army of Dark Pokemon to go along with all of the villainous teams I 'coerced' to come to my side? Just to make things more interesting.")

: "... You seem to treat this like a game."

: ("Living forever as a tyrannical god of darkness wears on your mind. Plus, I like to watch you squirm since I actually consider you a worthy opponent. In fact, I'm starting to take a liking to your other Pokemon...")

[Darugis chuckles before vanishing]

: "Lunatic! We have to do something about him soon, but -- Whoa!"

[The Darkrai-ified Rattata charges at Monica only for Gale to intercept it]



So yes, that's totally a thing that just happened! This is one of the major editions I put into Dark Rising 2 - Darkrai-ified Pokemon. Not only is it perfect for the kind of story we're dealing with, the thought process behind why I did it is gonna be a doozy. So one day I was sulking about, figuring out what to do after Dark Rising 1: Would I play the sequel or not? I don't need to elaborate more on that, but there was something interesting I discovered while doing an archive romp of my friend's art stuff.

There were a ton of sprites for Darkrai-ified Pokemon - they were immaculate even for 2007 and I figured "hey we should do something with these". Cut to the LP of Dark Rising 2 where me and my friend, The Composer, made a whole bunch of new sprites just for the LP and put them into the game itself. This is gonna kick ass!

Anyway, the evil Rattata is / with Shadow Tag and comes with these stats:

100 / 110 / 50 / 25 / 49 / 110 (444 Total)

It's sort of the "prototype" of the Darkrai-ified Mons because while it comes with incredible HP, Attack and Speed stats, it is only slightly more durable than a real Rattata. Expect a similar theme with the other Mons down the line.

I went with 444 because it's supposed to start off easy... but at the same time, the number four in Japan represents death... so we have a Plague Rat of Doom right here.



Gale takes it out in a flash with her wicked Kung Fu Talon Chop. (Brick Break)

[The dark Rattata dissolves into dust]

... Now, I'll leave it to your imagination as to whether that was simply a spawn of Darugis's power or a real Rattata that he corrupted into his image. Whichever sounds more gruesome.



Yeah, you better run!



(You have to press A to continue the cutscene outside of battle. Sigh.)

"Tell me where Darugis's true lair is and maybe I'll spare you and your Pokemon's lives."

Archie: "Not a chance. We need to get out of here!"

Maxie: "We'll meet you two again."

: "You're not leaving until you answer my question!"

: ("... Kayo's gotten much more powerful since the Core Region. I hate to admit it, but right now he's stronger than me.")

Based on... what? We haven't actually seen his levels yet, unless I'm supposed to assume that he's level 90 while we're stuck at 30 something.

(Florina): "Hey, you guys! We've captured the other team members and we're waiting for the police to arrive and bring them into custody. Let those two go. Trust me, I've got a plan. I'll explain later at Gemstone City."

: ("She wants us to let the leaders go?")

That is not very wise, but what the hell it's not like we can't hunt them down like dogs anyway.

: "Uh, alright, Florina."

Maxie: "Aha! Goodbye!"

: "Not so fast! I won't let you escape!"

Kayo is the only smart one even after all that. He sure is growing.

[Everyone leaves the scene except for Monica]



[Monica notices a faint glimmer on the ground]

: "... What the hell?"



[Current OST: Sealed Door]

: "... A necklace? Did the Rattata drop this when we killed it?"

[Monica picks it up]



Ooooh boy, here we go. I had to pull so many strings to have this happen.

The Link Gem is an extremely important item whose full purpose I'd rather not share just yet, but keep it in mind for later. Just know that I had to edit it into place with Pokemon Game Editor.

The fantastic art piece used to depict the Link Gem in something that isn't just game graphics was drawn by my Best Bro, AntipathicZora. You might have already met her if you read through the bonus chapters of the first Dark Rising LP. So not only do we have The Composer for sprites, we also have art from Zor there.

I told you we meant business.



Clearing the factory unlocks the path ahead into the Helios Canyon. Helios is the personification of the Sun in Greek Mythology, so I gotta hand it to DRG for that reference.. considering what kind of area we're going to go into next.



There was this fella who doesn't seem to have a neck and lacks shading in all the places where it counts. The Dark Rising Syndrome, you could even say.



Oh. That is a funky looking Pancham. He stares into my soul.



"Trainers with awesome Pokemon who have no idea what to do. Before training Pokemon, trainers themselves need to grow up."

A nugget of wisdom from an unlikely source. You've done good, random karate man.



You can find wild Lopunny out here if you want them. I already have more than enough, thank you.



: "Huh. Thanks, I guess."



You can also find Fletchinder around here too, but oh. The Gen 6 Pokemon in this hack look pretty weird. I can't pin down why, though.



God damn it, Benga's back.

: "It's you again... what did you do?"

: "I finally captured the one Pokemon I've been searching for. The one who could defeat the three Pokemon that took my ancestors' lives away so many years ago... I've captured Heatran."

I'm still confused from earlier. Didn't he hate every Pokemon in existence? Why is he resorting to use a Pokemon to get revenge against other Pokemon? My brain is hurting and we're not even in the worst of it yet.

: "What three Pokemon would do that? And what's a Heatran?"

: "You're so naive and dumb."



: "Long ago, Pokemon attacked my homeland and the people in it as well. Terrakion, Virizion, Cobalion... They did it. They attacked them."

So you're going to use Heatran to get back against the Swords of Justice...

A relatively slow / type against three types that all have 108 speed.





"My best friend has the power to connect to those Pokemon and I know for sure that they're all pure of heart just like he is."

: "So you're best friends with a guy that has control of those Pokemon?! Where is he? If you're here, he must be around somewhere."

: "There must've been some misunderstanding in the story you were told. There's no way Pokemon would attack humans. Not unless they were being threatened."

Reasonable argument.

: "Shut up! I've told you before, all Pokemon are evil creatures inside just waiting to strike us down! It doesn't matter if you listen to me or not. I have Heatran now. This Pokemon is a perfect counter to those who hurt my ancestors. Now, all I have to do is find your friend!"



Okay seriously, what the hell is up with Benga? He's so skewed and wrong that I honestly can't believe that he's being played straight right now. The hypocrisy is one thing, but does he not know that Heatran would get brutalized by the Swords of Justice in a real fight?

Is he literally supposed to be Wrong Genre Savvy? If that's the case, then the whole "all Pokemon are evil" thing is still brain-dead because... What does he use to fight Monica's team again?



That said, he got some direct upgrades to the other Pokemon he had... Not enough to be a real threat anymore, but hey he's trying.



Larvesta is still killer, so watch out for him.



Heatran themselves is very dangerous due to being damn-near level 50. They may not be fast (77 base speed isn't really something to write home about), but any fire attack this thing shoots out will char you down to the bone if you're not careful.



Beatrice and Corin team up to take out Benga and his stupid team for the second time.



"How could you defeat me with Heatran?!"

: "You need to calm down! Your intentions are clouded with anger. Anybody can see you're blinded and you need to chill."

When even In-Game Monica tells you to chill, you seriously need to do so. Benga throws another hissy fit and Monica's like "okay whatever tell me about the story".



"Tell me exactly what happened in this story and who told it to you."

Okay I'm just going to cut this short and summarize it for all of our benefits:

So the Swords of Justice (Cobalion, Terrakion and Virizion) supposedly razed a village to the ground and massacred the humans that lived there. Alder, the champion of the Unova region, told this story to Benga seeing as he's his grandson.

Somehow, this one story told by his grandfather managed to make Benga doubt his entire perspective on Pokemon. Like "oh hey grand pap told me Pokemon could be bad? screw that, they're all evil".

At this point I'm wondering if he's not mentally unstable.



Monica's like "Bruh. Chill." and tells Benga about how Noah knows these Pokemon and how he's not a bad guy.

Benga, being the insufferable prick demon child that he is, decides to want to throw down against Noah despite not having any personal grudge against him in particular or the fact this plot point with Benga is entirely because he's too much of a sap to believe things at face value... even though we have the plot of Dark Rising to deal with.





Benga also tells us about how to get another Heatran for ourselves in the cave ahead, but I'm just like... wow. Dark Rising Girl, this is one of the dumbest plots you've put into the game yet. The logic is as sound as a wet toilet paper pyramid - aka. complete goddamn nonsense. The worst part is that you're doing much better than the last game, but even then... whoof.



: "That crazy guy is gonna do something bad to Noah... I better hurry up after him!"

[Monica runs into the cave but a tremendous pressure catches her attention and stops her in her tracks]

: "Wh... whoa! What's all this?"

[She looks towards the sky and notices two Lucarios standing atop the trees]

[Wings that Don't Reach]



[Monica is left speechless and drops to the ground with a gasp. The red Lucario's eyes widen as he notices Monica]

: ("I-it's you!")

: "Sigurd!!"

[The two Lucarios jump in front of Monica]



: "It's... it's really you, Sigurd. I've missed you and Signe so much!"

: ("You have no idea how lonely we were without you... so the feeling's mutual.")

: "You're... you're both idiots!"

[Monica runs over to them and ensnares both of them in a hug. She starts sobbing while the Lucarios give small smiles]

: ("... I'm happy to see you too, Monica.")

: ("I can't believe we've met you again after so long. I hope the others have been doing well since we were gone?")

: "Y-yeah! Everyone's been doing great! There's so many people that want to see you again, and it's just... " [She says as she wipes her tears]

: ("I'll admit, I'm not quite used to people wanting to see me... but we have a family to go back to now.")

: ("Of course. I can't wait to see the look on Siegfried's face when he sees that we're back. He'll go nuts, haha.")

: ("Oh, don't tease him. You'll make him cry.") [Signe giggles]

: "Poor little guy. But yeah, you two... What have you learned since you were gone?"

: ("Well... we've trained day in and day out since we've left. We've discovered things about out our powers that we couldn't have figured out alone. Basically, we've worked on our teamwork.")

: ("That and well... It was amazing in that we've actually bonded as brother and sister. It was some time where we could just be... together. Me and Sigurd have been gone a long time before you helped us, Monica. So I guess the only thing I can do is thank you too.") [She says as she gives Monica another hug]

: "Awwww, I'm glad I could help. But yeah guys, we don't have much time to waste. Now that you're finally back, it's time that we go save the world! Let's roll out!"

: ("Yes, ma'am!")

Hoooooooooooo boy, here we go! The heroes make a return and it feels so good.

For the uninitiated, Sigurd and Signe are two Lucarios that appeared over the course of the Dark Rising 1 Let's Play that I coded into the game myself to beat back the cheating difficulty.

The funny part is that they started off an anti-cheating measure... but then it snowballed and became a story inside of the LP itself, where Sigurd himself is the root of the entire story due to his trainer becoming Darugis, the demon king, in an attempt to bring him back from the dead. (Long story.)

The two Lucarios have an extremely powerful move called Aura Saber that hits for 150 Base Power and has a 75% chance to burn, so you know they're gonna rip shit up. Sigurd himself has gotten a buff since the last game due to the training they went through:

100 / 150 / 120 / 150 / 100 / 120 (740 Total)

Like hot damn. I'm not messing around here, folks.



Anyway, we make it inside of the Helios Cave and discover it's a fire cave. Neat.



There's this dude that shares the same sprite as "Dark EEEEVIL Pete" from the last game. (Yes, that's really what he's called.)



You didn't do the formula right:

Respect isn't given. It's earned.



Especially when your Pokemon are like this.



Good, but we need far more than just one Repel to make it matter.



You know what, I'm gonna go back to Volton City for a bit. I don't want to deal with bootleg Candice. (Aka. the ice gym leader from Gen 4)



We have the Pokemon Fan Club!

And that's all we'll ever see from them again.



So in a twist nobody wanted, Eon's gym is Lt. Surge's but with some trainers switched around.



It is just as annoying as the real gym this is based off of thanks to the RNG associated with finding the second switch.



Yadda yadda official gym battle. Let's get this over with already.



He looks slightly better than he did in the first Dark Rising, but his sprite is still a mangled yellow Falkner.



Jolteon was the first to go thanks to Siegfried's incredible tiny person powers.



> for a reason guys.



Ampharos was the ace of Eon's team, if I remember correctly. That or I put him to sleep before he even did anything.



Manectric is a cool Pokemon that got a Super Saiyan 3 Mega Evolution thanks to X and Y... That is unfortunately not in this game. Oh well.





(He gives us the Joltbadge, by the way.)



Back to Helios Cave, we find an Escape Rope just in case we have to backtrack.



He comes to meditate with a mime.

Now I can't get the image of a meditating clown out of my head.



Brute strength alone can only get you so far, dude.



It gets really weird when adults say this to you. Like really think about it for a moment - some grizzled hiker dude tells you that he's gonna beat up your Pokemon with his despite the fact you're far younger than him.

What a concept.



Oooh we made it out already.



Nice. This place doesn't look too bad, either.



"You must be tough to endure that cave."

How do people get around these places if they require being tough enough to survive? I'm just curious.



There's some Sawsbuck around here, which I guess is alright if you're into grassy deer. Their main gimmick (changing forms based on the seasons) isn't in the hack, but even the real games don't do that after they dropped the whole "seasonal" thing from Black and White.



Thankfully there was a Pokecenter here for us to take a rest in, because yeesh. I'd consider that a pretty eventful chapter!



These are what Sigurd and Signe's menu sprites look like by the way, along with a headcount of all of our guys.

Next time on Dark Rising, we're gonna brave some new territory with our unreasonably overpowered new Pokemon! Hurray!

See you then.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Team setup:

(Corin, level 39, , /) - "Sigurd and Signe are back! How've you been, guys?!"
(Gale, level 35, , /) - "We really missed you, you know."
(Wave, level 36, , ) - "Hey, y'all are back! Good to see you're not hurt!"
(Arthur, level 35, , /) - "Aye, let's celebrate!"
(Bellamine, level 33, , ) - "Welcome back, Sigurd and Signe. You're among friends again. How does it feel?"
(Beatrice, level 35, , /) - "It felt off without you two around for some reason. Glad to have you back."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back-up Team:

(Sigurd, level 50, , /) - [Blushes] "Awwww... come on. I can't even come up with something witty to say with all of you crowding us."
(Signe, level 50, , /) - "There, there, Siegfried. We won't leave you again." [Cradles him between her arms]
(Siegfried, level 41, , /) - [Incoherent messy sobbing]
(Quote, level 25, , /) - "Hey guyzzz! I... uh... Don't know what I walked into, but I like it! So how about that Link Gem that Monica found? Anybody gonna... comment on thatzzz?"
(Jeanne, level 20, , ) - "Isn't that lovely? Their family's been reunited "
(Ambes, level 23, , ) - "Whoaaaaaa! They're so cool looking! They're like superheroes!"
(Ignell, level 22, , /) - "Haha, yes. They deserve to be back together again."
(Candelabra, level 22, , /) - "Man this is getting me real sappy. It reminds me of when I had to take care of my brother and sisters..."
(Iris, level 6, , ) - "The Link Gem? Never heard of it."
(Lucera, level 5, , ) - "This is all very sweet... but there's something ominous hanging in the air that I can't really pin down. I'm getting chills."