The Monotype Challenge

I kept bad notes for the last half of the game, but it all kinda blurred together for me after I got Surf. After getting Surf, I got the Good Rod and used it to catch a Barboach, which I named Forgetful. My Numel & Barboach both evolved pretty quickly, and they were strong partners for the rest of the game. I caught a Rhyhorn when I reached the Safari Zone, and I named him Oblivious. However, Rhyhorn, Baltoy, and Trapinch struggled for the rest of the game. When Trapinch eventually evolved into Flygon, he became a great asset for the Elite Four battle, but Rhydon & Claydol never really found their feet.

The MVP race wasn't even close this time. Swampert knocked it out of the park. I can't imagine how dominant Mega Swampert would have been, if I had been playing an ORAS game.

Hi. Am TEK.




The STRUGGLE is real.




Badge #1




Thanks, KITE!




Believe it!




KITE is just enabling PERKACHER's POTION habit.




I don't think that word means what you think it means.




Rude.




SNORLAX 1, PERKACHER 0




I didn't know that was a thing....




NOODLES & COMPANY




RAICHU. Just stop.




IKR?





Got in hurry, missed the victory screen :(




Got in a hurry, immediately challenged KOGA.




Thanks, dude!

I picked Chikorita as my starter, so my rival would have to use the Cyndaquil line as his ace. I planned on getting the in-game trade Onix, and I knew it would already be named Rocky. So I'm rolling with that and using popular movies from '76 as my naming scheme. I caught Geodude first, and I named him Omen. I was also able to get my Onix (named Rocky) and my Wooper (named Taxi) before the first gym. It was fun using a slightly modified version of Brock's team for the first two gyms. Everybody held their own, but the rock typing of Omen & Rocky made them particularly suited to take down Falkner & Bugsy.

I was able to grab a Nidoran-F (named Carrie), and a Nidoran-M (named Kong) before fighting Whitney, and I can already tell the Nidoqueen line is going to play a lot different in this game than in Leaf Green. Carrie had Rivalry as her ability, which helped a lot on the third gym, but it wasn't enough to beat Whitney's Miltank. That fight came down to an attrition battle between Rocky & Miltank. I had to use a lot of potions to balance out Miltank's Milk Drink, but we won on the first try.

I was able to evolve a lot of my team before Morty's gym. I got a Metal Coat off of a Magnemite and used it to evolve Rocky into a Steelix. I also got a Moon Stone as one of mom's gifts, and I chose to give that to Kong. Taxi evolved into Quagsire naturally, as well. Carrie got to eat a couple of ghosts with Bite, but then she was knocked out by Curse damage. The rest of the team chipped away at the remaining Gengar & Haunter, but I had to use all my Super Potions to get through that fight. I may need to grind for a while before the next gym, which should be easy enough with the Rocket Base coming up.

I went out to the Ruins of Alph to get my other Moon Stone, and I evolved Carrie into Nidoqueen. Then we set off the the Lake of Rage/Rocket Base events. I'm currently just grinding away in the base.

Side note, does anybody know if Shiny Gyarados has any kind of value among shiny collectors? I kinda take it for granted that people have been collecting the games for as long as I have, so I don't think people would trade the harder-to-catch shinies for Gyarados, but this is about my 3rd or 4th one I've caught, and I just need one for my shiny living dex.

In the Rocket Base, I noticed Omen was just one level away from evolving. I focused on turning him into a Golem first, then I just tried to shuffle the party around to keep the lowest-level mons in front while we beat up on Rocket members. Most of the stuff in the base was no problem, since they were generally Poison or Normal type.

I knocked out the next three gyms pretty quick, but I still didn't have my Swinub. I had hoped to have it before the Radio Tower at least, but as far as I can tell, the Ice Path is inaccessible until after that event. I caught my Swinub and spent a while leveling it up, until I eventually had myself a Mamoswine. It was a lot of effort for that late stage of the game, but Mamoswine was helpful with the 8th gym and the Elite Four. I named him "Outlaw".

I actually managed to beat the Kimono Girls on my first try, but it took a lot of potions. My Quagsire did almost all of the work in these fights, since he could use Amnesia and soak the hits better than the rest of the team.

I had to grind for a little bit before taking on the Elite Four, but they're all fairly low-level the first time you fight them, so we only had to train for an hour or two. The biggest challenges of fighting them were figuring out who to lead with and when to use Omen's Explosion. I had to rematch Will several times before I eventually found success with the Quagsire + Amnesia strategy. Then, the next three matches were no problem. I had to restart the match with Lance several times before I found a strategy that could deal with his Gyarados, too. Eventually, I was able to get off an explosion with Omen and OHKO it. I had some good resistances to the rest of his team, so I was able to Hyper Potion spam through the hard-hitting moves and then pick off the weakened monsters.

It was a close race between Golem & Quagsire, but my Golem was the MVP for this run. It makes me kinda sad that I didn't have a way to get Golem in my GBA games. Maybe I should have just run with Graveler all the way to the end of those games. The Geodude line is extremely helpful. I'm definitely seeing why it's consistently ranked high in the in-game tier rankings.

Pearl is off to a slow start. So far, I only have one gym badge. The first gym was Rock-Type, so it was no problem for my Turtwig & my Geodude. After Roark?s gym, I caught a Shellos and an Onix. I debated about whether it was worth it to farm for a Metal Coat again, and I decided it would be easier than farming Honey Trees. So I?m going to have Steelix on my final team, instead of Wormadam, which was my original plan. We?re currently knocking on the door of the Eterna Gym, but it?s Grass type, and most of my team is 2x or 4x weak to Grass. I may have to do some overlevelling before I can clear this one.

I?m giving my team cartoon-themed names. So far, I have a Grotle named Splinter, a Geodude named Rocko, a Shellos named Slurm, and an Onix named Max Steel.

Went on further past seafolk villiage, defeated all the trainers, and the dancer with her 4 oricorio, my oricorio doing most of the work torkoal beating pompom. got over to hapu, went to exeggutor island and destroyed the exeggutor with torkoal, got the moon flute and went on to the canyon.
VS Hapu
Ground VS Fire was never going to be easy. i thought torkoal could take out Dugtrio but it outsped, sandstorm up, dodged flamethrower, hit earthquake, dodged flamethrower again, and finished with Earthquake. oricorio took a sucker punch crit and hit back with revelation dance, healed, took another sucker punch and revelation dance finished it. up next was Gastrodon, magmortar got sunny day up, took a muddy water, and OHKO with solarbeam. mudsdale took a solarbeam and finished me with Tectonic Rage, incineroar finished it with a darkest lariat, finally flygon took a darkest lariat and hit earth power, switched to oricorio and after some air slashes and a ton of chipping and parahax, flygon won. incineroar finished with darkest lariat.

went on through the canyon beating all the trainers, got to the totem.
VS Totem Kommo-o
protect, blocked hurricane, summon the middle form, hit clanging scales and autotomize, hurricane took about 2/3. clanging scales + work up finished oricorio. incineroar immediately died to a double sky uppercut cuz forgot dark type. leave it to marowak to take a clanging scales while the other one used work up and finish with brick break, work up and another brick break took about half, a 4th work up and another brick break finished it off.

Went on to altar of the Moon, and to the Ultra Space, saw 2nd most badass cutscene in pokemon beaten only by giratina's appearance in platinum.
VS Lusamine
after a couple of nasty plots, sludge wave STILL didnt ohko clefable, thankfully it was using metronome and did barely any damage. 2nd one took it out. after a stall battle with milotic blocking 3 hydro pumps, dodging a 4th and tanking a 5th, torkoal couldnt do enough damage with solarbeam, it kept recovering. magmortar couldnt do it either barely outdamaging the recover with solarbeam. brought in incineroar cuz out of hydro pump to set up some bulk ups and finish with darkest lariat. oricorio took a baby doll eyes and missed hurricane, hit a 2nd attempt to OHKO bewear. last was lilligant and after a leech seed i went out with a bang OHKO with Malicious Moonsault.
caught Lunala in a luxury ball. sent straight to box, had Nanu take me back to Ula Ula.
VS Gladion
Crobat hit acrobatics, got bulk up, cross poison, bulk up, cross poison crit, darkest Lariat OHKO. next came silvally which hit multi attack and took a solarbeam, then a 2nd round of that. went for it again thinking he would heal, nope went for an attack and quick claw triggered so torkoal outsped and solarbeam took it out. lucario hit magmortar with an aura sphere and died to flamethrower before oricorio took a night slash from weavile and OHKOd with revelation dance
Went to the top, taught Marowak shadow bone and flare blitz, taught Incineroar flare Blitz
VS Hau
dumb dumb me led with Salazzle against alolan raichu, yeah out of there ASAP for incineroar, psychic did nothing. took a focus blast and OHKOd with darkest lariat. vaporeon hit baby doll eyes and got up sunny day with magmortar, took a hydro pump and hit solarbeam, another baby doll eyes and psychic to take it into solarbeam KO Range, took another hydro pump and solarbeam took it out. next was Komala and oh god, hit marowak with earthquake i didnt know it had, then took a brick break, got out of there for oricorio predicting another one, but nope shadow claw, dodged hurricane and hit another shadow claw, then KOd with a sucker punch i didnt know it had. torkoal took a crit EQ and hit flamethrower then died to a 2nd EQ, leave it to salazzle to finish with flamethrower, with the sun still up another flamethrower took out Decidueye

VS Hala
first came hariyama, took a fake out, nasty plot and close combat followed, a sludge wave didnt quite finish it and i got close combatted to death, marowak got outsped and knock off'd but finished with shadow bone. next was poliwrath and after a fierce fight, a full restore and 4 solarbeams, poliwrath defeated torkoal, oricorio finished with revelation dance, next came primeape, hit outrage then died to hurricane. crabominable straight up died to hurricane, luck ran out with bewear, dodged hurricane and hit hammer arm for the KO, magmortar hit psychic, dodged a hammer arm and finished the fight with a 2nd psychic.

VS Olivia
Easily the toughest battle of the whole run. relicanth is simple enough torkoal OHKOd with solarbeam, then came the big one, lycanroc. after protecting myself from continental crush i solarbeamed it for big damage and took a stone edge, a 2nd KOd me, incineroar took a stone edge and got bulk up, healed and another, healed and another, healed and this time a crunch!? out of stone edges! darkest lariat...wait how did i outspeed it? barely survived and counter. well fk, there goes incineroar. salazzle toxiced it and hit sludge wave, got a nasty plot up and took a rock climb then dodged one, flamethrower finished it. next came probopass, took flamethrower well and KOd with power gem, marowak almost KOd with brick break but not quite, got thunder waved. sandstorm followed by another brick break, then power gem and another brick break, power gem again and a final brick break finished probopass. carbink was next and after sunny day a solarbeam then flamethrower and solarbeam to avoid another full restore (takign two power gems in the process) finished it. lastly came golem, hit solarbeam and died to thunderpunch, foddered marowak reviving magmortar, got sunny day up, took a thunderpunch and triggered flame body before a final solarbeam ended it.

VS Acerola
Clean sweep for Incineroar. tormented sableye as it used confuse ray (t1 was fake out) then took a shadow claw, got a bulk up, she had to confuse ray again cuz of torment and it didnt work obv, snapped out of initial confusion and OHKO with flare blitz, pallossand was next and not taking any chances Malicious Moonsauilt OHKO, dhelmise got outsped and OHKOd with flare blitz, froslass was a little annoying with confuse ray but after healing a darkest lariat finished it, healed on drifblim just in case, used amnesia. darkest lariat OHKOd took aftermath damage and done.

VS Kahlili
Annoying but another incineroar sweep, skarmory hit slash, got bulk up, spikes, lariat, spikes, lariat KO. mandibuzz was next hit flare blitz, confused with flatter, hit flare blitz, brave bird took me almost down, full restored and flare blitz finished it. up next was toucannon and it screeched then flare blitz straight up OHKOd, oricorio hit teeter dance and died to darkest lariat, finally was crobat, got flinched by air slash, healed and took another one, got supersonicd (question WHY!? crobat learns confuse ray fairly early on as a golbat, why keep supersonic?) hit self, got air slashed, hit self, healed, air slash, supersonic, hit self, healed, air slash, supersonic miss, Malicious Moonsault OHKO.

VS Kukui
A real battle for the ages this one. up first was lycanroc against torkoal, set up stealth rock and took a solarbeam, he healed it, another solarbeam, quick claw solarbeam finished it. snorlax vs incineroar, got a bulk up took a high horsepower and crit KO sadly, marowak took a good chunk with brick break then i got hit with high horsepower, revived incineroar as he switched for Primarina, decided to waste its Hydro Vortex on the low health marowak, torkoal came in but evne with sun up sparkling aria was an OHKO, salazzle outsped hit sludge wave but met the same fate, foddered magmortar to revive salazzle and finish with another sludge wave. snorlax came back in and so did incineroar tormented it right off and got bulk ups before healing, taking another high horsepower and finishing with darkest lariat, braviary came in and i was saving the Z move but i shouldve used it, went for darkest lariat instead and it barely survived and whirlwinded me out, he healed as torkoal took a chunk with flamethrower, got tailwind up and took another flamethrower a third flamethrower finished it (mustve gone for whirlwind) incineroar got taken to 9hp by magnezone and took it down to sturdy with flare blitz, RIP. he healed and salazzle took it down again, tailwind let it outspeed and KO salazzle, torkoal is my last poke tailwind dies i take a tbolt revivng Incineroar with my very last revive (Max thankfully) and get paralyzed, quick claw triggered and flamethrower took it out. ninetales alola was the final poke, took a blizzard, hit flamethrower, both healed, sun died out, hit body slam, took a blizzard, flamethrower almost took it out. took another blizzard, thought it was gonna die and incineroar would finish the job. but little Tortoise shines through with another quick claw proc and a final Flamethrower.

Orchid LV 58 Incineroar
Fire/Dark
Incinium Z
Flare Blitz
Darkest Lariat
Bulk Up
Torment


Stylin LV 56 Salazzle
Fire/Poison
Black Sludge
Sludge Wave
Flamethrower
Nasty Plot
Toxic


Flambé LV 55 Magmortar
Fire
Charcoal
Flamethrower
Psychic
Sunny Day
Solarbeam


Volcana LV 56 Marowak Alola
Ghost/Fire
Firium Z
Shadow Bone
Brick Break
Stomping Tantrum
Flare Blitz


Tetsudo LV 56 Torkoal
Fire
Quick Claw
Flamethrower
Solarbeam
Body Slam
Protect


Don Flamenco LV 56 Oricorio-Baile
Fire/Flying
Sharp Beak
Hurricane
Revelation Dance
Teeter Dance
Roost

I actually did farm some honey trees, and I managed to get a female Burmy. However, I looked at a list of the moves Wormadam could learn in 4th Gen and didn't see any decent Bug moves. So I boxed that Pokemon and moved on. I had to rematch Gardenia several times, but eventually we won. Grotle was the key to our success, just because he wasn't getting hit insanely hard by the Grass-type moves.

I caught a Wooper and named her Blue, but I can't remember if that was before or after the third gym. Anyway, gyms 3 - 6 were all kind of a blur. None of them were a major challenge. I was just super anxious because I wanted to get through all the story events and all the gyms to be able to finally get into Wayward Cave and get my Gible. I caught one today and named her Ripster, but I have to do a lot of training to get her up to the same level as the rest of the team.

So far, the team has been pretty well balanced, with Splinter taking a slight lead. I'm curious to see if Ripster will be able to catch up at this late stage of the game and earn more victory points than the rest of the team. She arrived late in the game, but I suspect she's going to be a powerhouse.

- Picked Litten because I don't want Hau or Kukui to have it.
- Used PkHex to change Litten into Alolan Sandshrew, named Frostbite. IVs, Nature, Met Level/Location were copied directly from Litten. The only thing that was changed is that I made her a girl. Oh, and I gave her the moves Sandshrew would know at Lv5. Because I didn't want an Ember Snowshrew.
- Reminded Hau that Rowlet is 4x weak to Ice
- Reminded Hau that Rowlet is 4x weak to Ice AGAIN.
- Nothing eventful happened before the first trial.
- Frostbite soloed the first trial. This is good, because she is my only team member.
- Caught Food the Delibird after like half an hour searching. Z-PRESENT HYPE!!!?!?!!?!?!?!
- Reminded Hau that Rowlet is 4x weak to Ice YET AGAIN.
- Tried to fight Hala. Big mistake.
- Finally caught Mountain the Crabrawler
- Grinded. A lot.
- Beat up Hala using his own ace and santa penguin.
- Did one more lap of Melemele for good measure (and TMs), and then went to Akala.
- Beat up Dexio.
- Caught Diamond the Eevee
- Reminded Hau that Rowlet Dartrix is 4x weak to Ice (actually Diamond soloed this fight,
but repetition for effect is Good.

Pearl is taking me significantly longer than the other games. A consistent trend I've been running into is getting my sixth Pokemon around the 7th or 8th gym, and having to do lots of grinding to catch them up to the rest of the team. Gible may be a dragon, but she feels more like a dragon egg.

In the Galactic Base, Splinter evolved into Torterra & Ripster evolved into Gabite. The base went okay, and I had a surprisingly easy time in Candice's gym. But then I reached Mt Coronet and struggled for the better part of this week. My team was underlevelled, and I had major weaknesses against the Galactic Boss's team. To compound the problem, the highest-level grinding spots up to the Galactic/Palkia fight were full of stuff that could one-shot or two-shot my team members, which made grinding difficult. Eventually I bought a bunch of potions & revives and gave it another shot, after getting my party up around level 38-39. I finally won, mainly due to Steelix being able to tank some big hits.

Sunnyshore City was easy, but I still have a lot of levelling to do before challenging the Elite Four. I don't want to go into that fight without at least evolving Ripster into Garchomp.

I can't wait to finish up Sinnoh and move on to Unova.

I wasted a lot of time grinding on victory road before I realized it would be better to go back to route 222, where I wouldn't be regularly OHKO'd. Here, I was able to get my Gabite to level 48 in order to evolve, and I got a few more levels for the rest of the team, as well. I went back to Victory Road, and I was able to struggle my way to the end. The final rival battle was easy enough. It was almost a straight sweep by Garchomp.

I always empty my bank account and buy a ton of healing items before challenging the Elite Four. For the most part, my team was able to get through the Elite Four with only two or three really tough parts. Vespiquen stomped us on our first attempt, because I let her Defense Order stack too high. Medicham was also tricky, since nothing on my team had a resistance against him. Lucario was also an absolute terror, and I had to heal spam until he ran out of moves and struggled himself to death.

My Garchomp became very powerful near the end, but my Torterra proved to be the MVP.

I'm hoping to fire up White and start exploring Unova tomorrow.

So it turns out i was wrong, i had 5 gyms done in plat, i wish i could remember how tf i beat Wake though i think sunny day and solarbeam on ponyta and houndoom mightve had something to do with it.
Went on and beat the galactic grunt, on up past the cafe through the foggy route clearing trainers, up to celestic town. Houndoom smashed the grunt easily
VS Cyrus
Houndoom beat Sneasel with a sunny day + fire fang, switched in rapidash for a fire blast against murkrow for an OHKO. last was golbat and after exchanging poison fangs and bites, a quick attack from flareon finished it off.
got surf, went back to floaroma town and up to the Fuego Ironworks. caught KFC the Magmar. went through the ironworks for shards and flamethrower TM, taught flamethrower to Infernape. dug underground for one more blue shard. went back to the route west of pastoria and traded 2 red and 6 blue shards to teach infernape thunderpunch.
went to canalave.
VS Barry
Flamethrower, double team, Flamethrower infernape takes out staraptor. next came empoleon which ate a Close Combat OHKO, switched magmar in against heracross, and promptly died to a brick break brought in rapidash and KOd with fire blast. flareon took out ponyta after a couple of Bites and a quick attack, lastly infernape OHKOd roserade with a flamethrower
Went on to iron island, got Strength, went in and stopped after beating a couple of trainers.

Hothead (Infernape) LV40
Flamethrower
Close Combat
Shadow Claw
Thunderpunch

Rawr(Flareon) LV37
Strength
Quick Attack
Bite
Fire Spin

Twilight(Rapidash) LV40
Fire Blast
Stomp
Sunny Day
Solarbeam

Blaze(Houndoom) LV34
Fire Fang
Sunny Day
Bite
Solarbeam

KFC(Magmar) LV32
Fire Punch
Confuse Ray
Fire Spin
Sunny Day