[Gen 3] The Random Challenge in Pokémon Emerald

INTRODUCTION

Well, it's my first challenge I'll actually attempt to finish, but not the first one I tried. I like challenges and I hope to get more into it with time. This seemed like a good starting point. So, the challenge is about using a randomized team.
Here it is what I got:

Swampert

Exploud

Camerupt

Kecleon

Cacturne

Corsola

which is by the way an interesting team, especially considering how good Swampert is in this game. I am also really up to try Kecleon and Cacturne. Corsola is probably the one I'd have avoided having lol, but we'll see. Actually it's still good as a water type HM slave, considering all the water Hm moves in Hoenn. I am also curious to see if I manage to give all those pokemon a good moveset and a role in the team.

So, let's start. I pick up Mudkip and well, nothing to be said. It's just super strong and indeed I beat the first gym very easily.



Then on Road 116 I got a Whismur. 2/6 of the team. It was under leveled so I proceeded to level it out. I continued the story with no problem and I saved Peeko who was reunited to Mr. Briney. Indeed one of the cutest things in the Pokémon series and I love them too much lol. Pics needed lol.



Mr Briney helped me get to the next city and that's where I got quite easily the next medal. Fighting type was super effective on whismur so Marshtomp helped.



Then I got into the cave and in the end, without using Flash, because it was a pretty easy design, I met Steven.



Then the story continued and my team got even stronger, Marshtomp leveled up and Whismur evolved into Loudred. Its moveset is still kinda bad, but it's a good pokemon. Thanks to a trainer I got soft sand, that I gave to Marshtomp and determined the victory of the third medal against Wattson.

But before that, I needed to get to Mauville City and I needed to defeat Brendan who was quite strong but in the end we did it.



Then Wattson was easily beaten.



So, I stopped and got three medals.




MY TEAM (2/6):

- Marshtomp, level 26
- Loudred, level 23

Alright, I went ahead. The 4th gym was pretty easy. Luckily Swampert is a really good pokemon, so the first badges have been pretty easy to conquer. The 4th is one of those. But before getting the 4th badge, I found and caught the 3rd member of the team: Numel.

Obviously, I try to keep all my pokemon at the same level, because when you have a diverse team it's important that every member is strong. Grinding might be a thing, but I tried to avoid it. I rather used to fight every wild encounter and all the trainers. It often isn't enough to level your pokemon properly, but somehow I got there. I got the cabin and defeated Max and also met Archie.









And then I easily got the 4th badge.



Ok, so then I got the goggles and I visited the desert to find and catch Cacnea, the 4th member of the team. It took me a little while since it only had like 10% rate to spawn, if I remember correctly. Ok, well Cacnea is a pokemon that gave and is still giving me some problems. It's pretty fragile and slow, which made its leveling up path pretty long and difficult. I found it with a nice moveset: absorb, growth, leech seed and some other move. The strategy is pretty clear, but the problem is that being fragile and slow it often can't place leech seed (which fails more than sometimes) and with absorb it can take few HP back. Leveled up, she managed to win some battles, but always in the yellow or red HP rate. Totally useless against the gym leaders' battles. But the main problem was that her moves aren't that strong: absorb has like 20 base power, which is really really low. At level 29 she learned faint attack which does more damage.
Anyway, the hard part of the game was about to come. The 5th leader, our dad, is no joke. He was really really really really strong. It took me several tries, but in the end I found the right strategy. The main obstacles of his team are: Slaking and Linoone. Slaking is really strong and also very resistant. It takes a long while to take it down and it basically can oneshot almost any pokemon. My strategy was to use Mud-slap with Marshtomp. It cuts the enemy's
accuracy. I spammed it as much as I could and indeed it worked because Slaking started missing many hits. Then I proceeded with stronger moves till it fainted. Linoon is the other problem: it uses belly drum and yeah half life but it will oneshot all the team. It's really strong, but the work around wasn't too hard this time as well. Using a faster pokemon that could attack it and do it a good amount of damage so it wouldn't use belly drum, because it had already lost a good part of its HP. The strategy after some tries worked and I FINALLY got the 5th badge.



Now, the difficult part of the game wasn't over yet. To get to the next city there were many many trainers and a lot of wild pokemon. The cities are quite far from each other, so going back to heal your pokemon was a long difficult journey that needed to be done. In the meanwhile, there was also a little episode of Team Aqua in the Weather Institute. They weren't hard to defeat but added to the long Roads and to all the other trainers, it wasn't easy. But the best had to come yet: after this episode Brendan came to challenge me. Oof, that was hard and indeed I lost. I battled him again but this time I managed to win. It was quite hard especially to beat his Grovyle. My fire pokemon was Numel which is also ground type, so grass type moves are still effective on him. There was also rain, so the only fire type move he has (ember) was almost effect less. This time I had much of my team still alive so I manged to win.

It was time for the 6th badge but before that, I needed to get the Devon device to catch Kecleon because it's needed to access the gym, but I also needed one for my team. I got the Steven's tutorial one at level 30, which was pretty decent. I have no idea at all how to use Kecleon, but indeed it seems pretty strong, Its ability is interesting even if it can be a benefit but also not. Inevitably, you'll pretty much loose your stab and there might also be chances for the enemy to have a move and then its super effective type move. It is probably few cases, but for example it happened with Tropius: solar beam but then aerial ace. Anyway, I kinda leveled up my team and Marshtomp evolved into Swampert. The 6th gym wasn't easy but also not too hard. In the end Laudred and Swampert did their job. I rely too much on them, but they're also really strong. So, in the end, I got the 6th badge.






There's still some level difference between the members of my team, but I m working to reduce it. I don't mind Swampert to be a higher level but the gap hasn't to be too much, like 3-4 levels is ok. More, I m not sure about that. Also, in the end I caught a random Wingull to use fly. I keep it in the boxes tho, like the challenge says.


MY TEAM (5/6):

- Kecleon, level 32
- Cacnea, level 31
- Loudred, level 36
- Swampert, level 37
- Numel, level 30

It was time for the 7th badge, but many other things happened before. Cacnea evolved into Cacturne and Numel evolved into Camerupt. It was mainly the time to face Max and the Team Magma hideout.





It wasn't too hard, considering the help I had from my loyal Swampert. Another matter was the 7th gym. I remember that when I first played pokemon Emerald, Swampert easily did the job thanks to surf. Playing ORAS, same thing: Swamperti did the thing. But this time around, it was really really hard. I can't really say why, but I think I was slightly under leveled and the enemy team hit pretty hard on my pokemon. It was particularly bad Solrock with Flamethrower against my Cacturne, which was still super effective on rock types. It didn't take a lot to fix this, I just kinda changed my strategy and somehow I managed to win.



Next, there was the 8th gym but many many things had to happen before that. First of all, as soon as I got access to route 128, I caught my Corsola, which is the last member of my team. Then I continued with the story, so I had to defeat Archie and Cacturne did a good job. Then there was the Rayquaza awakening bit and so on. I won't get into details because this is just a journal for a challenge.
















Oh yeah, I think it's quite plausible that the reason why Mega Rayquaza has a Delta shape is because of the original disposition of these rocks. Pretty cool imo and that would be a nice reference.


Ok, so it was time for the last gym. Actually, it wasn't too hard but I only had a huge problem called Kingdra. It was really strong and apparently I was under leveled even in this case, despite beating all the trainers. Anyway, I used this occasion to change my view on my challenge. Nothing against the rules, obviously. Simply, I realized I had in my team some pokemon I had never used in general, most of them not even in other games. So, I decided to get deep into it and build a more decent team. I firstly went to get a PP Max for Cacturne's Giga Drain, because it's really useful against all the water type pokemon and yeah Wallace is included as well. Then Laudred evolved into Exploud. Last but not least, I got Toxic for Corsola. I used Corsola for a while and I noticed it was quite under leveled, but especially not really effective. Checking the stats and looking around, I found that using Corsola as a toxic setter is indeed a good strategy, that in fact made me win against Juan and get the last badge. But before getting the 8th badge, I did something else, something quite important: I gave nicknames to my pokemon. I am very bad at it lol and I never do it as I catch my pokemon, I need a bit of that pokemon usage in my team and in the story to actually give it a nickname. Here they are:

Kecleon - > THE KEEPER Because of its ability. I am trying to benefit from it as much as possible. Also, PMD, they are vendors and the word to "keep" kinda fits with this meaning to do a little reference.

Cacturne -> OSANYIN One of the most useful pokemon in my team, if not the most. Leech seed + giga drain is a good combo, plus it resists quite good. From this, the name of an African God. It's the god of herbs, so there's a reference to the grass type and to the curative strategy of Cacturne (leech seed + giga drain)

Exploud -> THE GIANT Generic and banal, I can agree with that. Exploud is really big and indeed the biggest in the team. Its moveset is pretty bad, except for Stomp which is really good. Giants are big and have therefore the tendency to stomp their enemies, so it kinda fit. Also, I noticed that Kecleon and Exploud were quite a good core in double battles, so they both have THE as a small reference to their bond.

Swampert -> SCILLA It's the name of a very nice blue flower. Scilla symbolizes loyalty, fidelity and constancy. Those are indeed the right adjectives for a pokemon like Swampert in third generation games. It's a really strong pokemon that has an incredibly good typing and that has much advantage in these games. My Swampert is also a female and I thought that the name of a flower was a good highlight for that too.

Camerupt -> LAURENTIUS Very stupid reference to one of my fav games: Dark Souls. He is a Pyromancer who is quite nice and does his job. It reminded me of Camerupt because he is always useful and does his thing. Laurentuis always sits on the ground, which is a small reference to the double typing of Camerupt.

Corsola -> ROSE, like the flower. Not only a reference to the name of the color, but also because like a rose, Corsola has spikes and it's also poisonous thanks to toxic.


After this overthinking, I went to get my 8th badge. This time with the newly evolved THE GIANT and with the strategy of ROSE, I manged to get the last badge.



Well, I also arrived to Ever Grande City, but I stopped there. I am probably under leveled and I have some concerns for the League, especially for Wallace lol. We'll see.





MY TEAM (6/6):

- THE KEEPER, Kecleon, level 40
- OSANYIN, Cacturne, level 44
- THE GIANT, Exploud, level 41
- SCILLA, Swampert, level 41
- LAURENTIUS, Camerupt, level 41
- ROSE, Corsola, level 38

I was too excited, so I spent much time playing the game to finally complete the challenge. This last post will be interesting.

So, first of all, I needed to get past the Victory Road. I don't use Flash, because it's a very useless move, even outside the battle, exactly like defog in gen 4. However, this was one of the few mazes that made it really hard for me to actually complete and to get out. Very good, indeed. I liked the complicated Victory Roads in gen 3 and gen 4. Gen 5 is already a little easier. It was really hard because the trainers were strong and sometimes wild pokemon didn't let you run away. So, in the end I finally made it to the League. I could have created better movesets, but I decided to keep the HMs, to give a slight layer of difficulty. Last but not least, I was SEVERELY under leveled. You'll see the levels in the pics, but Wallace and Drake had pokemon at about level 55/60 while my team was around level 40/45, except a couple. I defeated most of the trainers in the game, but I decided not to go and level up my pokemon because that would have meant grinding. Instead, I preferred saving before each elite four to study their strategy and do my best with my team and, believe me, for Wallace it got me quite a lot.



Anyway, I thought I had to battle against Brendan at some point lol, but that didn't happen. So, I bought many things to get ready for the League and I went for it.

Sidney, the first one.



Not much trouble. My team did its thing and mainly SCILLA (Swampert) helped me a lot. I cured my team and went ahead.



Ester. It was kinda funny, I have to thank THE KEEPER (Kecleon) for a very nice sweep. The combo normal type + substitute + shadow ball did a VERY GOOD job. It basically easily eliminated half of Ester's team. For the rest, I just worked it around with my team. But the battle was relatively easy. It was really satisfying to watch, but especially I was glad to use Kecleon in a good and useful way. So, time for the next battle.



Glacia. From here, things got really really difficult and hard. I mean, LAURENTIUS (Camerupt) helped a lot, but not as much as I was wishing. I was obviously afraid of Saleo because they could have had a water type move, but looking deeper into it, I just found out they don't. Walrein does tho. I preferred using SCILLA (Swampert) instead, which had earthquake as well. It was definitely harder than the others and a little harder than expected, especially because LAURENTIUS (Camerupt) got more hit than expected.



Drake. Huh, this one was really hard. I didn't really have any super effective moves, but if I had, they weren't really good, I think it was also because of the level gap. The problem was indeed that I was taking too much damage. Shelgon used Protect, so that was a good way to develop some strategies, like predicting and using Howl to boost attack with THE GIANT (Exploud), but he didn't resist at all, so it was useless. I tried instead to use SCILLA (Swampert) with dive and it kinda worked. Obviously, the main problem was Salamence. To be honest, I was scared of Kingdra as well, because Juan's Kingdra had coverage against grass types with ice beam, that easily shot OSANYIN (Cacturne). So, I didn't use it at all.
I kinda managed to handle Altaria with LAURENTIUS (Camerupt) having Rock Slide or by THE GIANT (Exploud). Salamence was handled by SCILLA (Swampert). Time for the Champion.




Well, it took me a while to adjust to the right strategy, but my jolly was unexpected. Let me explain. Obviously, being a water type expert a grass type was a good thing. Well, not at all lol. OSANYIN (Cacturne) was almost completely useless. For two reasons: 1. almost every move could oneshoot it, 2. every single pokemon had a typing or coverage move against the grass type. In general that's why I prefer using an electric type as coverage type to the water type, but that was the challenge lol and indeed it was funny to find the right strategy. Anyway, the first thing I had to do was to give all I could to my pokemon to become stronger: a rare candy to SCILLA (Swampert) and one to OSANYIN (Cacturne). Then two Zincs and two Carbos to SCILLA (Swampert), who also had soft sand, and one HP UP to OSANYIN (Cacturne).

Wilord was the first pokemon. SCILLA (Swampert)'s earthquakes kinda did the job, unless some immediate change of the Wailord for Ludicolo, who was indeed one of the worst enemies.

I switched to OSANYIN (Cacturne) who got less damage than any other pokemon in my team. The problem? Ludicolo had double team, making sometimes really hard to hit and btw against a full water type, the only move my grass type pokemon did was a dark type one: faint attack. it also had blackglasses, so it had a boost for that move. Some hyperpotions and curative strategy and in the end I managed to win. Sometimes I used THE KEEPER (Kecleon) with substitue + strength against Ludicolo, but the it didn't too much damage.

Whiscash and Tentacruel were kinda easy. SCILLA (Swampert)'s earthquake oneshot Tentacruel, while it took more time and also some surf to defeat Whiscash. Those pokemon were kinda the easy part of the battle.

Milotic. Honestly? I thought he was my main problem, but it wasn't. It really wasn't. It has a pretty good moveset, but it's not used 100% properly (luckily lol) and SCILLA (Swampert)'s earthquakes and some cures from both me and Wallace made the thing longer, but my attacks hit Milotic quite hard. He used toxic on me, but I had cures for those.

Gyarados. Now this, THIS WAS MY NIGHTMARE. I really couldn't believe Gyarados could have been my main problem in this battle, but indeed it was. Let's be frank, almost all of my team could have been oneshot by every of Wallace's pokemon moves. Also yeah, the level gap was a real thing. Gyarados had surf, hyper beam, earthquake and dragon dance. Despite the dragon dances, it didn't really made too much damage to SCILLA (Swampert). The problem was hyper beam, but at least I had one turn more to do more damages to Gyarados or to recover HP. Unfortunately, the strategy was the same: surf + hyper beam, which was enough to faint SCILLA (Swampert). recovering HP after surf was basically a trap and I could only wish Gyarados could miss hyper beam (spoiler: at the try of my victory, it didn't happen lol). I used all of the other members of my team as repositioning and curative tools, basically. Then, the game changer solution arrived. Crazily enough, my level 38 ROSE (Corsola) resisted hyper beam, it allowed me to cure SCILLA (Swampert) and on a free switch, I used surf for the last time, finally winning over Gyarados. Honestly, my strategy with ROSE (Corsola) was to get a hit, resist and use toxic. It kinda worked for some Elite Four members, but in the last battle I didn't even check on the damage calculator for Corsola's damages because at level 38 I really thought it couldn't resist anything at all. Instead, it's thanks to its resistance to Gyarados' hyper beam that I managed to win. I am glad this happened, because even ROSE had a good role in the League, while I was expecting it to have none.
So, in the end I FINALLY did it!



So, yeah. Challenge completed!














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