[ROM Hack] Super Gold (Stars) 97

I started playing Super Gold 97 a few days ago and I'm hooked, can't bring myself to put it down! I tend to try a few hacks at a time until I settle and this one was the one for me, apparently. I'm going to seperate this into a few posts to write a lil story about each leg of my journey so far and how it's going. This will be the index post.

Note: Normally I nickname every Pokemon I'm keeping on my team, but in this case I want to learn the names of the beta Pokemon so I've left everyone nickname-less.

Current Team:
Volbear lv21
Kotora lv22
Turban lv15
Farfetch'd lv21
Rinring lv22
Sandslash lv22

Badges: 4/8(?)

Gold's journey began just like any other: his brother Ken, who he shared a room with, decided to go be a radio DJ while Gold himself said, nah, I'd rather be a Pokemon trainer. Gold took a walk to the conveniently located Pokemon lab in Silent Town to receive his first Pokemon from Professor Oak alongside his childhood friend Silver. Gold chose Flambear, the Fire-type, while Silver decided to bring along Cruiseal, the Water-type.

Oak's assistant, his grandson Blue, made sure the pair were equipped with Pokedexes and Poke Balls and the journey began. Before leaving home for good, Gold spoke to his brother again and received a Map card for his Pokegear, then went on his merry way.

Before daring to challenge the very first gym in Pagota City, Gold and Silver would have to make it through Silent Hills. It was filled to the brim with other beginning trainers, which were excellent fodder for the growing starter Pokemon. Silver went his own way while Gold took a different route. Before making his way all the way out of the Hills, Gold managed to get two new Pokemon to join his team: a Hoppip and a Rinring. He spent some time with Hoppip to get the tiny guy battle ready, then moved to Pagota City to try his team out against Falkner, the bird loving gym leader.

A Farfetch'd decided to come along during a training session at the southern edge of the city. With these four Pokemon, Gold had little trouble getting through Falkner's gym trainers or his pair of troublesome birds. With the first badge in hand, Gold moved on to the 5 Floor Tower to test his might again.

After a grueling time grinding through the priests and mediums of the Tower, Gold finally got to the top and gained the approval of both the high priest of the tower and Kurt, the wise town elder of Pagota City. Though Gold wondered about the legendary bird said to roost at the top of the tower, he moved ahead, knowing that it would be some time before he was ready for that kind of challenge.

Onward to Route 102 and through to Westport City, Gold trained his team up to challenge Bugsy for their second badge. Though a gym trainer with both a Scyther and a Pinsir gave them a bit of a rough time, Gold and his Pokemon made it through the gym and picked up another badge. Gold's brother Ken happened to be at the Radio Tower when Gold went to check it out, so they spent some time together before Gold had to move on.

Teknos City was like nothing Gold had ever seen. His team grew by two more members on Route 120 and within the Boulder Mine: a Sandshrew and a Kotora. With these six Pokemon, two of which had evolved during training, Gold helped locate a lost child in the mines and fought off Team Rocket before they could sell off all of the Pokemon in the local aquarium.

Whitney, the gym leader, was grateful to Gold for helping her town and thanked him by destroying him over and over at his gym challenge. Gold went into the grass on Route 120 as well as back into the mines, but try as he might his team just couldn't get strong enough to fight off Miltank's powerful Rollout attack. Determined to finally win, Gold continued to train, hoping each challenge might be the one where he would be able to move on with his third badge...

After finally getting his Sandshrew to a higher level and teaching it how to use Rollout, Gold finally managed to steamroll Whitney's team and move forward with his quest for all eight badges. She was happy to hand it over and send him on his way.

As soon as he stepped outside, Gold got a conveniently timed phone call from Professor Oak asking him to join Silver, Blue, and himself at the Slowpoke Well in Birdon Town. Gold hauled it over there, only to find the group had bumped into Team Rocket trying to chop off Slowpoketails for profit.

After easily clearing out the Well and doing some thorough research on the Pokemon living below Birdon, Gold picked up a Turban for his team to replace his Skiploom, who seemed to prefer being a pet to being a competitive Pokemon.

For his fourth badge, Gold had to face off against Morty. It took him a good chunk of time to figure out his way across the weird invisible floors in the gym, but his Rinring took care of every ghost the gym trainers threw at him.

Once he got to Morty, Rinring was raring to go and was easily able to take down the first foe, Gastly, but unfortunately wasn't tough enough to make it past Haunter. Sandslash picked up the pace again with Rollout, taking down the final two members of the gym leader's team and earning them the badge!

Heading out of Birdon, Gold took his new Surf HM and taught it to his Turban to carry him across water. He got lost exploring for a while, but eventually found his way back onto the path he was supposed to be following all along.

His fifth badge was ridiculously easy to get, even though his team was a bit under-leveled, mostly because Jasmine's Steelix was very, very weak to Turban's Surf attack. One OHKO later, Gold was on his way to the next badge!

After going through another tough route and heading into a cave, Gold found Pryce hanging around and convinced him to leave.. only for the old man to go visit his family instead of going back to his gym. Gold wondered why, if Pryce wanted to visit with his family so badly, didn't he do that before just hanging out by himself in a cave for several days?

After a very tough fight and one loss, Gold managed to get Pryce back to his gym for a sixth gym badge. Raitora was the MVP, taking out the very strong Dewgong and making room for Turban to Body Slam Warwolf to death. Pryce's Cloyster didn't stand a chance once his other two Pokemon were down.