PLAYER NAME: VEE
TIME: 1:43
BADGES: 0
- The beginning of the game is pretty plot-heavy. It features the main character arriving in Reborn City by train, only to have the thing explode right before reaching the station. Even though you are the only survivor of what looks like a terrorist attack, this is the world of Pokemon so you don't let it bother you and go pick your starter Pokemon anyway.
There's a lot of small details at the start of the game which really caught my attention. For one, this game is very exclusive with a lot of non-binary trainer sprites to choose from. It even lets you select 'non-binary' as the gender on your boarding pass! As you ride the train, an Absol can be seen in the wastelands along the tracks, foreshadowing that disaster is about to strike. It's those kind of small things which I really appreciate in fan games.
- At the Grand Hall, it's time to pick a starter Pokemon. All starter from generation I through generation VII are available so it wasn't easy to pick one. The game has a machine which lets fate decide, which initially gave me Froakie. It had a pretty bad nature and no hidden ability though, so me and my Discord chat decided that we would reset and just pick one manually. Primarina is my favorite final starter evolution, but I do know that the first two gyms in this game are Electric and Grass respectively, so I made the wise decision and chose Torchic instead. This time, it had its hidden ability (Speed Boost), a decent nature and pretty good IVs! Sweet!
McNuggets the Torchic (M) has joined the party!
- Next step was to go explore the Lower Peridot and the Opal wards. There's a bunch of hidden items in this game, so I made sure to check every rock and talk to every person I came across.
- Right outside of the Grand Hall there's a few patches of grass where I got my very first encounter. The Pokemon here are all quite weak, but I think I got one of the best possible options in Ekans. I recently used Arbok in a playthrough of Pokemon Red and liked it quite a bit, so hopefully it'll serve me well here too. I'm a little bummed it doesn't have the Intimidate ability and its movepool is pretty bad too in terms of physical STAB moves, but it has some nice utility with Glare.
Prune the Ekans (M) has joined the party!
- While exploring, I also came across a bunch of static encounters which don't require any catching to add them to the party. These encounters may also vary between save files. In my game, I got a Pachirsu and an Espurr but these could have also been a Zigzagoon or a Minccino respectively. I guess I got really lucky on my first try.
Peanut the Pachirisu (F) and
Shortbread the Espurr (F) have joined the party!
- There's also a few more areas within the Peridot Ward with wild encounters. To gain access, you need to fight a trainer and this is where I was a little reckless. I completely forgot to heal after another fight and ended up having to face off against a lv. 10 Goldeen with Horn Attack. My Ekans was only lv. 9 at that time and pre-damaged while my Torchic was at full health but it did not appreciate having to switch in. Long story short, Torchic just barely failed to KO it and fell to a Horn Attack. That's one life down already.
- On a more positive note, I ended up catching my own Lightning Rod Goldeen from the indoor swimming pool right after. Goldeen is by no means a good Pokemon, but now I have both a Volt Absorb (Pachirisu) and a Lightning Rod Pokemon for the first gym. I really hope the AI doesn't detect abilities and tries to spam Electric type attacks because of the Water typing.
Sushi the Goldeen (F) has joined the party!
- My voice was starting to get pretty exhausted from reading the dialogue by this point, so I decided to finish the stream by getting just two more Pokemon. First up was a Wurmple I caught in the secret garden and second a stolen Whismur from an empty house in the Southern part of the city. While Whismur could be pretty sweet since I can get Loudred right before the level cap, I decided to box it for now and only added Wurmple to the team for now. Beautifly gets some nice coverage early on and Dustox can be a real tank. Either way, having early access to a fully evolved Pokemon is never a bad thing.
Arugula the Wurmple (F) has joined the party!
- After the stream ended, I took a small break and then came back later to pick up a few EXP candy and level the whole squad up to lv. 13. Which also gave us our very first evolution of the run already. I'm not gonna lie, I was kind of hoping for a Beautifly instead, but Dustox does definitely have potential too. I've also never used Dustox before while I've used Beautifly plenty of times, so I guess it's about time I give it a shot.
Arugula evolved into Dustox!
- This concludes the first update! These updates will be pretty sporadic since I need to find a good moment to stream. I have an old Macbook myself which cannot run the game, so I have to use my mom's laptop which she got from work instead. She works half-time during the morning and always takes it home with her, but sometimes she needs it in the afternoon to finish some of her own stuff, so I don't always have access to it.
In the meantime, if you guys have any tips/advice/etc., feel free to let me know! Or if any of you are also playing the game now that it's fully released, let me know how far you've made it and what your team looks like! ^^
