Rainbow Chara X
Impossible to gauge!
- 129
- Posts
- 8
- Years
- Shiny Hunting in Sinnoh
- Seen Apr 25, 2024
Oooh, this one's gonna be fun. Especially since we're almost at the end.
[FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #12 - Road To Dusk[/FONT][FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]
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Right, we're in some super evil Pokemon Tower. I didn't forget.
She tells us that Darugis is trying to give us the slip and that we should get going. Given how much we creamed him earlier, it makes sense that he's running away.
Everyone's complaining that they can't go up the tower for some reason. Curious...
You know, encountering unidentified ghosts made sense in the vanilla games because they were the only ghosts you could even fight before you got the Silph Scope... but here? We already have a Chandelure and a Shedinja.
I swear if Candy is too scared to fight another ghost just because we don't have a Silph Scope, she's going in the trash.
Oh hey Arceus escaped from his ball again and --
... Convenient. Not that we even need it, to be honest. It's not like we'll fight the uber spirit of Cubone's mother or something.
: ("Monica... It appears Darugis has again created an obstacle in your path.")
: "Yeah, the rooms above this one are filled with water. This doesn't make any sense... If the tower was flooded, shouldn't it have started from the bottom of the tower?"
The logic bomb is too much for me.
: ("Yes, you are indeed correct. There are forces even I cannot understand at this current time.")
Really? It makes no sense for Arceus to not comprehend how Darugis is keeping a bunch of water in the same place. It... doesn't seem to be that hard of a trick? Primarina could do it and they're infinitely less powerful than the moron that is our main villain.
Monica complains that she can't go up the tower or she'll drown, but Arceus barfs out another power for her:
Arceus is really relying on that Splash Plate to do stuff for us, huh?
Darugis gave his minions the ability to breathe water too because he's cheating as always.
: "I guess you won't mind if we beat him up every day in the process?"
Oh wow, an item that is completely useless! I never thought I'd get to see one of those again.
Oh no, what will I do?
Surely, this random dude knows what he's talking about. Monica doesn't have like a million aces up her sleeves, no.
... Cleanse Tag? Are you sure that'll really help at this point in the game? At this point, you'd need a whole exorcism.
Also, say hello to the level 90 Unown again. Why do these little guys always pop up whenever we reach a stronghold for Darugis? Is it for the spooky effect?
: "Uh... Thanks, I guess. How'd you even do that?"
: ("The Jewel of Life, of course.")
: "Oooh right, I forgot it could do that."
Say hello to a Spiritomb we'll never catch. Shame too, because they could have been nice to have. Maybe we'll get them in another Pokemon game.
Despite all of the demonic shit going on, this is still like a memorial tower. We're looting the graves of ghosts who are all influenced by Darugis and stuff... it would have been interesting if trying to get an item also activated a forced encounter, but I doubt DRG would have had the patience to do that.
Then again, she managed to figure out how to make genders work for an NPC that we would have never seen otherwise, so I really don't know where her priorities lie at.
Thaaaat's creepy. Good thing we're not going to let that happen, huh?
I should mention that the grunts all have up to three Pokemon with most of them being Gengar. They're not very hard and they don't really say anything interesting aside from "all hail Darugis" - that wore out its welcome real fast.
I don't need to say anything about this other than cold hard cash, baby.
Well, that didn't take long. Not sure why the water was even a thing or why Darugis couldn't just blow the town up withhis great flaming eyebrows the absolutely broken Dark Chaos, so you got me there.
Anyway, let's go ahead and:
(oh jeez)
[Lavos Theme]
[A screeching howl made up of thousands of voices echoes through the room]
: ("It's you... the red Lucario!")
: ("Aah! What is that?!")
: ("Sigurd... you've doomed us all. Darugis exists because of you!")
: "The ghosts know about his past?"
: ("Listen, I didn't want any of this to happen. I... I did my part back then. What Alberich did was reckless, but he...")
: ("Be quiet. Regardless of how you feel, so many people are dead because of you... You unleashed a monster into the world!")
: ("It's not my fault! I'm trying my best to stop him!")
: ("It's too late... too late.... You and your friends are going to die. There is no more hope in this world... all thanks to you.")
: ("N-no, it's not... there's still...")
[He falls to his knees. Monica, Signe and Siegfried run over to him]
: "Hey, lay off already! He's one of the best chances we have to defeat Darugis once and for all. All we need to do is fight."
: ("... He will break you like he did us. You have yet to feel true terror, child...")
[The red mist disappears]
: ("Sigurd, are you alright!?")
[Sigurd looks up with tears welling up in his eyes]
: ("Wh... Why are you crying?")
: ("All of this is because of me in the first place. I've tried really hard to be okay with it, but after thinking of all of the people that suffer because of me...")
: "... No, it's not your fault."
: ("Monica's right. Sigurd, listen: Both of you followed what you thought was right. You wanted to help our country. He wanted to see you again. The end result wasn't necessarily right, but nobody can really blame you. If anything, Alberich becoming the demon king and every atrocity he's done is all on him, not you.")
: ("But... How can we possibly match up to him now? He's invincible.")
: "That's the thing. You're still fighting. Even if you were responsible for him turning bad, if you just sat around doing nothing... then I'd have a problem. But you're not. In fact, you're one of my strongest guys. I... can't imagine how we could have gotten this far without you."
: ("Oh... of course.")
: ("We'll support you no matter what. You want to help people in danger and stop more from getting hurt, right? That makes you a hero in my eyes.")
: ("Guys... you're...")
: ("We'll find a way to take down Alberich for good! No ominous ghost message is going to keep us down!")
: ("You know, I thought like you a long time ago... but then you proved me wrong. Now it's my turn. Come on - we have a demon king to dethrone.")
: [Wipes his tears away] ("... Ha, you got me there. You're right. Losing faith now would just make everything worse.")
: "I'm glad we can at least give you a confidence boost, dude."
LP plots are fun to write.
Anyway, we finally have Mason and these other two chucklefucks to deal with.
... Wait, how did they get past the water if we're the only people with waterbreathing?
Serves you right, dum dum.
"It's because of me he escaped..."
Doubtful: there's not really anybody in the world that can even confront him aside from us, so I can't really blame you if he snuck away.
: "I need to battle him, not you."
Zale: "I will not object. Defeat him."
Not like we need your approval, but at least he's willing to admit that we're strong enough to do this.
"I'm afraid he's long gone. He's grown tired of this boring world. You live, you die, the end. That's all this place is! Ahahaha!"
Mason is a nihilist on top of being ratfuck insane. He would fit very well in Snakewood, although given DRG that was probably intentional.
: "No, I'm not here for Darugis. I'm here for you!"
Zale: "Trainer, defeat this clown. If you do not, I'll do it."
At least I'm not the only one sick of Mason's shit.
Nathan: "You must hurry as well. The water is going to overcome this floor soon, like the ones below it."
So does the water come from the ocean around it or... what?
: "You people try, try, try and try time and again to bring meaning to your life. You're going to die anyway, no matter what!! YOU'RE ALL SO STUPID!!"
I swear to god if this is based off of the ending of Snakewood, I will do a Bane and crack this game's spine in half... Although given how this is based off of a Game Boy Advance game, I can do that with my fingers.
: "This ends now, Mason!"
[Young Nobleman of Madness]
Despite everything else, there's three things I can say about Mason:
#1: He was really entertaining due to his lunacy. It's pretty obvious he's an homage to Snakewood and while I'm iffy about that, he at least makes the game interesting.
#2: His sprite is rad as fuck. You should have asked this person to do the sprites for you, DRG.
#3: He uh... deserves the
Rude Crude Dudes Alarm.
He starts off with a Cofa'grigus that can take a ton of punishment due to their surprising bulk. There's also the middling detail of them having Shadow Tag so you can't escape, a feature shared by their wild counterparts in the lower levels of the Tower.
Normally he would have a Trevenant here, but...
100 / 55 / 101 / 190 / 110 / 110 (666 Total)
Oh, this is gonna be trouble.
Evil Candelabra is a
/
type with Shadow Tag again (I'm a masochist, ok) and access to Devil Flame, making her one of the most brutal Darkmons encountered so far. I'd wager to say she's the second deadliest thing in the game behind Darugis himself.
To let you know how diesel she is, she managed to survive an Aura Saber. That's... pretty telling.
Thankfully, Sigurd managed to shatter her with a critical hit before she could burn him. Deadly stuff, I swear...
100 / 90 / 90 / 136 / 110 / 140 (666 Total)
Evil Ambes, on the other hand, is a little less scary but he's still pretty dangerous. He's a
/
type with Lightning Rod and is one of the fastest Darkmons yet.
Fortunately, he's also a giant dunce who didn't learn that attacking Ground types with electricity doesn't hurt them.
But I will give him this: he's tough enough to survive an Earthquake.
I'm just glad he didn't have the smart idea to use Ice Beam or Corin would have been dead by now.
Mason's other Pokemon are not as interesting to mention aside from Gengar packing Destiny Bond... But so did all of his goons.
(Mason is Darugis's favorite, hence why he has two Darkmons and a Mega)
That sprite could uh... use a bit more work, but alright.
Oh lordy, here we go. You know how the Darkmons seemed like a daunting task to take down due to them being more powerful than their normal counterparts? Well, as it turns out, the Mega Evolutions in this game are that on crack.
Just... take a look at this:
(+261 BST!!)
Okay, all bets are off. How can you do the "fake base stat" garbage again, Dark Rising Girl?
That's not how Mega Evolution fucking works.
Mega Evos give a boost of 100 BST and sometimes reduce stats to meet up with that. (Such as giving Mega Beedrill 15 Special Attack to bolster their speed and attack)
This? This is beyond Kaizo. Is it supposed to be justified because we have Arceus now? No. I won't accept it because it's still stupid.
Nobody wants fight an uber like this just to complete the goddamn game. You guys reading have to keep in mind that not only do you have the gigantic numbers, but there's also effort values: DRG, in some vain attempt to make her villains scarier, had every one of their Pokemon have 252 EVs.
For those who don't want to do the math, that increases a stat by 63 points. Due to how enemy EVs work in the Gen 3 games (I assume), all of their stats are increased by 63 points on top of having ridiculously high bases.
(If I'm mistaken, someone point this out)
Oh, and would you believe me that there's more?
Corin, despite the impending danger, decides to take on this beast for herself. (... And did something funky with her neck)
Amazingly enough, she managed to beat through whatever tricks this guy had and came out on top. Best Dragon.
(In an alternate timeline, Wave did it. This game is hard, alright)
"Thank you for defeating me!!"
He's... thanking us for beating him. He was aware he was a menace?
: "Darugis, the one who shall destroy this disgraceful planet, is gathering all of the negativity absorbed from this world and will unleash it within the next few hours."
: "What?! So he's going to destroy the world now? I thought-"
: "You thought wrong! He's inside Hell, focusing all of power in preparation for one final attack. You can't do anything about it! DARUGIS! TAKE ME AS AN OFFERING! TAKE MY DARK SOUL AND DEVOUR IT IN YOUR DESTRUCTION! ALL HAIL DARUGIS!"
I'm going to become lactose intolerant from all this cheese.
Oh well, rest in pieces, Mason. You were fun while it lasted.
: "Monica! Do you know what you're doing? Where there is light, there must also be dark! People like me will always exist! Can't you see? Not even you nor the god of Pokemon can change balance! You'll only destroy order! I'M HAPPY TO LEAVE THIS WORLD BEFORE ORDER IS DESTROYED! AHAHAHA! I WIN!"
Okay, now you're making me losing my patience.
Good riddance, jesus christ. Let's get out of here.
We might as well pay Zale a visit and knock him off his perch while we're at it.
It's a giant swimming pool. That's our final task.
If only beating Zale in a swimming match was what we had to do, though. He claims that the fight won't be official because all of the badges rusted away or something, although I'll just chalk that up to him being a bad manager than him being undefeated.
He is also a red-haired Lucian from the Sinnoh Elite Four... Interesting character design to use for a water gym.
I'm curious as to where these people get the other Rotom forms because I want Quote to be a big dumb applicance.
Siegfried had help from Beatrice to roast this Gyarados. You guys have to keep in mind that while these levels are normal for us... to every other normal person, they're an impossible, harrowing challenge.
Like jesus christ, Beatrice got frozen. This is almost easily one of the better gyms for her to fight in and she's already at a disadvantage.
Thankfully, Sleep Powder comes to save the day.
I'll give Zale this: He's a pretty diesel fighter. No wonder why Alcina wanted us to fight with him.
That Greninja sprite is surprisingly really good compared to the other Gen 6 Pokemon in here.
Too bad Beatrice decided to have frog's legs.
Well hey, at least he's a champ about it.
He congratulates us and wants to see more of us in the future, but Monica's worried that she might not even live that long... Kinda depressing when you get down to it.
Hey, remember this place from Chapter 3? We're finally going to explore the rest of it.
Nice. Now we can finally use Flash outside of battle.
We have all the badges, though! Including the one that's supposed to let us use flash. A glitch, perhaps?
*Deep sigh*
Okay, here we go. Let's just hope this won't suck.
...DRG was kind enough to make it a straight and narrow path with no real surprises. I do like that she didn't try to ape the horrific mind-bending level design of Snakewood and just decided to keep things simple.
There she is. Oh, and it's the Mystery Dungeon sprite for Cresselia too. Nice.
[Current OST: The Requiem of Shield Knight]
: ("Who are you, child?")
: "Name's Monica, nice to meet you. See, I'm on a quest to stop an evil overlord called Darugis and I figured we would find something in here that could help us."
: ("D... Darugis, you say? So he's come back. I thought Sigurd and that man stopped him?")
: "Oh snap, you know Sigurd?! Wait, you know my dad?"
: ("Ah, I see... so he's chosen a new trainer to fight with. Can I see Sigurd, please?")
: "Oh, sure."
: ("No way. Selene, is that you?")
: ("What a silly question. Of course it's me.")
: ("How has the fight been going since I've been sealed here?")
: ("Funny you ask, because I've made a lot of progress. For one... I've got Signe and Siegfried back.")
: ("Hi, mama! Glad to see you're alright!")
(Note: He's saying this as an affectionate nickname, not because she's his biological mother)
: ("... Hello, Selene.")
: ("Wonderful! I'll admit, while Signe's return has me a bit curious, I can't be any happier with the both of you coming back.")
: "M-mama? Just how do you guys know each other?"
: ("Oh right, we never told you about Selene, did we?")
: ("I'm Alberich's wife, Monica. Long story short, I used arcane magic to bolster our powers so we could defeat him. Unfortunately, the price came with me turning into a Cresselia, but I accepted that going in.")
: "Whoa... you were his wife? Was he anything like this before he did the ritual to bring Sigurd back?"
: ("No. He was a kind, thoughtful man. I fell for him because he was genuine about his feelings, but... then he started to get cold and detached. It didn't take long for him to become the man he is today.")
: "... That's rough, buddy."
: ("Say, mama, now that you're here, do you mind helping us? Monica's a really good trainer! She's guided us this far and that's just for starters.")
: ("Oooh, I actually didn't think of that. You'd get along well with Miss Bellamine and the rest.")
: ("Heehee. It seems like you've made quite a lot of friends on your journey. What kind of woman would I be if I declined?")
: "Rad. See, Sigurd, it's not all bad. You get to be reunited with more of your family!"
: ("Heh. You have no idea how happy this makes me, though.")
But wait!
Oooops. DRG forgot to clean up the event... so you can catch an infinite amount of Cresselias.
For extra confusion points, if you run away, it actually does say "The Cresselia ran away". I'm... yeah, I'm not even going to touch that one and move on.
Now that Mason is dead, his grunts have all fled. Good thing, too.
Well would you look at that, Kayo is the last obstacle before we get to saving the world.
He's still kind of a dick, but now he's at least willing to be Monica's rival. Monica makes a speech about how she's ready to sacrifice herself so all of her friends can be safe, but Kayo wants the satisfaction of taking Darugis down himself.
They fight to see who gets to go.
Kayo has a much better sprite than before, but he's... just Silver with a different name. They're practically alike in demeanor and appearance. Even Dray, Florina and Sydney got some design changes to make them at least distinguishable from their actual counterparts, so I don't understand why Kayo didn't get that treatment either.
That said, I feel bad for any Weavile that isn't Linoura.
Gale takes Blaziken for a ride while Wave uses Zoroark as a surfboard.
More overkill from Siegfried while Corin wrestles a Gyarados for exercise.
Hydreigon is supposed to be Kayo's signature Pokemon, but they've never been able to match up to an Aura Saber. Tough luck, dude.
I mean, if we lost to Kayo, then there's no way we could be able to fight Darugis. It's simple math.
He wants us to come back alive and tells us that we're good at beating the odds. Awww.
Kayo reprises the role of being the guy to tell us that the Elite Four (or in this case, the Majestic Gym Leaders) have busted Fake Base Stat Pokemon with moves that they shouldn't know. I guess Arceus is supposed to pick up the slack for us in this regard, but even then...
They give each other a thumbs up and that's the end of that.
A visit a day keeps the overlords away.
So now we come to the Loser Crew and our final words before we march towards the final battle.
They reminisce about how she was the first real threat in Monica's journey. Sydney gets all teary-eyed at how much Monica has taught her about not being an edgy Batman expy (remember, her parents were killed) and that's cool, I guess.
Blake and Monica give a big old hug and he vows to find a way to bring her back once this is over. He tells us to go out there and make him proud, so forgive me if this actually moves me a bit.
Dray gets so emotional that he breaks character and doesn't want to make an anime reference. Monica manages to get him to crack and they yuk it up one last time. He says that he's gonna back us up if we get in trouble, so that's sweet.
I'll admit, Dray is actually my favorite character in this game aside from Mason.
Florina ponders on how we could change the outcome of this so Monica doesn't have to die. In-Game Monica has resigned herself to her fate while LP Monica is like:
: ("Sigurd and his family will get us out of this. I trust them and my team to get me through this. But... if for some reason I don't make it, you need to pick up after me.")
Noah decides to go with Monica all the way, but she refuses because it'd be smarter for him to stay behind in case we don't cut it. They've been friends since pre-school apparently, so at least now we have a timeline for how long they've known each other.
This has been a very messy game but at least everyone's decided to get decent toward the end.
We also took the time to bolster our powers for the final battle.
You guys better get ready for next time because it's a two parter showdown between us and the demon king's best. See you then.
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Team setup:
(Corin, level 100,
,
/
) - "Are we ready guys? Let's kick some ass!"
(Sigurd, level 100,
,
/
) - [Cracks knuckles] "This is our final stand. Let's make it count."
(Signe, level 100,
,
/
) - "We'll finally be able to make him pay for everything he's done..."
(Siegfried, level 100,
,
/
) - "I'll admit, what if things went differently...? Just how much could we have changed?"
(Wave, level 98,
,
) - "No sense in worryin' about the past, little buddy. It's all about what we're doin' now."
(Candelabra, level 82,
,
/
) - "Yeeeah boy! Let's burn 'em up!"
(Bellamine, level 100,
,
) - "So this is the third time we've stood at the foot of an evil overlord's lair... I hope it's the last."
(Beatrice, level 99,
,
/
) - "Oh, without question, I hope we never have to do anything like this again."
(Arthur, level 96,
,
/
) - "To say I'm not nervous would be lying. But I'm still going."
(Gale, level 95,
,
/
) - "Bring it on."
(Ambes, level 100,
,
) - "Miss Selene, we'll stop your husband. I know we can. You see, I have a pair of siblings that I have to take care of once this is all over... My big sis put me in charge."
(Selene, level 95,
,
) - "Well, aren't you the responsible one. You and all of your friends seem like impressive people... I just wish we could have met up sooner."
(Arceus, level 100,
) - "... So even Selene's made her way back here... Hmm."
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Back-up Team:
(Quote, level 81,
,
/
) - "Bzzzt! Raise some hell, guys!"
(Johnny, level 47,
,
) - "They're so cool..."
(Shadow, level 60,
,
/
) - "I wish I could help, but being recon is sort of my deal..."
(Rubus, level 25,
,
) - "Mama! Go kick that overlord's butt! I know you can!"
(Ignell, level 82,
,
/
) - "I'm rather content with letting them solve it. I believe in them to do it!"
(Beowulf, level 56,
,
) - "They're quite a team. We made the right choice going to them."
(Linoura, level 60,
,
/
) - "Are you sure they'll be alright, though?"
(Iris, level 60,
,
) - "I like to believe so."
(Lucera, level 60,
,
) - "... Wow, that was a lot to take in."
[FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #12 - Road To Dusk[/FONT][FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]
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Spoiler:
Right, we're in some super evil Pokemon Tower. I didn't forget.
She tells us that Darugis is trying to give us the slip and that we should get going. Given how much we creamed him earlier, it makes sense that he's running away.
Everyone's complaining that they can't go up the tower for some reason. Curious...
You know, encountering unidentified ghosts made sense in the vanilla games because they were the only ghosts you could even fight before you got the Silph Scope... but here? We already have a Chandelure and a Shedinja.
I swear if Candy is too scared to fight another ghost just because we don't have a Silph Scope, she's going in the trash.
Oh hey Arceus escaped from his ball again and --
... Convenient. Not that we even need it, to be honest. It's not like we'll fight the uber spirit of Cubone's mother or something.
The logic bomb is too much for me.
Really? It makes no sense for Arceus to not comprehend how Darugis is keeping a bunch of water in the same place. It... doesn't seem to be that hard of a trick? Primarina could do it and they're infinitely less powerful than the moron that is our main villain.
Monica complains that she can't go up the tower or she'll drown, but Arceus barfs out another power for her:
Arceus is really relying on that Splash Plate to do stuff for us, huh?
Darugis gave his minions the ability to breathe water too because he's cheating as always.
Oh wow, an item that is completely useless! I never thought I'd get to see one of those again.
Oh no, what will I do?
Surely, this random dude knows what he's talking about. Monica doesn't have like a million aces up her sleeves, no.
... Cleanse Tag? Are you sure that'll really help at this point in the game? At this point, you'd need a whole exorcism.
Also, say hello to the level 90 Unown again. Why do these little guys always pop up whenever we reach a stronghold for Darugis? Is it for the spooky effect?
Say hello to a Spiritomb we'll never catch. Shame too, because they could have been nice to have. Maybe we'll get them in another Pokemon game.
Despite all of the demonic shit going on, this is still like a memorial tower. We're looting the graves of ghosts who are all influenced by Darugis and stuff... it would have been interesting if trying to get an item also activated a forced encounter, but I doubt DRG would have had the patience to do that.
Then again, she managed to figure out how to make genders work for an NPC that we would have never seen otherwise, so I really don't know where her priorities lie at.
Thaaaat's creepy. Good thing we're not going to let that happen, huh?
I should mention that the grunts all have up to three Pokemon with most of them being Gengar. They're not very hard and they don't really say anything interesting aside from "all hail Darugis" - that wore out its welcome real fast.
I don't need to say anything about this other than cold hard cash, baby.
Well, that didn't take long. Not sure why the water was even a thing or why Darugis couldn't just blow the town up with
Anyway, let's go ahead and:
(oh jeez)
[Lavos Theme]
[A screeching howl made up of thousands of voices echoes through the room]
[He falls to his knees. Monica, Signe and Siegfried run over to him]
[The red mist disappears]
[Sigurd looks up with tears welling up in his eyes]
LP plots are fun to write.
Anyway, we finally have Mason and these other two chucklefucks to deal with.
... Wait, how did they get past the water if we're the only people with waterbreathing?
Serves you right, dum dum.
"It's because of me he escaped..."
Doubtful: there's not really anybody in the world that can even confront him aside from us, so I can't really blame you if he snuck away.
Zale: "I will not object. Defeat him."
Not like we need your approval, but at least he's willing to admit that we're strong enough to do this.
"I'm afraid he's long gone. He's grown tired of this boring world. You live, you die, the end. That's all this place is! Ahahaha!"
Mason is a nihilist on top of being ratfuck insane. He would fit very well in Snakewood, although given DRG that was probably intentional.
Zale: "Trainer, defeat this clown. If you do not, I'll do it."
At least I'm not the only one sick of Mason's shit.
Nathan: "You must hurry as well. The water is going to overcome this floor soon, like the ones below it."
So does the water come from the ocean around it or... what?
I swear to god if this is based off of the ending of Snakewood, I will do a Bane and crack this game's spine in half... Although given how this is based off of a Game Boy Advance game, I can do that with my fingers.
[Young Nobleman of Madness]
Despite everything else, there's three things I can say about Mason:
#1: He was really entertaining due to his lunacy. It's pretty obvious he's an homage to Snakewood and while I'm iffy about that, he at least makes the game interesting.
#2: His sprite is rad as fuck. You should have asked this person to do the sprites for you, DRG.
#3: He uh... deserves the
He starts off with a Cofa'grigus that can take a ton of punishment due to their surprising bulk. There's also the middling detail of them having Shadow Tag so you can't escape, a feature shared by their wild counterparts in the lower levels of the Tower.
Normally he would have a Trevenant here, but...
100 / 55 / 101 / 190 / 110 / 110 (666 Total)
Oh, this is gonna be trouble.
Evil Candelabra is a
To let you know how diesel she is, she managed to survive an Aura Saber. That's... pretty telling.
Thankfully, Sigurd managed to shatter her with a critical hit before she could burn him. Deadly stuff, I swear...
100 / 90 / 90 / 136 / 110 / 140 (666 Total)
Evil Ambes, on the other hand, is a little less scary but he's still pretty dangerous. He's a
Fortunately, he's also a giant dunce who didn't learn that attacking Ground types with electricity doesn't hurt them.
But I will give him this: he's tough enough to survive an Earthquake.
I'm just glad he didn't have the smart idea to use Ice Beam or Corin would have been dead by now.
Mason's other Pokemon are not as interesting to mention aside from Gengar packing Destiny Bond... But so did all of his goons.
(Mason is Darugis's favorite, hence why he has two Darkmons and a Mega)
That sprite could uh... use a bit more work, but alright.
Oh lordy, here we go. You know how the Darkmons seemed like a daunting task to take down due to them being more powerful than their normal counterparts? Well, as it turns out, the Mega Evolutions in this game are that on crack.
Just... take a look at this:
(+261 BST!!)
Okay, all bets are off. How can you do the "fake base stat" garbage again, Dark Rising Girl?
That's not how Mega Evolution fucking works.
Mega Evos give a boost of 100 BST and sometimes reduce stats to meet up with that. (Such as giving Mega Beedrill 15 Special Attack to bolster their speed and attack)
This? This is beyond Kaizo. Is it supposed to be justified because we have Arceus now? No. I won't accept it because it's still stupid.
Nobody wants fight an uber like this just to complete the goddamn game. You guys reading have to keep in mind that not only do you have the gigantic numbers, but there's also effort values: DRG, in some vain attempt to make her villains scarier, had every one of their Pokemon have 252 EVs.
For those who don't want to do the math, that increases a stat by 63 points. Due to how enemy EVs work in the Gen 3 games (I assume), all of their stats are increased by 63 points on top of having ridiculously high bases.
(If I'm mistaken, someone point this out)
Oh, and would you believe me that there's more?
Corin, despite the impending danger, decides to take on this beast for herself. (... And did something funky with her neck)
Amazingly enough, she managed to beat through whatever tricks this guy had and came out on top. Best Dragon.
(In an alternate timeline, Wave did it. This game is hard, alright)
"Thank you for defeating me!!"
He's... thanking us for beating him. He was aware he was a menace?
I'm going to become lactose intolerant from all this cheese.
Oh well, rest in pieces, Mason. You were fun while it lasted.
Okay, now you're making me losing my patience.
Good riddance, jesus christ. Let's get out of here.
We might as well pay Zale a visit and knock him off his perch while we're at it.
It's a giant swimming pool. That's our final task.
If only beating Zale in a swimming match was what we had to do, though. He claims that the fight won't be official because all of the badges rusted away or something, although I'll just chalk that up to him being a bad manager than him being undefeated.
He is also a red-haired Lucian from the Sinnoh Elite Four... Interesting character design to use for a water gym.
I'm curious as to where these people get the other Rotom forms because I want Quote to be a big dumb applicance.
Siegfried had help from Beatrice to roast this Gyarados. You guys have to keep in mind that while these levels are normal for us... to every other normal person, they're an impossible, harrowing challenge.
Like jesus christ, Beatrice got frozen. This is almost easily one of the better gyms for her to fight in and she's already at a disadvantage.
Thankfully, Sleep Powder comes to save the day.
I'll give Zale this: He's a pretty diesel fighter. No wonder why Alcina wanted us to fight with him.
That Greninja sprite is surprisingly really good compared to the other Gen 6 Pokemon in here.
Too bad Beatrice decided to have frog's legs.
Well hey, at least he's a champ about it.
He congratulates us and wants to see more of us in the future, but Monica's worried that she might not even live that long... Kinda depressing when you get down to it.
Hey, remember this place from Chapter 3? We're finally going to explore the rest of it.
Nice. Now we can finally use Flash outside of battle.
We have all the badges, though! Including the one that's supposed to let us use flash. A glitch, perhaps?
*Deep sigh*
Okay, here we go. Let's just hope this won't suck.
...DRG was kind enough to make it a straight and narrow path with no real surprises. I do like that she didn't try to ape the horrific mind-bending level design of Snakewood and just decided to keep things simple.
There she is. Oh, and it's the Mystery Dungeon sprite for Cresselia too. Nice.
[Current OST: The Requiem of Shield Knight]
(Note: He's saying this as an affectionate nickname, not because she's his biological mother)
But wait!
Oooops. DRG forgot to clean up the event... so you can catch an infinite amount of Cresselias.
For extra confusion points, if you run away, it actually does say "The Cresselia ran away". I'm... yeah, I'm not even going to touch that one and move on.
Now that Mason is dead, his grunts have all fled. Good thing, too.
Well would you look at that, Kayo is the last obstacle before we get to saving the world.
He's still kind of a dick, but now he's at least willing to be Monica's rival. Monica makes a speech about how she's ready to sacrifice herself so all of her friends can be safe, but Kayo wants the satisfaction of taking Darugis down himself.
They fight to see who gets to go.
Kayo has a much better sprite than before, but he's... just Silver with a different name. They're practically alike in demeanor and appearance. Even Dray, Florina and Sydney got some design changes to make them at least distinguishable from their actual counterparts, so I don't understand why Kayo didn't get that treatment either.
That said, I feel bad for any Weavile that isn't Linoura.
Gale takes Blaziken for a ride while Wave uses Zoroark as a surfboard.
More overkill from Siegfried while Corin wrestles a Gyarados for exercise.
Hydreigon is supposed to be Kayo's signature Pokemon, but they've never been able to match up to an Aura Saber. Tough luck, dude.
I mean, if we lost to Kayo, then there's no way we could be able to fight Darugis. It's simple math.
He wants us to come back alive and tells us that we're good at beating the odds. Awww.
Kayo reprises the role of being the guy to tell us that the Elite Four (or in this case, the Majestic Gym Leaders) have busted Fake Base Stat Pokemon with moves that they shouldn't know. I guess Arceus is supposed to pick up the slack for us in this regard, but even then...
They give each other a thumbs up and that's the end of that.
A visit a day keeps the overlords away.
So now we come to the Loser Crew and our final words before we march towards the final battle.
They reminisce about how she was the first real threat in Monica's journey. Sydney gets all teary-eyed at how much Monica has taught her about not being an edgy Batman expy (remember, her parents were killed) and that's cool, I guess.
Blake and Monica give a big old hug and he vows to find a way to bring her back once this is over. He tells us to go out there and make him proud, so forgive me if this actually moves me a bit.
Dray gets so emotional that he breaks character and doesn't want to make an anime reference. Monica manages to get him to crack and they yuk it up one last time. He says that he's gonna back us up if we get in trouble, so that's sweet.
I'll admit, Dray is actually my favorite character in this game aside from Mason.
Florina ponders on how we could change the outcome of this so Monica doesn't have to die. In-Game Monica has resigned herself to her fate while LP Monica is like:
Noah decides to go with Monica all the way, but she refuses because it'd be smarter for him to stay behind in case we don't cut it. They've been friends since pre-school apparently, so at least now we have a timeline for how long they've known each other.
This has been a very messy game but at least everyone's decided to get decent toward the end.
We also took the time to bolster our powers for the final battle.
You guys better get ready for next time because it's a two parter showdown between us and the demon king's best. See you then.
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Team setup:
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Back-up Team: