Rainbow Chara X
Impossible to gauge!
- 129
- Posts
- 9
- Years
- Shiny Hunting in Sinnoh
- Seen May 12, 2025
[FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]Chapter #13 - Despair and then Hope[/FONT][FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, lucida grande, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]
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Spoiler:
Today on Pokemon Dark Rising, we're going into to the Not-Silph Co of the Core Region!
What awaits us inside?
God damn it, not you two again.
In-Game Monica wants to save V for some reason while Let's Play!Monica spits on his grave for a second time. His kids are consumed with thoughts of revenge, while I'm just like "bring it on."
I can at least understand why Monica wants to save V - it'd be to get these two off of her back, but that's about it. The man made a contract with Literally Satan to torture Monica and her father, so forgive me if I don't feel bad for offing him.
The uber dragon is back, but Hel and Ignell took him out in a flash.
I don't have a problem with multiple members of a species, but keep in mind that the Tao Trio are still... well, legendaries. It's not implausible that they have multiple members of a species, but when some random kids spontaneously have them with no explanation or fanfare, that's where things get pissy for me.
Even Sydney deserves Kyurem more than these two jackoffs.
Funnily enough, her Magmortar was more a problem than the uber was. Mostly because I reset to get a "no Pokemon knocked out record" for the fights (again, barring the Sigurd and Heatmor thing from back in like Flamen Town)
Kaiden doesn't say anything different than his sister - they're both angry at Monica but that's about it.
For the love of everything decent, don't encourage them.
You don't owe them jack shit, Monica.
At the very least I like their dynamic. The brother is
When you beat both of them, they inexplicably leave you alone even though they have more to say. I'll transcribe both of their dialogues just for the hell of it:
Kaiden (Not-Hilbert): "Darugis replaced our father with a new general called Vladimir. He's upstairs and planning to usurp Groudon into their control. Wait, why am I even talking to you?"
Sakura (Not-Hilda): "I... I can't trust you, Monica. But if you mean what you say, stop Vladimir."
In-Game Monica promises to bring back V even though that's a bad idea on so many levels. LP!Monica instead says -
[Both of them stare at Monica with an unsure glance. Darugis's voice echoes through the room]
[He lets out a low chuckle as his voice fades away. Kaiden and Sakura stare at Monica with a worried expression]
Regarding the actual dungeon itself, the Novella Lab isn't even a reskin of the Silph Co. Building. Reskinning would imply she's actually changed anything that aren't the trainers.
I'm going to keep this short and sweet because nobody wants to see me walk aimlessly through a building with eleven floors.
Yikes. What did they do to you, Magnezone?
It's like they had to be compacted so they could even fit in the editor.
We steal all of these neat items along with the Card Key. Due to this being the Silph Co. office building, there's a ton of doors that make the place even more annoying to go through. The fact the place runs on teleporters complicates this.
What is this, Half Life 1?
When you get to this rest area, you've practically completed the building. So huzzah.
You know, except for the boss fight that's going to happen right now.
If we still had an Asshole-o-Meter, this is where it'd explode again.
Trust me.
I'm afraid he is. We're really doing this.
It doesn't seem like much after the Uber Duo, but Noah is the hardest opponent that isn't the final bosses. He is so flagrantly powerful here that, despite having the same levels, we have no hope of defeating him with the B-Team.
His Braviary alone can pick apart the team without buffs. If he uses Bulk Up twice, I literally cannot do anything to stop it.
His sudden Cobalion is easily the worst offender. He outspeeds everything I have and hits like a dump truck despite only having 90 base attack.
He knows Swords Dance, can destroy Ignell with Stone Edge and use Iron Head on everybody else. Vera is the only person that can stand up to him, but given how he outspeeds her and how the Braviary tore a giant hole into her with Brave Bird beforehand...
I'm afraid to say that this is where my winning streak stops.
Poor Sathala got the worst of it.
I can't say we didn't try at least. He only had 1% health left after the entire team ganged up on him.
Still, this isn't very flattering.
That's why it'll be the last time you'll ever see me lose on-screen.
No mercy.
Rest easy, guys. You tried your best.
Oh, god damn it. We just had to have you somewhere around here, didn't we?
To let you know how significantly overpowered Sigurd is right now, he did roughly double this Hydreigon's health with just one Aura Saber. If the Hydreigon had zero Health/Defense EVs, it would have done triple the amount. I did the math.
Yeah, I think it's safe to say that we're not losing anymore.
Tell him like it is.
[Ass-whupping theme: Riders of the Light]
This is cathartic after losing to him with the B-Team for like an hour.
Siegfried didn't need the critical hit, but I'm always down for humiliating my opponents.
Suck it.
Funnily enough, when I was fighting him with the B-Team, his Keldeo was the easiest to fight despite that being his signature Pokemon. Fancy that.
The Dragon Slayers are doing their job with pride.
Imagine if Noah had to save the world instead of us. That'd certainly take a lot of stress off of our shoulders, even if he's horribly unprepared for Darugis.
"I cleared the way for you upstairs, but there's still a lot of guys. Be careful cause I'm going to heal."
There's literally only two people upstairs, so what are you talking about? At the very least he took his loss gracefully and just left... even though I'm sure he's sweating salt after his team was destroyed the second time around.
"Heh, I should be thanking you for getting rid of that guy. Now I'm in charge!"
Oh hey, it's Not-Archie with a purple bandanna. Their names both start with V so that gives me the impression that Darugis just picked out the next person in line.
Monica is a fireball today, I love it.
(Pokemon included in his team but I didn't show them off via screenshots: Drifblim, Carracosta, Conkeldurr, Zen Mode Darmanitan)
Vladimir, especially after dealing with the monstrosity that was Noah's team, is easy peasy. Even the B-Team would have an easy time stomping him out.
The only Pokemon that would prove a potential problem would be Zen Mode Darmantian due to their surprising bulk and special attack, but that's about it. Why did Noah stop to fight us if Vlad himself was a pushover?
"I don't need this stinking Master Ball to catch Groudon."
Vlad is also super dumb. He thinks he's a step up from V, but he's so ineffective and stupid that I can't help but feel sorry for the people who enlisted him.
Vladimir: "Eh? No thanks. Peace!"
[He vanishes in a fade to black transition]
And to top it off, he's a dork too. The President of the company(?) decides to reward us the only way he knows how:
Excellent. Two Master Balls isn't a bad reward for sitting through the game's plot, to be honest.
Anyway, you see that incredibly stupid-looking hole behind them? That will somehow take us down eleven floors into a checkpoint station. Okay, whatever.
What is it with the Core Region having places where "very few people survive"? Why would anybody live here if there's places that are so dangerous that just walking through them would cause high mortality rates?
It's like she confused edgy and serious as being the same thing, because it's completely unnecessary to have it like this. (besides, the place isn't even deadly - just super long)
By the way, if you leave through the entrance on the right, this happens. Since the guard is stubborn enough to not move out of the way, we have to backtrack all the way through the Not-Silph Co. Building just to go back to the checkpoint again.
Doesn't sound like much, but it could have easily been avoided by having him move out of the way.
[Theme for the No Man's Land: Spiny Desert]
Anyway, the desert. This place is very notable for a few reasons.
#1: It has a custom tileset that I can confirm is not from the original game or Gen 4. Who made it is what I don't know.
#2: You see Monica in the above screenshot? The game was lagging something fierce. There was so much going on in this one spot that she walked like a snail without the speed up button.
#3: The map for this place is giant. Get a load of this shit:
Like jesus christ, now I know why people died on this route - it was from boredom.
Something interesting I've learned about Void Bomb - it hits both opponents in a Double Battle. So, we have a 125 power
Damn, it's a really good thing Sigurd is on our side. Otherwise, I don't think I could handle it.
Anyway, we skip about 98% of the desert because there's nothing of interest barring some battles here and there. We also meet a familiar face.
Sigh.
Light is here because he wants to stop Monica like every other idiot on our journey. Monica asks him what that weird Conarp monster he had was and where it came from. Considering it was a Fakemon, that's a very good question.
Then this conversation happens:
"Watch your tone. As I've said before, that was an example of Darugis's power known as Creature Creation. He has given me the ability to form any monster I desire, as long as it's made of pure darkness."
I know, right?
Light: "You have a sense of humor. How nice. But I do not obey Darugis like these other mindless slaves you see around here. I'm simply doing him small favors in exchange for this power. As I said before, I am not picking sides in this war. I will simply salvage off of whoever has the upper hand."
Light: "I'm what? I'm finally free from protecting Arceus. I now have the freedom to do whatever I desire. Why should I have to choose a side?"
How would Light even protect Arceus anyway? Canonically speaking, he can't even beat the protagonist who, while still being a "chosen one", is still just a normal human being. I'm not so impressed by Light or his story arc given how he just exists to get in our way.
In-Game Monica recognizes that Landorus looks different than both Tornadus and Thundurus, surprisingly enough. It's neat that she doesn't mistake them for the other two, but still.
This makes me question why she wanted revenge against the actual Pokemon itself instead of Light. In fact, a lot of things in this game aren't up to snuff when you analyze them in depth...
Yeah, I feel sorry for you too, buddy. You're a part of this game.
... Wait one goddamn second. It doesn't say Monica or the equivalent for someone else's file. It says Landorus looks at the player, as in the person playing the game. So not only is that a writing fail (seeing as he should be staring at Monica but is facing the screen due to sprite limitations), the fourth wall is in a million pieces now too. Way to go, Dark Rising Girl.
The actual battle wasn't anything special. I doubt it would have been more exciting if I used a normal team for the sake of a challenge.
Therian form Landorus looks really off in Dark Rising, as if this is a bootleg version of him.
... Believe it or not, this isn't from Generation 5. This is a custom sprite that somehow made its way into this rom hack. Here's the original, made roughly the same time as Dark Rising:
I swear to god, Dark Rising Girl better have asked the guy for permission. Otherwise, and I am being dead serious here, this would be completely irredeemable on her behalf.
IMPORTANT EDIT: Confirmed. Let's just read the credit list for Dark Rising, shall we?
- DarkRisingGirl (Story/Creator)
- Tajaros (Scripter/Support Banner)
- Wesley FG (OW Sprites)
- Kyledove (Tiles)
- Alienhunterx (Official Walkthrough)
- Mewmasterifly (2 Evil Fakemon Sprites for Beta)
- NO_obslayer (Titlescreen)
- Nightkymz (Tile Inserter)
- Atif (Mapper for the 1st Half of the Hack)
- DanielEvans/Pokemon Giratina X/Elite Four Lucian( Banners. If I forgot anyone, please inform me and I'll gladly add you to the list)
- Evil Arms (Fan-made Titlescreen)
- PokemonShinySilver (Wii U)
- Darthatron (Fixed Trainer Card Glitch)
- Hinkage (Scripting & Mapping)
Casual reminder that, even if you survive Aura Saber, you still have a 70% chance of getting burned. I am not apologizing and, believe it or not, it ties into what the game is going to do with the final boss.
"You only won because my creation was not available to me at this time."
Light: "Because it is at my lair, becoming even stronger!"
Oh, don't even try to act like that stupid thing is your trump card. Sigurd doesn't even need to be around - Corin and Wave would still wipe it off of the face of the planet!
Now, believe it or not, there was supposed to be text here. But since Dark Rising Girl was too lazy to make post battle dialogue work, you have to talk to Light to get more out of the scene.
Long story short, Light taunts Monica about how his Conarp monster is growing stronger and how Landorus was too weak. Landorus talks to Monica and challenges her to a fight so he can see if she's worthy to save his brothers and blah blah blah.
There is this insanely corny conversation that I want to share, though:
Light: "No... It is mutating!! The darkness evolution of Creature Creation."
[Landorus Transform Back To It's Original Form - I am leaving it written this way on purpose because that's how it appears in the actual game]
And then Light says that Landorus deserves to be in pain because he lost to Monica, further cementing him as a stupid edgelord.
Anyway... You can catch the Kami Trio. In any other game that would be neat, but given how obsessively you need to grind in Dark Rising to deal with the plot... Yeah, no thank you. It doesn't help that Corin outmatches him in every regard.
Thank you, Wave. It's not like the game expected us to catch Landorus instead of leaving him trapped inside of a tsunami... right?
Oh, who cares. Who wants some blatantly recycled dungeons from the original game?
Naturally. Also, Gale got poisoned again for the first time since she was a Staravia. If someone can keep a counter of the amount of times we've been poisoned onscreen, that'd be nice.
Okay, this was excellent. This Goon was spouting some nonsense about how they're going to get Groudon and Monica, clearly tired of all of these fights (making what I did back in Chapter 12 not just an interpretation of Monica's feelings) just goes "yeah, whatever."
There's certain times where the game isn't half bad. Too bad it's drowned out by the other 90 percent.
We get an item we could have bought in the first real town. Whoopee.
By the way, you see those boulders? They're blocking the way to Groudon and we don't have Strength. So for all of their talking about Groudon, we never get to meet it as part of the main story and ultimately that plot thread goes absolutely nowhere.
A million floors later, there was this room with the braille counterpart of the alphabet from the original games.
I still can't believe they actually put in braille for the Regi Trio. Like alright that's cool, but how would anybody know what to do without a guide? I guess the cryptic nature of it is what made it a genuine mystery at the time.
Anyway, there's Vlad, some Zen Mode Darmanitans and a shiny rock. Only two of them are actual Pokemon, so they're there if you want them... I guess.
???????????????????????????????????????????
I don't even know how to describe what's going on here.
"You found the Sapphire for me. I just followed you! With the Sapphire I will be able to reawaken Kyogre!"
Monica facepalms at his stupidity and pulls out one of the Master Balls to show him he can't even catch the legendaries without one.
Vlad just laughs and says he will use the Sapphire to control Kyogre anyway, even though it's supposed to be the Red and Blue Orbs that do that. Monica, believe it or not, says this to him:
"You're a mess. I'll tell you what, Vladimir. If you can defeat me, you can have both the Master Balls and the Sapphire. If I beat you, you give me the Ruby that you have."
He goes "I'm a grown man, why am I making a deal with a kid", but Monica's like "guess you don't want it after all." Disappointingly enough, this works on him.
Vlad isn't much stronger than how he was a few screenshots back. I don't know why the rematch is so early, but I guess giving us more free experience is always a good thing.
One major thing I should mention: His Archeops knows Brave Bird, which is an illegal move for its species because it can't do that in the real games. For shame.
"You annoying pest! I'll have my Pokemon take those items off of you!"
Why are you even trying, Vlad? Just go home or something.
"And knocks all of Vladimir's Pokemon back."
OOOPS. Guess we shouldn't have beat up Landorus, huh?
What, did he sneak into our team after we wasted him? Like come on. Is it really that hard to create alternate versions of the same scene based on whether or not you have certain Pokemon in your party? It's definitely possible, but it just might be a bit too advanced for this game.
Vlad throws a bitch fit while Monica steals the "Ruby" that he clearly has. (Please, someone tell me what DRG was doing when she coded this part of the game)
More desert. Joy. But hey, at least there's a cactus!
By the way, don't drink cactus juice or you'll wind up like this guy:
Oh god, more inconsequential characters.
This guy is a
Despite this, he is actually the easiest opponent we've faced so far seeing as a normal fire type could roast his entire team without even trying. That's kind of pathetic even by this game's standards.
At the very least he gives us Strength for... his troubles...
Wow, really? You give us Strength immediately after the Groudon stuff loses its importance? There's so many mismanaged decisions in this one chapter alone that I'm starting to run out of things to say.
The Chansey doesn't heal you, by the way. I don't know what Monica is talking about.
Say hello to the Fossil Museum from the original game... Oh, and Kayo who's hiding in the corner.
Okay, this is actually kind of funny. Monica thinks this guy is going to jump when he's just going to throw his Pokedex off the roof because he couldn't stand trying to complete it. A relatable feeling, to be totally honest.
Woman, you ain't slick.
The strange thing about this town is that each of the signs have a Pokemon appear on them... which isn't surprising given how this was Fuchsia City in the original game. The Training Grounds is a glorifed reskin of the Safari Zone, with one of the attendants saying that each zone has a gradual increase in levels from 50 to 80.
They also say:
"You're also allowed to catch any Pokemon you encounter! Cool, huh? Better than Kanto's Safari Zone for sure."
Kind of biting the hand that feeds you, huh?
Kayo challenges us to a duel on Thunder Mountain after we beat Bruce, the Gym Leader of this "fortress".
Let's just cut to the chase.
There's a sandstorm inside of a building somehow. That'd get annoying after a while, wouldn't it?
Nobody cares who you are. I'd be more concerned as to why you're a palette swap of the Battle Pyramid Frontier Brain from Pokemon Emerald.
At the very least he has some connection with Monica's father, seeing as he is able to recognize her immediately.
He didn't have a threatening team, though - a stark contrast compared to Not-Mira of the Normal gym. Bronzong and Klinklang were the only new ones he had, with Bronzong being interesting due to having Levitate and Calm Mind. That would certainly stop Corin and Siegfried (as Fire is counted as Special in this Gen), but Sigurd swept through the team without even blinking an eye.
This could be handy in case I want to get rid of HM moves... despite the fact the game (generously) lets you play without using them. That's one compliment I'll give to Dark Rising Girl, I guess...
... We are immediately confronted by Misty upon going south. It's actually her, too - it's not a palette swap character that claims to be a brand new person. In hindsight, this means the actual characters which 90% of these palette swaps are based off of exist in the same universe as Dark Rising and --
Immediately upon talking to her, she gives the HM for Surf to us. That's a good way to start off a conversation. (It's convenient too, seeing as beating Bruce allowed us to use Surf outside of battle)
"The best Water Pokemon trainer in the world!"
Monica, please. She's far from the best. Typhoon from earlier could whip her sorry ass into shape.
Misty is here because she was looking for Monica and gave her Surf to help her on her journey. She also talks about how Ash still owes her a bike from the incident in the anime, despite that incident having taken place several years ago. Of course.
Misty also warns Monica about Thunder Mountain and the Trilogy Islands. Basically, if someone talks about it beforehand, expect us to visit it in about 5 minutes.
Thank you, Random Swimmer Man. Sigurd is now maxed out on levels.
This is the first time in a long time that I've ever done this, so damn. It's surreal to consider that, to beat Dark Rising, you have to be at this level of strength. If anything, aside from the tedium of having to fight so many people in succession, this is the real downfall of the game.
I'll elaborate later on when we get to the end.
Yes, these border tiles are totally normal. The beach is supposed to look like this, right?
She changed the surfing message. You can sort of tell what someone's personality is like based on how they change the surfing message. Prime example: Cutlerine changed it to sound more shakespearean because he was a pompous dimwit while DRG's is super excited about it for some reason.
(I'm mostly joking, though.)
... What are those sprites on the bottom left corner?
This is a mountain? It's barely a hill. I'd demand a refund on expectations if I were in Monica's shoes right now.
Oh my god, these sprites are amazingly terrible.
My favorite is the Spartan soldier guy with a golden apple helmet.
Monica feels a surge of powerful negative energy emanating from the four people above. (Granted, can you blame her? They're angry because they want better sprites.)
Monica calls him out and asks him what the hell his problem is, as she rightfully should. She also questions him where his family and friends are, which makes me suspect he's literally Silver with a different name at this point.
"I don't want those things! They're for the weak and they hold you back."
You have problems, my friend. I'd be more sympathetic to your cause if you weren't a raging lunatic.
Good attempt, In-Game Monica, but you don't even know this dude. Why are you suddenly trying to be his friend after all of the stupid things he's done to you out of spite? Is this going to be another V situation?
The people on the ledge are getting the greatest high off of the negative emotions here, by the way. If this game was better written, this would be one hell of an effective scene.
Alas, it suffers from poor presentation and awkward, janky dialogue. The guys say "Let's do it" for the final fight with Kayo and that's cool, I guess.
The man has higher levels than before, but we have the superior match-ups. I fail to see how he deserves the title of Master Kayo for this fight.
Oh hey, that's what the weird sprite next to Kayo was. Arthur sure showed him who's in charge.
Sigurd, no! All he wants to do is give you a hug!
Game, set and match. You should have known better.
In-Game Monica gives a genuine thumbs up because she's a naive idiot.
Let's Play Monica gives Kayo a thumbs up with a snide grin to rub salt in the wound.
Text spacing? What's that?
The actual content of this dialogue consisted of Monica getting the four dark lords or whoever they are off of Kayo's back, but not much really happens.
In fact, to proceed, you have to walk past all of them. They don't say anything up close and talking to Kayo in the overworld just repeats the line from the battle, complete with horrible text overlapping.
Well, that was certainly... a thing.
In fact, that was the last thing for this chapter. Too exciting, you know. Next time on Dark Rising, we deal with a pharaoh and an asshole with a new leash on life.
See you then.
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Team setup:
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Back up team:
