[Challenge] The Monotype Challenge Returns

[FactoriesFarAway]

Platinum Bug Monotype – Part 2 – Badge 2/8

Spoiler:

Continuing on our journey, I took Bidoof out of the PC and taught it Rock Smash. None of the trainers up until Floaroma Town were particularly difficult, and once I fought the first few Galatic grunts, I had access to honey, so I slathered it on the two trees I currently have access to, and decided to leave the game on hold for 6 hours and play Black in the meantime.

6 hours later, my encounters were a female Burmy and a Heracross. I caught both but don't plan to use the latter long term, I just thought it was worth picking up in case I do change my mind. I decided to leave the game until tomorrow before playing again, slathering both trees with honey once more and boxing Heracross.

The next day, I checked my honey trees again and I found Combee in one, which I reset to get as a female. It took a few tries but didn't waste a huge amount of time. In the second was a male Burmy. This now meant I had my entire party except for my last two female Burmy, so I decided to continue on with my journey, after slathering the trees in honey again, that is.

I levelled up Combee using the Galactic Grunts, but I knew I wasn't a position to fight the admin, so I grinded for a bit. After that, I took her Zubat down using Gust on my Combee, and took her Purugly down using a mixture of all of my Pokemon. She was pretty tough honestly.

Now that Route 205 and Eterna Forest were available to me, I used the trainers on those routes to grind up my Pokemon. Once I entered Eterna City, I picked up the Exp. Share and equipped it to my male Burmy. I picked up some healing items and repels, then fought the trainers on route 211 (the Bird Keeper was very challenging) and fought the trainers in Gardenia's gym.

Gardenia herself was time consuming but pretty easy to deal with, considering I had Gust and Bug Bite on my Combee. I just didn't hit too hard unfortunately, leaving me needing to heal up every so often, not that Gardenia hit me back harder or anything. A wet noodle fight would be the best way to describe this gym battle.

TEAM SO FAR (yay, the first one where gender actually has significance!)

Territot (Kricketune) ♂ Lv 22
Nature: Careful
Ability: Swarm
Moves:
-Growl
-Bide
-Fury Cutter
-Leech Life

Beeyonce (Combee) ♀ Lv 20
Nature: Hardy
Ability: Honey Gather
Moves:
-Sweet Scent
-Gust
-Bug Bite

Wam (Burmy) ♀ Lv 19
Nature: Mild
Ability: Shed Skin
Moves:
-Protect
-Tackle
-Bug Bite

Hunee (Burmy) ♂ Lv 18
Nature: Sassy
Ability: Shed Skin
Moves:
-Protect
-Tackle
-Bug Bite

Bidoof (HM Slave) ♀ Lv 3
Nature: Mild
Ability: Simple
Moves:
-Tackle
-Rock Smash

Platinum Bug Monotype – Part 3 – Badge 3/8

Spoiler:

First of all, I may have overestimated how long this monotype playthrough would take, as I was completely unaware that as of just after the second gym, you have access to 5 honey trees. I, of course, slathered them all with honey, but only need two more Burmy. Still worth it in case I get bad RNG.

I did the Eterna Galactic Hideout, and all 3 of my unevolved Pokemon evolved in here. Male Burmy into Mothim, Female Burmy into Wormadam Trash Cloak (who from here on out we'll be calling Wormadam-T) and Combee into Vespiquen.

The Admin, again, whose name escapes me, was decently challenging. Her Zubat was fairly easy as my Vespiquen gained Power Gem upon evolving, but her Skunktank was a little tricky to deal with. I slowly whittled it down with all of my Pokemon though, and the fight was done.

I received an egg from Cynthia which we won't be using, and fought some trainers on the cycling path, after picking up the bicycle and explorer kit. I found out that Wormadam-T's Hidden Power is either Ground or Ghost (which I later confirmed to be ground at Fantina's gym) and Mothim's is either Bug, Fire or Grass. I obviously don't know the power of them, though.

After that, I headed back for the honey trees and saved, intending to come back later and hopefully pick up my final two Burmy. Luckily, I wouldn't be waiting around as long this time, since I'd already wasted a surprisingly large amount of time playing the game. It would only be a 3 hour wait, as opposed to the regular 6.

After those 3 hours, I checked my first tree and got… Burmy! A female one too, on my first try. Second tree also had Burmy, but took a couple of resets to find a female one. Now that all time based events are complete for this playthrough, I'll be concentrating primarily on Black. Once Black is done, I'll be playing this through until completion.

-A couple of days later-

Now that Black is done, I'm continuing on my Platinum journey. I decided to raise one Burmy up at a time, making their evolutions easier to control. I fought all the trainers up to Hearthome City and used the V.S. Seeker I received from Lucas to refight trainers on the mountainous area to get Sand Cloak Wormadam, who from now on we'll be referring to as Wormadam-S.

Fantina was difficult. It took a few attempts. In the end, I used Power Gem on Vespiquen to take down her first two Pokemon, then stalled her Mismagius with Wormadam-T.

I also want to point out that all 3 of my Wormadam (or to be Wormadam to be) bizarrely have Mild nature, and that it genuinely isn't a copy-paste error on my part.

TEAM SO FAR

Territot (Kricketune) ♂ Lv 23
Nature: Careful
Ability: Swarm
Moves:
-Growl
-Bide
-Fury Cutter
-Leech Life

Beeyonce (Vespiquen) ♀ Lv 26
Nature: Hardy
Ability: Pressure
Moves:
-Heal Order
-Gust
-Bug Bite
-Power Gem

Wam (Wormadam-T) ♀ Lv 22
Nature: Mild
Ability: Anticipation
Moves:
-Protect
-Tackle
-Bug Bite
-Hidden Power (Ground)

Hunee (Mothim) ♂ Lv 20
Nature: Sassy
Ability: Swarm
Moves:
-Protect
-Tackle
-Bug Bite
-Hidden Power (Bug/Fire/Grass?)

Bam (Wormadam-S) ♀ Lv 20
Nature: Mild
Ability: Anticipation
Moves:
-Protect
-Tackle
-Bug Bite
-Hidden Power (?)

Slam (Burmy) ♀ Lv 18
Nature: Mild
Ability: Shed Skin
Moves:
-Protect
-Tackle
-Bug Bite

​

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Pokemon Black Bug Monotype – Part 5 – Badge 6/8

Spoiler:

It was now time to head towards Chargestone Cave where I picked up my Compoundeyes Joltik. I suppose I also fought Bianca but she wasn't particularly difficult. Chargestone Cave was generally not too bad, but it became apparent at this point that certain types kind of walled me, notably Steel and Ghost. At the moment, this isn't much of an issue, but may become one later on.

During this cave, Dwebble evolved into Crustle. Battling N wasn't a problem. I never found the N fights particularly difficult at any point, but this time the only Pokemon to really give me any problem at all was his Klink, because it walled me as stated above.

Once I got to Mistralton City, I caught a Tranquill on route 7 to fly back to Driftveil to pick up many more MooMoo Milk, before fighting all of the trainers in said route. On this route I found the TM for X Scissor, and it made me so glad that you can reuse TMs in every generation following this. I taught it to all of my Pokemon except Joltik, who could learn it but it already had Signal Beam which is better given it's a special attacker. By the end of this route, Joltik evolved into Galvantula. Now all of my party but Karrablast is fully evolved, and he'll be able to evolve after Twist Mountain.

I then made my way up Celestial Tower, picking up Shadow Claw, helping me against ghost types, which has I previously stated, kind of wall me. One thing I'm really happy about with Celestial Tower is that you can fly off of the top, so I did just that after ringing the bell.

So, uh, Skyla. Wow. This was the easiest gym I've done throughout all the games thus far. I one shot all of her Pokemon without needing X items using Galvantula. She's also pretty underleveled, being the same level as most of the regular trainers in the area. If this was any other generation, this fight would be very hard, but with the gen 6 mons, it's a total joke.

TEAM SO FAR

Pls (Whirlipede) ♀ Lv 36
Item: Amulet Coin
Nature: Sassy
Ability: Poison Point
Moves:
-X-Scissor
-Rollout
-Poison Tail
-Bulldoze

Buggyboi (Leavanny) ♂ Lv 36
Item: Miracle Seed
Nature: Serious
Ability: Chlorophyll
Moves:
-Tackle
-Shadow Claw
-X-Scissor
-Leaf Blade

BabbyCrab (Crustle) ♀ Lv37
Item: Rocky Helmet
Nature: Timid
Ability: Study
Moves:
-Bulldoze
-Shadow Claw
-Rock Slide
-X-Scissor

MetaKnight (Karrablast) ♂ Lv 35
Item: Eviolite
Nature: Serious
Ability: Swarm
Moves:
-Endure
-X-Scissor
-Slash
-Headbutt

Incy (Galvantula) ♂ Lv 38
Item: Expert Belt
Nature: Relaxed
Ability: Compoundeyes
Moves:
-Slash
-Volt Switch
-Signal Beam
-Gastro Acid

Tranquill (Fly Slave) ♀ Lv 26
Item: None
Nature: Impish
Ability: Big Pecks
Moves:
-Quick Attack
-Fly
-Roost
-Detect

Pokemon Black Bug Monotype – Part 6 – Badge 7/8

Spoiler:

I had to fight Cheren before entering Twist Mountain, but he wasn't difficult and isn't really worth talking about. Most of the trainers in Twist Mountain were more difficult, honestly. I learnt via Twist Mountain that I'm also walled by Fighting which admittedly is unusual as you tend to pick up at least one Bug/Flying type on your journey, but not in Unova, so I taught Aerial Ace to a few of my Pokemon. Fighting types are still fairly difficult for them to deal with, however, which worries me for a certain Elite Four member later.

Once I was out of Twist Mountain, I picked up Shelmet, which took a few catches until I found one with an at least acceptable nature. I didn't care too much either way about the ability, once again.

Spoiler:

It was now time to trade. Of course, I had to trade the Shelmet I just caught to my other game before I could make the trade, so I sent myself back the Lillipup I traded for Venipede at the very start of our journey. I then traded my Karrablast for Shelmet to get their respective evolutions, Escavalier and Accelgor. I had to trade Lillipup back again to get Escavalier back. It was a roundabout way of doing, but it worked. Showing a picture of my rather awkward set up for this. My team was finally complete, with all my mons fully evolved.

As soon as I had Escavalier back, I flew to Mistralton again and used a Heart Scale on the move reminder to teach it Iron Head, before equipping the Exp. Share to Accelgor to level it up faster. I fought all of the trainers around the Icirrus area, including Brycen's gym. Accelgor soon came in line with the rest of my team, so I removed the Exp. Share.

Brycen himself was once again, so easy it was silly. He wasn't quite as bad as Skyla, but all of his Pokemon went down in one or two hits from Rock Slide on Crustle.

TEAM SO FAR

Pls (Whirlipede) ♀ Lv 38
Item: Amulet Coin
Nature: Sassy
Ability: Poison Point
Moves:
-X-Scissor
-Rollout
-Poison Tail
-Bulldoze

Buggyboi (Leavanny) ♂ Lv 38
Item: Miracle Seed
Nature: Serious
Ability: Chlorophyll
Moves:
-Aerial Ace
-Shadow Claw
-X-Scissor
-Leaf Blade

BabbyCrab (Crustle) ♀ Lv 41
Item: Rocky Helmet
Nature: Timid
Ability: Study
Moves:
-Bulldoze
-Shadow Claw
-Rock Slide
-X-Scissor

MetaKnight (Escavalier) ♂ Lv 35
Item: Shell Bell
Nature: Serious
Ability: Swarm
Moves:
-Take Down
-X-Scissor
-Iron Head
-Headbutt

Incy (Galvantula) ♂ Lv 38
Item: Magnet
Nature: Relaxed
Ability: Compoundeyes
Moves:
-Slash
-Volt Switch
-Signal Beam
-Gastro Acid

Speedster (Accelgor) ♂ Lv 38
Item: Expert Belt
Nature: Bold
Ability: Sticky Hold
Moves:
-Struggle Bug
-Giga Drain
-Yawn
-Sludge Bomb

Pokemon Black Bug Monotype – Part 7 – Badge 8/8

Spoiler:

This part was just a lot of dungeons with little to talk about. Dragonspiral Tower and Relic Castle to be exact. I got through them, fought the trainers, didn't really struggle with anything, and then continued on to Opelucid City. As far as I'm concerned, Relic Castle is just unnecessary forced backtracking, although I do recognise it's important to the story.

I figured Drayden would be pretty difficult so I grinded all the experience I could, except for refightable daily events such as Nimbasa City, which I could've done in theory given I back tracked to Nimbasa anyway. His gym puzzle is also super annoying, especially considering I did it TWICE.

Drayden himself was pretty underwhelming, all in all. He wasn't easy, but I could just whittle him down with X Scissor on all of my Pokemon due to no Dragon types in this game resisting this move. I ended up using Scolipede, Crustle and Escavalier in this battle. Overall, an anticlimactic final gym battle.

TEAM SO FAR

Pls (Whirlipede) ♀ Lv 43
Item: Amulet Coin
Nature: Sassy
Ability: Poison Point
Moves:
-X-Scissor
-Rollout
-Poison Tail
-Bulldoze

Buggyboi (Leavanny) ♂ Lv 43
Item: Miracle Seed
Nature: Serious
Ability: Chlorophyll
Moves:
-Aerial Ace
-Shadow Claw
-X-Scissor
-Leaf Blade

BabbyCrab (Crustle) ♀ Lv 43
Item: Rocky Helmet
Nature: Timid
Ability: Study
Moves:
-Bulldoze
-Shadow Claw
-Rock Slide
-X-Scissor

MetaKnight (Escavalier) ♂ Lv 42
Item: Shell Bell
Nature: Serious
Ability: Swarm
Moves:
-Take Down
-X-Scissor
-Iron Head
-Aerial Ace

Incy (Galvantula) ♂ Lv 43
Item: Magnet
Nature: Relaxed
Ability: Compoundeyes
Moves:
-Slash
-Volt Switch
-Signal Beam
-Gastro Acid

Speedster (Accelgor) ♂ Lv 42
Item: Expert Belt
Nature: Bold
Ability: Sticky Hold
Moves:
-Struggle Bug
-Giga Drain
-Yawn
-Sludge Bomb

Pokemon Black Bug Monotype – Part 8 – Elite Four (not the finale :()

Spoiler:

Getting through Victory Road wasn't much trouble, though I used a lot of repels and healing items. There was nothing particularly worth noting that happened there, other than that the battle with Cheren before it was really easy. Bianca, who I failed to mention last part, was harder, but after all, I did let her have the Fire type starter.

Once I reached the Pokemon League, however, I backtracked to pick up some TMs I wanted to use, including Thunder and Poison Jab. Thunder + Compoundeyes was something I'd praised about Galvantula from the very start, but this was going to be my first opportunity to actually use it.

I fought all of the trainers in the Nimbasa Stadiums, then stocked up on Moo Moo Milk in Driftveil City, now having 50 in my inventory. I picked up 30 of every X item except for Accuracy in Nine Mall too, since at this point I was absolutely loaded. I bought the rest of my healing items through the Pokemon League shop, including 50 Revives, 25 Full Heals and 15 Full Restores.

The first Elite Four member I took on was Shauntal. I used Shell Smash for the first time on Crustle and destroyed all of her Pokemon with Shadow Claw. The only exception was her Golurk, as Jellicent's ability (Cursed Body, I believe?) disabled my Shadow Claw. I instead left Leavanny to deal with Golurk with its Leaf Blade. Pretty easy first fight.

I was going to use Grimsley as fodder for levelling up my weaker bug types, but he surprisingly wasn't that easy. His first Pokemon was Scrafty, which was unexpected, but it still went down in two Bug Buzz's from Accelgor. Liepard was obviously a complete joke. But Bisharp, oh boy. I used Bulldoze on it using Scolipede, and oh, do I regret that, because I used it and activated Defiant. The only Pokemon who could really stand a chance against him at that point was my Escavalier, who had to slowly whittle him down with X-Scissor. Then his Krookodile anticlimactically went down in two hits from Leaf Blade.

Caitlyn wasn't as easy as I expected either. Her Reuniclus went down in two hits from Signal Beam from my Galvantula, but her Sigilyph gave me a super rough time, outspeeding my entire party. I took about half of its health with Crustle's Rock Slide, and then had to take it down with Escavalier, as, again, he was the only one who it wouldn't just sweep through. Her Musharna and Gothitelle were not a problem, however, going down to X-Scissor with ease.

Marshall, I left until last as I expected him to be the most difficult, and I was certainly correct there. All of his Pokemon have rock type moves, so I had to switch between using a Sword Dance buffed Leavanny's Aerial Aces and my Escavalier. It was annoying and required a lot of healing items, but wasn't anywhere near as bad as someone of the Elite Four in the other games I've played up to this point.

Now N… Well, firstly, I wasn't aware that the game forces you to catch Reshiram. So I killed it and had to refight it. And then N kind of destroyed me because ZEKROM and stupid me didn't realise his Klinklang was actually a Zoroark and I confused Carracosta for Crustle which led me to making a bad decision, so I reset and ended up before catching Reshiram. My battery became low so I put it on charge.

I went back to it a little while later and figured I was in no position to fight N. He has Zekrom and Archeops whom are insane, and Klinklang that walls me, most of his Pokemon one or two shot me so setting up isn't a great strategy here. So I lost to N and decided to wait to grind on my daily events, as grinding on wild Pokemon isn't a super viable option in this game. This may take a while. It's time for Platinum to take over as the main game I'll be concentrating on. If by the end of my other challenges, I still don't feel I'm in a position to fight N, I'll try some clock trickery to grind more easily, but it shouldn't come to that.

I don't see N as winnable right now unlike I did with Steven, so I'm not going to trial and error it until I win. I'm going to grind and fight him at a more acceptable level.

Pokemon Black Bug Monotype – Part 9 – N/Ghetsis (finale)

Sorry for huge screenshots but...

Spoiler:

No, I changed my mind. I knew I couldn't be content with that, I'm too stubborn, and if I could do Steven against all odds, I could do this. So I decided to set up 6 X Defends on Crustle and use Shell Smash twice to sweep his team with it. I don't remember entirely what happened because the entire thing was a rush, but I did it first try after that. Here, have the screenshot.

Ghetsis, I just trial and errored, getting knocked out to gain EXP until he was no longer really an issue. It's kind of cheap that this is allowed in this game, but you also can't grind on wild Pokemon, and I'd probably just grinding on the first 4 members of the Elite 4 if this was any other game at this point, considering, I'll reiterate, I was totally loaded and lost a fraction of all my money from dying.

Either way, have some commemorative screenshots, and my team. I want to end off by saying that most of the Pokemon on this team were beastly... except Scolipede, who was sadly pretty disappointing by end game. This game unfortunately doesn't really let poison types shine, but luckily Gen 6 does. Hint hint, nudge nudge.

Leavanny:

Spoiler:

Crustle:

Spoiler:

Galvantula:

Spoiler:

Escavalier:

Spoiler:

Accelgor:

Spoiler:

Scolipede:

Spoiler:

Pokemon Black Bug Monotype FIN!
​

 

[adzpower]

Pokemon Y Grass Monotype

Starter + Gyms 1-2

Spoiler:

Blossom has landed in Kalos! Professor Sycamore had heard of her achievements in Hoenn and Johto and requested her to be one of five children to accept a Kalos region pokedex, how could she say no?!

After meeting up with the gang we got our first Pokemon, Chespin, our theme for names this time around is flowers, we call him Crocus, and he is gentle. We head through the forest and catch ourselves another potential teammate, Dandelion the Pansage.

I should say I have no idea who I'm going to use for my team this time, not much planning has gone into it, I'm just gonna catch each grass type we find and consider using them at that point, Dandelion is Quirky which works out well.

We head to the Santalune gym and quite frankly Viola was a joke, three rollouts from Crocus and she went down, badge one is ours! Also I completely forgot to take a pic of our victory, I was watching the new x-men trailer at the time and was totally distracted.

We get the exp.share and head to Lumiose where we meet Sycamore in the flesh! He gives us a choice of three Pokemon, you already know which one Blossom wants, so we welcome our next team member, Begonia the Bulbasaur, he is serious.

We get a fresh haircut and head onto the next route where we find another teammate, Lotus the gentle Skiddo. After freeing up the path from a Snorlax we find the daycare and in the flowers we find another potential team member, Peony the Hoppip! She is Naïve.

We finally get to Cyllage City after having to stop weirdos in orange suits and face Grant, who is a rock type gym leader, he was easy, we have grass types, he didn't stand a chance in all honesty.

Spoiler:

This is how our team currently looks. I was gonna grab an Eevee but the moss rock isn't until the forest after Snowbelle, after badge eight, that just won't work, so we'll have to get Leafeon perhaps in Alola when we make it there.

Spoiler:

Gyms 3-4

Spoiler:

Since beating Grant we did quite a lot, got some new clothes and headed to Geosenge town, nothing eventful happened, oh, except for that pointless first battle with Korrina, I beat you so where's my badge? Hmph.

We make our way through the Reflection cave and catch a Ferrothorn, not sure if I want to use this but I bumped into it so why not catch it just in case? I called her Daisy which I find hilarious because she's so spiky and ugly but has a pretty name.

During our cave adventure Begonia evolves into Venusaur and Peony evolves into Jumpluff. Just in time for the gym battle! Oh wait, first I have to do the shoe-horned mega evolution plot with the very overrated Lucario, I'm surprised Korrina isn't more upset a Pokemon she raised wants to suddenly leave her and travel around with a noob trainer but okay. Welcome to your new home Lucario, the PC.

Thanks to Peony this gym is very easy, I used Jumpluff on my Heart Gold playthrough and didn't want to use her again just yet but I think she might be a main stay now, Acrobatics is an OP move and with it on Peony we just tear her Pokemon to shreds.

Spoiler:

We progress onto the next route and fight the trainers, I stopped by Azure Bay to get the X-scissor TM thinking it could be useful for the next gym, but welp, no-one can learn it, oh well, we still have Peony. Crocus evolves into Chesnaught and Lotus evolves into Gogoat here, after coming off Heart Gold where my Bayleef didn't fully evolve until about badge 6, its weird to have a fully evolved team at badge 3. Kalos is weird.

Once again Peony decimates the gym, Ramos really didn't stand a chance, but I commend him on his excellent choice of type. Oh yeah we thought Calem as well, that was a total non-event.

Spoiler:

Gyms 5-6

Spoiler:

So after beating Ramos we made our way down to the desert, didn't do much exploring, there's nothing I need to do here except clear the power plant, very easy, then we head down to Lumiose and take on Clemont, his gym is fun, I like it, Lotus learns Bulldoze by level up so this gym was a cinch in all honesty.

Spoiler:

After that I made the decision to ditch Begonia from my team, the free mega was nice but I realized it doesn't get Giga Drain and I needed a reliable special attacker, so I backtracked and caught one of my favorite Pokemon, Roselia, I thought it was too on the nose to name him Rose so I called him Red Rose instead, still boring but what else can I really call a Roselia when my naming theme is flowers.

Then we head up to Laverre City, stop at the pointless haunted house and head into the city to buy clothes, and erm….challenge the gym I guess. Valerie kind of freaks me out I won't lie, she's like one of those people who get plastic surgery to look like lions or something. We quickly dispatch her, we use this gym to train up Red Rose a lot since the poison typing is helpful.

Spoiler:

During this gym run I evolve Dandelion into Simisage, his offensive stats are quite impressive actually. We clear the Pokeball factory and I realize that at LV 37 Red Rose learns his last good move so I evolved him into Roserade.

We we head through the next route battling trainers when I stumble across a Pokemon I was going to use, but after checking up its stats I figured Wynaut? We reach route 16 and the first wild Pokemon I find is the super-size Pumpkaboo, its holding a miracle seed but unfortunately it is a TERRIBLE nature, so I had to catch another one and I find one that's quirky and I think is the second largest version? Its hard to tell honestly, but she'll do, we call her Marigold.

We reach the next town whose name escapes me (Dendeville?) and clear the frost cavern and save the Abomasnow and make our way to Anistar city for CLOTHES…..erm nah just the gym again, this is where I stopped, I defeated Calem easily and next time I play I'll challenge Olympia.

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Champion pose!

Spoiler:

I haven't spent much time reading everyone else's posts in detail, just skimming, but I just want to say I love that team. I feel most of those Pokemon are super good and really underappreciated.

I also 100% agree with you about hating how the Ho-Oh/Lugia section was shoehorned in and forced. It makes me never want to do a challenge run of SoulSilver because you'd have to backtrack even further for it. I completely forgot this was even a thing, honestly.

Can I point out how much better you are at nicknames than me too? I'm terrible, but I feel obligated to name my Pokemon so I just name them the first thing that comes to mind.

And as for you saying you've never beaten a Pokemon game in less than 12hrs (and that 12:01 for ORAS was the fastest you'd ever done), my current record is 3hrs 54 mins in Gold (on console, well, the GameBoy Player) using only Feraligatr. I haven't tried to speed through any of the others, other than Let's Go Pika and that took me 4hrs 45 mins roughly. I know I can definitely beat that Let's Go time though, but I have no interest right now.

 

[adzpower]

I haven't spent much time reading everyone else's posts in detail, just skimming, but I just want to say I love that team. I feel most of those Pokemon are super good and really underappreciated.

I also 100% agree with you about hating how the Ho-Oh/Lugia section was shoehorned in and forced. It makes me never want to do a challenge run of SoulSilver because you'd have to backtrack even further for it. I completely forgot this was even a thing, honestly.

Can I point out how much better you are at nicknames than me too? I'm terrible, but I feel obligated to name my Pokemon so I just name them the first thing that comes to mind.

And as for you saying you've never beaten a Pokemon game in less than 12hrs (and that 12:01 for ORAS was the fastest you'd ever done), my current record is 3hrs 54 mins in Gold (on console, well, the GameBoy Player) using only Feraligatr. I haven't tried to speed through any of the others, other than Let's Go Pika and that took me 4hrs 45 mins roughly. I know I can definitely beat that Let's Go time though, but I have no interest right now.

Yeah the team actually ended up pretty good! I was very sceptical before starting HG, because I couldn't really remember much variation in Johto but I was pleasantly surprised and its made me see some Pokemon like Jumpluff for example in a whole new light.
And thanks about the nicknames, tbh I kind of felt like mine were a tad boring but maybe everyone feels that way about the way they do it?
Also at your game times, WOW, are you a machine?:laugh-squinted:
I guess I'm just a slow player.

 

[Aleimon Thimble]

I also tend to take my time exploring, grinding, and so on. I'm playing challenges to have fun, but rushing isn't that much fun to me. That's also why I will likely never speedrun a Pokemon game.

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Platinum Bug Monotype – Part 4 – Badge 4/8

Spoiler:

I know I'm already halfway into the challenge, but I'm going to change the format a bit, as the "team so far" sections take up too much space and looked clunky. I'm going to be condensing them the best I can whilst keeping the same information. I'm also going to change my titles from size 5 to size 3, again, to save space.

This part was almost entirely grinding on trainers, and then fighting Maylene was wasn't too difficult due to most of bugs being part flying, and Wormadam-T having a Ground type Hidden Power to deal with Lucario. What's worth mentioning, however, is I replaced Kricketune with Yanma who I caught in the Great Marsh, and my final Burmy evolved into Wormadam Plant along the way (Wormadam-P).

I'm finding this game in particular really boring and kind of a drag though. The Pokemon I'm using feel dull and very similar to each other, and I've never had this feeling until now. There was a lot more variety in the bugs in previous generations. Mothim is so similar in terms of level up movepool to Wormadam that I don't know why it isn't just Wormadam Wind Cloak or something. Gen 4 was unkind to bug types, I'll say that much.

I also want to point out that every time I put the console on sleep mode, it crashes the game. Super annoying, and doesn't happen with any of my other games. It crashes at random times too.

TEAM SO FAR

Yanma (Yanma) ♂ Lv 30 | Hardy | Compoundeyes
Moves: Sonic Boom, Pursuit, Supersonic, Uproar

Beeyonce (Vespiquen) ♀ Lv 33 | Hardy | Pressure
Moves: Slash, Gust, Bug Bite, Power Gem

Wam (Wormadam-T) ♀ Lv 28 | Mild |Anticipation
Moves: Confusion, Mirror Shot, Bug Bite, Hidden Power (Ground)

Hunee (Mothim) ♂ Lv 30 | Sassy | Swarm
Moves: Confusion, Gust, Bug Bite, Poison Powder

Bam (Wormadam-S) ♀ Lv 28 | Mild | Anticipation
Moves: Confusion, Rock Blast, Bug Bite, Hidden Power (Bug)

Slam (Wormadam-P) ♀ Lv 27 | Mild | Anticipation
Moves: Confusion, Razor Leaf, Bug Bite, Hidden Power (Bug)

 

[adzpower]

I basically grew up with gen 4, I adore those games, I must have spent hundreds of hours on Diamond, but whenever I go back and replay them now I find it so difficult, they are sooooo slow, everything feels sluggish to me. And the middling part of the Sinnoh games kind of all blends together. I still love them though. But once I take the nostalgia goggles off I see the flaws. I also think the Pokedex kind of sucked, not much variety. Personally I'm kind of dreading my grass challenge when I get to Sinnoh. I'll have to go for honey trees as well to find Cherubi and Burmy. Sigh.

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

I basically grew up with gen 4, I adore those games, I must have spent hundreds of hours on Diamond, but whenever I go back and replay them now I find it so difficult, they are sooooo slow, everything feels sluggish to me. And the middling part of the Sinnoh games kind of all blends together. I still love them though. But once I take the nostalgia goggles off I see the flaws. I also think the Pokedex kind of sucked, not much variety. Personally I'm kind of dreading my grass challenge when I get to Sinnoh. I'll have to go for honey trees as well to find Cherubi and Burmy. Sigh.

I don't think Sinnoh is necessarily bad, nor do I have the same sentiment regarding nostalgia. I think Platinum is still a very good game beyond being pretty slow and sluggish until you get the bike, but this team in particular is just completely not fun to use due to the lack of variety. It feels like I'm running 5 of the same Pokemon + Yanma, as Yanma is the only one out of all of them with a completely unique movepool. I get 3 of them technically *are* the same Pokemon, but still, there's no excuse for Mothim and even Vespiquen, who has nothing to do with that line, to have such a similar learnset. The other games were challenging but fun because a lot of the bugs had unique mechanics and movepools to exploit (Shuckle, Shedinja, Forretress), or interesting types (Galvantula, Crustle, Armaldo) that made them stand out, but this is just 3 Wormadam + 3 Bug/Flying types, all of whom have little to offer in regards to a niche.
Honey trees are an awful mechanic which I'm glad they got rid of too. I'm really burnt out from how sluggish and boring Platinum has been and I feel like I might need a break for a few days before continuing the challenge, and when I do I'll probably move onto Y for the time being (which I actually have interesting plans for) and go back to Platinum later. This is some of the least fun I've had with a Pokemon game and it's depressing.

 

[adzpower]

Yeah it must be a chore having to essentially use Pokemon that are basically the same, with the same type of attacks and weaknesses and movepools. I've never used Mothim or any of the Wormadam's although I plan to use the grass one when I do my playthrough, but I'm not looking forward to it. Also I agree on the honey trees, those sucked.

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Platinum Bug Monotype – Part 5 – Badge 5/8

Spoiler:

I did this part in miniscule amounts over a few days, as I'm getting sick of playing Platinum in particular and this was mostly grinding levels out as I was far from being in a position to fight Wake. I wanted to fight Wake before I moved on, but he's surprisingly difficult. His Pokemon are hench as heck and they have really good moves. In the end, I grinded a lot, but ended up having to spam healing items. I spent most of this part just using the VS Seeker to refight trainers for exp.

I'm going to come back to this game and start Y for now, as I'm not having fun with Platinum because of reasons I stated in my previous post. I'll definitely come back to it, as I want to be able to say I've beat the bug ultimate monotype challenge, but for the time being, it's turning into a drag.

TEAM SO FAR

Yanma (Yanma) ♂ Lv 31 | Hardy | Compoundeyes
Moves: Sonic Boom, Pursuit, Supersonic, Uproar

Beeyonce (Vespiquen) ♀ Lv 41 | Hardy | Pressure
Moves: Slash, Gust, Attack Order, Power Gem

Wam (Wormadam-T) ♀ Lv 32 | Mild |Anticipation
Moves: Psybeam, Mirror Shot, Bug Bite, Metal Sound

Hunee (Mothim) ♂ Lv 32 | Sassy | Swarm
Moves: Psybeam, Gust, Bug Bite, Poison Powder

Bam (Wormadam-S) ♀ Lv 32 | Mild | Anticipation
Moves: Psybeam, Rock Blast, Bug Bite, Hidden Power (Bug)

Slam (Wormadam-P) ♀ Lv 32 | Mild | Anticipation
Moves: Psybeam, Razor Leaf, Bug Bite, Hidden Power (Bug)

​

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Pokemon Y Bug Monotype – Introduction/Analysis

Spoiler:

Fair warning: This introduction and analysis section will be much longer than the others. Unless you want to see me rambling about lots and lots of Pokemon for about 2000 words, I'd suggest skipping this section. I also may insult your favourite Pokemon, but these are just my opinions as to explain my reasoning.

I have only played Pokemon Y through once before this, and therefore it's the game I'm the least experienced with. It's not that I dislike the game, it's that I never felt the need to revisit it until now. This means that I don't know much about it, and this will be a learning experience more than anything else. I didn't know where you find any of the bug types before writing this, nor do I remember what the gym leaders are past the first 3, so this is something I'll be learning along the way. For this reason, my judgement may be a little clouded on what are the best Pokemon to use, but I'll try to make the most educated choices I can.

Pokemon Y is disappointing to me in that so few new Pokemon were introduced, and this is especially the case for bug types, with Vivillon being the only new one. This means less new bug types to try out. Or, so you'd think. There's a couple of bug types I haven't gotten or planned to use on my challenge yet from other generations due to them not being applicable in their respective generations that I'll get to use here. Those two Pokemon are Durant and Illumise. But let's talk about Vivillon a bit first. I don't think it's a great Pokemon, as it's pretty much a Butterfree clone through and through, but its gimmick is primarily its regional patterns which I won't get to make use of. I live in the UK, so I'll have the garden pattern.

Firstly, let's talk about Durant. My main complaint about Durant was how late it comes in Black and White and… that's still the case here. But I still want to give this little guy a chance, and there's no new Pokemon to use, so I figured why not.

Illumise is a Pokemon that I still don't think is strong by any means, and it still has all of the issues that I mentioned in my Ruby analysis. But once again, I'd like to give this Pokemon a chance to maybe show its worth. A time to shine, if you will. I do think it's slightly more viable in later games due to infinite usage TMs, too, as it's a very TM reliant Pokemon.

Those will take up the first 3 slots of my party. The final 3 slots are now what I'm going to think about. There is a LOT of bugs available to us in Kalos. We're going to have to reuse ones used in previous games, as I can't fill up a party of 6 without doing so, and I think that in itself is part on the challenge. Whilst I didn't use a party of 6 in Kanto, that's because Pinsir/Scyther are version exclusives which I had no way of trading for and there were not enough bug types in one version for a team of 6. In this game, there is more than enough.

First of all, I'm going to get the 3 out of the way that I flat out do not have access to. Escavalier, Accelgor, Pinsir and Scizor cannot be used, as I have no way to trade. I don't have a second 3DS or a second copy of the game, and I don't want to annoy my friends asking if they'll trade bugs with me. I have a DSi, which is why I could trade perfectly fine with myself in Gen 4, to clarify. I'm not carrying around Karrablast or Shelmet until the end of the game either. Pinsir is version exclusive to X. Scyther, we'll get onto later.

Skorupi doesn't evolve into a bug type and I'm not carrying around a basic Pokemon until the end of the game.

Let's get onto the Pokemon that we actually can potentially use. I used Butterfree in LeafGreen. This Pokemon can be picked up VERY early in Santalune Forest, evolves extremely early and it has Compoundeyes as its ability making its powder moves much more accurate. It learns Silver Wind, Quiver Dance and Psybeam pretty early in this game and has decent TM coverage. Now, the negatives. Its stats are pitiful for a fully evolved Pokemon with its only workable stat being its special attack and Bug/Flying is so unbelievably common. I know for a fact I'm using Vivillon, which already uses those types, is very similar to Butterfree already, has the same type, learns a lot of its moves earlier with the exception of Quiver Dance, is caught in the same area and also has access to Compoundeyes. It's pretty redundant in this case. Vivillon is basically a Butterfree clone. I do personally think Butterfree is a little better overall, but there's no point in carrying both around when they essentially perform the same job.

Beedrill is a Pokemon I also used in LeafGreen. Found in Santalune Forest too and also evolves extremely early. That's about where the positives end. Yes, very few. It has little to offer that other better Bug/Poison types don't, its ability kind of sucks especially for how frail it is and its level up movepool is downright awful. Might've been worth using if Mega Beedrill was available before post-game and allowed in the challenge, but nah.

Wormadam is a weird one to talk about, since it's essentially 3 different Pokemon, so I'll talk about it as such. But first of all, we'll point out what applies to all 3: Burmy is found very early on route 3. Its ability Anticipation is honestly pretty terrible. I'm using all 3 in Platinum, as well as Mothim.

First of all, Wormadam Plant is the more special defense based Wormadam but all of its other stats aren't particularly good. It has workable special attack though, but it doesn't get access to anything early on that can make use of that. Whilst its type is unique in this game as there's no Leavanny or Paras, it makes it pretty vulnerable and it isn't a particularly great grass type to boot. It was passable with Leavanny because of its sheer power and movepool to back it up, but a defensive based Bug/Grass type is a fairly backwards concept.

Wormadam Sand is the more physical defense oriented one. Again, all of its other stats are pretty bad, but has workable attack in this case. Whilst its type is completely unique, only sharing it with Nincada, it learns no STAB moves through level up. It learns STAB Earthquake through TM, and it being the only Bug that can do that at least gives it a niche. I'd say it's the best of a bad bunch.

Wormadam Trash is very befitting of its name, as it is flat out the worst of the 3. It tries to be the balanced one, but ends up as a terrible jack of all trades. At least unlike Sand and Plant, it learns a somewhat useful STAB move early on in Mirror Shot, but with its mediocre special attack, it's not going to be hitting hard. Its only real positive other than its access to a STAB Flash Cannon which its mediocre Special Attack won't make great use of anyway. Just pick up Scizor, Accelgor or Durant instead if you're insistent on having this type combination. In my case, I'll be picking up Durant. It's the cutest of the Wormadams, at least, so I'll give it that.

Mothim is a slow mixed attacker, and I think it's the better evolution of Burmy, but I still don't really rate this Pokemon. Its ability again, kind of sucks. Swarm isn't terrible, it just isn't great either. Its type is incredibly common, its level up pool is pretty terrible, but it does have quite a wide array of good TMs it can use due to being a mixed attacker. It's just a worse Vespiquen, honestly.

Masquerain still faces a lot of the issues it has in Ruby, in that it still doesn't learn a lot through level up and has pretty lackluster stats. Again though, it has the niche of being a bug with access to Ice Beam and Blizzard, and Intimidate is great ability, but its type is a real shame and in my opinion, you get it a bit too late for it to be really useful, requiring Surf to find. That being said, it is actually really good in Sun for reasons we'll get onto when that game comes along. Nudge nudge, wink wink, etc.

Ledian is absolutely disgustingly bad. I only used it in HeartGold as it was one of the new Pokemon to the Johto region. Neither of its abilities are good, its stats are a total joke, it is ANOTHER Bug/Flying type, it again has the problem of learning nothing through level up that is useful, and its TM capabilities are atrocious. It is the worst fully evolved bug type in existence, bar none. Yes, it's worse than niche mons like Shedinja and Shuckle, because they actually have a use, and yes, it's worse than Dustox because that at least has a movepool.

Vespiquen is one of our Platinum mons, and is without a doubt the best of the lot out of what I used in that game. It has a decent ability, but I personally think it's nothing to write home about. Its stats are great especially for how early it evolves, but they have a weird distribution, being slow with decent mixed attacking stats and good bulk. You get it early, but female Combee is rare, and its level up movepool is really awful until it evolves. It has okay TM compatibility, but once again, just unremarkable. It's another Bug/Flying type too, which as we've said, are a dime a dozen. That's my best description of this Pokemon – for how difficult it is to get, it's pretty unremarkable. It's good, but there's more interesting options. If Game Freak would've done something unique with this Pokemon in terms of typing or moves in exchange for having slightly worse stats, it would be a definite pick up, but they didn't, so it's just boring to me. I was honestly bored to death using this mon in Platinum, even though it helped carry me through the game.

Ninjask is one of my favourite Pokemon of all time, and honestly, I think it has potential to be really good. Whether or not it's capable of meeting its potential in this playthrough is another question. In Ruby, bug isn't a great type, but in this game, bug has good moves, making it much more viable. You get it fairly early too. Its Bug/Flying type notwithstanding, it's an incredibly fast sweeper, and Speed Boost makes it even faster, even having the option to Baton Pass its speed buffs and Swords Dance boosts. However, it's not without negatives, unfortunately. It learns all of its good moves pretty late with the exception of Swords Dance, and honestly, has an overall atrocious level up pool. Whilst its TM compatibility was one of my praising points in Ruby, it leaves much to be desired in this game as there's so many Pokemon that have similar and even better TM learnsets. I used Ninjask in my first playthrough of this game, and it's workable, but I do think there's better options.

I'm just going to flat out say it. No. I'm absolutely not messing around with Shedinja again. It was fun to try out and it really did save the day in Ruby, but I was stuck with an all-around terrible team in a generation completely unkind to bug types and that was the only reason it managed to outshine some of them. Its uses are too niche and the AI is generally smarter in later games with more options to counter it.

Scolipede is really fast and a good attacker, with a pretty good ability in Poison Point. You get it pretty early, it learns much better moves through TM than Beedrill too. It's not the absolute best Pokemon in the world, but definitely amongst the better bug types in this game. Anyone who read my Gen 5 playthrough might say, "Really? You said Scolipede was underwhelming by late game in that playthrough though", to which I'd say Poison was not a good STAB to have in any generation before 6 on an attack based Pokemon, which really hurt its potential. Poison is strong against Fairy now though, which unintentionally is a huge buff to Scolipede and other Poison types, but Scolipede definitely benefits the most out of the bugs because of its speed.

Crustle, oh boy. This is a Pokemon you get fairly early on, but not as early has most other bugs we've mentioned here. By the standards of bugs in this game, it evolves fairly late, however. It's slow, but has gigantic defense and great attack. Its typing is unique for this game and makes it super bulky, and access to STAB Rock Slide at level 29 is amazing. Both of its abilities are decent. In my opinion this is the single best early bug type in this game. It carried me through Black, and was the best on my team in that game too. Crustle is such a good and underappreciated Pokemon.

Yanmega is a Pokemon only found as a horde encounter. It's found early-mid game. Both of its abilities are really good, but Speed Boost is definitely the superior of the two. It has insanely strong special attack for a bug type. However, it learns all of its useful moves really late (most likely after the end of the game even) and not much to offer via TM that other special sweepers don't. Yet another Bug/Flying type.

Heracross is really great. Fighting is a good STAB to have that's unique to it, its attack is absurd and its defenses are solid to boot. In fact, yeah, it has all-around great stats. Guts is really strong if it can get it off. It's found mid-game unfortunately passed the rock type gym, but is definitely useful regardless. It learns amazing moves through level up, as well as Earthquake, Rock Slide and Shadow Claw through TM just to name a few highlights. It may be the single best bug type in this game, especially given the only real other contenders either aren't available in the version I chose for various reasons, or are only available super late. It did a good job my HeartGold playthrough too, albeit got outshined by Scizor purely as Scizor was the better Pokemon to use in most situations. It still destroyed gyms that suited its type, such as Pryce's.

I'm not using Shuckle. Again, I used it in HeartGold as it was one of the Johto bug types, but it's super niche and whilst it has more options to explore in this game, I just don't think it's worth carrying around when there's so many other bug types in this game.

You get Ariados too late for it to be useful. Scolipede is better to boot. I have nothing more to say.

I'd really love to use Scyther, as it didn't get much of a show in HeartGold before it evolved into Scizor and I didn't get to use it in LeafGreen as it's a version exclusive to FireRed and I had no way to trade. But you get it too late for it to be particularly useful, especially given its type not being useful against any of the Elite Four. It's an amazing Pokemon, but I absolutely wished you got it earlier.

In the end, I decided to go with:

-Crustle
-Scolipede
-Heracross

Pokemon I considered but ultimately didn't make the cut because of what I said in their description:

-Scyther
-Vespiquen

With that aside, there's not much really to say about Y. It adds nothing new to the table for bug types that gen 5 hadn't already, and adds no new mechanics, or at least ones we'll be using in this playthrough. Which sadly includes the Fairy type. No Fairy bug until Gen 7, unfortunately.

Pokemon Y Bug Monotype – Part 1 – Badge 1/8

Spoiler:

I forgot quite how nice Y feels to play. I feel this game gets a lot of negativity from people when it really isn't bad.

Either way, I picked Chespin as my starter, to give rival the fire type one. Shauna gets Froakie, of course, which we will be fairly neutral against. I picked up Scatterbug on route 2, and in this game I realised catching actually gives experience, so I exploited this to level up Scatterbug and caught a LOT of Pokemon early, including all the other bugs I don't plan to use, but put in my party just in case.

You pick up three X Attacks from the Trainer school, which I used on my Vivillon against Viola, making the entire fight just Tackling her Pokemon to death.

Gardenia (Vivillon) ♀ Lv 15 | Calm | Shield Dust
Moves: Tackle, Struggle Bug, Stun Spore, Protect

+ 5x fodder Pokemon whom I'm not going to the list for the sake of saving time.

​

 

[TheCrystalFlaaffy]

Here's the signups and progress for all the challenges I've done across all the previous Monotype threads. Don't feel like going back for all the links as they're spread out between like 3 different threads. Only one completed is Ice, though I'm close for Rock, Normal, and Bug.

Forum User Name: TheCrystalFlaaffy
Game(s): Fire Red | Silver | Emerald | Platinum | Volt White | Y | Sun (Complete)
Pokémon Type: Ice
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

Forum User Name: TheCrystalFlaaffy
Game(s): Red | Crystal | Emerald | Platinum | Blaze Black | Y | Sun (0/7)
Pokémon Type: Rock
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

Forum User Name: TheCrystalFlaaffy
Game(s): Leaf Green | Soul Silver | Emerald | Platinum | White | Y | Sun (0/7)
Pokémon Type: Normal
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

Forum User Name: TheCrystalFlaaffy
Game(s): Blue | Crystal | Emerald | Pearl | White | Y | Sun (0/7)
Pokémon Type: Bug
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

Forum User Name: TheCrystalFlaaffy
Game(s): Leaf Green | Soul Silver | Alpha Sapphire | Platinum (0/8) | White | | Sun (0/7)
Pokémon Type: Ghost
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

Forum User Name: TheCrystalFlaaffy
Game(s): Blue | Crystal | Emerald | Platinum | White (0/8) | Y (0/8) | Sun (0/7)
Pokémon Type: Water
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

Forum User Name: TheCrystalFlaaffy
Game(s): Blue | Crystal | Emerald (0/8) | Platinum (0/8) | White (0/8) | Y (0/8) | Sun (0/7)
Pokémon Type: Fighting
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

Forum User Name: TheCrystalFlaaffy
Game(s): Heart Gold (0/16) | Alpha Sapphire | Platinum (0/8) | White (0/8) | Y (0/8) | Sun (0/7)
Pokémon Type: Dark
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

Forum User Name: TheCrystalFlaaffy
Game(s): Blue (0/8) | Crystal (0/8) | Alpha Sapphire | Platinum (0/8) | White (0/8) | Y (0/8) | Sun (0/7)
Pokémon Type: Grass
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

 

[Kimborelli]

So I've been stalking for long enough, time for me to sign up!

Forum User Name: Kimborelli
Game(s): FireRed, Heart Gold, Omega Ruby, Platinum, White 2, X, Ultra Moon
Pokémon Type: Gonna be the start of the ULTIMATE ultimate, Bug
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Ultimate

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Pokemon Y Bug Monotype – Part 2 – Badges 2 & 3

Spoiler:

A lot has happened since my last update, and I should've probably put an update in between badges 2 and 3, but I wasn't at my PC at the time. This has taken up around 5hrs of gameplay, and I'll try to break it down.

After beating Viola I got the Exp Share, which I kept on, as this isn't said to be against the rules, but I took everything out of my party that wasn't a bug type. This let me grind up bugs that I don't necessarily plan to use later. These bugs were Caterpie, Weedle and Burmy (male). There was nothing else I needed to catch for quite a while, and saw little harm in raising these guys up.

My next major fight was Professor Se—uh, Sycamore, who surprisingly wasn't really a problem. I expected his Charmander to give me issues, but it went down before it really had the chance to hurt me. The few rival fights along the way towards the second gym are really not particularly noteworthy in my eyes, Tierno and Trevor don't have difficult Pokemon and in one of the fights you have Calem to back you up anyway.

I picked up Venipede on route 7 and both Illumise and Volbeat up on route 6, but only plan to use the former. Illumise took about 30 minutes to find and with a bad nature, which I thought was bad luck, but my luck regarding encounters got worse later on, as you'll see. At this point my party consisted of Venipede, Illumise, Vivillon, Butterfree, Burmy and Volbeat.

I also did the Battle Chateau for experience and may come back to it if I feel the need to grind, but at this point, I doubt I'll need that.

Once I reached Ambrette Town however, I picked up the Rock Smash TM, replaced Volbeat with Zigzagoon and picked up a Dwebble on Route 8, and added it to my party.

I picked up the Jaw Fossil, though I don't believe this has any bearing on the game, even though Calem gets the other one. As I said, this is my second playthrough of Y and my first one was over half a decade ago now, so I may be wrong. Before I reached Cyllage City, Venipede evolved into Whirlipede and Burmy evolved into Mothim.

It was time to face Grant, who I expected to be very difficult, but he wasn't. His gym trainers' Pokemon were harder for me to deal with, such as Rhyhorn and Relicanth. I'm glad I used Exp Share, because Butterfree and Mothim were a huge help in this fight, even though they were to be dropped later.

Korrina on Route 11 was annoying, as I had nothing to deal with Lucario, and had to chip away at her health with my Vivillon's Psybeam. Before reaching Shalour City, Whirlipede evolved to Scolipede.

Before doing anything in Shalour City, I spent over an hour looking for Heracross on Route 12. I'm not even sure how it took that long, given I saw many, many other 5% encounters during that time. Bad RNG is one thing, but that was something else. I must've seen almost 100 Pokemon before finding him. I used it as a grinding opportunity though, and Dwebble evolved until Crustle.

In the end, the Heracross I'd found (much like most of my other mons) had a bad nature, but I didn't want to waste loads of time finding another one, so I continued on.

Calem in the Tower of Mastery was a total joke. It's bizarre to me that this was my first fight against him too. This far into the game, when I already had the opportunity to find a counter to his starter in my Crustle.

Korrina was more difficult on Route 11 than she was in her gym. Both her Mienfoo and Machoke went down with Psybeam, and her Hawlucha required one Psybeam and then a Rock Slide from my Crustle, as it took down Vivillon.

I've yet to really struggle against a gym leader yet despite having the disadvantage in Grant's case, and I don't really know the gym leaders after this point, so we'll have to see.

I would also like to say Illumise has done little to serve me and feels like an experience hog. The only attacking move it's learnt so far is Quick Attack, and I haven't found any useful TMs for it thus far.

Team so far:

Gardenia (Vivillon) ♀ Lv 38 | Calm | Shield Dust @ Amulet Coin
Moves: Return, Bug Buzz, Draining Kiss, Psybeam

FabCrab (Crustle) ♂ Lv 35 | Calm | Shell Armor
Moves: Rock Slide, Shadow Claw, Bug Bite, Poison Jab

Louise (Illumise) ♀ Lv 35 | Impish | Oblivious @ Rocky Helmet
Moves: Quick Attack, Flatter, Charm, Moonlight

Scolipede (Scolipede) ♀ Lv 37 | Quiet | Poison Point
Moves: Dig, Rollout, Poison Jab, Bug Bite

Boss (Heracross) ♂ Lv 28 | Calm | Swarm
Moves: Aerial Ace, Take Down, Counter, Brick Break

Butterfree (Butterfree) ♀ Lv 30 | Jolly | Compound Eyes
Moves: Psybeam, Gust, Silver Wind, Poison Powder

​

 

[Lith97]

Forum User Name: Lith97
Game(s): Emerald
Pokémon Type: Fighting
Single/Ultimate/Free Mode?: Single

 

[FactoriesFarAway]

Platinum Bug Monotype – Part 6 – Badge 6 & 7

Spoiler:

In this part, Yanma evolved to Yanmega. And a lot of my Pokemon levelled up. Not much else. Also, I fought Rival and he was harder than I expected but not that difficult.

I said I was going to take a break from Platinum, but my 3DS needed charging so I figured I may as well go back to it in the meantime.

Byron was silly because he just flat out walled me. I essentially had to just stall his Bastiodon with Wormadam-P after taking his Magneton down with Yanmega and Vespiquen combined. For his Steelix, I just used Metal Sound with Wormadam-T twice, and then one shot it with Silver Wind on Yanmega.

Candice on the other hand was tough, but not that bad to deal with as most of my Pokemon had something good against her mons. Vespiquen is still having the problem of being massively overleveled and the only super useful Pokemon I have, and I don't see my team catching up to her any time soon.

TEAM SO FAR

Yanmega (Yanmega) ♂ Lv 38 | Hardy | Compoundeyes
Moves: Sonic Boom, Pursuit, Ancient Power, Silver Wind

Beeyonce (Vespiquen) ♀ Lv 49 | Hardy | Pressure
Moves: Slash, Gust, Attack Order, Power Gem

Wam (Wormadam-T) ♀ Lv 38 | Mild |Anticipation
Moves: Psybeam, Flash Cannon, Bug Bite, Metal Sound

Hunee (Mothim) ♂ Lv 38 | Sassy | Swarm
Moves: Psybeam, Gust, Silver Wind, Poison Powder

Bam (Wormadam-S) ♀ Lv 37 | Mild | Anticipation
Moves: Psybeam, Rock Blast, Bug Bite, Captivate

Slam (Wormadam-P) ♀ Lv 37 | Mild | Anticipation
Moves: Psybeam, Razor Leaf, Bug Bite, Captivate

Platinum Bug Monotype – Part 7 – Team Galactic's Plan

Spoiler:

I was pretty determined to finish this game given we only had 1 badge left to pick up, but this part, yeah, no we're not doing the 8th badge because I'm walled hard by Cyrus at the Distortion World and I'm going to have to grind. But let's talk about how we got up to that point.

The first Cyrus battle was difficult, but not unwinnably hard. Why? Because he didn't have Houndoom and his Honchkrow was much lower levelled. The fact that Saturn comes after him who's much easier than him, is bizarre.

Going up Mt Coronet, I boxed Wormadam-P as it felt the most useless and I needed a HM Slave, but even the grunts were giving me a hard time. Even the double battle with Mars and Jupiter was fairly tough.

Distortion World was fun casually, but just feels like an unnecessary side-track in this monotype run. Only it's forced. The puzzle isn't really bad so much as it's just slow and time consuming, and now I'm going to have to re-do it.

Cyrus at this point is a battle I don't feel I'd be able to do. I'm going to grind a few levels, and if I still struggle, I'll spam Vespiquen with X items. All of his Pokemon are massively strong against me and I didn't seem to do enough damage to any of them. Even if I spam Vespiquen with X Special Defs as is, a crit will still kill me, so I'm definitely going to need to prepare myself for my face off against him.

TEAM SO FAR

Yanmega (Yanmega) ♂ Lv 42 | Hardy | Compoundeyes
Moves: Psychic, Pursuit, Ancient Power, Silver Wind

Beeyonce (Vespiquen) ♀ Lv 52 | Hardy | Pressure
Moves: Sludge Bomb, Gust, Attack Order, Power Gem

Wam (Wormadam-T) ♀ Lv 41 | Mild |Anticipation
Moves: Psybeam, Flash Cannon, Bug Bite, Metal Sound

Hunee (Mothim) ♂ Lv 39 | Sassy | Swarm
Moves: Psybeam, Gust, Silver Wind, Poison Powder

Bam (Wormadam-S) ♀ Lv 40 | Mild | Anticipation
Moves: Psybeam, Rock Blast, Bug Bite, Captivate

Slam (Wormadam-P) ♀ Lv 38 | Mild | Anticipation
Moves: Psybeam, Razor Leaf, Bug Bite, Captivate

​

 

[alisaie]

Water Monotype Challenge - Third Update

Heart Gold | Marko

So our trek continues! First we went and faced the Red Gyarados, defeating it (as we used Gyarados during FireRed we couldn't use it) and met Lance! He asked us to help get rid of Team Rocket in town so off we went and easily defeated them. After that was one we went and beat Pryce after! It wasn't a difficult battle between Chalupa's Spark and Enchilada's rollout and revenge. Believe some other member also helped but I can't remember the details, admittedly.

Then we went and grinded because apparently trying to beat Polo's Meganium at the levels I'm at isn't exactly an easy task. Didn't grind as much as I wanted to (I'm... really bad at grinding) but between the Signal Beam that Chalupa won and Taco's Wing Attack we managed to take it down and beat Polo! Then we went and defeated Team Rocket as a whole and moved on to get our last badge!

Clair was as expected. A little difficult but beat her in one try. Enchilada used Toxic Spikes at the beginning of battle and that helped take out her second Dragonair and bring down Kingdra. Then of course we went to the Dragon Den to pick up our badge!

Now its... time for more grinding. Ideally at least level 45 for everyone, but that's a lot of leveling so at the very least Level 40 and we'll just take a bunch of items in like we always do! On the bright side Johto's League isn't necessarily difficult for Water types. So guess we'll see what happens!

Tortilla (Feraligatr) ♂
Naughty | Torrent | Level 36
Ice Fang, Crunch, Waterfall, Rage

Burrito (Quagsire) ♀
Hardy | Water Absorb | Level 36 @ Quick Claw
Waterfall, Headbutt, Amnesia, Earthquake

Chimi (Slowpoke) ♂
Bashful | Own Tempo | Level 35
Curse, Strength, Zen Headbutt, Water Pulse

Chalupa (Lanturn) ♀
Bashful | Volt Absorb | Level 36
Stockpile, Surf, Signal Beam, Spark

Enchilada (Qwilfish) ♂
Quirky | Poison Point | Level 35
Revenge, Toxic Spikes, Waterfall, Rollout

Taco (Mantine) ♀
Docile | Water Absorb | Level 35 @ Sharp Beak
Surf, BubbleBeam, Headbutt, Wing Attack

HM Slaves

 

[Aleimon Thimble]

I've yet to really struggle against a gym leader yet despite having the disadvantage in Grant's case, and I don't really know the gym leaders after this point, so we'll have to see.

That's because Gen 6 is just a big joke in general, and even more so when you turn on Exp Share. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get an actual challenge out of that game. Although I must admit I never bothered to try it.

 

[adzpower]

That's because Gen 6 is just a big joke in general, and even more so when you turn on Exp Share. I'm pretty sure it's impossible to get an actual challenge out of that game. Although I must admit I never bothered to try it.

I've actually been struggling with my playthrough of Y, the struggle being it keeping my interest, its *SO* easy its unreal, most of the time I can concentrate on something else and just click A until the battle is over.